Strange things are afoot at the Circle K. As of today I appear to be doing a different job, which came as something of a surprise. I'm basically now a "web designer". I (mis)use those quotation marks because I'm not really designing anything, I'm going to be knocking out a load of identi-sites for work using this sneaky template thing they've made. More importantly, I'm still getting paid fuck all for it. Funnily enough I'm kind of making the actual designer guy redundant, so he'll now be doing my old job. But still getting paid about 4 grand more than me. Apparently there'll be room to make some money on overtime, which I'll probably be up for a lot of the time. However this better not be one of those jobs where they try and bully me into doing the overtime even if I actually want to fuck off home or go see my friends. Fuck that. I'm not working bloody weekends either, even if I could do with the money. I don't want to become a character out of Office Space.

I've also had some "woman trouble" this week, which is a bit odd for me. I don't really want to go into detail about it, but basically I got asked out by someone and had to turn them down. Which I believe is the first time I've had to do that since I was 17. It's usually the other way round. Tazz sigh. The person in question is dead nice so I hope I didn't cause them any undue stress. But somehow I suspect they'll struggle on without the Liam-love in their life. Much like every other person on this planet.

On the Saturday we went on a bus to see Dave's band play at the Night & Day. The bus driver was a fucking spaz, getting us there a mere fifteen minutes after Dave was already meant to have gone on stage. Luckily he'd got up to some sitcomesque antics to stall the start of the gig so we didn't miss anything. The journey was kind of exasperating, partly due to being sandwiched between children at one end and chavs at the other, but it was also kind of fun. Like going on a school trip or something.

The Superkings were on form, probably the best I've seen them (despite it sounding shit to them on stage due to dodgy speakers). Certainly a lot better than the previous time I'd seen them there, when the sound guy seemed to be going for some kind of avant garde "as heard through a carboard tube" effect.

I seem to be using a lot of quotation marks today don't I. I "guess" I just "prefer" them to "italics".

They played a good set. I still think they should ditch some covers in favour of more songs of their own, I guess that'll happen over time anyway though. I think my personal favourite bit was hearing Nathan Rosen played for the first time. It excited me because I found it quite catchy and was humming the tune afterwards and then stopping and thinking, hey I made part of that song! In general it's a sort of surreal experience writing lyrics for Dave, because I don't really have anything to do with the musical side of it. Often I'll write lyrics while listening to another song, and in my head the words fit along with that song. But of course Dave has no idea what that song was, so when he then writes a tune around my lyrics it comes out very differently. And when I hear the end result it's this weird mix of something both very familiar and totally unfamiliar.

Anyway, the gig seemed to be a success, they were loads of people there. It was a recurring oddity through the night to glance randomly into the crowd and suddenly realise I was looking at Dave's dad, or some girl he went to school with, or a guy we used to work with a couple of years ago. It was a bit like the end of Big Fish. If I'd thrown a rock into the air I would probably have hit one of his relatives. Mind you, if it had hit the people we came on the bus with they probably would have tried to smoke it. Or inject it into their eyes.

Joy Zipper are playing there in May, I'd like to see them. That new (though actually old) album of theirs is pretty good.

After the gig I ended up being talked into staying in Manchester by Paul. He had a crazy light in his eyes that I can't resist once I've drunk some booze. We tried going to some lame-sounding club called South, where we saw Badly Drawn Boy saunter in. He looked in real life exactly like he does in the videos, ie a tramp. We got bored of waiting in the queue though so at further Paul instigation sacked it off and went to Rockworld instead.

I've never been to Rockworld before, in fact I've never been to any Manc nightclub before. I've only ever gone to shops, pubs and gigs there. I'd heard stories of yesteryear about it though. I found it a bit disappointing really. Well, kind of. I suppose it was like a big nightclub full of rock, so maybe that was to be expected I guess. There just wasn't any music being played that I liked, apparently they do indie on Fridays. Obviously playing any indie on a Saturday would be some kind of a crazy fool thing to do. Plus Paul fell over and fucked his back up, without a partner in crime to increase my rock energy I just sort of stood there most of the night. But I wasn't pissed off or anything, just a bit indifferent. We ended up in some sort of 80s/electronica/goth/new romantics room where I think I probably looked like I was trying to fit in amongst all the too-cool-for-school pvc-clad oddbods all trying to look studiously bored. Dave and Amy had a fun time though so that was cool. Me and Paul were meant to get a late train back but ended up going to the wrong train station and had to get a taxi to a semi-random person's house who was nice enough to let us crash there. In the morning we walked for about a hundred fucking miles along Manchester's amazingly skanky canals and then got something to eat. I have a weird love-hate relationship with cities. I really like cities aesthetically. I think they're beautiful to look at, especially at night, and I like the idea of being able to wander out in the middle of the night and go to a shop. Or try a different nightclub every week for a year. Unfortunately cities are also full of fucking cunts. Ideally I guess I'd be in some sort of Omega Man scenario where everyone else was dead and I could wander around in comfort. Anyway, while eating on the Sunday I was reminded (quite vocally and repeaedly by Dave) of another good thing about cities, they are full of really fit chicks. Not that that's much practical use to me, but it gives you something else to look at when you get bored of texting doesn't it.

Speaking of beauty, I watched Punch-Drunk Love again last night. That film is so so lovely. i think PT Anderson is some sort of godlike genious. I know he's only made four films so far, but they've all been ace. I've noticed that people I know who've seen PDL seem to be split into two camps, those who loved it and those who were left cold and a bit annoyed by it. I like to refer to the groups as "humans" and "souless monsters". Pow!

I realised while typing this that I've been missing the first episode of the new Black Books. Feh. I was up for watching it but I'm not really that arsed. I thought the first series was a masterpiece, but I found the second series really disappointing. It seemed to change into the "Look at me, I'm Dylan Moran and I'm great" show. This may possibly have had something to do with Graham Linehan not writing it anymore. I'll try and remember to watch this new series in general, but I guess my enthusiasm for it's gone. Also it suffers by being on straight after Garth Merenghi's Darkplace, which is probably the single greatest thing I've seen on telly for the last five years. So perfect in every way, from the bumraping eyeballs to the 80s soft rock ballads.

I'm looking forward to getting paid in a fortnight. As in, I desperately need money. I only got a fortnight's worth last time, which covered my rent and fuck all else. I should have gotten another month's worth of housing benefit after signing off, but in typical hilarious Keystone Kops fashion the council forgot to give me any money, and are now dawdling around as they arrange to pay up. there's something especially sucky about having no cash but still having to go to work every day. I feel like someone's played a trick on me.

When I do get paid I'm not going to have much cash to spare, but I think I'm probably going to get some new shoes, all the ones I have now are falling apart, and have been for a year or more. I might get a CD as well, or one of them new fangled DVDs. I need to get that new Walkmen album for a start, I bet it's fucking ace.