…and Pat’s nice and chilled following a great evening in London (the last of the “Second Thursday” meetups with his mates from Student Radio at Uni)… so much so that he’s about to go to sleep and hence gave me writing duties this evening.

In short, Pat enjoyed catching up with friends Dave, Chan, Mark and Katie… plus monging out at a nice Moroccan bar in Cov Garden – complete with Sheesh pipe things, as modelled by The Mark here:

Sadly Pat forgot his camera so took this photo with his phone. You can hardly tell – the quality surpasses many photos taken on SLRs (when covered in jam…)!

Anyway, I’m oddly chilled and ready to sleep too (very strange coincidence, that), so this short entry will end here.

Toodles,

Squage

…and it’s been quite a varied 24 hours.

Following a gradual decrease in “spaced out”-ness throughout the day yesterday I managed to make it out of the house to go to the delights of Bas Vegas’ * Empire Cinema to see all three Indiana Jones films back to back (for Gary-from-work’s birthday – happy birthday for yesterday Gary!).

It was great to see them on the big screen and to laugh along at the many amusing moments that I’d forgotten about since the last time I watched them. I recommend having another watch of your Indie DVDs / crap VHS recordings from ITV in the early 90s with the ad breaks crudely cut out (or is that just in our house?).

Anyway, after the entertainment of last night today’s been largely dull – probably not helped by being at work, and certainly not helped by the dire performance of the bunch of overpaid divas plodding around a pitch making sure they didn’t break a nail in case they miss their next Premiership match and hence lose their appearance fee…

And… relax.

Anyway, following that debarcle I went for a curry with some mates from ‘ome, which was very tasty indeed – only problem is that I ate far too much as usual and so can hardly move (I’m going to be so slender in time for leaving)… but that didn’t stop me having a nice ice cream dessert.

Why?

Well, I think it’s easy to see, when the ice cream dessert comes in the following container:

Yes, you’re exactly right, that is a Beautifully Crafted Mug (I kid you not, that’s how this piece of cheap, plastic, bulk manufactured mess is billed on the dessert menu).

I’m still not sure what’s worse: the fact that I ordered this or the fact that I smuggled it out of the restaurant just to get a photo of it to show you.

So there we go. In 24 hours I’ve experienced being spaced out, amused, bored, angry and utterly bloated. Actually that’s a pretty standard day when I look at it like that :-)

Anyway, that’s more than enough rambling… I’m off to bed.

Night,

Pat

* Festival Leisure Park in Basildon – a collection of restaurants, a cinema, a bowling alley and classy establishments such as Jumpin’ Jacks, Ikon-sorry, Lava- and Diva-sorry, Ignite. Known locally as Bas Vegas due to the tacky neon lights flashing all over the Lava/Ignite buildings. And the fact that it’s a centre of entertainment in the middle of barren wasteland.

…and Pat’s definitely feeling the side effects of yesterday’s vaccinations.

He’s asked that I describe this to you, so as a picture tells a thousand words I thought this’d do:

Unfortunately, in this case the thousand words are simply 500 instances of “Shit” and 500 instances of “Drawing”.

But hey, you try better with M$Paint and a laptop touchpad (actually, don’t, as the world does not need any more drawings of a similar calibre)!

Pat was, however, rather pleased when this arrived in the post:

After watching a couple of episodes with him, I’m not entirely sure it’s the sort of thing you need to see when you’re feeling rather spaced out, groggy and tired. It is ACE however, and if you’re into your Anime you MUST buy it.

Right, oddly I’m feeling the same spaced out effects as Pat (funny that) so I’m gonna bid you adieu.

Til tomorrow,

Squage

…and Monday morning just got good:

Sadly, this was shared between about 12 people and as such didn’t really last that long. Still, it brought a minor ray of sunshine into an otherwise typical Monday morning.

The afternoon was, on the other hand, marred by the dread of having my vaccinations at 5:30pm… it sounds stupid I know, but the knowledge that I’m going to be experiencing about 5 seconds of pain in the near future can really play on my mind.

Particularly as the last injection I had was TBG (I think that’s what it was called – you know, the one that leaves a raised scar on your left upper arm?) and that felt like someone was trying to blow up a balloon of poison in my arm.

