domdavis.com

So today I am in Vauxhal enjoying a tall, classic hot chocolate, no whiped cream to drunk in… no cream… excuse me, I asked for no cream. No, I haven’t started sampling Starbucks near random tube stations, but instead I am killing time before having a Friday curry with Dan[DerDanDan] so I can chalk up another ‘random person what I met on teh internetwebs’ and put a face to name. I was hoping to meet up with the Soupster too but they’re making her work today (boo hiss) so she can’t make it.

Since this is being posted from just outside the MI6 building I shall not be using the following words: Osama Bin Laden, bomb, jihad, nuclear device, hijack, duty bomb, suicide bomber, chemical weapon or death to the infidel. Hopefully you’ll understand

This weekend could go one of two ways. I’ll either drop off the internetweb for a few days (and I know how sensitive you lot are to me not showing up regularly) or I’ll be posting bucket loads. It all really depends on how my mood takes me. It’s looking good so far but be warned

Part of keeping the house tidy (I was going to say clean, but I don’t so that, I pay others to do that) is getting rid of clutter. I’ve got rid of a lot over the past two years and am getting down to the last few bits that just languish in drawers doing nothing. Today I sold my Tragic The Slathering collection which has cleared out a drawer (it was rather a large collection) and I thinking of just binning the Warhammer stuff. I’ve offered it to people for free but they’re not having it and it’s a bit too old and knackered to go to charity. With that gone it just leaves the lego, and there is no way I’m getting rid of that It does also mean there will be a nice space in my display cabinet which I can fill with gorgous things. I feel a trip to John Lewis coming on.

At some point I need to have another go at my book collection. I’ll probably do that Wednesday when the last of my library gets delivered from work (I built up quite a collection over 10+ years there).

iLike, which I use to foist my musical tastes on everyone, allows you to enter in your favorite band either manually or by taking the most played song. I’ve left it on the latter but it does raise the question: how do you define your favorite band?

My top 2 highest played songs are Fear Factory, so are they my favorite band?

I own more Jean Michel Jarre than anything else (16 albums and EPs, should be 17 but I don’t know where one is) so is that my favorite?

My paradise Lost albums, unlike all my other albums, have high ratings across all the tracks (there is one 3* song, the rest are 4/5*) so are they my favorite band?

Ironically, at the moment, I wouldn’t list any of those as my favorite band. They’re all good, but my tastes change with my mood and over time. At the moment I’d actually say it was a tossup between Combichrist, Grendel and Ultravoilence rather than any of the above mainly because that seems to be what I’m listening to all the time. Of course, that is subject to change based on my fickle whim

How would you define you favorite band?

I finally got hacked off with the adverts that Facebook was serving me which seemed to consist almost entirely of dating site adverts with a condesening tone about being single at my age (don’t think it’s meant to be, but that’s how it comes accross). Given my past experience with these types of site the types of women featured and the chances of dating them differ considerably from that is implied in the advert. Since it’s obviously getting this from my ‘relationship’ [or lack there of] status I decided to turn hide all that gumph. Of course, Facebook being Facebook it proudly tells everyone that I am ‘no longer listed as single‘ which generally prompts a flurry of questions about ‘who is she’ and so on and so forth. ‘She‘ doesn’t exist and I’ve gone from being single to not being anything so fending off these question is kind of dull. With that in mind I also updated my status to point this out. I now have a load of posts about being ’sly’, ‘cheaky’ and ‘cheating’. Personally I just think it’s called planning ahead Anyway, I now get served all the random, much less condecending adverts.

So, Saturday night at arround 19:30 I was feeling distinctly nauseous. Why? The Fear. I get The Fear rather a lot and it’s mainly to do with the fear of the unknown. This particular case was due to me going to a new club, by myself and no knowing if I’d get in, if I’d like it or a whole host of other things that could go wrong (you know, normal, every day rational things like everything goes fine just up until the point of the last train when a bouncer spots you, decides you don’t really fit in and kicks you out leaving you to wonder the streets of London for 7 hours while waiting for a train - hey, it says ‘deranged mind’ right there at the top of this page, what did you expect?). 30 odd minutes later I was in and had forgotten all about my irational panicking and by 1am I was having a whale of a time. Next time I go there will be a smaller panic (’Will it be as good?’, ‘What if they don’t play that stuff every week?’) and by the third time I’ll be walking in as if I own the place (see previous point about derranged mind). Good thing really as I find it very easy to find things to worry about and if I didn’t have other stuff dropping off the list I’d be a nervous wreck

Anyhoos, given I’ve got a lot of the clubbing frustration out of my system I’m beginning to think if I can be bothered with The Betty Ford Clinic next week. I’ve got a busy weekend afterwards so perhaps I should just spent the night in the Hole and get a [relatively] early night. There is another part of me that says I’m just rationalising The Fear now that some of the people I knew were going don’t seem to be going any more although I wasn’t planning on going with them, I just knew they’d be there and even if I was going with people I still suffer The Fear with new clubs. After all, up until this morning I was really looking forward to going. Daft thing is that I haven’t failed to have fun at any of the clubs I’ve been to this year so you’d think The Fear would just take a running jump. Na-ah. I don’t even need molehills to make mountains

