Today marks the first day the new EEE PC has journeyed with me into London, and therefore resumption of the “Morning Post” that I sent so regularly last year to close friends, and “The Enormous Waste of Webspace”. I’m not quite sure how regular it will be this year - that very much depends on how many fat and/or ignorant (delete as appropriate) people I get sat next to me on the train.
Space is an abstract concept on the train. I make sure I stay within the bounds of my seat - with my bag typically stowed directly above me, and coat folded across or under me to avoid encroaching on other’s personal space. If only I wasn’t the only person that seemed to abide by these simple social graces. Thankfully this morning a businessman has chosen to sit opposite me - which prevents the usual evil hag from homing in on me; ready to apply her makeup with a shovel and kick me while doing so.
While on the subject of thoughtless people, I may as well do some more venting.
Wouldn’t it be nice if a girl - just once - didn’t presume I’m going to give way to her on the way off the train and offer to let me step out first? Is this a presumption held by everybody in the world except me - that “they” go first, and I can just go f*ck myself?
I’ve written about this kind of thing before. While walking through the big stations in London, I have often taken notice of the people around me - to see how quickly each of us progress through the crowds towards the station exit. On particularly busy days I would anticipate that I travel half as quickly as everybody else. While making way for others and generally being considerate, I make one step forward for two made by everybody else. Sometimes it frustrates me. I wonder what would happen if I behaved in the same manner as others - it would be carnage.
As I had perhaps anticipated, somebody has now sat down next to me, and having elbow room removed from one side has severely restricted my ability to type. This will have ramifications for NaNoWriMo. I remember this from my days commuting with the Macbook - as you draw closer to London, personal space is chipped away at until any thought of using a laptop is completely unfeasible (unless of course you are one of the ignorati who find no problem in briskly walking through busy railway stations).
Worth pointing out that an hour into the journey, the EEE PC is reporting 90% power left - estimating 5 hours 22 minutes from it. Impressive stuff - especially as I have been monkeying with it inbetween typing (Textpad is my editor du jour, if you are interested at all).
We are slowly drawing closer to London - industry now rumbles past the train windows, and the world is turning from trees to concrete, iron, and wires.
Time to think about folding this machine away and turning my focus to surviving the underground.
[Insert working day that I cannot really write about without breaking all sorts of rules - which would probably result in me being marched in with the HR manager next week. Amazingly, it turns out several of the professional clients of my employer read what I write on the interwebs…]
So! Fastforward 10 hours, and I’m sat on the train once more, rolling out of London, with an ignorant idiot sat opposite me who seems intent on spreading his knees as far apart as he possibly can. Seriously. Has he never heard of “personal space” ? He has a blackberry pearl. At what point do I get the iPhone out and p0wn him ?
This weekend is going to be hard work. W is going away with her Mum, leaving me to look after the children single handed. This would normally be fine, except the eldest has a swimming lesson on Sunday. Therefore we will ALL go to the swimming lesson, and I will have to take a bag full of placating devices while we wait for the lesson to finish. Afterwards I would love to take the girls to Pizza Hut, but even that is complex - the eldest is Ceoliac, meaning she cannot eat gluten - strike out any food containing wheat (normal pizza, normal bread, any normal pastry, and many other things). With a little luck Pizza Hut will let me take a pizza bread with me… which of course will have to come to the swimming pool with us.
Anyway - the weekend will be fine. I will survive. I’ll be online A LOT in the evenings (GMT), so feel free to message me and keep me entertained.
The train has slowed. No doubt we have fallen behind a stopping train for some bizarre reason - which invariably means we will now remain behind the slow train for the entire rest of our journey. There’s a crazy/stupid/idiotic reason for this by the way - in the UK, train operator performance is measured by the number of late trains - not how late they were. Therefore if a train becomes late, it becomes the scapegoat for every other train, and comes last at every turn during it’s journey. Kind of like “You’re late - f*ck you”.
The driver is on the public address system - explaining what’s happening. A train is late leaving the station ahead of us. While sat here waiting, it’s probably worth mentioning what happened this morning. The underground trains ground to a halt for half an hour on the circle line. When a train finally arrived it too stood still. Ten minutes later, the public address system informed the several thousand travellers now crowding the platform that they were waiting for a driver for the train. Go figure.
It’s pretty dark outside now.
If you’re wondering why I have written so damn much today, there is method to my madness. I am taking part in NaNoWriMo next month, and want to find out how much I can write during a typical journey home. This morning I only hit about 500 words. The daily average I’ll need to cover during november will be 1600ish. Hopefully on normal weekdays (non commuting days), I’ll be able to get an hour in between 6 and 7am. Quite what my writing will be like at 6am is anybody’s guess. Probably horrible beyond words.
Okay. This is over 1000 words now. 1600 doesn’t look like too bad a target at all - especially given the speed I can write rubbish. Those who know me will be quite confident in my ability to spout absolute garbage with no difficulty whatsoever.
What else is there to mention today? Perhaps the fact that this blog - “The Enormous Waste of Webspace” had the most hits in it’s entire history yesterday… all because I posted wallpaper for download. Not stellar figures compared to the old PluggedOut open source project days, but still respectable for a blog about nothing in particular. We’re talking in the 800 visitors during the day range. Usually it hovers between 50 and 100 people.
Given that I typically write such random posts about the most inane subjects, I do sometimes wonder who the regular readers are - what they do, where they are from. Perhaps I should start some kind of “I was here” thing in the margin for people to click.
Wow. The biggest wave of tiredness just swept over me. Suddenly my eyes are struggling - feel like somebody just jumped on my eyelids. Probably the end of the caffeine high I began to subscribe at 9 this morning, and has been drip fed ever since. I just looked out of the train window to see the sunset. Having trouble focussing, or even looking at the moment.
Must stay away! I don’t want another embarassing “dribble on tie” episode.
The sunset is spectacular. Just thought I’d throw that out there.