Well, that was the most stressful and upsetting football match I've ever watched. England beat Portugal 2-1 but for some bizarrre and unknown reason our second goal was disallowed. Therefore it went to extra time and it ended up 2-2. They won on Penalties 6-5. We were clearly the better side. I just can't believe it. The referee must have been Potugese. Agggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Here are my photos from the London to Brighton bike ride.

Yesterday I rode from Clapham Common to Brighton with a group of people from work (as well as a further 30,000 cyclists). We met at 06:00, set off at about 07:00 and got to Brighton at about 15:00. It was a really pleasant day's ride, apart from the final two hours when bad weather hit big time on the hills outside Brighton. Near-horizontal hail stones followed by torrential rain left everyone completely soaked and shivering.

I managed to meet up with a couple of people from our group near the finish, and we located a dodgy cheap clothes store where we purchased some emergency dry clothes. We then found a bar in which to recover, dressed in our new, near-matching, tracksuit trousers and fleece tops.

The company paid for a coach back to London and I got home at about 21:00 where I promptly fell immediately to sleep.

I have some photos in my camera, I'll post a link tomorrow.

I love this sort of headline:
"Teleportation breakthrough made"

Just completed my first legal purchased music download through iTunes. I feel somehow cleansed, from all the illegal downloads I've made in the past.

I bought an album, and at £7.99 (and it's qutie a long album) it's a fair price, unlike the high street stores.

Hurrah!

OK, so since last time I've taken part in a 10km run round Hyde park. Here's some photos of me from the day. I look like I'm about to die in the third one. That's because I did feel like I was about to die. Since the race I've done a pitiful one run, and that was this morning.

What else?

Oh yeah, I dated another girl for a short while, but decided, yet again, that she wasn't what I was looking for, so that was that.

Going for a bike ride with some tomorrow morning, so having a night in tonight. The bike ride is practice for the London to Brighton bike ride I'm taking part in on the June 20th.

DJing at a wedding reception / after party this evening. Should be fun. They're providing the records, I just have to turn up and spin them.

You know, anyone who's about to commit a crime, or hurt someone, or just say a harsh word against somebody, should stop and listen to Belfast by Orbital. It's an oldie but what a fu^&ing great tune...

We split up.

The end.

Dinner went well on Thursday. I seem to have myself a new lady.

Well! Boozy weekend... 'Going to watch the football' in the pub on Saturday turned into an all day session. I received a text message from a lovely young lady whom I have been in contact with through a dating website, and I called her back. We ended up having lunch and a few drinks on Sunday and, basically, it went quite well. We're having dinner on Thursday. Nice.

Well, it's just gone one year since i started at my company, and i'm back working on BT web banners - the lowest of the low for a designer. That's career advancement for you...

This company really is stupid. They have a freelancer in (at great expense) working on some interesting Flash project, all well within my abilities (in fact I'd be much better suited to the work), and here I am doing the über-dull stuff. So long as they continue to see their design staff as simply 'a resource' and not as people with career aspirations, they're going to continue to lose their best people.

The sort of place I want to work should not need to be given this hint.

</moan>

Apple have got me hooked in. It's iTunes.

I'm addicted. I've almost completely turned my back on CDs. The first thing I do when I get a CD is skip through the tracks. If I like it I copy it all into my iTunes. I love it - it's a joy to use. You see the thing is - I can't keep my CDs in order, I can never find the one I want and when I think I have, it's not in the right box.

Not any more - I just pick the artist or genre and it's right there. The thing is. The THING is - now I want an iPod. Funny that isn't it? I want to take my music with me. Sucked in... They are SO cunning. First they write the nicest bit of software EVER. Then they release it for Windows, then they sit back while everyone, in their own time, goes out and buys their iPod. Genius. I'm saving up...

I'm currently reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel. It's the one you see everyone reading on the tube. Really enjoying it though, it's a nice human break from all the cold science fiction I've been reading recently.

I love walking through the city in fine drizzle at night. As the tiny droplets hit the eye, all the lights appear to momentarily flare.

Seeing Kraftwerk live was possibly the coolest thing ever.

I've just finished reading Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds - a highly recommended read. It's the best sci-fi I've read since Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey and Rama series. It's not the best written book ever, but the ideas are simply vast, and the science (like with Clarke) is fairly solid and convincing.

Tonight, I'm going to see Kraftwerk at Brixton Academy. I can't wait.

I finally made it down to Tate Modern after work tonight to see Olafur Eliasson's "The Weather Project". It finishes this weekend. Here's my version of the same pics you've probably already seen:



GR.

So, Amsterdam was fun. Not really much to tell really - suffice to say we sat in some coffee shops, drank lots and ate well. Nice break from work though. I got back late Monday night (plane to Heathrow).

I've just been to my weekly Athletic Training class. It consists of an hour of various intensive excerciese such as burpees, running, press-ups, lunges, and the use of weights. The thing is, you don't get a break during the whole hour - not even to catch your breath.

It felt especially hard after a weekend in Amsterdam...

GR.

I ended up travelling home one the same tube as two people from work, one of whom I know fairly well and the other, a girl, whom I know less well. Sometimes I should just shut T.F. up - I managed to dig myself into some kind of whole whereby it sounded like I was insulting her, yet I was unable to explain what I really meant.

Sometimes I don't think even I know what I'm talking about. I wish some level of editing was available during real-time speech.
<sigh>

Maybe it's just today's lack of sleep disabling my basic communication functions...

GR.

P.S. Going to Amsterdam on Friday - hurrah. I'm going with some friends, for the weekend.