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May, the latter part thereof, sucks. Throughout this month there are 14 anniversaries, some good (6 birthdays for example), some not so good, some really quite bad. Anyway, one of the good ones (borne out of one of the bad ones) is I’ve now lived in Colchester for 1 whole year. While I bought the flat a year ago last month I didn’t move in properly until a year ago today.

During that year I’ve:

• Almost completely furnished the house to my exact specifications. The ceiling lights are still all bare bulbs, I’m waiting on delivery of my new computer desk, I’d like to replace my hob, I want a chest at the foot of the bed, I really need to get my photo’s printed and hung on the wall and I’d like a small cupboard in the en-suite bathroom, but that’s all pretty minor.
• Made a stack load of friends. It’s got to the point where I can now just toddle up to the pub and not have to worry if anyone is going to be there as there will invariably be someone I know and can talk to, even if it is just the staff.
• Given John Lewis an awful lot of my money (I was wondering around there last week and saw some things I’d really like, but lacked the many hundreds of pounds it would cost to get them all).
• Failed completely to have a house warming party. I think this should be organised for very soon.
• Actually come to realise I no longer live in London and have come to think of Colchester as home (in fact, in many ways I prefer it to London).

Not bad if you ask me

I finally managed to get a good nights sleep last night… which was promptly interrupted by the postman delivering sweeties and meece (well, trackballs, but hey). Still need a few more nights like that until I’ve caught up with sleep, but I don’t feel quite as wiped out as I have been the past few days.

Anyhoos, not really got much to do at the moment so I decided to have a day off and relax so I’ve played some Guitar Hero II, watched The Omega Man (which isn’t as good as I thought it was going to be), done a little bit of tidying round the house and now I’m just watching TV until Tai Chi tonight. It’s been great

I’ve finally got round to setting up the Mac Mini again It had been bought to play DVD’s, watch TV and play music but had been made somewhat redundant with the laptop, sky box and PS3. Anyway, I’ve copied my iTunes library to it and will probably use it to play tunes purchased from ITMS, noodle about with Google Earth and show people piccies when they visit.

Cute girl on train lives in Colchester within walking distance of the station. Will have to keep an eye out for here. And I can’t get my ring off. Going to try some soap and if that doesn’t work I’ll just sleep with the bugger on.

I saw the strangest thing today, a sort of mass harness for children similar to what you’d expect to find for huskies on the front of a sled. The middle was a long piece of quite stiff material from which about 8 harnesses (4 either side) came off. At the front was a handle that an adult could hold onto. The kids (fairly young) were then chained to this bright yellow contraption and taken for a walk. I suppose walking in front guiding the children is fine. It’s only when you’re sitting in a sled behind with the children pulling you that it becomes cruel No photo as I’m not overly keen on taking pictures of kids for fear of being branded some kind of peado.

I won the lottery yesterday. Only 10 quid, but still, timing was fantastic. Think I may stop my idiot tax payments in a couple of weeks as it, and a couple of other frivolous things I pay for can go to help extend the amount of time I can be an out of work artiste

Now has 12 anniversaries in it. Some good, some bad. Looks like it’s the month for things to happen. Even with all the work related diary entries that have just been deleted it’s still a very full month

Last night I dropped my iPhone. It’s been dropped before, but this was onto a tiled floor. Initial inspection showed nothing was wrong so I thought nothing of it… until today.

Today I noticed I wasn’t getting any bleeps or clicks from my phone when the headphones weren’t in, plus it was also do some weirdness of starting to play songs when I plugged the headphones in. Closer inspections showed that the iPhone thought the headphones were plugged in even when they weren’t. Normally this is a simple fix. Plug the headphones in again, then remove them. This didn’t work. So I tried a reboot. This didn’t work. Perhaps a full restore, but I was at work so that would have to wait. To check the speaker I tried ringing the phone (the ringer rings through the speaker and the headphones). It goes to voice mail. Check phone, has signal. Try again. Voice mail. Start to wonder if this has something to do with the phone being dropped. I start thinking of a life before the iPhone. I can’t recall much, just some memory of a dark time. Decided there was no life before iPhone and rumors that there was are being spread by naysayers and non believers. Try phoning office phone from iPhone. That works. Call number back. Phone rings. So, just no sounds when headphones not plugged in. I can live with that.

