I know it's hard to believe, but I seem to have allowed another month to slip by without adding to this here blog. I think it's the lack of home internet. Not so much the awkwardness, more that when I could get on the intercyberweb from my bedroom I was more inclined to sit around ruminatin' about shit. Nowadays I mostly just get online so I can check my email and read Nexus. It seems a bit odd to go round someone else's house and then sit in front of a computer so you can type out a diary.

That said, here I am in someone else's house, typing out my diary. I think it was the sight of "Devoured By Vermin" by Cannibal Corpse on MTV2 just now that fired me up with the ROCK ENERGY I need to get on with it. HAIL SATAN!

I'm sitting in Dave's house because I'm currently feeding his cat for him while he swans around Copenhagen for the weekend with Paul and Pete (for Pete's birthday). I mean, that's not why I'm online. I guess I'm not-so-sneakily taking advantage of his internet while I'm in the house. Certainly there's not any dire need to feed cats at gone-midnight. That might not even be safe, they could mutate Gremlins-style for all I know. But my house is dull as everyone's in bed and the telly is shit. So I'm mooching around someone else's house by myself in the middle of the night. Sort of sinister. I'll probably end up watching 120 Minutes and then pass out on the sofa or something. Classy!

So what's been going on in my life recently then? Well, not much I guess. I'm still unemployed, which sucks, because despite giving me lots of spare time it also means I'm pretty much permanently skint. I mean, I guess I could have got a shitty job in a supermarket by now. I probably should have rather than allowing myself to wallow in misery and rely on friends/family to help me out when things get fucked up. I've been accused of being too stuck up to work a "prole job". I dunno, I'm not sure what working in a stockroom in a cellar moving bozes around is if it's not a prole job. I suppose I just find it difficult to work up any enthusiasm for doing a job that I know I'm probably going to hate. But the places I have been applying to do jobs I think would be alright obviously think I'm rubbish, I've hardly had any interviews let alone job offers. Maybe it's my relative lack of experience, maybe it's because they see I dropped out of uni and think I'm a slacker, maybe it's because the longer I'm unemployed the more I'm seen as some sort of undesirable.

Christmas was nice, I got various cool presents including an amusing zombies-related boardgame from Glenn & Marie and a really awful (but funny) pinball machine thing from Dave. I did my usual cunning thing of leaving it till the last minute to try to get presents and buying semi-random stuff. I made some t-shirts for Glenn & Marie and some CDs for Dave, John and Paul. They came out okay but I did wish I'd spent more time on them in the first place. When will I learn eh?

As usual, going home to see my family was relaxing, if a little boring. Not boring because of them, but because I don't have any friends left back in Oxford so I generally just spend the time kicking round the house. Two of my sisters are getting married, which is kind of mad, but not that surprising I guess. It's weird at times being the only person in a fairly close-knit family who's miles away from everyone else. I enjoy my life up here but I do feel out of the loop sometimes, it's like I only see these snapshots of my family from occasional visits through the year.

I came back for New Year's hoping to do something vaguely exciting but it didn't really take off, I ended up getting pissed round mine with Christian, Sian and Neil, who came over from Bradford. Everyone else was off doing other stuff. I had a really nice time but ever since going to Prague in '01/02 I've wanted to do something a bit "special" for New Year's to make it feel like less of an arbitrary holiday. But the last couple of years I've just been too disorganised and skint at the time to do anything other than drink some booze. Still, I did get to see Christian's nads in all their pink glory, a sight that may well be scarred into my brain for the rest of my life. It was cool having Neil over as well as we don't see much of him these days (or speak to him much, as unlike people like John he seems to have forsaken Nexus).

A few months ago I went with Glenn, Marie & Dave to see the mighty Okkervil River at the Star & Garter in Manchester. They were so ace. I was glad the place wasn't full of cunts, but it did feel really wrong to me that the place was half-empty. I know they're kind of obscure but they deserve more attention. I guess I'm just glad that having stumbled across them randomly I've managed to get quite a few of my friends into their stuff. Everyone should have some Okkervil joy in their lives. Well, all the nice people anyway. I don't want dickheads to listen to them.

More recently we went to the Star & Garter again to see Herman Dune, the tickets were a gift from G&M. They're too nice to me really. I appreciate all the things they do for me, and I hope I make that obvious, but I do worry sometimes that I'm in danger of taking things for granted or that they'll feel "obliged" to help me out due to having more cash than me. Anyway Herman Dune were good. It was a bit odd as I've only listened to Mas Cambios and they mostly played songs that weren't from it, so I didn't recognise much of the music. It was good though. The phrase I used at the time was "charmingly shambolic".

Heh, 120 Minutes has started and the first two songs have been by the Hidden Cameras and the Shins. I *heart* 120 Minutes. If only there was a music channel that was like it all the time, rather than for a couple of hours in the middle of the night twice a week. I haven't seen this Shins video before (or any Shins videos, for that matter). It seems to involve communist penguins killing each other.

Last week me and Dave got to go to another cool gig courtesy of G&M, though for kind of fucked up reasons. Poor old Glenn has been pretty much bed ridden for days now due to illness. He seemed to get some sort of infection (maybe due to a spazzy dentist) that made him sick, then he had to take industrial-strength antibiotics which actually made him even sicker. As a result he couldn't go to see the White Stripes in Blackpool, and Marie didn't want to leave him in his diseased state, so they gave us the tickets. Result! Well, not result obviously. Badness! It is an odd feeling to be enjoying something that you know you're only getting to enjoy because one of your friends is suffering. Hmm. Anyway, the White Stripes were fucking ace. Obviously I like their records anyway but there's something especially iconic about seeing these two people on their own on a stage making all that fucking racket. Not to mention my brain getting confused when I see a band play a song that seems to involve two guitar parts, like 7 Nation Army or Hardest Button To Button, but do it on one fucking guitar.

The next two songs on 120 Minutes have been Adam Green and Belle & Sebastian. Do you see what I mean? Why can't there be an MTVLiam or a VHAstley? Is it so much to ask?

I got invited to the birthday party of Alex, aka "Goth John Hudson", last week as well, which was nice. I went with Dave and we had a fun time. The party itself was a bit of a wash-out, there were like ten people there (partly due I think to someone else in the AMS having a party on the same night), but the people were cool and we enjoyed ourselves. It's nice to actually have semi-coherent conversations with these people that I've seen on-and-off (in the Crypt and h20) for years now. We ended up going to Basement Music after the White Stripes, even though there was only an hour left, that was ace. I just felt like I'd built up this energy from watching the band but then wanted to release some of it by spazzing out on a dancefloor, which I then duly did.

Just to rub in its aceness 120 Minutes have now played the rather wonderful Fiery Furnaces followed by that fantastic Joy Zipper single. Cowabunga!