Got a bit in trouble tonight.
After another incredibly stressful week a few of the guys from work decided we should all go to the pub next door to work for one. Just one, and we actually meant it this time, we really did.
So in another cliché-filled, drink-fueled decision, we decided to stay for more than the pre-agreed 'one drink', ad we actually had three or four! We're bloody mental we are. We really bloody are.
Thing is though, once you have one, you really do get a taste for it, and well, work had been tough and the conversation was flowing like a Flo-Rider in a flood, so we carried on gassing like it was going out of fashion and until I spoke to Gill on the phone realising I was four hours late for dinner.
WHOOPS.
We finished work at half four you see, which isn't uncommon for a Friday night, but in the past when Gill and I worked in the same building we just walked home together whilst I waved the guys at work off with a tear in my eye as they went to the pub and I cleaned up
Posted Fri, August 27th, 2010 by  Mat 
Got a bit in trouble tonight.
After another incredibly stressful week a few of the guys from work decided we should all go to the pub next door to work for one. Just one, and we actually meant it this time, we really did.
So in another cliché-filled, drink-fueled decision, we decided to stay [...]
Man it's been a tough day.
Work was so busy I didn't even have a lunch break, or any break come to think about it. We were so busy that I actually had to refrain from going to the toilet, scared to waste precious seconds that could otherwise be used to do work.
I could handle not going to the toilet (thank God for Shewees) and I could handle not having a break, but not eating? Oh man. That is my limit.
I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but I go really, really weak without food. And I don't mean being without food for days or even weeks, I'm talking minutes and hours here. It can get bad, really bad. Like if I'm out in town walking round the shops for instance, I get all zombie-like. Staggering about and falling into things.
And this is just because I haven't eaten anything for an hour - two hours tops.
The same thing happened today, I was so tired and hungry by the time I had got home that as I reached our flat and approached the front door I put my got out my wallet and got my bank ca
Posted Thu, August 26th, 2010 by Mat
Man it’s been a tough day.
Work was so busy I didn’t even have a lunch break, or any break come to think about it. We were so busy that I actually had to refrain from going to the toilet, scared to waste precious seconds that could otherwise be used to do work.
I could [...]
[There won't be any Scott Pilgrim movie spoilers in this blog post, I swear to God, man]
Saw Scott Pilgrim tonight. Right after work, too. And guess what? It was brilliant.
For those of you living under a rock that was chucked from the deck of a cruiseliner setting sail for India from the north-west coast of Australia by an angry Norwegian kid, Scott Pilgrim (vs. The World) is the films based on the comic-book series by Bryan Lee O'Malley, and has now been turned into a major motion-picture, directed by Edgar Wright.
The film (and I'm guessing comics too) tell the story of Scott Pilgrim, a 23 year-old kid who likes videogames, is in a band, and has a gay room-mate. He then meets a cute girl who who likes but to go out with her he's got to defeat her 7 evil ex-boyfriends.
The film was brilliant for a number of reasons, but as I'm not a film reviewer, this next bit will be poorly-worded and ill conceived.
Firstly, there are literally (not literally) a million computer game references in
Posted Wed, August 25th, 2010 by Mat
[There won't be any Scott Pilgrim movie spoilers in this blog post, I swear to God, man]
Saw Scott Pilgrim tonight. Right after work, too. And guess what? It was brilliant.
For those of you living under a rock that was chucked from the deck of a cruiseliner setting sail for India from the north-west coast [...]
I saw him, there, by the clingfilm. There, on his own.
Maybe I should say hello. No, no. that would be silly. Plus I'm hungry and I want to go home. Yeah, that's the best thing to do right now. No need to spark up conversation now just for the sake of it. Best to wait until we can both commit to such a thing.
Yeah yeah, I'll leave it for now. I'll say hi another time. We don't even know each other, save for pictures on the internet. Me going up to him now as he passes the greaseproof paper just past the eggs would be madness. Madness!
Madness? No, this is Morrison's.
I thought about going over to say hi, I really did, but it was just easier to turn away and stand at the till listening to my music than attempt to start a conversation with someone I've never even met before. We hadn't, you see, met in real life.
We had spoken online; on forums, on Twitter and Facebook, but we had never actually spoken to each other in real life. Never even met, let alone spoken.
And yet I had seen
Posted Tue, August 24th, 2010 by Mat
I saw him, there, by the clingfilm. There, on his own.
Maybe I should say hello. No, no. that would be silly. Plus I’m hungry and I want to go home. Yeah, that’s the best thing to do right now. No need to spark up conversation now just for the sake of it. Best [...]
Back to work today which can be stressful enough after a week off, but today was also the first day I had to walk to work, alone. You see I only work 15 minutes away from my house which is good enough, but not only that, but Gill works at the same place, too. Well, I say works, I mean, worked.
Gill still works at the same college as I do, it's just that she now works from another site, meaning those lazy walks to work together holding hands and skipping along the grass are now long gone.
On the plus side it means I can catch up on podcasts and listen to albums for an additional hour every day, so, every cloud...
I know it's silly, and I know we're in the minority of couples who get to walk to work with each other, but I actually quite like it.
When I first moved in with Gill all that year-and-a-half-ago, we never saw each other at lunchtime. "Man, we see enough of each other as it is!", we used to say to people. People always asked us if we met up at lunch, but we didn't. But, recently -
Posted Mon, August 23rd, 2010 by Mat
Back to work today which can be stressful enough after a week off, but today was also the first day I had to walk to work, alone. You see I only work 15 minutes away from my house which is good enough, but not only that, but Gill works at the same place, too. Well, [...]
I've spent literally all day designing our wedding invitations today. Well, all day from the moment I woke up, which was about 10am.
