HOW'S YOUR GEOGRAPHY?

Mine's a bit more crap than it should be Check this out:

TOTALLY CREAM CRACKERED

The last few weeks have been pretty huge. I started a new job at the beginning of March - it's for the same company I temped with for a few months last year so it's been really good coming back into a familiar environment. The people there are great, many of them completely bonkers, so I fit in quite well. The company is an employers' association and I'm back with the Business Development team as a project manager. Last year I was on the sponsorship side of things, which I didn't enjoy much at all, but now I'm involved with longer-term strategic alliances. So for example I'm project-managing a £25,000 feasibility study on whether we should start up our own insurance company to cover Employment Tribunal prosecutions of our members. Insurance is quite boring, but this project is exciting. Really, I'm not just telling myself that!

And because I live in London and I'm me, I've also been partying. A lot. Given that it's 10pm on a Sunday and I'm still feeling queasy from last night's adventures (which didn't end until 5.30 this morning), I would suggest that I may have been partying a little too much. One of the best parties I've been to for a long long time was my friend's 30th birthday costume party. The theme was Punks and Pirates, but another mate desperately wanted to dress up as a Stormtrooper so it became Punks and Pirates and Steve the Stormtrooper. Steve's costume was awesome. The mask was bought from a costume shop but the entire rest of his outfit was made from polystyrene and that plastic packing material that Ikea furniture comes wrapped in (in the photo it's the stuff covering his head and neck). He made it all himself and looked amazing.

The next week was the highly-anticipated (by me at least) Jonathan Coulton concert which was just as good as I had hoped. Except that he didn't play Mr Fancy-Pants. I had way too much horrible pink wine and got so toasted that I went up to him afterwards and berated him for not playing the song. I also remember telling him that "a dingo ate my baby". That wine was evil. I felt very, very ill the next day but still managed to catch a bus down to Bournemouth to visit a friend for the Easter long weekend.

The photo disguises the fact that we were exposed to bone-chilling temperatures, arctic winds, hail and sleet. Seriously. It's the first time I've been hailed on while walking along the beach. It was a fantastic weekend though. Most of the time was spent indoors eating, drinking and being merry. Very merry. I don't want my blog to give the impression that I drink all the time, but the fact is I do drink all the time. Not in an alcoholic kind of a way, more like in a "that's just what you do here" kind of way. I'm thinking of having a detox month in May, just to let my liver know I care.

So that was last weekend, my adventures last night centred around the disco party boat I mentioned in my post on 1st of April last year. Last year I crashed this girl's birthday party (she was the wife of a friend of a friend who I had never met), but in the intervening 12 months I've not only become friends with her myself, but also temped at her company and therefore met a lot of the hunky Polish blokes that she employs. So last year's boat full of muscly strangers became this year's boat full of muscly acquaintances. It was a good night. Despite managing to avoid every one of the tequila shots being passed around all evening, I still woke up this morning a bit worse for wear.

So no wonder I'm feeling knackered (or "cream crackered" as they say here). My vow is to be a little more civilised this coming weekend, and to actually post a blog that doesn't involve me complaining about a hangover. I just don't think a post about the joys of finding a pair of shoes I don't hate or the annoyance provoked by an unclean microwave would make for interesting reading. Maybe I should let you be the judge.

MR FANCY PANTS

I'm a little bereft of inspiration today. I'll write in the next few days, but to keep you entertained at present, I've included below a couple of Jonathan Coulton clips to edu-ma-cate those of you I've convinced to come along and see him on 20 March in Camden. The song is called Mr Fancy Pants and is performed live in the first clip by a very wobbly and enthusiastic fan, and transposed for the ukelele in the second clip. The ukelele chick is really cool, I hope you like them :)

JOCO IN LONDON!

Mr Code Monkey is coming to London! It's sooo cool. I know some of you have (unfortunately) been within earshot when I've decided to belt out one of Jonathan Coulton's songs whilst sitting in the pub or walking down the street, but now you'll have the chance to go along and hear someone who actually has talent perform them. For those of you who I haven't yet converted with my fervent speeches and cleverly sequenced selection of YouTube clips, you can find out who the hell I'm talking about by visiting http://www.jonathancoulton.com or searching his name in YouTube.

Basically he was a computer geek who decided to chuck in his programmer job and make music fulltime. He started off with a podcast called "Thing A Week" where he released a new song every week for a year. It's very cool stuff, more similar to Flight of the Conchords than the Foo Fighters, so I'm guessing we're unlikely to need covered shoes, earplugs and first aid supplies for moshpit injuries. Jonathan Coulton (JoCo) releases his songs under a Creative Commons license which means we common folk can use his music to make video clips or whatever as long as he's referenced. And now many, many geeky-type people (who unlike me are very likely to know the difference between a megabyte and a megapixel) have made video clips to his music using World of Warcraft, Sims 2 or just by making a knob of themselves on a webcam.

It seems it's not 100% confirmed as yet, but it's very likely he'll be flying over from the USA to play at Dingwalls in Camden on 20 March. Hooray! That's the night before Good Friday so I'll be harassing people individually to make sure they're still in town and keen to come along. I knew there was a reason I kept forgetting to book my bus down to Bournemouth for the Easter weekend :)

I've included below a clip of a girl playing Tom Cruise Crazy on a ukelele for your viewing and listening pleasure. I posted my favourite Code Monkey video on this blog last November so you should also click on that in the archives. I'm very excited, I already have four people who I'm going to drag along with me but I'm counting on the programmer buddy who first inducted me into the Cult of JoCo to boost up numbers further. Come along, you'll love it, hooray!

Ninja Edit: I just noticed I have the Code Monkey clip on the sidebar here as well under the Play With Me section. Give it a whirl, is geeky goodness :-)