i'm questioning 2b or not 2b

i like doing my blog. though i seem to have dried up a bit lately and only managed dull and short entries, for me this is okay. i'm enjoying the process of writing. i like thinking about the words, the phrases, the patterns.

i thinking i've developed a certain taste and style of ebb.

and flow.

i may not be the most erudite of chaps, i'd never even venture near the lyrical battlefield, i'll leave the literary martial-arts to the troubadour. but it seems i have discovered a little creative outlet in my otherwise (often) objective weekday life. i don't even mind if noone reads it. i'm doing it for the pleasure of me. if someone else fancies a read then bully for them, hopefully it'll provide them with the occasional giggle or thought-provoking-head-thought.

it's like a diary that i won't lose.

i'm extra specially looking forward to my trip next year when i plan to regularly write in a journal using one of those pen thingies and my hand. don't worry, i will promptly enter it all into 'the neon sun' on my return. i fear the combination of the movement of a charging steam-train and my years of neglected penmanship would result in illegible scrawl, save for my scrawl-friendly eye. i'll type it for you; mark my words.

but the heart will remain in the leather-bound hardback, alongside the inky heiroglyphics and badly pasted ticket stubs. it will be a nice thing. if i can find a leather-bound hardback. it might just be a whsmith jotter. meh.

there's a soul in writing. there are a hundred billion souls in the words within. i'm far from prophesing to be a master of them - i'm more of a jack of all trade/master of none kinda guy - but an enjoyer, i am. words are as good as music. combine the two and you have heart-wrenching beauty. sometimes. i disclude more than i can list, and yes, blazin' squad is on that list.

and most hip-hop. shizzle.

we edge slowly and with purpose toward the subject on my mind. i have come to realise in recent times just how irritated i am by the decline of language. particularly written. now, i haven't blogged a rant about anything in quite a while (generally because i'm quite content) but this has been getting my goat. getting my goat and poking it repeatedly with a stick while singing the american national anthem in a boyband stylee.

people (some) have lost the ability to speak properly. fuck this fucking fucker fuck yeah, fuck? etc. i'm not completely adverse to the odd fucking swear word, but there are other fucking adjectives, you fuckers.

bu' dis ain't ma greivance, man.

i emplore you to join me in a movement against text message and webspeak abreviations. shortening words to their consonent parts to fit more in a 160 character msg pisses me right off. okay, so sometimes there's a lot to be said, more than 160 nuggets will allow. if it's one time in twenty then... y'know... okay. but limited to mobile phone messages. when you're typing, you've got the entire alphabet in front of you, a button for each letter. is it really too much to ask for your fingers to spell out a whole word instead of creating indecipherable code?

now i'm not one for being patriotic. far from it. i think this country's easily done enough damage to earth and its history to counterract the good that pockets of do-gooders have managed. we are, though, a nation with a past reputation for our skillful and cultured use of the spoken and written word. shakespeare pretty much wins it every time in poet top trumps, to name-drop but one. did you know that the english language has more words in it than any other language that has ever existed? this is in a world where a language becomes extinct every two weeks.

yep. i done did research.

i know language does naturally evolve over time. i'm sure if anyone from billy shakespeare's time were to hear us now they would lament the loss of a country who constantly spoke in iambic pentameter. (he might also be sad about the fact that noone wears ruffs any more, but this blog is about wordplay, not elizabethan fashion). (maybe later). let's not let it evolve in such a way that we stop writing vowels. especially when there are chavs out there who can't manage to say consonents out loud.

just, y'know, like this language that we've got. it's a good one.

bad things that have squeezed my scrote recently:

wernt
incase
ppl
lol
thnk u
ur gr8

i'm lost

lost finale

series 2

hilarious

i'm loving the music of the world

here are my top five albums:

rockin' the suburbs - ben folds five
the dance - fleetwood mac
underdog world strike - gogol bordello
turn the radio off - reel big fish
i, lucifer - the real tuesday weld

had a date today with a lovely young lady.

