New Developments

Yup. Some news at long last. At least what passes for news here..

Turns out as part of my big project thingy for college this year I’ve it to have some sort of blog for progress.

Once I’ve come up with some sort of pithy name or something I’ll shove a link here so that interested readers can have a look as I attempt this thing, which no doubt will include a lot of times for you, dear reader, to see how silly I am at coding and planning software projects

Consequently I suppose it will force my hand at writing blog posts for this page since I keep promising myself to. Chances are I won’t link back to this page just in case a lecturer finds out in just yet another foul mouthed misanthrope.

Oh who am I kidding? They know that already!

EDIT: It is located at http://alasdairsgub.wordpress.com/

Oh! Hello!

Why are you here? Go and do something productive!

Or at the very least go into a toilet stall, drop trou (or pull up skirt – thanks Stace!), and have yourself a nice long wank

Chumba: Year Two

As I sink down this warm sweet sticky mug of black tar coffee, hastily check my timetable, pack my MacBook and gather all my note taking materials, I’ve taken a quick moment to sit back and relax. I suppose today has marked my second year of my second foray into studenthood. Let’s hope this second year is better than the last course I did at second year.

It was during my UWS course in Year 2 I got diagnosed with depression which was apparently very evident amongst some of my peers, friends and family. However I remained oblivious and let my grades slip, and almost to the point where dropping out would have been likely. Luckily I did what I could to get out of that hole, and whilst it wasn’t easy, I discovered I had great help along the way.

This time, I am determined to make sure I don’t repeat any patterns like I did before. In fact I’m even more determined to race through it and get out the other side with at least the HND I assigned myself as the goal 2 years ago. 10 months down the line and that will be a reality.

I don’t know why I wanted to post something like this. It’s probably too shite.

I suppose I wanted something written down so I can chastise myself if in the event I fuck up.

I’m Not Dead

I feel fine

In fact I might go for a walk

In this pishing wet rain

Scorched Earth

Something occurred in my tiny mind today, after I noticed my iPhone app store informing me of an update to my WordPress app. The thought went more or less the lines of “Fuck, I forgot I had this blog!” and other such fun variations thereof.

Then the next one happened: “Mayhaps I really ought to wipe this barely started slate and start again….”

After having a wee read through some of the entries I figured it would be a shame to just delete all the crap willy nilly. I had some quality nostalgia time, and also some stark reminders of how the past 3-4 years have been, even if it has only been roughly one or two dozen entries, and figured “fuck it I’ll just keep them”.

It’s hardly as if I’m a wizard with this writing malarky. I suppose it’s just that 12-18 month crisis in my subconscious that says I have to remember I have a blog.

More than likely I’ll write a post or two, forget all over again, and then I’ll come back and say “Don’t worry! I’m not dead…yet”

Oh well, see you in 2013.

Poopal Fun

Yesterday marked a big day for various types of individual in the country. As the Pope is currently bouncing around in his pimped out PopeMobile™ around Scotland and the various media shitstorm ensues surrounding the fact it is a ‘state visit’ as well as the scandals that have erupted in regards to the Catholic Church’s position on top of-errr I mean about child abuse.

My memory of the Papal visit will be entrenched in a watershed moment in my own life, and for once I keep all my clothes on for this one.

Thanks to Mr Pope, I have wound up becoming one of, if not THE, most obnoxious stereotypes in modern western society: I have become one of those guys that sits typing away on his laptop in Starbucks – pretending to have something important he is doing. Lounging around for hours as other patrons come and go, no doubt looking casually in my direction and thinking the same thing to themselves.

As they all scream “wanker!” in psychic unison, I just quietly sit against the wall, plug in my mobile broadband, and just mess about online trying to find something that will consume the vast amounts of time that I have left myself in as I slurp milky coffee flavoured things noisily as I gaze at my laptop screen hoping that time will go a bit faster, whilst cocooned by my headphones, drowning out the ‘easy listening’ that pervades the establishment and also to make sure I don’t hear any snide remarks from the patronage.

The fact I feel self conscious about this is more than stupid especially since the reason I have found myself in such a predicament is due to the miracle (heh) that my train service was one of the few from the looks of things that wasn’t fucked about with. So I end up arriving in town two whole hours before I really need to be. I expected to have to fight my way through thousands of excited pilgrims and other pissed off commuters only to find that for one miraculous moment, ScotRail actually worked.

Oh the sweet delicious irony eh?

I brought my laptop was just in case I had a spare moment to entertain myself for maybe half an hour before I went into work, or even just en route on the train or something since I expected it to be crawling into the city. Instead I have had approximately two hours to kill, and so I decide to stroll about, head into a coffee shop and fucking blog about it. As a result, my fate has worked out as some sort of half-arsed self fulfilling prophecy. My choosing to beat the holy traffic has resulted me into becoming identifiable as a massive tosser.

The ride home was much more hectic. Loads of people who were just finally on their way home squeezing in my train. Looking on with the self contented wee faces beaming about their fantastic day. Bloody whoo hoo to them. I just sat and grumbled on my way home, full of other people. Even then there wasn’t that many people. Looks like this Pope guy wasn’t the big draw that everyone thought he’d be

Newness Abounds

It’s been roughly a month since I’ve moved to a new place because of the previous anti social neighbours. It’s been a bit of a mental challenge, as the place we’ve gotten into is absolutely in dire need of fixing up.

