neil.mckillop.org/blog

Thought it was time for a post, my blog is becoming an annual thing. Had to go look up my password then delete 3,788 spam comments.  Just turned a quarter of a century old. Not much has changed from this point last year. Still self-employed. Business is okay. Could be better though. This is the start of my second financial year, I’m hoping to expand and take on more support work. Plus I’m working on a few other business ideas with some people I’ve met last year, they might work out well or amount to nothing. Time will tell. I’m now single of course, and Vikki moved out back in March, though we kinda broke up at new year and lived with it for a while. Still friends though. Besides all that, I’ve been reading a lot (though breaking my habit of always reading to the end, I’ve abandoned a whole slew of non-fiction books, so my reading list is still looking a little bare). I’ve been playing Texas Hold’em poker and catching up with a few old friends. Going to visit my parents tomorrow and go to a family party.  I’ve also just gotten a response to my first ‘claim-your-bank-charges-back’ letter.  I’ve paid £2,420 in bank charges since 2002 (£2,999.61 if I push for statutory interest), so I’ve just posted my second letter asking for it back.

Had a few drinks with Vikki in McPhabbs last night, such great weather, reminded me of the many nights Edward and I spent there.

Anyway, I’m 24 years old today, going for a meal with my family in Stravaigin 2 this evening. I’ve taken tomorrow off work as well, Vikki is taking me somewhere up north, near Loch Lomond I think.

I handed my notice in last month, only 5 more working days left at my current company… I’m still filing my papers with Companies House, should be sorted before the end of the month.

I visited The Hallion this month, the private members club on Bath Street, it was quite impressive, nice laid back lounge with an open fire and a Bang & Olufsen stereo, plus two bars and a restaurant. I think I’ll be taking a membership out as soon as I can figure out what my income is.

Also went to a Rotary International meeting, as a guest of a friend. Wasn’t quite sure what to expect, it was reasonably formal, I had to toast the queen.. Reminded me of an OTC dinner.

I’ve been toying with the idea of starting an anonymous blog so I can actually start writing something interesting. Have I said that before? I feel like I’m censoring myself here.. I probably won’t though, I’m an attribution whore.

I remember hearing the expression “Do you come here often?” on a tv sketch show when I was about thirteen.  I knew what ‘come’ meant at the time, but I didn’t think that was the brunt of the joke.  I just dismissed it thinking there was something more subtle that I didn’t understand as yet.  Happened to be chatting about it with somebody recently and realised that, yeah, that’s all there is to it.  Shame.  I’ve got loads of examples like this..

I went to a movie showing, Time is a Fiction in the CCA a week or two ago with Vikki. I thought the movies were quite interesting, but one was particularly awful. I was beginning to think they were taking the piss. It was a traffic scene (shot from such a distance that you could barely discern anything happening, not that there was anything actually happening, it wasn’t even rush hour). For four fucking minutes (which is a hell of a long time in a small dark smelly room with people nodding and murming appreciatively at what I consider crap). Not only that, they warn us before hand to drive it home. “31st Interchange at Brushel Street 11.49am to 11.53am”. As that finished I was just about to start a diatribe similar to Sandy Nelson’s “It’s not a work of art! It’s a skive of art!” when the screen flared up again. “Field near Grendel 2.06pm to 2.10pm”. Jesus. Then it did it again, more than 12 minutes of my life stolen for what could have been conveyed with three photographs. How the hell can they call this art? I wanted to reedit that movie just to fuck with people’s minds. I’d display “blah blah 11.59 to 12.01″ and show 2 minutes of film, then 2.01 to 2.03 and show four minutes of film and carry that on, doubling the length of each successive clip until the theatre emptied. I actually thought thats what they were doing..a mind fuck, which would have been kinda cool. But no, WYSIWYG. Anyway, got drunk on overpriced wine in their bar after that then bought chinese takeaway and forgot to eat it.

Also went to see The Kelvin Young Team “Arts Collective” in Tchaiovna. I don’t know why I got to these things. It interests me, but most of the people I meet infuriate me. Seven and I just chilled out on the couch and went through two plates of biscuits and four pots of tea. I listened to an ex-prostitue, ex-drug addict, ex-social worker, skinhead, buddhist, lesbian writer’s play about a drug dealing Glaswegian family. I think I overhead it was inspiried by the Crucibal. More swearing than I’ve heard in a play before. I’ll need to go back to this.

Incindentally this was the night Vikki and I had a fight and Seven mauled her friend. But that’s another story. Happy sixth birthday Seven.

I haven’t had a look at bigkev’s gallery for ages and discovered some photos:

• Drinks in Chinaski’s with John, Bigkev, Thinker and Jaava in Feburary
• Jaava, Scottmac, Tam, Agnes and I at the Xmas Scotlug and then The Cathouse
• Drinks with Cat, Edward, Bigkev and the Scotlug gang in McPhabbs and then The Goat back in October

Just about to head down to The Bier Halle for Kenny’s birthday…

I discovered this a few days ago: The Distributed Proofreading Project. It works in conjuction with Project Gutenberg to proofread OCR‘d literature before it goes into the catalog. Excellent idea, and half an hour with the laptop in bed helps me get to sleep at night.

Went to the Glenshee Ski Centre at the weekend to do some snowboarding with Vikki. It was her first time. After ‘boarding all day Saturday (6am start, earlier than we’ve ever gotten up before) we stayed at the Spittal of Glenshee Hotel on the Saturday night. The roads were completely blocked after heavy snow fall that evening so we were stuck in the hotel all day [giving me a chance to finish Iain M. Banks’ Player of Games and have a few beers] - most people gave up completely and hit the bar but we tried again later in the evening and eventually got home. The hotel is dog friendly and have three ‘hotel-dogs’ just lazing around in front of the fire, it never occured to me to bring Seven - there is a heated kennel and stuff.. Next time..

