Alasdair Watson

I want America off the face of the planet. Scoured clean. Devoid of life. Gone. It seems that this is the only way we’re going to be free of utter barbarism like this. Indifference to civilian casualties is inexcusable. Indifference to casualties among your own press is unforgiveable. Anyone got any nukes they can spare me?

Spent last night sitting in the lounge watching TV with Andrew and Marysia, while working on the 9A redesign. When I first suggested that I might look at re-designing this site in CSS (as I have, albeit with an off-the-shelf template) someone e-mailed me to say that once I did, I’d never go back to tables.

They were right. Sure, I had a bit of frustration on the way, but no more than I’ve had from table-based designs in the past. But the page code is about half the size that the table-based version was, and is much, much easier read and plug things into – the old style is a nightmare when it comes to breaking things out into separate chunks to be included/modified with PHP. This will be a piece of piss. Tonight, I’m going to work on the new, context-sensitive site nav, if I have the time. I seem to recall that I have it mostly written, it’s just a matter of making it pretty. Which will be easy, thanks to CSS.

No, there was no actual interesting content in that post. Piss off.

Well, not literally. But I’ve just re-joined a gym, after eight months. (I went to another one a few times around Chirstmas, but it just wasn’t convenient enough for me to get to regularly.) Today was my induction. Didn’t have time to do anything like a proper workout afterwards – had to get back to the office, but I took a quick spin on all the machines I used to/intend to use reguarly, just to see how much things had changed.

Note to self: never, ever go eight months without going to the gym again.

I’m a complete wreck. I’m not quite back at square one, but I can see it comfortably from here. If I can get back to where I was inside six months, I’ll be doing very well.

God I’m tired – been wandering about London with Fin today, half re-creating our first date – swap the British museum for the arty French film, and throw in a park in the rain, and we did the rest. Not by design, but a happy co-incidence, anyway. But I’m back in the flat, an hour to kill before I go to meet her after her rehearsal – just enough time for a shower and a whiskey and it’s down to work. I’ve got to hit this script hard tonight – nail the events to the pages and square it all in my head so I can write it up in the next week. Wish me luck.

Illuminations. They still don’t ship/accept orders from outside the US. Why not? Because they’re bastards, that’s why. Why is it that the US gets a store like them, and we get fucking Wax Lyrical?

Shut up, son, and keep sucking.

I sat down to write last night – the story I’m doing with Fin, for Comics2003. We’ve talked about it some, and the notes I had for it were “Scary Trees and Edwardian Costumes”, and some vague notion of riffing of Bronte, very lightly indeed. Before I was halfway done last night, I found myself back hurriedly away from writing an incestuous Father-Daughter relationship which had crept out of my subconcious.

As it is, my notes so far have, in caps across the top “A story about blasphemy. Pervert Sex in 1890’s yorkshire.” and, for reasons that made sense at the time, I found myself researching Mary Shelley’s short fiction, and the myth of the wandering jew.

Oh, and google image search doesn’t bring back any photos of hanging corpses.

I think something may be wrong with my brain.

Shattered, again. Another weekend spent fiddling with computers. People mock me when I complain about this, and to an extent, it’s true – I like to do it. But, and this is the important bit – it feels like work. It isn’t relaxing, it’s tiring, and sometimes stressful. It isn’t how I want to spend my evenings and weekends. Friday night, I’ll reap the benefits of for some time to come, so that’s fine. And Fin’s computer needed fixing. But I hope to god that I’m done now. Next weekend, I’m doing nothing. I may not even check my email.

Yeah, right.

I would like to point out to all readers of Al’s journal my admirable restraint in not posting pretending to be Al.

— Marysia

Sitting in the lounge with a laptop, working wirelessly. Everyone but Marysia is now on-line with broadband, and the cables are put away. I’m happy.

Saw Donnie Darko last night. Brilliant film. I’d talk more about it, but I know there are people reading this who haven’t seen the film, and I don’t want to spoil it for them. I’m going to have to get the DVD, because I need to watch a few more times to make my mind up about who/what some of the characters were, or if they were exactly as they appeared, and actually the whole thing was a self-correcting problem. But yes, like everyone else I know who has seen it, I say “If you haven’t seen it already, you must.”