The first thing I saw was a plastic beaker

And Manda's just handed me a glass of wine. It's 1100hrs. So the office party starts early.

I'm never going to get any work done today.

Kevin likes to feel bad

Wrote another review for the workshop last night, and it turned into a bit of a mauling. I found a fair few faults with the story, so then, after I'd finished writing it, I began to feel bad about tearing into her. It's never a nice experience, even though people should be able to take criticism if they're going to put their work in a workshop situation.

So, anyway, I post the review this morning. I read what the other reviewer had to say about it. They loved it. They thought pretty much the opposite of the points I made, which makes me wonder, was I wrong? Was I just being picky when I said that the action was clichéd and that I didn't feel for any of the characters? I don't really know. The other thing that worries me now is that this poor girl has got two conflicting reviews; one heaping praise and one saying 'Well, actually . . .'. What's the author going to say when she sees that? Which one is the author going to believe? I know, if it were me, I'd probably go for the praise (though I'd like to think that I wouldn't), but that only works out if I'm wrong.

Damn.

Kevin likes to experiment

So far my little experiment has yielded three last-minute cards. Quality. Might have to try this again next year, as most of the people who haven't sent cards out yet don't look like they're going to.

Kevin likes to make jokes

Something that I forgot to mention, but I've started keeping another 'blog, this one for the purpose of having somewhere to put my humour and other random thoughts, without having to keep updating Thoughts of the Misguided.

The new blog's called Only Excellent. Go check it out.

Kevin likes to go back to The Sticks

Finally, the Christmas break is back upon us. On Monday, I'm heading back to the sticks for two weeks or so. The upshot of this is that I'm going to be offline until Monday, 5 January 2004.

Merry Christmas everyone . . .

Kevin likes to laugh

Two reviews last night for the workshop. Gilly and Shameful went out for a few drinks, so I had no distractions in the house. Amazing how easy it is just to turn the television off and get on with some work when there's no one lying around the lounge. I really am either weak-willed or just plain lazy.

Also started work on the December Light Challenge story. I know I'm never going to get it up in time for December (especially since my internet access stops tomorrow), but I'm considering working on it over my Christmas break, seeing if I can get something ready to sub in January.

Also, JamesR has emailed me about resurrecting the Talecrafters group (or at least starting a new one under the old name). I've told him I might be interested, but it all hinges on how committed I (or the other members, for that matter) can be to the group. Last time we tried this, it never really got off the ground. I've also got to think about how this will affect my work on Home. I want to get this finished, and hopefully, workshop it with a group of people who will stick with it. Also, it's horror, and JamesR is a fantasy writer. Again, what the other members of the group will be remains to be seen.

Kevin likes to go out

Busy Christmas coming up! Tomorrow we've got our office party, which promises to be interesting (altho' my ex has told me I have to watch her to make sure she doesn't get too drunk). Saturday I'm off to see the Stereophoncs. Sunday I'm off to see Arch Enemy. Monday I'm back down to Devon, for a film (Return of the King, yay!) and a meal with the Alumni. Tuesday we've got relatives visiting, and then it's Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day.

I'm quite looking forward to it. Now, if only I can shake this bloody cold.

Later . . .

Kevin likes to send cards

Bit of an experiment with my Christmas cards this year. After sending out to my friends and those that sit on desks around mine (kinda hard to avoid them :), I've decided to send cards to people who I already know have sent out cards (the CAD monkeys spring to mind). I want to see how the people who didn't send me one react, whether they'll just ignore it or whether I'll get a hastily written card five minutes later, ink still wet.

Christmas is for having fun.

Kevin likes to celebrate Bristmas

Bristmas report:

Bristol's grey when we arrive. Bristol's grey when the sun's out but today it's cloudy and miserable. It's drinking weather, but not the good kind. It's lets-shut-ourselves-in-a-smoky-room-and-watch-the-football drinking weather. So we do, and have half a dozen warm-up beers before the meal. We -- Gilly, shameful and myself -- are joined by one of our hosts, Duffy. In another pub, just across from the flat, a local at an adjacent table interjects herself into, and then hijacks, our conversation (music careers, money, and dating older men). Duffy tells us this is common in Bristol. Seems to be a weekend for such talkative strangers, as the night before we had experienced a similar conversation (fishing, working for the RAF, pub loyalty) with an old man back in the Distant Past.

