Seven Days in the Life of a Dorkboy

[coalescent]

Monday: Day of rest. Wrote an unnecessarily long review of everything I'd read/watched/listened to in May and put it on instant_fanzine. Stirred up trouble on Dan's journal. Also wrote a review of the first of the two novellas I had to review for Vector: The Human Abstract by George Mann. Not bad.

Tuesday: Planned to go and see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban with Nick, Gary, Eliot and others. Arrived in good time for the 7pm showing; it was sold out. Went to get food, reasoning we could go to the 8pm or 9pm showing instead, and that furthermore it would be less full of noisy children. They also both sold out. Went to see The Day After Tomorrow instead; enjoyed it, in a dumb, pulpy way. Discussed it on Nick's journal.

Wednesday: Wasted most of the day at work preparing material for a client who in the end couldn't stay long enough to look at it. Dinner at Eliot's house (Fajitas!) to mark the fact that he's off travelling again (the Virgin Islands, this time). Was reminded by hawleygriffen that Frasier was on, so rushed home to set the video before continuing to the cinema where this time we successfully got tickets for Potter. Thought it was significantly better than the first two; thought this was mostly due to the director rather than the source material, and think this is not saying a lot in any case. Followed post-Wiscon links to this discussion on the importance of reading core texts (or not).

Thursday: Was pretentious again. Discovered that Dan and his women would be in Oxford on Friday evening. Went to First Thursday; made a brief pitstop at New Worlds to buy the latest Analog because it has a new Baxter story. On arrival at the pub exchanged media, as usual, with Third Row members including this month's special guest star despotliz. Chatted to flyingsauce and hddod on the train on the way home.

Friday: Went to Oxford to meet immortalradical and his women; made the mistake of going up the A34 and getting stuck in traffic for ninety minutes. Arrived on time anyway. Decided that cassmoney and stesha are both lovely, and quite good enough for Dan. Did not fully understand the whole parrot thing. Briefly met snowking, fba and white_hart, then rushed off for a tour of Oxford's fully-booked restaurants before ending up at the Opium Den. Walked back across Oxford to give a brief tour of Magdalen, before repairing to the Turf for drinks (and to be told that the bar staff were not up to scratch). Was made to say 'I love Chris Rea' in front of pikelet's old window. Ah, memories. Got home to discover that the first issue of Postscripts had arrived, hurrah!

Saturday: Woke up with a snowking in my flat. That keeps happening. Kicked him out, read a couple of the Postscripts stories ('Roads Were Burning' by Adam Roberts: neat metaphor, not sure it really went anywhere. 'Footvote' by Peter F Hamilton': very recent, very political, rather good alternate history) and the Baxter ('Periandry's Quest': time passes faster at altitude, so upstairs girls and downstairs boys really don't mix; lusher than his normal work, but still reassuringly cynical about humanity; rather good) and reviewed the second of the two novellas for Vector (Doctor Who with the serial numbers filed off; not good). Marvelled at how resistant greengolux is to the hoarding instinct. Worried that I'd lost my expensive fountain pen. Went to London for colours' birthday do; was sickened by the size and beauty of her flat. Reaffirmed that the world really is far too small, and that it's far too easy to connect me with people I've never met before. Wandered along the South Bank, decided that sometimes London is pretty (even if it burns out the pixels on my cameraphone) and ended up having a lovely time, and late-night food somewhere near Tower Bridge.

Sunday: Woke up in snowking's flat. That keeps happening, too. Went to NotCon, which had a far more by-the-seat-of-our-pants-but-nobody-minds feeling than any sf con I've been to, met up with twic, and had my name spelt wrong by the Dave Green. Suggested that maybe we should have mentioned to Dave Sheldon and others that we were going; discovered that Dave Sheldon and domh_larted and others had turned up anyway. Marvelled at the sight of a streaming video of 'Let Forever Be' by the Chemical Brothers running on a Sinclair. Also at many other dorky, dorky things. Failed to say hello to green_amber and ran away early to have dinner with Emilia. Watched my first Big Brother of the year and marvelled at how they have found a still lower place. Realised I really have to sort out the instant_fanzine book group for this month. Decided to write this and then go to bed instead.

In summary: in the past week, I have made two (2) trips to the cinema; two (2) trips to London; one (1) trip to Oxford; and eaten five (5) meals from restaurants, or at least fast-food joints. I have also not been to bed before 1am since Monday. I am shattered (although quite content), and poor. I will be spending the rest of the month at home, living on bread and water.

Tomorrow: back to work, eh.

Comments

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

EVERYone was at NotCon my dear - well that managed to get in anyway - they turned away drplokta and flickgc and lproven wasn't even out of bed by then.. Sorry didn't see you. It really was a pretty intense networking experience for me (not even of the wireless variety) - the people! and the crowds! Will write up tomorrow - now shattered. What panels etc did you see?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

The first thing we went to was the Geolocation panel, which was very impressive - although as Tom pointed out, what we really need is some way of integrating all those different technologies (he made the same point about social software; it's all very well having friendster and orkut, but there needs to be some form of cross-linking). Then it was downstairs for the hardware demos, including the aforementioned spectrum, a clock running off a prawn sandwhich, and some impressive gesture recognition things using camera phones. Lunch, then to the social software panel to watch everyone on the IRC channel bitch about Simon Cozens, then downstairs to catch the tail end of Cory Doctorow being passionate about copyright (of course). I was going to go to the blogging with a point thing, but by that time everything was running a bit late and I went home instead.

[pikelet.livejournal.com]

Dammit! I was *so* nearly in Oxford on Friday night.

And a hearty \m/ to whoever forced you to confess your man-love of Rea.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

We have Ban to thank for that.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Tim's window was, in fact, at the top of Dan's list of 'Oxford sights to see'.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Dammit! I was *so* nearly in Oxford on Friday night.

:-/

Next time, dude.