Luckily, the injections were next to painless. All that worrying for nothing – but I’m not too upset :-)

My arms are starting to ache a bit though, which is expected but isn’t good… and I’m getting a little light headed. *

I think a little rest is in order.

Til tomorrow…

Pat

* The light headedness may be due to the fury from IE losing my post a minute ago, meaning a nice little anecdote about the injections is gone forever. I’m sure you’ll get over it, but I’m going to be angry for the rest of my days. **

** This may be a lie.

Hullo,

29 days, eh? Wow. I’m really looking forward to this trip now. For a large amount of time I’ll not need to do ANYTHING I don’t enjoy, which is making me wish these days shoot past as quickly as possible. It’s going to be about having fun, having time to chill, occasionally being scared (bungee jumping in Queenstown, anyone?) and not worrying.

Remember how things were in those first few weeks of Uni? Well, I’m suspecting this is going to be like that. Just without the coursework. *

Of course, I’m going to miss people terribly (as in “a lot”, not as in burning down towns because I miss people) but that hasn’t hit me yet (I’m sure it will) and with only 16 working days left, I can’t help but feel *very* excited.

That’s why I’m spending today sitting around the house watching dull telly, ripping CDs and chatting on IRC. Just to calm me down.

It’s not because noone wants to do anything with me this afternoon.

No.

What? Don’t laugh at me, damn it. Just cos you have friends :-)

Here’s a photo (taken without a viewfinder of course) to help you picture the UTTER HILARITY of my afternoon:

Ronan Keating was right. Life is a rollercoaster.

Toodles,

Pat

* Which, of course, I’d always do as a priority whilst at Uni. **

** What?

Howdy!

Well, I’ve finally had enough time to sit down and do some design work and this is the result. Hope you like it!

This could technically be the post for day -29, however as I’ve not actually gone to bed yet, it’s still day -30 for me… so I’ll speak to you later today. You lucky, lucky person you ;-)

Let me know whatcha reckon in the comments – any feedback’d be much appreciated!

Night,

Pat

Hullo,

Well, with less than a month to go you’d think Pat’d be spending as much time relaxing and preparing himself for the crazy months ahead, wouldn’t you?

However, he’s been at work doing 8 hours of overtime. On a Saturday.

Fortunately it’s not required too much brain power (Pat’s not used to having to think on Saturdays) and has almost acted as a gym session for him: it’s PC renewal time at work and Pat’s one of the “lucky” few who’s been carting CRT monitors and PCs around the building today.

Unfortunately Pat decided that bringing his camera with him today would be a great idea. It would’ve been, had he not kept it in his jeans pocket and managed to break the screen through exerting a bit too much pressure leaning on desks:

Oh well, what’s another couple of hundred quid when you’re desperately trying to save money (that, of course, being the only reason Pat came to work today)?

Damn.

Squage

Wow, time sure is slipping away quickly.

Normally I’d be annoyed at this, largely because it would be creeping dangerously close to those rubbish winter months where you leave home in the dark and get home in the dark – and the only daylight you see is through blinds from your office desk.

Fortunately, just as that time creeps in I’ll be swanning off to somewhere that’s about to enter Summertime.

Life’s a bitch, eh?

Anyway, with only 31 days to go before I set off (and 25 days before I leave work), I thought it’d be a nice idea to start doing daily updates.

Let’s start with how far we’re along now:

• Flights sorted
• Travel insurance sorted
• Visa sorted
• Photo driving license sorted
• Hostel booked for week in New York
• Hotel booked for night in LA
• Hostel booked for first two nights in Aukland
• Kiwi Experience “Zephyr” trip booked (open date)
• Hostel booked for Melbourne from 18th December to 2nd January

Various other bits have been sorted but they’re too dull to list even on that list. I’m getting vaccinations on Monday… should be “fun”. I’m getting quite excited… but more on how things are tomorrow.

Finally, I’m doing a daily photo prior to leaving too. Here’s the first:

A potential design for the Big Adventure blog header (and other things requiring a logo). Quite like this one… will probably go with it.

Anyway I’d best get back to work (and staring at the rain thrashing down outside the office window (oh how I’ll miss this…)) – speak tomorrow!

Pat