Cuisine of the night is Mexican. This means sangria and nachos, tortilla wraps and christmas crackers that seem oddly out of place. Being unadventurous me, I choose steak for my main course. It is a good choice in the end, and my neighbours are envious of my dinner (especially the guy to my left when he sees the bones and fish-head he has just been served).

One girl refers to me as 'The guy I see on the stairs', which is . . . strange. I wonder, briefly, whether I'm the kind of person who blends into the background at work. I've never considered myself as such. Sure, I'm not particularly charming or good-looking, but tall people stand out in a crowd, and irritating people who think they're funny tend to stick in the memory, right? I've seen this girl plenty of times in the three or so months she's been here, yet the couple of times I've passed her on the stairs are the ones that stick in her memory. As I said: strange. I wonder if this is a good thing. I suppose it's better to be unmemorable than to be 'guy who stares at my arse in the canteen'.

During the meal I sit next to an Australian girl. Somehow I completely forget to mention the rugby to her and manage to pass the meal without really taking the piss once. Surprising, but even more so for the fact that I'm not directly trying to pull her. Nice girl, and I do have this thing for foreign women, but I get the impression that she doesn't like me that much. I blame my lack of piss-taking on the beer. Normally I would have destroyed any notion she might have had about there being any nice men in England by the time the starters had been brought out.

Shameful lives up to his moniker.

Groove Armada are at the Bristol Academy, so at about 0030hrs Killer gets the idea to go over there. I'm not a big fan of this sort of music (or this sort of event), but I have to admit that it's actually quite good. They get the dancefloor moving, and at that time of night (and a dozen pints down the line) that's all that really matters. I refuse to call it live music, however. You can describe it how you like, but at the end of the day it's still just guys playing records.

At one point towards the end of the night, one guy taps me on the shoulder and says 'those girls are fucking great.' I look up, and sure enough there are now two women behind the decks. They don't appear to be doing anything. They could be hot, but at this distance and with the smoke in the air it's kind of hard to tell. Yeah, I say, trying to sound as if I completely agree with him. He carries on dancing.

Back at the flat, Gilly insists on watching our host's Bo Selecta DVD. I'm not a fan of Bo Selecta -- in fact I think it's fairly fucking moronic, with only the occassional funny line -- but with nowhere else to go I watch it. I finally get to turn in at 0530hrs (it's winter so it's not quite daylight outside yet), but only four hours later I'm awoken by Shameful and company returning. Two hours later I'm back on the motorway, and the car journey pushes me dangerously close to ending the weekend by being sick. I somehow manage to save face.

Kevin likes to watch BBC News 24

Getting back from Bristol, I discover that American forces have captured Father Christmas after an eight month search. Bastards :)

Kevin likes to test

I've got to stop following the links on Tempest's page . . .

What Famous Leader Are You?

Later . . .

Kevin likes to review

Didn't get a lot done last night, although I did start writing a review for the workshop (what will probably be my first one in six months or so). I hoping to post something in the near future, so I thought it couldn't hurt to get a few reviews under my belt before then.

Tried watching The River last night. Bloody hell, it's hard work. The first fifteen minutes or so are 'Storm set to music', and it never feels in this opening quarter of an hour that the film's ever going to start. Then Mel Gibson comes on and starts talking, and oh dear god will something happen already?. I gave up after half an hour. I don't need to waste my time that badly.

Kevin likes to party

Going out in Bristol tomorrow night for the first of the Christmas parties, a night which (in my hilarity) I've dubbed Bristmas. My housemates and I have managed to get ourselves invited on a party that those who commute here from Bristol. Should be good, although as far as I'm aware we're still homeless. Never mind, I will trust in Gilly to sort something out.

Later . . .

Kevin likes to shoot people

Saw S.W.A.T. last night. Fairly good, dependable if somewhat formulaic. Farrell and L Jackson play the roles without any real struggle, but manage to give solid performances all the same. There are explosions and witty dialogue aplenty to please most action film fans.

The problem with this film is that it feels as though someone's trying to establish a franchise. The first half of the film is given up pretty much entirely to the formation of the team, which, if it were to be considered properly as a single entity, is too much. A lot of the screen time -- which could be given to more going up against the bad guys -- is wasted on introducing us to the main characters, and how they get into the team, when all we want to see them do is shoot people.

Like I say, it's not a bad film, it's not a particularly good one. I have a feeling that it's going fall into the 'faceless cop movie' section of my memory; I'll be able to remember certain scenes, but I'll be damned if I'll be able to remember what film they came from.