I go so throughly hacked of with Windows Vista that I decided to upgrade [sic] to XP. It’s been a bit of a faff as installing windows on a laptop where you don’t know what bits it’s got inside can be a real dark art but I should [touch wood] now have a computer that will play games without:

• Slowing down every 10 seconds
• Crashing ever 30 minutes or so due to graphics card issues
• Making lots of clicks when it plays sounds

Of course if it fails to do this (I’ll know in about 30 minutes when The Orange Box finishes installing) I’ll have a laptop for sale (not recommended for gaming)

OK, so last night may not have been as sweet and innocent as I made out. In my defence I was tired, the whole clubbing euphoria had worn off and I was weak. There’s no easy was to say this so I’ll just come out with it:

I had a double bacon and sausage McMuffin meal this morning

I was sensible and had orange juice as my drink but that’s no defence. I am a bad man. The problem is I’m not even sorry. I enjoyed every mouthful of artifically flavoured reconstituted meat, rubbery egg and processed cheese as the fat dripped on to the wrapper below. I hope this doesn’t cause you to think anything less of me, but I’ll understand if it does.

Sort of. Missed lunch, but I feel a lot better for having slept (and for having been out - needed that). I’ll need to reread my previous post to find out what I missed out but I’m pretty sure I covered the night quite well. Did forget to mention that I need to take more glowsticks next time Still very tired but if I go back to sleep I’ll not sleep tonight so I’m just debating what to do with what remains of the day (depending on how much money I have left I’ll probably grab some sashimi and pop to the pub). In the mean time I need to work out where the hell I got the Ultraviolence, Blown Away [94-04] album from as I’ve just found it on my laptop and I seriously don’t remember ripping it. It’s not in my list of purchases and not in my CD collection which means I must have borrowed it off someone. Odd.

As we know these after clubbing posts van be just a little incoherent due to exhaustion, sleep deprivation and the fact I tend to write them just to keep my brain going. When I crash I crash hard and I need to be at home, in bed otherwise god knows where I’ll end up.

Today has been longer than usual. Sedition was out of house at 9pm, club at 11, leave at 5, home in bed for 7. This has been out of house at 5:45, club for 8 and leaving at 6. Problem is I meant to leave at 7. A combination of being knackered and being lysdexic meant I thought it was 7 and only realised my error after I’d left the club (no re-admission) . Since it’s a Sunday trains home don’t start until 7:30 meaning i’ve got over an hour to kill in Liverpool Street Station. All I can say is Thank God For The iPhone. Once I’ve done whittering at you lot I’ll watch a few episodes of Babylon 5 to keep me occupied.

So, the night. I went early as entry to Slimelight requires you to be a member or to be signed in by one. Not knowing anyone there I wasn’t too keen on loitering outside waiting for someone to take pity on me. Thankfully if you pay to see the bands you get into the club afterwards. So from 8:30 to 11:00 I got to watch three reasonably good live acts all with very cute singers (I seem to be developing a thing for female post-cyberpunk vocalists, either that or I’ve just been lucky with the 10 or so bands I’ve seen this year. In the two and a half hours that went on for I also astounded the bar staff with just how much lemonade I can drink on a night out to the point where they started just giving me pints instead of the small glasses.

At 11:00 I headed into the main club room and people watched for a bit before diving on the dancefloor and waving my little arms about like a madman. At about 1am a couple that my next door neighbour know found me (he’d told them I was going and gave them my number). This meant I now had people to intoduce me to other people and a couple of members to recommend me for membership. Result :-). Between 1 and 4 I alternated between the main dancefloor and talking to my new found friends. I also started dancing with a VERY cute girl who reminded me of Chuggabopps when she was young, innocent and stupid enough to date me. Unfortunately cute girl was whacked out of her brain on something so I contented myself with just dancing with her.

I also befrended James, the guy on the main bar. He was also astounded by just how much liquid I consume in a night so we got talking about my broken kidneys.

Between 4 and 6 there was dancing with randoms (I have absolutly no idea when women are interested in me unless they’re blatant so nothing happened. I really need someone to fly wing who can spot these things) and I started wilting. I was just getting a second wind when I thought it was 6:45 and time to leave. Of course, in my addled state I’d misread my watch. Still, I got a huge hug off cute girl when I said I was leaving and it sounds like she’s a regular so no doubt I’ll see her again. Also got goodbyes from the bar staff. The others I’d met left at 4 so I’d already said my goodbyes (and claimed my hugs) to them.

So, to the club itself. It’s a dive. But then these places at meant to be. It would be no good if it were too posh. The venue isn’t as cool as Seditions but the music is good and the crowd is excellent. I think I’ll be going there a lot despite the fact I don’t get home until 9 the next morning. Once I’ve got my membership card I’ll be able to pitch up after the bands so it won’t be quite such a long night. I think I’ll also set the phone to tell me when it’s time to leave rather than relying on my ability to tell the time after 6 hours of dancing.

So yeah. In Liverpool street with another 40 minutes to go. Watching the pidgeons shit all over the people sat next to me was fun though. I think I’m going to hunt down a cup of tea and go for a wonder before embarking on the epic journey home. The air will keep me awake.