I have memories, clouded by sorrow

My Bank Holiday weekend was a lot tamer than I had hoped for, with me finding myself indoors doing nothing most of the time. Saturday night in Sheffield was a good exception though, and apart from the organisation getting there being a bit of a shambles, everybody seemed to have a good time. The highlights for me might be that I nearly injured one of the myriad of Other Bens with an elite karaté move, I met up with Internet Friend Dora briefly, and I managed to survive spilling a fair bit of Lucozade on my trousers with no hope of being able to wash it out. Ace. Chris also had to fend off an over-amorous girlie between necking about 15 alcoholic milkshakes, which was funny.

Our current project at work is on the front page of Eurogamer at the moment; the article itself is here. It's been quite interesting to see how people in the office see what they want to see in that preview - the optimists see a good write-up, and the pessimists see the opposite.

I am very much enjoying the nice weather we're having at the moment. Such a shame I'm stuck indoors almost all the time though. No doubt it'll start snowing again soon, just as the social invitations ramp up again.

Anybody had much experience with trying to teach themselves languages? I'm finding that the 'Teach Yourself Whatever' books don't really work for me, possibly because the emphasis there seems to be on hearing and speaking and I am useless at remembering sounds and even worse at trying to verbally reproduce them. I think I fare a lot better with the writing and reading approach with verb lists and conjugations and so on, but even that might not work when I don't have actual lessons, tests, and the like. Hmm.

Where did this bizarre tendency for omitting the last word of a sentence come from?

eg. "Simple as.", "End of.", or "Why didn't you come with?"

Apparently teenage binge drinking is one of the problems in Britain today. Youths consuming so much alcohol that they can barely walk, stumbling around only to puke in a corner or pick a fight with a passing stranger.

Which brings me nicely to my friend Allan's 19th birthday celebrations last night. Half the population of Nottingham showed up to help him enjoy the event and probably half of that half bought him a drink, too. Which is why he was throwing up in the club toilets at 11:30pm. It is also why - after waiting a fair while for him to sober up, it must be said - we bundled him onto an ambulance at 1am, much to the amusement of the attending paramedics, one of whom asked, "Aren't you supposed to do this for your 18th?". Poor lad. Waiting around with him at the end scuppered my chance of getting a proper night's sleep before work, but hey, a birthday comes but once a year and all that.

Apart from that, it was good to see people out and about, and I was able to harass a wide variety of people, even if half the interesting ones did arrive as I was leaving! Hopefully I will find time to get out of the house again tomorrow evening, dissertation allowing. I got 6 pages done of that yesterday afternoon, and have about 30 pages to go. Fun, fun. I shall post an extract at some point so that you can all marvel at the quality of the content. Or something.

In other news, I need to buy a Bloodstock ticket today (to see Within Temptation, Amon Amarth, Suidakra, After Forever, and Cathedral), and get hold of language learning materials. I think I am gonna go for German, if only so I can pronounce Darkseed lyrics authentically. Ist es das was Ihr wollt oder nicht versteht, indeed.

And while typing out this message, Allan sent me a text message to let me know he's alive. Always nice to have a happy ending!