So far the house has had a new boiler fitted, new flooring to be arranged, resealed fireplace area, old manky cooker chucked out, and there’s still loads more left to do. It’s a mammoth task, and it’s made all the worse from these problems manifesting themselves one after the other

Asides from shiny new house (shiny with greasy mank) and subsequent cleanup, I also got my clammy mitts on an iPhone 4.

And the verdict after a day? Super shiny and sleek! Plus since it’s a jump up from a standard iPhone 3G it’s absolute night and day in comparison!

Anywho, multitasking works pretty well:) and now my brain is needing sleep:P

One Week

It’s been one week since we cast our vote
At least for the folks not flung out on their scrote
Five days since you screamed at me saying
“Fair Votes Now! Fuck Sky and watch BBC”
Three days since the conference room
I realized it’s all in hand, but I couldn’t tell you
Yesterday New PM walked in
but it’ll still be five years till Cam says he’s sorry

(with apologies to the Barenaked Ladies)

I originally wrote the following as a comment on Michael’s Blog Entry, but it just grew and grew into this mini-behemoth of rant:

I personally don’t see how ‘fair’ it is to have ‘the people’ want 1st and 3rd place to be in power as opposed to 2nd and 3rd. Combined vote percentage for ConDem is 59.1% whereas LibLab would have been 52%. If you ask me, not much in it.

In fact toss in HALF the % of ‘others’ and LibLab led government would have had almost 60% of the electorate backing it.

Basically it fell down to the good old ‘bums on seats’ ratio and good old fashioned shit stirring. Which is what politicians seem to do best, regardless of ‘wing’.

As far as I’m concerned; The electoral system for Westminster is broken. The public duty culture in Westminster is broken – thanks to the expenses fiasco. The ‘strong sustained government’ systems of old is broken.

Why? Well in my short but colourful existence I have seen both sides of the political spectrum in power go from being responsible and progressive to being mired in sleaze and inherently needing a radical transfusion of new blood. Sadly the only blood that’s been available for the government are those bags of 10+ year old blood from that other group of donors. You know…them. The dreaded other side.

The pendulum for the control of Government has always swung from red to blue for as long as most people care to remember. The sad fact is that this has never made UK politics any better for the electorate. In fact it has only served to breed more apathy and distrust for Government – regardless of what party is in control.

The inequity of the voting system for Westminster has endured increased exposure thanks to this election. Even though the Cons ‘won’ they still did not earn the trust of the Scots, where 83.3% DID NOT VOTE TORY, In Wales 73.9% DID NOT VOTE TORY, in the North West of England 68.3%…. you guessed it: DID NOT VOTE TORY. Middle England? Fickle Fuckers is what I like to call that mythical area of the UK.

It is comprehensively fucked up that one segment of the UK practically dictates what happens for the rest of the country. ConDem we have in power for now, but condemned we were always destined to be.

With luck, some militant revolutionary will manage to descend into Number 10 and redecorate new Tory HQ with a very open and comprehensive application of grey matter upon the walls. Maybe then Tom Clancy could write a book about it, and if he does, could he at least embellish on the fact I’m not wearing any pants?

Emancipation

Today marks a new change of course for my life, in one fell swoop I shall render myself jobseeking and also (hopefully) either one step towards getting my big man sized arse into college.

It’s kind of scary, then again what was scarier was how down I was getting without realising. I owe it to myself to make sure I never fall into this trap again, even more so since now there’s plenty reasons to live for.

Slightly morbid, I know. Better to be called an emo fag rather than trying to be nonchalant about my emotions and making things worse:P

The problem was the overwhelming feeling that the culmination of everything I’ve been working for is precisely bugger all. Add to that the fact I’m currently feeling like I made a regrettable descision to move to my call job from my old part time place and then discover it is a full fledged flourescent hellhole.

To quote a popular Christmas band “It has to start somewhere. Iit has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now?”

Rail trippin

It’s been just over two weeks since I’ve moved home in order to try and save money for more edumacations. One needs to learn in order to find good jobs:S

In the meantime I’ve found myself trying to play guitar hero in a bedroom that had more sofas than people.
Amusing at first but it wasn’t long until all excess furniture had to be ejected to the local authorities for dumping, or whatever recycling can be managed with old sofas. But now I’m starting to let the most-likely-to-be-called ‘man room’ take shape. Sadly I can’t have stripper poles yet:(

Another thing that has stumped me since my ‘triumphant’ return to Hamilton, and that is the public transport. 3 bus routes exist where previously there was just the one fuckin route, and they’re all silly derivatives of one another. Getting to work on time is a new and exciting challenge, oh yes indeedy!

I suppose I should apologise to myself as well. I intended to keep posting and keeping on top of shit, but recently I’ve had to contend with living out of boxes, I’ll likely have it all nailed down by the end of the week, but no promises.

Besides, who reads this shit?