At around 5 am this morning, I semi-woke, looked at the clock, and then “realised” (in the way that one does when one is still mostly asleep, and actually still dreaming a bit) that it was Saturday, December 17th, (not even a real date this year) and that I had just begun a week off work, in the run up to Christmas. I fell back into my pillows and blissful unconsciousness with a grateful sigh.

So the alarm clock came as something of a nasty shock.

Home for the evening, bored. Entertain me by answering the following, please.

That questions meme that’s going the rounds

I have been limping all bloody day. It is hassle I could well do without, as it is kind of connected to the fact I am supposed to refrain from doing anything that would cause my thigh muscles on my left leg to get too much use for the next while, walking is ok, but anything strenuous is out for at week to two weeks. This in annoying, as I’d just gone up a weight step on my leg presses (I’m aiming for twice my own weight, and closing on it quite nicely), and by the time I’m back to doing them, I’ll probably be back where I was.

Slightly more pressingly on the getting lard off front, can anyone suggest to me a good means of getting 1/2 an hour’s aerobic exercise without using my legs? No, hopping while on a treadmill is not practical, you bastards. Swimming also not an option.

This is now indelibly drawn onto my left thigh. Which is nice. The endorphins rather wore off on the train home, which was less pleasant, as I had to stand the whole way back. It was only half an hour, but I could have done without it just then, you know?

Still, I think we can file today under “win”.

I have just started re-reading HST’s The Great Shark Hunt (after finishing a book about him, I thought I’d re-read something by him), and I come across this piece of writing from “Fear and Loathing In The Bunker”, first published in the New York Times, talking about the Nixon administration.

“It has been a failure of such monumental proportions that political apathy is no longer considered fashionable, or even safe, among millions of people who only two years ago thought that anybody who disagreed openly with “the Government” was either paranoid or subversive. Political candidates, in 1974 at least, are going to have to deal with angry, disillusioned electorate that is not likely to settle for flag-waving and pompous bullshit.”

This would seem to me to be the difference between 1974 and now, politically speaking: I just don’t have it in me to be convinced that any US presidential campaign isn’t all “flag-waving and pompous bullshit”, or that the majority of the American electorate are clever enough to tell the difference between that and policy that will actually make a difference.

There’s a five questions meme doing the rounds. Ask away, if you can be arsed.

Firefox 3 is out today. I endorse this product, and as per, exhort you all to give up IE which will only give you scabies, and replace it with a proper browser. Added bonus for me – version 3 finally looks like a Mac app, which is nice, although I do not have to wait until all my extensions are upgraded before I can feel like my internet experience isn’t slightly crippled.

Dinner tonight was something I’d been looking forward to all day: wildebeest on ciabatta bread with balsamic onions and mushrooms as a sort of relish and mixed peppery leaves. Verdict: pleasant, but it turns out to be rather more delicately flavoured than I’d been lead to believe – I was told “gamey lamb with the texture of beef” , which is about right, but it kind of got swamped by the marinade, leaves and onion/mushroom not-relish thing. Too much going on. I’ve got another steak, also marinaded, but it’s too late to do anything about that now, which I’m just going to cook and eat on its own tomorrow, and see what I think then.

I have decided I would like to go see a film this afternoon.

Should I:

• Go see Hulk?
• Go see Iron Man again?

Prace bets now!

I don’t imagine anyone’s likely to care, but I’m in the process of giving my not-a-fucking-moblog-honest, Dead Air a wash and brush up. Well, brush down, perhaps – stripping out the visual clutter, giving the photos a little more room, and opening it up to non-landscape-format photos. I did try setting it on a white background, to be in line with every other blog I run, but decided that the black-and-whites I’ve been running on it look better on the black.

I’m contemplating starting to run colour photos on there – it wouldn’t be hard to set the script I use to post from my phone to understand different processing rules based on email subject line. I’d be interested in people’s opinions – should I stick to B&W for now? I’m already expanding the format a bit to allow portraits, should I leave it at that, or throw it wide open?

Them as have been round these parts a while may be fed of of my more-or-less yearly exhortations to everyone to go see Jason Webley. Tough.

For the rest of you: He’s a very nice, and more importantly, very talented chap, who deserves to be rich and famous. If you like Tom Waits, or Kurt Weil, or klezma, or that sort of cabaret-type-thing, you will like him.

Also, Neil Gaiman likes him, for the goth and comic nerds in the audience. And Amanda Palmer out of the Dresden Dolls did a single with him. If you go see him now, you can claim to have seen him before he got big. It’s clearly only a matter of time.

He’s playing again, in Camden on the 17th (next Tuesday) and Brighton on the 20th. I can’t do Brighton, since I am seeing My Bloody Valentine that night, but does anyone fancy the Tuesday show?