Get home, offer up a prayer to Google. I am told:

• Plug in and unplug headphones. Done that.
• Restart phone. Done that.
• Try resetting all settings. Oooh, don’t want to do that, would rather do a full restore.
• Do full restore. Right, looks like the way forward.
• Clean out headphone socket. Now there’s something I’ve not tried.

The instructions say ‘cut the fat bit off a q-tip and use that to clean inside the headphone jack’. It also says that the Apple stores use compressed air to clean them. I’ve got Johnson’s cotton bud thingies so I try cutting the fat bit off… and the end falls off (newfangled plastic ones). I cut the other end off carefully. Won’t fit. trim a bit more. Falls off. So I’m left with a small plastic tube… I know, lets try blowing through the tube into the headphone socket. You know what, it only worked

So the iPhone appears to be alive again, I can sleep easy and all is good with the world. Actually, all it not good with the world, but that’s another issue.

So, after 6 months of hassling her to do so Cat has finally come up to stay in Colchester (Woo, and quite possibly Yay!). She arrived about 5ish after having a 3 hour drive due to traffic (or, much more likely, arrived at 3 after a 1 hour drive and then spent 2 hours trying to find the place ) whereupon we talked, I cooked my pasta’n’sauce’n'bacon’n’stuff creation (apparently very nice) before I dragged Cat the 1 mile (despite protestations from her that is was further) to go to the pub, meet my friends and see the near mythical cute bar tender  (CBT as she will hence forth be known) Personally I would have said the pub section of the night was pretty normal (we may find that Cat states otherwise ) although there were some notable changes.

First and foremost was the arrival of Fanta (orange and lemon) behind the bar. Bottles for the time being, but on tap soon hopefully. I was very excited about this as it meant I didn’t have to drink more lemonade (I’m known as Lemonade boy *sob*) and Fanta is both less gassy and gives me a choice of flavours. Turns out they didn’t buy enough of the stuff though as I drank every bottle they had behind the bar. I think there are a few more bottles in the store room for tomorrow but I’m going to have to have a word with hte landlord and sort out a proper supply, plus warn him about nights where I’m not there (for example next Friday) so he doesn’t over stock.

Second was the fact that Colchester now has an alternative club (I won’t go so far as to call it a rock night, although the music was most certainly bearable) so poor old Cat got dragged out to one of the crappest clubs I’ve ever been too (yes, even worse than the Met Lounge in Peterborough) to watch a bunch of kids doing that school disco type dance thing where no one really wants to move that much and everyone bunches up into groups. Since we (as a collective group) know one of the DJ’s I think a word in their shell like will be had an perhaps a little half hour niche carved out for us so we can show the kids how it’s really done.

So Cat is now alseep in the spare room. I’m about to fall asleep in my room and then tomorrow (depending on when it starts) we may do the zoo, then grab some food, pub, drool over CBT, possibly get Cat drunk again and maybe have another philosophical debate about the rightness, or otherwise, of the humble kebab like we did tonight (apparently she is some kind of heathen who doesn’t ‘do’ kebabs). I may also try to explain the who rhyme and reason behind computer games (Guitar Hero really didn’t do it for her) and possibly even show her my wheel and pedals for racing games. What a thrillingly exciting life I lead.

Right. Bed time as I’m falling asleep here.

Toodles

P.S. Photos to follow sometime this weekend

Today I was shown that the democratic process does work. As we all know it’s based on the fundamentals of one man, one vote. I, however, technically (although not legally) had two votes. Even the government knows I’m special God knows how it’s happened but I’ve been put on the electoral register twice, I got two voting cards, two voting numbers and, unlike possibly everyone else in the country, got to choose which me was going to vote.

And people wonder how I got such a huge god complex

As to who I voted for I’ll not say, but I was rather tempted to add a new box and put Ken down and vote for him. Waste of a vote, I know, but I don’t think any of the other idiots on offer were much of a choice either. In the end I went for my usual lot because… well… it’s what I always vote now Monster Raving Loony is no longer an option.