Back In The County Hell

Or, to translate from the MacGowan, returned from Scotland. I see we’re braced for another grim summer down here.

U2 were good, although the crowd made it pretty much the worst gig I’ve ever attended. But I did get to go see Flogging Molly again the following night – I had no idea that they were playing but davebushe spotted it in the listings that morning, so I dragged mindwanders along with me, and had the usual completely storming time. Photos to follow, with any luck – I’ve got about 350 of the bastards to process when I get a minute.

The trip has given me a few things to think about, so I’ll try and write them up when I’ve got a bit more space to mull them over. For now, thanks to all the chums I saw while in Scotland, huge apologies to those I failed to catch up with through lack of time.

Heading North

Off to Scotland for the week. Back late on Friday. Hope to see many of you. I should have sporadic net access while I’m away, so mail/LJ comments will reach me, but by phone is probably better. If you don’t have my mobile, and might need it, leave a comment here with your own number, and I’ll get in touch. Comments screened, so don’t worry about freaks getting hold of it.

Try not to break anything while I’m gone.

Expression in pictures.

It’s an interesting meme, innit? I mean, I can guess a few number of the words or phrases people used, or at least the gist). But the ones I’m stumped on, I haven’t the first fucking clue what people might have said.

But I had a different point with the post, and it’s this: I want icons. Bought a permanent account yesterday, and I’ve now got the Stupid Number Of Icons that comes with it. So I’ve decided to abandon my long held rule that I’ll only use pictures of me, not least because I almost never use anything but this one, and now that I have more icons that I could possibly use, that somehow seems a shame.

So, new rule: I’ll only use pictures of me, or icons based on photos I’ve taken. (Oh, and not animated ones. There many are excellent reasons why you should never use animated icons.)

Which is where you lot come in. Because I’m shit at this LJ-icon making lark, and some of you are quite good at. So, if you feel like it, head over to electricana, and make icons out of what’s there. I don’t promise I’ll use them all – if nothing else, I’ll have to get over the shock of people chopping up my beloved pictures and probably putting words all over them. But I do want some new icons, so you’re in with a pretty good chance. And if I wind up using your icon or icons a lot, then you can a) be smug, and b) claim a drink off me.

And finally: anyone who does not own Tom Middleton’s Cosmosonica Volume #1 is missing out, in a very big way.

You’re all bored of it, I’m sure.

But I’ve been away from the computer all day, so I’m (fashionably) late again:

1) Find a word or phrase that reminds you of me.

2) Put it into Google “images”.

3) Choose a picture from the first page of answers, and paste it in this thread.
(eg: click on it, click on the small picture in the top bar, copy the url, put that into ” [img src=” “] ” in the reply box of this LJ post, only using < > these brackets instead.). Don’t tell anyone what the word was! Unless it makes the result funnier.

Spreading like a…

Complete your own metaphor here. Prizes awarded for answers that make me laugh.

Tagged to do that “Top 6 songs” thing by mrtreacle. Usual tedious “only six” and “only valid for next ten minutes” disclaimers apply, because obviously, I want you all to think I’m the sort of deeply interesting person that loves all sorts of music, and has a really hard time picking just six out of the huge breadth of my taste.

But despite the fact that I listen to both classic jazz, and obscure shit that shounds like a three year old trying to fit a cat into a kettle, my list is, in fact a tediously predictable load of uncomplicated alt-type stuff, because I’m a tediously precitable and uncomplicated alt-type at heart, and I really can’t fight it. So, in fact, forget those disclaimers. It was quite easy to do this, and you can regard this list as good for a whole month or two. Yes.

Tom Waits – “Come On Up To The House”.
Tansads – “Drunken Serande”.
Dropkick Murphys – “The Dirty Glass”.
Shane MacGowan and Sinead O’Connor – “Haunted”.
Firewater – “Dark Days Indeed”.
Flogging Molly – “Within A Mile Of Home”.

Ambushed

I quit smoking four years ago. I do still scam the odd fag off people when very hammered, but I haven’t bought a packet of cigarettes in over four years. And while I admit that yes, I’d love to start smoking again, because I absolutely refuse to become of these tedious ex-smokers who’re suddenly even more puritanical than non-smokers, and because the only reason I quit was for the sake of my health, not because I suddenly didn’t like it. If it there were a pill to sort out the health problems that smoking causes, I’d light up again just as soon as I could by a pack.

But still, it’s been four years. I’ve got it pretty well beaten now. I’m a non-smoker, and I can go whole weeks without ever thinking about how I’d like to smoke.

But tonight, sitting here at my computer, stone cold sober, I really, really want a cigarette. Really want one. I don’t think I’ve had a craving like this since about six months after I quit. It’s deeply fucking strange, to tell you the truth. But what it mostly is, is utterly bastard infuriating.

[Web Design] There’s a reason I don’t do the pretty bits…

I’m at home working on a Saturday night, and god, I fucking hate CSS. I could accomplish the layout I want in about ten minutes using tables, but can I make CSS do what I want in IE Firefox and Opera? Why, noooo…

Anyone out there want to tell my why the small square photos at the bottom of this layout aren’t centered on the page? They’re inside the DIV that’s supposed to centre everything, and as far as I know, the float that’s on them should only serve to make sure that they don’t linbreak between images, not to actaully align them in any way. (If that’s not the case, please explain what I need to do in order to have them centered and on the same line in all three browsers. For preference, I would like them to stay in the LI tags, as I’d like this site marked up as semantically as possible, since I want it to score well on Google.)

For bonus points, please explain why, in Firefox, the LI items at the top are not appearing inside the darker blue/purple area at the top (as they do in IE and Opera) despite the fact that it’s the fucking UL that contains them that has the styles for the darker blue area.

In the meantime, I’m off to do some PHP. At least I can understand that…

Whipcrack Thunder

I wasn’t in the best of moods when I left the office, and when I stepped outside to feel that close heat, that dead, still air, and looked up at the granite looking clouds, I knew I’d be bloody lucky to make it to the tube station dry. I put the headphones in, and with Garbage’s “Sex Is Not The Enemy” playing, zipped the Stupid Thing With The Pockets up, and started walking. Sure enough, before I’d gone 10 yards, I felt the first one hit. A big heavy raindrop, the sort that you can feel as it splashes against your skin.

I broke into a jog, as the pavement around me started to stain. I passed someone from the same building as me, hunched over and muttering, clearly extremely pissed off about this. I stretched my legs a bit more, picked the pace up slightly, as it got heavier. By the time I’d gone 200 yards, it was falling out of the sky in great sheets. Two coke cans danced passed me as I crossed the road, the wind whipping them, the sheer force of the gusts causing them to bounce waist-high, and slamming rain into me. I could already feel it running off my hair in rivulets.

I was at a dead run by the time I made it across the road, and someone was laughing. It wasn’t until I passed the garden with the group of kids in football shirts, all of them spinning round with outstretched arms that I realised it was me. Hammering the pavement, every footstep raising a splash, the rain pouring off me, clothes and hair plastered to me, and the thunder bouncing off the buildings, pounding down the space between me and the tube station, laughing like a maniac. I’m sure everyone I passed thought I was some kind of escaped lunatic.

Except those kids. They got it.

There are worse ways to start a weekend.