As my last post hinted at my efforts towards Nanowrimo this year were slowly failing and I stopped writing anything towards it a couple of weeks ago. In between work, stress, illness and the demands of being creative something had to be left behind and that story was it. Which is a shame because I was enjoying it. I have written over 15000 words and I'm quite happy with what I want to do with the story now so at least it has put me in a strong position to write the novel at some point. A time that I hope will be soon.
Work has been very busy, with long hours, lots of stuff going on and it has left me feeling exhausted and very tense. I have done the occasional nice thing, though. It was good to see Soo when she came over for a writing weekend a couple of weeks ago. It was a very focused and non-boozy weekend but we also managed to go and see Beowulf in Imax 3d. I've heard rumours that 3d is supposed to be the next big thing, with James Cameron looking to release his next film in 3d, but after so many attempts I guess I felt a bit cynical about it all. Beowulf was not the best film I have ever seen but the use of 3d lifted it to be something more than the interesting but shallow film that it is.
Yesterday we went to see Ratatouille which surprised me more than I expected and which I enjoyed more than I expected. It is fairly standard modern kids fare but is greatly helped by a good story and a slightly subversive feel generated by the way that the rats always remain rats - they are not really anthropomorphised in the way of most Disney films so when, as happens a couple of times, you see a large number of them on the screen at the same time you do see them as rats. And despite that you still prefer them to the humans.
The other good thing that I did yesterday was get hold of the Black Dossier, a new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill which comprises variously of histories of various members of the League, details of an alternate history of the world that might just be true, a comic story of how the dossier is recovered by a couple of old members, related paraphenalia related to the fascist Big Brother government of IngSoc and a 3d adventure extravaganza at the end. I've barely started it and I already love it. It is something perfect for the coming dark nights over the next week. Assuming I can get home at a reasonable hour from now on.

Work has been very busy. When I haven't been working I've been writing, which has been nice, but then it got to the point where I couldn't face being on a computer when I got home and email's stopped being answered and all I could managed was the odd zombie fight on Facebook.
But I have am off next week. After tomorrow, anyway, and we're going to North Wales. Looking forward to green and mountains even if the weather isn't great.
Had a reminder that it is nearly time once again for Nanowrimo, an annual competition to write a novel in one month. The prize is a novel that you have written in one month. I really enjoyed doing it last time and it taught me a lot. I don't have any ideas for it yet so hopefully I'll spend some time on it next week. If you've ever thought about writing a novel I recommend that you check out the web site and consider giving it a go. It's not like you have anything to lose.

No blog posts recently as I moved into my new apartment a three weeks ago and it has taken me this long to get broadband set up. My own fault for going with BT who have been rubbish. You'd think it would be easy to do something that they specialise in and do hundreds of times a day. They messed up setting up my phone line too. Now they want to charge me... I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry but have decided to wait a couple of days before calling to discuss everything with them again. Although what's the point? They don't care about their quality of service.

Which has been a major grumble for the past few weeks but also about my only one. Work is going well, the new apartment (just near Picadilly station) is very nice and things are trundling along nicely. I even managed to install Feisty on my laptop, despite more than a few problems with my ATI graphics card, and have now got it all more or less setup how I want it. (verdict - the ATI card thing is a real pain, some things are a bit easier but overall not a great deal of difference from Edgy, especially as I already had many of the new features already installed).

So, quick rundown of what's been happening: Went to Leeds got drunk, came back, went to Leeds again to see sister, work, work, work, work and saw Sunshine at cinema, work, Soo and Ant came over and we got drunk, felt terrible, parents came over for roast dinner, work, work, work and saw Spiderman 3, work and watched Pan's labyrinth on DVD (thanks Soo!).

Work is going well and I am enjoying the job. It's quite nice to be able to get my teeth into some of this stuff again and the feedback has been positive too. Sunshine was pretty good, really enjoyed it and glad I went to see it at the cinema because the vision of the sun is religious in the way it is used. There's a bit of a shift in tone at the end away from character that is a little disappointing though. Spiderman was better than I'd expected from some of the reviews and basically no better or worse than the others in the series. Pan's Labyrinth is really cool. Hard to believe it's from the same director who brought the world Hellboy (a film I enjoyed but came out of the cinema with no desire to see again. Feel maybe I should now, just to check).

While at Stell's birthday do a couple of weeks ago Ant and I found out that Damo Suzuki, ex-lead singer with Can, was playing at a pub in Huddersfield over the Easter weekend. So, after helping my dad with various bits of DIY, drove over there to see it on Saturday night. First up was a psychedelic band which was pretty nice. Next came a band who produced a sound very similar to white noise for half an hour. Damo looked like he was sleeping through it all sat at the cd table until he bounced up to the stage to create an hour and a half of inspired audio lunacy. At one point I thought my brain was melting.
Went back to Anthony's after that and had a beer to relax. Sunday had a roast dinner at my aunt's, which was cool because we do not have an oven at the moment and roasting or baking anything is impossible.
Monday finished off installing the window sill my dad (with a bit of help from me) had put together for the front room and headed back to Huddersfield to meet up with David and Ant for a 9 mile walk in the rain and mist over some good Yorkshire moorland. Fantastic stuff.
All of which set me up quite nicely for today when I started my new job. Walked from the station to the mill where the office is, with my legs slightly aching from yesterday, for a gentle day of introductions and a look at the project I'll be working on. So far it all seems ok although there are a couple of things that need sorting, like access to Subversion, but the work itself looks like it's going to be interesting. It will be pretty challenging and the hours are quite long too, especially with the journey from my parents' house, but that should all be easier when we (hopefully) get an apartment in Manchester centre.
The journey home was a bit of a nightmare tonight. Got on the Metro with a lot of United fans going to tonight's match against Roma only to have it stop after one station because of a failed tram ahead. This meant waiting to be told to get off for twenty minutes and then getting the bus home making the total travel time back about 2 hours. Hopefully the next few days will go a little easier.

It has been a strange week, particularly on the job front. I had to finally get into gear and sign on so I telephoned the number I had been given and arranged an appointment for the next day. I was told to be there at 9:45 so I could start filling in the forms because their computer system was down and they could not do it for me. I turned up but the office does not open until 10, which was a bit frustrating. I had to agree my contract for getting back to work, to apply for so many jobs a week and so on, and then my application had to be sent off to assess my eligibility because I had been out of the country for a year, in case I might be foreign or something. I was also given a few jobs to apply for that they found for me on the computer. Apparently they can only look locally but if you go to the website yourself, www.jobcentre.gov.uk, you can do a national search. One of the jobs had to be applied for that same day so I emailed them my CV. Got asked to come for interview the next day (in Reddish, near Stockport), which I thought went pretty well but I always feel the pressure on the technical side because I simply haven't done any programming for a year. And yesterday they phoned up to find out if I would be interested in taking the job. Nothing has been absolutely confirmed yet but it looks very positive. Good opportunity, good salary. Should find out more details the start of next week.