Amazing quality live video stream of bears.

That's bears of the animal variety, not the gay male variety.

posted at 5:33 PM •

Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory

So, so, frighteningly close to reality.

posted at 11:00 AM •

Marc Cohn shot in the head by carjacker.

Extremely lucky escape for Marc, as the bullet didn't penetrate his skull and he was released from hospital yesterday.

Wishing Marc a speedy recovery!

posted at 3:14 PM •

Little moment of epiphany this morning pondering my latest bummer of a mood.

Oh, yeah, I suppose I should release a bit of steam now and again.

It's been building up over the last couple of months - stress and tension - and I've just realised that apart from masturbation, I don't have a release mechanism. You didn't really need to know that, but I like sharing.

Anyway, thanks Luke, I appreciated the comment a lot - you've been there for me a couple of times when I've been down, and you always say the right thing.

I don't fool myself into thinking this is the most entertaining blog in the world. But I get something from writing it, and I get something from looking back over it.

I've been noticing more and more how the tone changes as my relationship to it changes. My blog is like my ego and id all wrapped into one - it's my evil twin, my therapist, my sounding board. Currently I'm not concerned with what people think of it - it is here for me, and that's enough.

See, without meaning to sound like a moaning old minnie, it's a fucking tough journey adjusting to being without parents and without a partner. I've had to learn a lot of stuff from scratch, and at the same time try to work out what it is I need to learn.

One of the things I've been missing is somewhere to vent my frustrations when I'd had a bad day at work. When I was with John, I'd rant and fume for half an hour or so, and then get over it. The bike was also useful for getting out pent-up aggression - nothing is more enjoyable than shouting at cyclists, or scaring pedestrians crossing the road in stupid places.

But it's a truism that sometimes you don't realise what you've got until it's gone - and even then, sometimes you don't notice at all, you just carry on until one day you wake up and go fucking nuts.

It's about trying to notice the little signals coming from yourself - that self-parenting thing again. You pat yourself on the head, you comfort yourself, you scream and shout at yourself. I've just been blocked up with a big old whinge and a moan that I needed to get out.

I'm fucking frustrated, and broke, and bored, and lonely and pissed off and sick of this and that and bloody telly programmes that tell you how bad Tescos is and why doesn't everyone just jump in the Landrover down to the local Farmer's Market every week, and money and debt and money and Gillian McKeith and cigarettes and fags and fags and fags and bloody bloody eastern european neighbours sitting outside shouting fucking shouting until 2am in the morning and bloody work and no bloody social life and fucking Flash MX2004 and servers and life and OH FUCKING EVERYTHING.

Phew.

That feels better. For starters.

posted at 3:27 PM •

No, you see, that's not what I meant to write at all.

I go to write something, and it changes as I write it. I try to write down my feelings, and instead I write a list of books I'm reading. I have all these ideas in my head for posts I want to write and the minute I start typing, I chicken out.

Life has got pretty bogged down with drudgery and loneliness lately.

See, now that's not true, but I can't explain how I'm feeling lately without saying it. I'm bogged down with the constant relentless pace of work at work. I had some time booked off at the end of August - I'd only managed that because my sister is coming over with her growing family. So, a nice relaxing week off work, half of it spent with my drooling niece and nephew.

I booked a week off, knowing that after hosting my sister, her partner and their two babies I was going to need a couple of days to recover. But then my boss has somehow allowed someone to double book that week, so I've had to cut the time off to just my sister's visit.

I'm getting pretty drained by it all, but at the same time it's pretty rewarding. It's rewarding to think that a year ago, two years ago, I couldn't do this. I keep myself going, I keep getting up on time, getting to work on time, keep the money coming in, keep paying the mortgage, keep the house clean, keep myself well-fed. I couldn't do this a year ago, and it's rewarding to know that I'm keeping things going better than when I lived with John.

But, the loneliness - the loneliness has started to creep in around the edges. And it's a odd form of loneliness - it's a loneliness of not being able to be who I am, because I don't really know who I am anymore. I can go out, go to the pub, and be outgoing and centre-of-attentionish and funny and charming and interesting. But I don't know who that person is that I become, because I go home to myself and all the confidence in the world means nothing there.

I don't know who I am, and I don't know what I want out of life anymore. But I keep feeling there's a life out there that I'm not leading, that I should have led.

Sorry if you came here expecting something interesting - I'm just not in that mood at the moment.

posted at 10:47 AM •

The Magic Numbers.

Err... they're kinda like Beautiful South meets Belle & Sebastian meets The White Stripes meets The Mamas & The Papas.

I think you'll agree that's recommendation enough.

posted at 5:38 PM •

Well, suddenly it's August, and this morning the late summer shadows seemed just a fraction longer, just enough for some primitive section of my brain to decide that autumn was on it's way. The year has gone far too fast, a never-ending battle to stay on the right side of normal - whatever normal means anyway.

The motorbike is still off the road and I've read about ten books (give or take a book or two) in the time I've been using the tube. The insurance claim is heading rapidly to court, and depending on what mood I get my claim handler in, I'm either going to lose everything or get about five grand when it finally settles. Such, apparently, is insurance claims when one party decides to lie through his teeth and his insurance company decides to contest the claim.

The fact that I've been able to get some reading done has been something of a silver lining to the situation. I whizzed through the collected works of - ahem - Dan Brown, consoling myself with the fact that you're allowed some no-brainer low-brow entertainment in your life. I don't watch any soaps or read Harry Potter books, so Dan Brown is allowed.

Thing is, they're actually pretty enjoyable - rip-roaring reads in fact - at the same time as being absolutely mind-bogglingly formulaic, and populated by utterly one-dimensional characters.

Unlike my other guilty pleasure, America's Next Top Model. God, I love that show. I have decided I want to be Tyra Banks when I grow up.

posted at 5:06 PM •