Here goes. I don’t post for 2 weeks and think I can make things up with a sad Valentine’s day posting which never got finished.

In the meantime, here’s a valentine’s day posting from 15th Feb 2002, which never got finished….

thankfully, I’ll soon have a day off… 7 days

7 days what, I hear you scream! I don’t know either….

Valentine’s day’s over for another year. Thank feck for that. Yet another year without a single card. Boo hoo. Not that I care anyway, mainly due to the fact that Valentine’s Day is just a way for card companies, chocolate manufacturers and teddy bear makers to boost their flagging sales after Xmas. After all, that’s going to be the biggest income they get until next Xmas. Of course, there’s Easter, and for some unknown reason, some people actually buy “Happy Easter” cards. And the chocolate manufacturers will get a huge profit from it, naturally.

Bah, I’m cynical at such a young age. God knows what I’ll be like in 30 year’s time…. I honestly and truly dread to think. Or, maybe, I’ll change my views once I get somebody to love.

I’ve been depressed again the last couple of days. I think it’s this awful shift I’m working this week, 2-11 Monday - Friday, and this weekend, 1-10. Bleh. Worst shift ever. There’s something that’s awful about having a 7-day nightshift, and finishing on a Sunday. I think it’s the fact that I have absolutely no life. I’ve seen absolutely nobody outside of work since last Friday. I saw Chris for a couple of hours on Wednesday, but that’s it. I haven’t even seen my dad this week. I think that’s what depresses me the most….

Bleh. Anyway. the rest of the week has been unbelieveably dull. Normally, I have something to type about, but this week? Nah. I have, however, got a decent webserver up and running.

Ohhhh yes, you can view the blue dirge that is http://scribbler.homeip.net simply by clicking here. The reason for this? Well, the server this page is on only has 30Mb space, and with the forum database taking up about 10Mb, that doesn’t leave much room for expansion. 20Mb isn’t that much these days. When I start doing things I want to do, I run out of space.

Ooooh, my mobile’s just rang. ’twas Daren on the phone, he’s on his way home from the comp.sys.sinclair meet in Manchester. I really, really must go to one of those at some point! they have one every few months or so, and there’s another one arranged for about a month’s time, but alas, London’s too far, and it costs too much to go…

Well, the non-drinking stint is going well, up to about 8 days now, possibly longer.

Ooops. Valentine’s day’s been and gone, I see. Here’s the log I was supposed to post yesterday, but couldn’t be bothered to do…

Tsk. Well, the DietCam idea went down like a bag or two of bricks. It seems that this time of year is NOT the best time to start something like that. Why? Because… yes, it’s valentine’s day today. By far, the most depressing day of the year. The best time of year to drink yourself into some kind of despressed stupor, reminding yourself exactly why you’re on your own and won’t even be getting a sniff of a Valentine’s card this year.

I have a feeling this year will be the same as the last two years. Nothing dropping through the letter box, nobody wanting a piece of my shattered heart, nobody to comfort this battered soul.

In erm… other news, today is the birthday of Angela (Andrew’s GF), and maybe even the day they get engaged, so congrats to them. Of course, I’m not sure if this is still the case, as I haven’t heard from him for 3 weeks. I really must actually get my own finger out and phone him for once, but I really, really hate phones. Grrrr.

Anyway, something reeeeeally weird happened on Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, I suddenly got a recollection of Chad Phillips, one of the lads I used to knock around with from about the age 7-12. He’s about 4 years older than me though. Last time I saw him was the night before he moved to Japan to become a teacher. I thought nothing of it, after all, everyone has spontaneous remembrances of their childhood. That is, until I checked my email the very next morning…

Envelope-to: jamie@+removed+.freeserve.co.uk
From: “Chad Phillips” (+removed+@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 07:16:25

I haven’t got a kipper I’ve got a fanny

Er, don’t worry. That phrase won’t mean much to anyone out of our street, but really, what ARE the chances of that happening? Someone a few thousand miles away suddenly getting in touch again literally hours after my spontaneous childhood recollection? Hmmm. Oh, and here’s what he looked like about 12 years ago…

He’s the one at the back with his thumbs up. Wow, what I’d give to go back to those times, innocently playing cricket in the square, the sun toasting my skin a healthy colour… the sound of laughter… the trouble we had retrieving our footballs from now-deceased Mr Harrison’s garden… playing Soccer Boss on the Speccy, with the Auf Weidersehen Pet soundtrack playing in the background…. ahhhh, those were the days…

I went out with Chris round to the Queens, and had a verily good drinking sesh… okay, so I couldn’t exactly afford it, neither could he… halfway through the night, we had to return home so I could scrounge a tenner out of my dad for him, for some unknown reason he thought there’d be a cashpoint in the middle of a housing estate, and that a pub with about four customers all night would accept credit cards. Heh. For someone who’s spent quite a few months down London, he don’t know very much!!