After my initial reluctance to anything wedding-related, the moment I could do something which required the use of my laptop and/or the internet, I was all over it.
Also, our wedding invitations are going to look AMAZING. I'm really glad we're designing and making our own invites; initially done as a cost-saving measure, I'm actually quite happy we're making them ourselves.
Our wedding is going to have loads of personality, and us making our own invites is just another way of showing this.
We've got loads of other fun things planned for the wedding, again mostly cheap things designed to be nice, loving and fun, whilst remaining cheap as possible. It's not like we're paupers with barely enough money to eat, but wedding's cost the earth, so you've gotta save money wherever possible.
Sorry it's bit of a short one today, been totally busy what with the invit
Posted Sun, August 22nd, 2010 by Mat
I’ve spent literally all day designing our wedding invitations today. Well, all day from the moment I woke up, which was about 10am.
After my initial reluctance to anything wedding-related, the moment I could do something which required the use of my laptop and/or the internet, I was all over it.
Also, our wedding invitations are [...]
I'm back in Leeds now, and coming down with a major case of the post-holiday, post-Fringe blues. Luckily I didn't have too much time to wallow in my own self pity as myself and Gill were off to visit Gill's family in East Yorkshire.
We had to leave early this morning so we got there in good time to spend the day with Gill's parents, brother and wife who were up from London, and her other brother who leaves for a new job in China on Monday.
Although I say early - our original set-off time was due to be half eight this morning, hardly getting up at dawn - but after a busy, tiring (but utterly fantastic) week at the Fringe, along with staying up until 2am playing Crackdown, I was too tired to get up.
Plus, I thought that by staying up late, even though I was back in Leeds, I was wringing out the very last bit of my holiday. Going to sleep in my own bed would only mean it was over, and we were back in regular weekend mode.
Hell, I even had a few beers - although try as I might, I couldn't
Posted Sat, August 21st, 2010 by Mat
I’m back in Leeds now, and coming down with a major case of the post-holiday, post-Fringe blues. Luckily I didn’t have too much time to wallow in my own self pity as myself and Gill were off to visit Gill’s family in East Yorkshire.
We had to leave early this morning so we got there [...]
Yesterday was our final full-day at this year's Fringe, and luckily for us, it was a blinder. It wasn't all good news though; our first gig of the day was, shall we say, a little disappointing?
I'll preface this bit by admitting that Gill chose our first gig, and I had no part in it.
So, first up was Damion Larkin, a guy who successfully bantered with us in Wednesday's queue to the point where Gill thought it was ok to get a couple of tickets to see the man. Oh how we would later rue that decision.
Damion Larkin's show was called Cuddly Loser, and it addressed what he, and many of us, think about when we consider someone a winner or a loser. Damion talked about body image, about people's attractive and unattractive traits, as well as his own shortcomings.
Firstly, there was only about 30 people in the venue, so I think even he best comedian would find it difficult to create a decent atmosphere with such a lack of willing audience members actually, forget that, Stewart Lee or Russell Kane
Posted Fri, August 20th, 2010 by Mat
Yesterday was our final full-day at this year’s Fringe, and luckily for us, it was a blinder. It wasn’t all good news though; our first gig of the day was, shall we say, a little disappointing?
I’ll preface this bit by admitting that Gill chose our first gig, and I had no part in it.
So, first [...]
Still thinking about utterly brilliant Russell Kane was the night before, we made our way over to Bannerman's for our first gig of the day at just after 12pm. Andrew Collin's Secret Dancing (and other urban survival techniques) was our first gig at Bannerman's and also Andrew's first Fringe show. It's weird, I sort of feel like I've watched Andrew grow from being someone I just kind of recognised from popular shows like 'I love 1982' and '50 Best Comedy Characters' to Richard Herring's co-host on their podcast, and now to Fringe performer.
When Collings and Herrin do their podcasts Richard usually does 10 minutes of stand-up before the show, and over the last year or so, Andrew has started doing his own 10 minutes of material. Not so much a gig as much as a public information service, Andrew's 10 minutes consisted of him explaining how, after years of walking around and using public transport, there's just no sane way of dancing without looking a bit strange.
Because of this he's created a new,
Posted Thu, August 19th, 2010 by Mat
Still thinking about utterly brilliant Russell Kane was the night before, we made our way over to Bannerman’s for our first gig of the day at just after 12pm. Andrew Collin’s Secret Dancing (and other urban survival techniques) was our first gig at Bannerman’s and also Andrew’s first Fringe show. It’s weird, I sort of [...]
Day two proper of Edinburgh Fringe and the sun has finally come out. It's always been quite warm when we've come up here for one week in August, but it still rains pretty much every day. Although the temperature never drops to a point when we're actually feeling cold as we walk from gig to gig, it still has an almost constant state of being overcast, so the rain never feels far away.
Yesterday though, we had blue skies and beautiful, warm, sunny weather. Most unlike Edinburgh, but very much appreciated.
We had two gigs pre-booked for yesterday, but after going through the PBH Free Fringe and the Five Pound Fringe programmes, we had found some others which we wanted to see, which meant we had to walk over to the Fringe Box Office in town and queue up.
Unlike Monday's joyous 90 seconds of putting our card in and collecting our tickets, yesterday we had to actually stop and stand in a big, slow moving queue with the rest of the mere mortals.
As well as a feeling that your wasting your preci
Posted Wed, August 18th, 2010 by Mat
Day two proper of Edinburgh Fringe and the sun has finally come out. It’s always been quite warm when we’ve come up here for one week in August, but it still rains pretty much every day. Although the temperature never drops to a point when we’re actually feeling cold as we walk from gig to [...]
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