I don’t actually have a blue door, or live particularly the one made famous by the film… but the transition to the green, leafy streets near the Artesian Village is finally complete. It’s been an absolutely exhausting few weeks, one punctuated with entertaining moments, stressful hours, and an absolutely vast amount of dust. I can’t express enough thanks to all the friends who helped with the transition. It was very touching.

In any event, I’m settling in well to the new place. It’s wonderful to have my own independent space, but still be in proximity to my siblings (who live in the upstairs flats). It’s great to have broadband again (that was a tough break), and it is a relief to have evenings that are once again my own as the majority of furniture assembly is now complete. The proximity to Bodeans is also reassuring, and Westbourne Grove truly is a fun street to have in range.

Visitors welcome. Drop me a line!

Photo from Craig Grobler’s photostream.

It’s still quiet on here as most of my more mundane updates are now being “microblogged” on Twitter and Facebook, with links going out on Delicious (man, I’m pretty web 2.0). Join me on those, and I will look for ways to increase my writing time so I can post more substantially on here. Happy Bank Holiday weekend, y’all!

Some updates. I’d call them musings but they really don’t deserve that much credit.

I’ve been quite busy for the last month or so. Lots of gigs, parties, work (so much work), so I’ve gotten behind on almost everything. My RSS feeds are collecting unread items like Mrs Haversham’s house collects dust. It’s horrible, I tell you. It’s almost got to the point where I want to abandon Google Reader and start again afresh.

But I won’t. Because I’m not that crazy.

I have been occupied with one thing or another. Facebook seems to have been stalking most of my friends, leaping into consciousness a couple of months ago and adding yet another form of communications I need to check. I wish there was a simple way to route everything to Gmail (although I do like the Facebook interface…).

There’s been gigs. Minutes and Urusen both have had/are about to have lots of gigs. I’m going to one next Wednesday in Farringdon. Do come, and sign on the wall on the open Facebook event I’ve created to foster interest. Urusen are truly amazing; I can’t recommend them enough.

There’s been films. Good, good, bad, & ugly. I was very sad about Spidey being bad. The Xbox360 game is not terrible, though.

There’s been games. Spider-Man 3, PokerStars (lost too much money!) & C&C. Jon @ EA sent me both the PC & Xbox360 versions of C&C, and between the fact that my PC can’t quite cope with all the effects and the fact that the 360 version has a pretty clever control scheme, I may end up replaying it on Xbox. It is, needless to say, an awesome game.

There was (briefly) exercise. Got to 10 consecutive days of working out then it all went rather to pot. Am looking for encouragement, squash buddies, cycling buddies, anyone who can persuade me that I should be out doing something at some point.

The flat move is imminent, which is rather stressful. In a few months I will not be where I am now. I should probably have a party to celebrate / commiserate. It’s been a wonderful 6 years here, it really has. Due to the fact that wherever I move to will be a bit smaller, I am looking at ways of making my PC quieter. A silent PSU is en route, and I’m hoping to make the transition to Core 2 Duo in a couple of months (unless Intel wants to help me out sooner? I wish we really did get crazy quantities of freebies working in PR…).

My own writing has stalled. As you’ll have noticed from the silence on the blog. I’m still full of ideas; and will work up an action plan to get them written up.

I’m still getting used to Vista. The fact that iTunes runs like a dog on it (I can’t believe they haven’t fixed this, stupid sniping betwixt Apple & Microsoft camps just ends up annoying innocent consumers like me in the crossfire) means I’m WAY behind on video podcasts too.

And now, there’s going to be sleep. A good night’s worth. See y’all.

Now that the crushing flood of discount seekers has subsided, and my traffic levels have gone down to their previous levels, I’m a little less self-conscious than I have been about writing. Ok, so I was never really that self-conscious, but my internet’s still down (it wasn’t the modem), and I’m busy with Christmas things. But, now whilst I wait for my broadband provider to ring and talk me through some diagnostic tests (that I’ll inevitably have done and which won’t make any difference to the broken-ness of my internet connection) I find I have a brief interval in which to blog.

Ah, crap, nothing to say.

Well, that’s not true. I have a few things to say. And because it’s a happy season, I’ll bore you with all the happy stuff. It’s not smug, I promise. It’s about a shift in perspective: try it, if you like: struggling with blog posts? Write some things that are making you happy…

I’m pleased with Spurs recent performance in the premiership. We seem to have finally remembered how to score goals. Now if we can just win an away match…

I’m happy the Christmas season is here. I love buying gifts. I love receiving them too. Hint hint.

I’m happy my brother has posted my membership application for Soho House. That’ll be a thing of awesome beauty and power if it comes through.

I’m happy following a great Christmas party last weekend.

I’m happy planning a Thames-side Christmas lights walk this weekend.

I’m happy to be receiving review copies of games from Electronic Arts, which I’ll be writing up on this blog. Expect the first one, a review of the PS2 format Superman Returns videogame, this weekend.

I’m happy from all the Orange Wednesday films I’ve been watching, especially the Tenacious D movie, and, oddly enough, Stranger than Fiction. The power of the narration device is strong in this one.

I’m happy with gig tickets to see the Killers and the Fratellis early next year.

I’m happy having a skiing holiday booked.

I’m happy, listening to the Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny album for the 45th time in a month.

I’m excited, about Christmas parties and the trip to Malaysia this year (even if I have contempt for this. Sorry, had to get that out of my system).

That’s it, for now. At some stage I’ll see how this perspective on life fits into my overall philosophy on crap in general and write one of Hugh’s manifestos. For now, stay happy, people.