Later . . .

Kevin likes to stand in the road

Out looking at manholes again yesterday. The old adage -- 'once you've looked down one manhole, you've looked down them all' -- is true. Bored and freezing cold; it isn't a great day.

Saturday night is good. Shameful and I meet up with one of the girls from work and her gym buddies. Aside from a couple of incidents involving coats --
(Firstly: I rudely object to having my coat thrown on the floor, by a complete stranger,
(Secondly: I slightly lose my temper when I can't find my ticket for the cloak room, ever-so-slightly scaring the woman behind the counter. Shameful begins to talk about Red Kev going out and scaring women. I tell him to shut up.)
-- it is a pretty good night. Lots of money is spent (December is shaping up to be expensive, but then it always is), lots of beer is drunk, and I don't offend anyone I care about.

Kevin likes to be in the light

Tried coming up with an idea for December's Light Challenge at the zoo. As has been the case in recent months, I failed to come up with anything that I could reasonably turn into a story by the end of the month. I have an idea, but it's missing something. Whether it'll get written now remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the plan is to soldier on with Home.

Later . . .

Kevin likes to carry on working

1264 words last night.

Decided to get back into the habit of working on Home every night, after taking a week off following my success at NaNoWriMo. Whilst there's no longer the urgency of last month, I'd like to be able to write a couple of pages every night. The plan is, if you remember, to get the first draft finished by the end of January.

So my protag, fearing what might happen to him, but following his love interest's advice all the same, has turned himself into the police. So far that's all I've got. The interogation is yet to start, but the dialogue between him and another police officer is turning out well. I don't know how it happened, but I seem to have introduced a nice police character; it's almost as if I'm trying to make the other one (when he deems to turn up) seem even more like he neither believes nor cares about the protag's story. I don't know how well that will work out in the end, seems a bit cliched, although it was inadvertantly so.

This weekend? More work on Home; I want to reread the new ending of Curiosity that I rewrote about a month ago; tomorrow morning's going to be given to finishing my Christmas shopping, and getting a haircut; and tomorrow night I'm going out with a couple of girls from work. Should be fairly busy, which is nice for a change.

Later . . .

Kevin likes to look at sewers

My job just gets better and better. Yesterday was spent looking down manholes in Aylesbury.

Christmas truly has come early . . .

Kevin likes to gig alone

So, tickets are booked for Arch Enemy at the end of the month. Not bad. Because I'm having to travel by coach out of Victoria, it's working out cheaper for me as well.

Elydian doesn't want to go to see DT, so I looked at prices for London, Baby. £27 is the cheapest I've seen so far, and that's before I book transport. Have to think how badly I want to go see them (and of course remember it would have cost twice this if I'd had to travel to Manchester to see them).

Kevin likes to write his novel

NaNoWriMo, verdict:

All in all, I'm rather pleased, both with my effort during NaNoWriMo, and at the output. Before I started I didn't really know whether I could do it or not, and I'm glad that it proved relatively easy. I'm sure that if I'd had a more developed plot done before hand then I could have written a lot more than 51007 words. As it was a lot of time was spent thinking what I wanted to happen one or two scenes down the line and try and make sure that everyone was where they should be when it happened.

As far as output goes, it's fifty thousand words and it's not terrible. Sure, it's not the best stuff I've written, but I reckon that once it's finished and it's been put through the workshop and it's been revised a couple of times, I might actually have something that I can be proud of. Of course that's all in the future.

So, what next? Well, National Novel Editing Month is in March, so if I can get the first draft finished by then I might give that a crack. Ideally I want to have the thing finished by the end of January (one third took me a month, so I should be able to get it finished in three). I've also got to revise Curiosity, Thanks for Listening and Tymmy which have all been languishing since the last time I rewrote them. I should also really think about writing some new stuff, and I really want to get infinitewhite.net back online.

So, plenty to be doing.

Kevin likes to have a drink of an evening

Alcohol Free November, verdict:

It was easier than I thought, but I'm glad I can just have a pint, or a coffee, or a Coke, again should I want to. Not to soon, either. Shameful's moving back into the house at the end of the week, and we always seem to have beer in the house when he's there. Bring on Alcohol Fuelled December.

Later . . .

