As always.

I’ve got a million things going on and not enough time to do them all. My cold has now gone thankfully, but I’ve spent the last week in a flurry of activity.

I’ve been trying to restore some order to the wreckage of my degree, but none of my lecturers seem to be replying. I’ve been trying to salvage myself from financial disaster by finding a job and selling everything I don’t need, thats spare machines, a lot of books etc. Although this is early in the process, again nobody seems to be replying. I think it’s overdraft extension time again, but this will max out the overdraft as far as it will go. I really don’t know where my money has gone. I know I’ve bought a few expensive things but they went on my credit card. I looked at my bank statement and can’t see what I bought. Food. A few nights out. Nothing that extravagant. I now have to tax my car and live on the change until I can find a job. Now consider that I don’t officially finish uni for another 6 weeks and I have bills in that period that total £220 (phone, laptop repayments, internet connection, credit card repayments…) not counting car tax, food, travel or entertainment.

Hopefully my ass on a street corner near you will not be amongst those things for sale…

So aside from all that I went away to Shrewsbury for the weekend 2 weeks ago (cost free!), with my girlfriend and a load of people from uni, which was great. I’ve been trying to give up smoking again and have been getting through a load of nicotine gum, though I’ve nearly run out and buying some more isn’t an option.

My beloved TFT monitor is being collected today as I’m sending it back for replacement as the image ghosting is not good enough for me, I spent a lot of my credit card company’s money on it and I’m not going to settle for an imperfect picture. So now I’m back on my big, dull, 1983 looking, uncomfortable feeling 17″ Dell monitor at 1024×768. Man, does it feel pokey and up-close after having a nice 17″ TFT sitting at a comfortable distance away at 1280×1024. I’ve been spoiled after only 2 weeks.

I’ve also spent a couple of days trying to sort out a decent CV and covering letter for my girlfriend who has been offered a place on a dental nursing course. To take up the offer she has to find her own placement in a dental practice, except all of the ones she’s phoned have just told her to fuck off. She’s never done anything like this and I’ve always been pretty good at getting jobs and doing interviews and so on so I did all the letters and CVs and prepared them all for being mailed out. The very day after the mail out she got a call offering an interview so I then spent the night prepping her for the interview before going for a few drinks with a friend of mine who has had some bad news about a family member.

On Saturday night I went with a few people to a friend’s house for a few late night beers. I don’t think anyone was sober but my friend started to embarrass me by making claims about my sexual habits in front of a few people I’d never met before. I decided to give him some back, which pissed him off and we ended up arguing and he asked me to leave. Prick. Seems it’s ok to say embarrass me in front of my new girlfriend and some people I’ve never met before, but another question entirely when I do it back, backed up by some evidence.

Today and yesterday I’ve mostly been trying to sort my life out as much as I have done every other day for the last few weeks. The list of things to do doesn’t seem to get smaller. Tasks for the next few days include go to the doctors to find out whether I’m losing my marbles or not, vote, go to the dentist which I can’t afford to pay for but they were going to take me off the register and I’d have to find a new dentist because I haven’ t been for so long, make some PCs to sell so I can keep my ass a narrow passage, try to get in touch with my lecturers again and try to find a job.

I think I have to go to Huddersfield this weekend, the petrol looks like it will be paid for but it’s still something I could do without as it will involve a night out and I can’t afford it.

Oh, I just remembered the main thing I wanted to talk about in this otherwise depressing post. Yesterday the former lead singer of my band gave me a call for the first time in a long while. He now works up in the Laked District as a sound recording lecturer at a college. He asked for my opinion on a band that he recorded.

They’re all 16, school dropouts on behavioural grounds, have been together for around 4 weeks and to be honest are quite possibly the best unsigned band I’ve ever heard. Now I was a professional musician for 5 years, I’ve seen almost as many unsigned bands as the entire A&R department of Sony and EMI etc put together. The songs are great, the musicianship is flawless and they have a male vocalist, a female vocalist and male rapper who all sound great which means they can pretty much do anything they want to. This is not some cheesy, bunch of shit, thrown together, ‘lets play crap pop songs’ effort. These guys are for real. After giving him my opinion, which was essentially (though naturally I was far more verbose at the time) that they’ve got it made if they can hold it together when the spotlight falls on them and that they are allowed to mature physically a little (they look young and their voices sound young), he asked me if I would be willing to get involved. I’m quite excited by this, people who know me well enough will tell you that my opinion on music is brutal and mostly right on the button. I either love it or hate it, which means they are great or it just may not be my taste, the alternative is that I don’t care which means they weren’t good enough to provoke a reaction. I have no real middle ground with good bands and this band amazed me. Unfortunately however, with all my crap going on I can’t really do much for now. I need a job and I need to sort out my degree. Then I’ll be able to think about it, but I won’t waste too much time looking a gift horse in the mouth. I think I can really help this band go somewhere and I think they’d appreciate my attention to detail and my ability to focus them into a cohesive unit and saleable product, which in terms of career prospects and their own success, is what needs to happen for them right now. Lets see how this one develops.

Anyway, I better call it a day for now. Apologies for the depressing drivel.

Peace.