I’ve been stumbling around Wikipedia this morning and discovered Mr. T made a children’s video called “Be Somebody or Be Somebody’s Fool.” where he gives “helpful advice to children throughout the video; for example, he teaches them how to understand and appreciate their origins, how to dress fashionably without buying designer labels, how to control their anger, and how to deal with peer pressure.”. Wow, fashion advice from Mr. T. I’m still looking for a copy of this but managed to track down some footage here.

Well, that was probably the longest Wikipedia distraction yet. I’ve been reading Classical Mythology and it mentioned Oedipus and somehow I managed to work my way through a pile of pages and end up at Little Red Riding Hood. Then I got curious about the differences between the versions, so I read as many different versions as I could get my hands on (about six distinctly different stories and around 10 that I skimmed which only featured small variations). I love how much, for lack of a better term, ’straw-clutching’ analysis goes into this tale (not to mention others like Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel). A particular example is the allusion to prostitution and allegeged metaphors: the red cloak and ‘dark forest’ symbolizing menstruation and entry into puberty. Anyway, I also managed to fit in a 1938 cartoon where the wolf tries to marry the grandmother and a 2005 movie, A Wicked Tale where Little Red Riding Hood rapes the wolf. Fascinating.

This morning was fascinating, I think that was the most unaware I’ve ever been. I woke up very tired and hungover and seemed to function entirely on automatic, barely even aware I was getting dressed or walking to work.. Of course, that’s not the first time I’ve felt like this but today it seemed more pronounced somehow.. The HR manager in work was just bantering with me, mid-type, and told me this day in particular was the day this feeling was far more evident than normal.. I have no idea what that means, nor did I have the energy to ask.. Was there a vote or something? Maybe she just meant Mondays in general.

Speaking of walking to work, every day I pass this girl, she reminds me of somebody, but I can’t really tell. I can never look at her face.. It’s always staring directly at the ground. The angle is kinda comical. I wonder why she does that. The angle seems so forced and always the same, I’m not sure if she has a problem with her neck or if she is just really nervous or shy..

Recently I’ve been reading Charles Bukowski’s novel Women. It was excellent. It’s not something I would normally have chosen (it was selected by the book group I’ve just joined). Not really much of a story, it’s more of an semi-autobiographical piece covering a few months of Bukowski’s alcoholic, womanizing, anti-social, casanovaesque life. Very interesting reading. The main character is called Henry (or Hank) Chinaski. I was reading the last few chapters at a lazy pace in, coincidently, one of the two new bars at Charing Cross, Chinaski’s (the other bar opened recently in what used to be Mitchell’s restaurant, called Repertoire). The bar is named in honour of the character - the owner is interested in Bukowski’s poems. I’m liking the bar a lot, it’s very laid back, nice atmosphere. Most of all I’m looking forward to the plans for the beer garden the owner has told me about.. expanded to two floors.. partly covered.. water fountain.. it sounds like it’ll be the ideal hangout during the summer, expected to open in March. I’ve set them up with wifi recently(w00t, free wifi), and I’m working on their website at www.chinaskis.com. Actually, thats one of about seven or eight sites I’m talking of working on (as part of a portfolio building exercise for nvmtech). I’m gonna be horribly busy.

Recently, I’ve been listening to a podcast I chose at random from podcastalley.com, Keith And The Girl. Recorded at the home of two clowns (in the children’s entertainer sense). Ack, I just tried to sum them up in a few sentences, but it feels pathetic so I’ve backspaced over them. Listen to the first show. Keith is a standup comedian and the show is funny and feels very honest too (I’m only on show number 7 or so.. of 214 ish).

I watched a movie at the weekend with Vikki called Suspiria. I was reading an article about this and it refered to it as.. Hang on, I’m ranting on here and I haven’t had a cup of tea yet - my boss isn’t in and (strangely enough) he usually makes me tea all day, so I’m missing it now.. Okay, back, yeah the article, actually this wikipedia entry I linked to said earlier said: Entertainment Weekly called the film “The scariest movie ever made.” Suspiria is considered Argento’s finest film and a classic of the horror genre, a seminal entry in the “slasher film” canon. I thought the camera work was quite impressive, the lighting and the angles some of the scenes where shot at were creatively done and (apparently) the voice work was recorded seperately because throughout the recording the band who performed the admittedly eerie soundtrack played live and at at full pitch to ‘unnerve the actors’ and make it seems all the more frightening. Crazy.. It seemed to work though, the actors did look pretty freaked. The movie, however, was utterly shite.

I’m level 54 in World of Warcraft now.

I’ve been trying to run at least a mile every day since new year, I’ve procrastinated for 21 days but finally managed to start last Thursday. I’m only doing week nights of course. I also ran on Friday, it’s going well so far.

Now Vikki wants to come running too, so instead of leaving work at 5pm, getting changed and leaving the flat for 1712, jogging to Kelvingrove with Seven, jogging around the perimeter, jogging back and getting home for around 1740 - I now need to sit in the flat until about 6pm (Vikki finishes work at 1730 but it seems to take her 30 minutes to walk home), during which time I’ll end up making myself a sandwich, get settled, load up World of Warcraft and probably not leave the room the rest of the night… Can’t see this working…

Also, I’ve been happily eating a multipack of yoghurts up until this morning when I happened to notice the expiry date was not the 31st of January as I’d previously though, but the 13th. Ugh, I’m a fool.