Anyway, we played pool, I of course, won every game, even the ones I tried *not* to win… I was trying to make the games last loinger due to the fact the ONE customer in the main bar was watching Robot Wars, and I was taping it for when I went home. After the supply of 20p’s dwindled to a measly 1, we called it a night for the pool, RW had finished, and Top Of The Pops was on…. erk! You can tell it’s Xmas… Some of the utter, utter junk they’ve released this year is untrue…. The Tweenies at number 10? Bob the Builder at number 2? Both BBC owned kiddies programmes? Taking up most of the space on TOTP? Who’d have thought it. Nice to see that Eminem is at number 1 with ‘Stan’, what a brilliant song that is… I normally can’t stand rap, or Eminem for that matter, but it’s such a well-done and insanely depressing song.

The rest of the night was just spent watching telly, drinking, drinking, watching telly and drinking. Oh, and discussing the fact that Chris had his NTL line took out WITHOUT TELLING ME!! I used to phone Chris a lot, due to the fact that we both had NTL lines in, and it was dirt cheap (3p for unlimited time). However, on October 31st, the bill arrived and I noticed they’d charged me normal rate for (what I thought) was a call to an NTL line, instead of the 3p. We phoned them up, and they said they’d look into it. Nothing was heard from them, the next bill arrived, and it was STILL being charged full. Again, I wondered why. But then, he told me last night that his NTL line was BT again, and he was afraid to tell me.

Now that made me feel great. WHY was he afraid to tell me? Am I that much of a twat? I mean, if one of my mates daren’t even tell me something as trivial as that fact the phone has changed back, then what does that make me? OK, I’m sometimes a bit of a bast, maybe not intentionally, I’m the only one that sees the funny side of my jokes, but that’s just me.What if I were to cut myself off totally from the outside world? I have three friends, all of them probably think the same of me, twat. It’s starting to show now though, I haven’t heard from wayne for days, Chris daren’t even tell me he’s changed phone companies and Andrew doesn’t come over here anymore… he expects me to go over there all of the time now… Sunday night karaoke seems to be a favourite. What he doesn’t realise that in there, while he’s talking with his girlfriend (and Dot… we’ll get onto her later) I’m sat on my own!! I don’t know anyone! I will never become a regular in there, so why would they want to know me? And as for Dot, well she hated me from the moment I walked in. And it didn’t go much better last week after a joke I told flopped heartily. And the time before… well, it’s documented in here somewhere (see the pubcrawl). I offered to buy her a drink to make up, but no. She wouldn’t let me!

Soooo… I’m obviously a git. But how can I change? I’m me, I’m the way I am! Am I to just curl up into a ball and never leave the house again? Am I to get even more less confident because I *know* I’m a bast, and that everything I say is going to be took in the wrong context? PLEEEEASE? Tell me what I can do!!

It’s 23:19 and I’ve been up just over 7 hours. It was just another one of those days where the weather outside seemed utterly bobbins, yet the warmth and safety of my bed seemed so rewarding. Nothing much in the way of excitement has happened today. The beard’s gone again… maybe for good. That’s if I can be arsed to shave it off.

I’ve stuck another pile of CD’s to auction off. Actually, that’s probably the highlight of the day. Oh, and watching “Time Gentlemen Please” on Sky 1. Great show. Oh yeah. Andrew phoned this morning, after returning back from London. Actually, I didn’t even know he went until he rang me up this morning. Hmmm. Lucky git. Girlfriends are things other people have. Yeah, there’s Tracy, but I mean, like, she wasn’t a girlfriend. Yes, she was a girl. Yes, I took her out on numerous occasions, but I don’t think we ever really liked each other. Well, I didn’t like her anyway. Grrr, maybe I’m just too picky. Still, the countdown has begun to the beginning of my life now, in fact it’ll be a week tomorrow. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll find true love by this time next year. Or, at least, even partial love. Oh, OK then. Just a snog. Or a kiss. Or a look. Or a glance. Or something.

Well, tomorrow is already beginning to loom. Yes, it’s Tuesday. That can, and does, only mean one thing. Sodding Job Centre. Pile of muck. They’re about as helpful as your average dead cow. No doubt I’ll post my progress on here tomorrow.