i will tell you about it another day.

i'm htmling it right up

you may notice some pictures beside the blog, to your left.

and also to the right.

it is an ongoing project now for me to make my blog page a little more personal. this is currently not a finished design. i think its quite messy isn't it? oh well.

feel free to appreciate the photos while they are there. they are some of the very many wonderful and/or life-changing people i have encountered along the years. it will be constantly added to (or taken away if someone is a poo). there are many more people too. if you are not there, do not take offence. maybe send me a nice photo and i'll decide if you deserve to be included.

please especially send a photo if you are a hot girl that i may or may not have met once. or not.

oh crap. i need to work out html code.

i'm king of wishful filling

out of the neon sun ~ chapter five

filled out my holiday form today. i am a legend.

also decided to go to new york for the weekend in november. filled out a form for that too. go on, admit it, you're impressed.

i don't think going to new york constitutes leaving the neon sun. think it's a little brighter over there, expecially that section in vanilla sky when everyone leaves. times square, that's what i'm thinking of. ah yes.

woo!

i'm hopeful

the best thing about this post is the comments section.

readers, make it happen ...

i'm out of my head

need something-" to keep me awake. Teching at a conference about
dentistry. It.-s going on three days
Long day it Was yes.terday. Struggling to keep My eyes
open today.
Put up a big screen. I'll put a photo of it on here at Some point.

dentists doing presentations about operations. Now I know about drilling
massive metal into your mouth.

Try to imagine a 9 metre wide high-def image of a live feed from a
dentist's operating table. Not good.

Horrible.

not wanting to see these nightmares In this state of sleepiness.
i should be concentrating more at Work
--) they showed a photo of a Jaw rebuild after a destructive bone
disease. It was a photo of a man with his face, off._having 40% of his
Jaw removed. - one side of his face essentially a big flap of meat
resting beside him. . -Even the dentist audience gasped. i WaS nearly
re-aquainted with lunch. I'm So sleeps. WAkE ME up!
One (1) of the other technicians did a conference like this recently
but a gynaecology one. Apparently one techie fainted.
that"s some specific porn ography.

Yawn.
(concentrate.
: i wish they taught dentistS how to be good public
speakers. Oh that last slide was gross.

Oh.. -... ! God.

this is it. i made it. look how big it is.

i'm saggy

i started work at 5:30 this morn.
i have just got home from work 'n it is now 11:15 this eve.
'n i have been rigging constantly that whole time. phew!
i did hang a 9 metre x 5 metre screen from the dome though. i am amazing.

i perhaps should not have gone out last night before a 17 hour shift. this time last night i was just walking into a vodka bar thinking "this is a bad idea."

but i was with a pretty girl so i reckon it's okay.

go to bed, me.
okay then.

i'm a stubbled little girl

out of the neon sun ~ part four

may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th may 19th...

the nineteenth day of may, the year of 2007.

we have a date. locked, cocked and ready to rock. short of sticking a pin in a calendar we've pretty much aimed for the general time of year and whacked it into our diaries. we leave england on saturday may 19th. 7 months away. ya-zoikes! that doesn't seem far.

look, i've put a countdown clock at the top of this webpage. currently 250 days. oh my.

gotta clear the exact dates with work. that would be the next step. part of me wants to book the flights today, but mustn't get ahead of ourselves. i'm reading a book called the great railway bazaar by paul theroux. he upped and went out of his front door leaving wife and kids behind to travel by train to japan and back. for the sake of traveling. it's whetting my appetite like pork-pies to grandads.

this journey has turned into magic in my head. it's not just sitting on a train for 4 weeks. it's a voyage of self discovery, an exploration of landscapes, an insight to people, a connection with humanity. and those are the things that are real, things that i will be able to touch while i'm there and describe when i'm back. there's this other element.

