Alasdair Watson

I woke up at 5am this morning, and was unable to get back to sleep. So I listened to Alan Moore, then had a shower and went to work. It’s not even nine o’clock yet, and I’ve been in the office over an hour.

I’m slightly heartened to find that several of my friends had early websites were very nearly as risible as my own. Because I like these people, I shall not tell you who they are, or where to find the URLS.

This archive of websites is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. It is made only slightly less cool by the fact that they have my very first website on there, assembled when I was about 18 and very sad indeed. I’m not telling you what URL it was on, no. I’ll say only this: It opened with a picture of a skull, and song lyrics.

I want to travel back in time and kick myself in the head until I die. But still, the fact that someone has but together an archive of old websites that comprehensive is fabulous, if a little scary.

Not that any of you really care, but I spilled Amaretto-scented oil on my hand by accident last night. I still smell faintly of Amaretto oil. I can’t decide how I feel about this.

Change of plan: Not blue. It occured to me that while hairdressers in Tooting are a dull and pedestrian lot, this is not so in riotous and happening Putney, where I work. So, after a quick stomp around, I am advised by well, all of them, that blue washes out very quickly indeed. Since I wash my hair more or less daily, this is less than clever for my purposes.

So, tomorrow lunchtime I’m going to get an unnatual shade of red put in my hair, instead.

So, having been thinking about this for a while now, I have come to a conclusion: I want bright blue streaks in my hair. I am prepared to do something about this – get said streaks. Flaw in otherwise foolproof plan: I am not foolish enough to attempt to do this myself – I would undoubtedly do something dreadful and wind up with all my hair falling out, or something equally horrid. So I need to find a Professional. None of the hairdressers near me are likely to do anything as outlandish as have hair dyes that aren’t normal hair colours. Where, then, should I go (in London) to have my hair turned interesting colours? Tell me!

I have lost most of my day to doing pissant little jobs like putting up banner ads and changing copy of web pages. I know that this is a all part of running a website – the day-to-day admin and trivia, but still, there’s part of me thinking: I’m a skilled web developer. I write code (with varying degrees of skill) in half a dozen different languages. I can understand, use and manipulate highly complex database systems, both as databases in and of themselves and also tied into a website. I’ve worked on both content and commerce systems for half of the last decade. I can administer and configure a variety of webserving platforms, in a variety of network environments. Hell, I’m a passable network manager, too. There are better uses of my skills than fucking about with banner ads and trivial copy changes.

I’m going to hang about late in the office tonight and work on Electricana. I need something that’ll give me some sense of achievement, or I’m going to go mad.

Aah, Skyclad. Still the best thing to come out of my flirtation with heavy metal in my misspent youth. Folk-metal. So painfully earnest.

I love ’em.