Unintelligent Design

I'm not at work and this morning's going very slowly. It's grey and damp, mostly.

This afternoon is mhw 's funeral. As mentioned elsewhere by stgpcm , it'll be followed in a week or two by the event that Kay would want people to attend.

I didn't post anything to LJ or FB immediately after Kay died, although a lot of other people did. I wasn't entirely sure what to say, or very good at finding words to say it. 

Kay was one of the people I met in my first year at university; he was one of my best friends for almost 20 years.

If we hadn't met, I suspect my life would have gone in a very different direction. I can look around the room and immediately see a dozen things that wouldn't be there if I'd never met Kay - classical CDs, books (especially cookbooks), RPGs. Those are just the superficial things, the most obvious reminders.

The other things are hard to quantify. Lots of good times - including the reason that I no longer drink green chartreuse At All. Picking up the phone at an unsociable hour and talking me down from an incoherent state when I'd fried my brain on sleep deprivation and taurine. Reminding me - and others - that (metaphorical) underpants should not be worn on the outside.

Persuading me that I might actually like classical music if I gave it a chance. And that I might not be bad at cookery and might enjoy it - and that geeking about cookery was definitely fun. Being there as a friend and voice of reason when I was young and stupid and not entirely comfortable being me.

It's a very long list, much of it probably doesn't make much sense to anyone else, and I doubt it would fit into one LJ post anyway. I'm sure that time and memory have hidden away more than a few other things, too. They do that, sometimes.
 
I suspect most people who knew Kay have their own lists. A few of them have already appeared on LJ and FB, because Kay knew a lot of people, through a lot of different social circles. And general opinion (which I most definitely agree with) is that knowing Kay generally made your life better.

Time to stop ramblng now. Things to do.

Quick question - does anyone happen to know a good German goth gig/club/event listing site?

[I'm in Koln (Cologne) next weekend and was wondering if anything's happening on Saturday night...?]

First day in three weeks that I haven't had to set the alarm.

I may not wake up 'til Sunday.

...is that there's always a particular bloke on it, talking into his phone via hands free headphones, very loudly ranting about his day.

He doesn't work for my dear employers, which is probably just as well, as if he did then I'd have to kick him very hard. He works for a pharmaceutical place just down the road.

...and he has absolutely no concept of the sort of work topics you Do Not Rant About Loudly On A Bus, especially if it's clear that you work for a household name.

Aside from the usual "manager is an idiot" anecdotes, there are loud tales about security and safety near-misses, drugs that go missing or get mis-labelled and more than a few mentioned-by-name rants concerning their customers. Especially local customers.

Or possibly it's just me who gets wound up about such things. I guess that some workplaces don't have quite the same emphasis on DPA and "don't talk about the confidential stuff in public", but even so...

So, this year I've given up Twitter, Facebook and coffee. These three may sound like a slightly odd mix, but from my perspective there's a single aim behind them: to slow down and relax.

Coffee fuels my working day. Tired and grumpy when I get to work? Want to get away from my desk for a minute? Trying to summon the energy to review a lengthy technical document or backtrack through the sequence of events behind a complaint or major incident? Coffee is always the answer. Lots of it. That's the way to do it.

Which leads neatly onto FB and Twitter. If I'm not relaxed, I get bored easily. I fidget. My mind rattles round in circles and needs something external to feed on, so that my thoughts don't tie themselves in knots.

...and checking FB or Twitter works nicely for that. Check what people are up to, post short sharp comments, then do it all over again five minutes later. With luck, there'll be replies to reply to. If not, there may still be photos to view and links to follow. Repeat as required. There goes lunch. Or most of the evening.

Using them in that way eats time and stops me doing other things. It also seems to discourage me from actually picking up a phone and talking to my friends.

So, away with all of this. Time to slow down - and to make better use of the time I do have.

None of the three are intrinsically bad things, and I'm looking forward to picking them all up again after Easter. But hopefully, when I do, I'll remember why I did this over Lent and I won't just fall straight back into the same old bad habits...

I'm home again from Whitby. I'm also utterly exhausted and off to bed in a few minutes - which isn't exactly unsurprising.

There may be a longer WGW post at some point, but the short version is that it was good - and that I have some great friends, which is largely why it was good. Although, y'know, bands, cake and pie don't do any harm, either.

Half Moon caught my attention for two reasons.

Firstly, it's Ellis and Oeming and it looks intriguing, a little bit retro and rather stylish.

Secondly, as Ellis puts it, there's an intention to show "a bit of the sausage-making" this time - the creative process will be (partly) visible online as the project takes shape.

Hmm...

As there are a couple of other kitchen gardening types out there, can I just recommend this site:

http://www.europotato.org

A searchable potato database with some interesting notes on the different varieties. Very handy if you're wondering what to buy - or what to do with the odd varieties you accidentally bought at a potato day somewhere...

[Note to self: according to BBC2's 'Great British Food Revival', Yukon Gold, Arran Victory and Witchhill are the ones to use for really good roast potatoes. Hmm....]

...I have had a certain amount of stress, no lunch break worth mentioning and a general lack of time to organise things (...such as booking flights for a long weekend in Italy next month, which I'd told myself I would definitely sort out today before I got caught up in WGW planning. Ooops).

Unsurprisingly, I also failed to leave work on time.

On the other hand, I also have:

• A large box of herbs
• A balloon on a string. Tied to a big silver star-shaped weight.
• A Virgin Experience Day voucher that I can use for something Very Nice
• A nice cup of tea.

So, on balance... not so bad. :)