for me russia, siberia, lake baikal, mongolia and china are a whirlwind of shapes and colours and feelings; completely alien. they're not real. yet. they are cave paintings. they are ancient mosaics. they are television documentaries. they are mirages of rock and dust and wave and snow and leaf. i am alice in wonderland crossed with indiana jones, about to step into a vast expanse of dreamscape.

got to take the first intrepid step, though.

got to fill in a holiday form.

i'm maths

i'm torn between the environment and fun use of batteries

my mind wanders. i sit at work, in splendour, surrounded by aged antique wood and freshly polished brass. the old pipe organ sets itself in the room like a retired ogre made of stone finally able to rest. i despise organ music. in their silence, the towering pipes warn of impending noise.

i type on my pda. oh god, i'm sorry.

today i 'babysit' as another company set equipment in my great hall. it's the peace time that my job occasionally involves. today i am paid to watch over a team of technicians to check they are doing their job properly. i'm to offer advice. i get the same result as most of my days but with no heavy lifting. they all have much longer teeth than me and have been operating since before i was even thought of.

shit, i'm verging on management.

so i stare at the second largest unsupported concrete dome in the world. it sways menacingly above me at geological speeds. i know this building is splitting slowly in half. in a hundred and fourteen years the dome will open, a scream to the sky, showers of grey meteors will rain on whatever audience are in that day.

strong men in black combat gear march around me, purposefully.

we technical crew think of ourselves as warriors. trained with knowledge. some of us know we are ultimate geeks. i do and i am. i am not ashamed or dissatisfied.

we are those cogs behind the stainless steel fascia that make your meaningless conferences writhe with technology. tomorrow a major international bank arrive to tell themselves how rich they are. they will brag about figures bigger than your mobile phone number while plucking invisible fluff from their priceless suits. they will talk of motivation and ponder how to make more money next quarter. then in the afternoon they will praise the god of interest while employees fight off post-lunch winks. it is the same as all business conferences are.

"hello, my name is jonathan and i am an audio-visual technician."

believe that i enjoy my job. daily i witness the latest technological advances. i play with expensive toys that you can only begin to imagine even exist.

you love listening to music on your 150 watt home stereo speakers that cost you two weeks salary. i go to work and play my music on a 15,000 watt system that costs more than your parent's house.

you love movies on your 42" hd-ready plasma screen. i stopped using screens that small years ago. before me today rises a screen twenty feet wide and lit by a projecter the size of your hatchback.

you like your mood enhancing halogen downlighting that makes your lounge oh so modern. i have lights that move to any angle on any given axis and change colour, brightness and shape at a moments command from my fingertips.

i love my job. it fulfils many of the boyish tendencies that drive me. it would be perfection if it involved lego.

lights spin, subs woof, images roar. big boy's big toys.

just wish it was a bit more worthy. can I swap glaxo smith-kline, hsbc and the labour party for the terrence higgins trust, christian aid and the carbon project? i make your conference bigger, better, awesomer... and contribute nothing to the beauty and maintenance of our world. but

believe that i'd never want to sit behind a desktop for any length of time. ye office workers lament playtime! i may work an extra 15 or 20 hours every week on you, but i stimulate all my senses in each hour.

i currently eat a cadbury's fruit & nut paid for by my employer. it is a small but pleasant detail.

i am not bored. today i can tell a man to build a cool thing and then read about the gobi desert while he does it.

i am disappointed that some do not enjoy the hours they spend at work. it is a big part of your week. change to something you love. go on.

i make this.

majestic. pointless. remarkable. wasteful.

i'm not at all surprised

i saw the west-end musical based on the songs of queen; we will rock you today.

the irony is that it's written as a protest against the sterilization of creativity for financial reward.

i had fun though. i saw it with good people and they also saw the funny side. there were many quotes posted around the venue. the most accurate one was:

"the massive plasma screens were killer-diller"
- the guardian

there weren't any plasma screens.


reel big fish wrote a song called "sell out." don't know why i thought of it.