I'm the guy who sought asylum

Harmsway tells me that the hotel we're booked into is flooded, so me and Maffew proceed rain to our new one. The new one sounds grand -- The Wellington -- and outside first impressions seem to support this. It looks far too nice for us, and we wonder just what Harmsway has booked us into. Our worries are swept aside when we go in, however, and replaced with a whole new set of worries. The place is a dump. Maffew refers to it as an 'Asylum Seeker Hostel'. The receptionist doesn't seem to speak any English (this doesn't really surprise me, as we're in London). There are people sleeping in the lounge, curled up on the chairs like they're waiting for a coach late at night and the waiting room's heating has been turned off, there are broken panes in the stairwell windows, there is a radiator in the room that won't turn off. Only one of the toilet doors actually has a lock on it. It reminds me of my days in Halls of Residence at Uni, only instead of students prowling the corridors it's an army of foreigners, Maffew's asylum seekers.

We only pay £25 each a night, so we don't complain too loudly. All we really need is a place to crash at the end of the evening.

Harmsway, his girfriend and her friends are already out. We meet them in an Italian restaurant in China Town. Again, this place looks too posh for our type of people, so we walk down to the Golden Lion on the corner and have a pub lunch and watch the football.

Harmsway's girlfriend and her two friends are all French. Maffew speaks French. Harmsway and I are left standing around in bemusement whilst the other four talk away on the other side of the language barrier. It improves slightly when Dave arrives; now there are three of us looking confused. For myself, I can almost understand Maffew, as his speech is slower than the others. It doesn't help that I've not spoken the language in eight years and, despite my French teacher's insistence, the fact is that I don't believe I have ability at the language.

Harmsway's later revelation that I was to be set up with his girlfriend's mate (this after the girl has already left us) is a surprise. Harmsway is apologetic about it (really apologetic about it) and I tell him not to worry. I hadn't found the girl that attractive (and I'm sure that remark will come back to bite me in the arse), and . . .

. . . and it's just that French people don't get me. Some of it might just be the way I brutalise the Queen's English when I speak it, or the fact that my westcountry accent is a little thick, but the most popular expression on the faces of French people when I speak to them is that of utter and total confusion. My normal response to people I don't know is to crack jokes, to try and break the ice with humour, but the French just do not get my sense of humour. I was using some good material on Saturday (well good for me), but this girl spent the hour or so looking at me as though I was speaking backwards or something. The idea of being 'set up' with someone I can't even raise a smile in bewilders the hell out of me.

So anyway, we go for dinner at TGIF. Our waitress is a middle-aged woman under the mistaken impression that pig-tails make you look younger. She has that annoying TGIF attitude, taking your order and delivering your food in a manner that soon makes you think you're watching children's television. Maffew asks for the bill after our starter, and she brings us -- wait for it -- an empty chit. Hilarious. Now go and get us some more beer.

Tradition holds that we smoke cigars when we meet up, and sure enough Harmsway breaks them out in the last pub of the evening. We're still smoking them at chucking out time, and a tiny old homeless guy approaches us looking for a light. We spend the next ten minutes being riddled by this guy. Harmsway finally stumps the guy with a riddle he pinches from The Hobbit (I kid you not), and the homeless guy staggers off, looking for someone to buy him a can of beer.

Next morning, following a 'continental breakfast' (that's hotel speak for 'you're not paying enough for fried food') I decide to risk taking a shower. Only one of the showers has a shower head (the water dribbles despondently out of the other one), only one of the shower cubicles has a door. I choose the one with the shower head. If anyone really wants to see my naked arse whilst I'm showering, who am I to stop them?

I'm the guy who likes Welsh Rock, death metal, and prog

In about three weeks time I'm going, with my ex, to see the Stereophonics play Cardiff. It was thinking about this gig, and flicking through the pages of Metal Hammer, that I got to thinking that I don't get out to see live music often enough. So I've made a resolution.

I discovered yesterday that my latest favourite band -- Arch Enemy -- are playing some shows at the end of the month. I'm going to go, on my own if need be, over to London to catch them. I've done some research and it looks like I can get a coach back to Swin after the gig. Excellent.

Also, remembering that Dream Theater are coming to these shores next month, I've decided I'm going to make an effort to see them (for the fourth time). Just waiting to see if that'll be in Manc (by going up and visiting Elydian), or over in London (on me own again). Either way I'm going.

Later . . .

(Additional note: Have only just realised (whilst browsing AE's website) that Angela Gossow is quite fit, even if she is see through)