… for this interruption in service.

[I am publishing this without proof reading. A first for me. Go easy on any mistakes I may have made.]

I made a promise at the start of the year that I would stick to a schedule. It was my New Year’s resolution!

And I lasted until the middle of November! For today, I have finally failed.

But in my defence, I haven’t slept. Not in 4 days. Last night we were in this big, plastic semi-permanent marquee thing (sorry, the words don’t come as easily at the moment). It sounded like a better idea than under my computer desk.

It wasn’t.

There were these huge air-conditioning units that hung from the rafters, and every time the wind blew, the plastic top-sheet would bounce up and down, bouncing the A/C units against the rafters. Cue vast, booming, oh-my-God-the-roof-is-falling noises.

Then there was the train. Newbury is right on a train station. Freight trains thundered past every hour. Through the plastic walls of the marquee it felt like they were less than 30 meters away.

Ah, and the drunk and noisy nerds. Screaming and snoring, bellowing and belching until the sun came up. And the floor was raised, so as people traipsed across it to their sleeping bags the whole room would shudder, and with my head to the ground I felt like a rabbit, predicting some kind of earthquake.

There were cars going by behind my head too. But they were small-fry compared to the trains and bouncing-AC-units-of-doom.

Anyway… the LAN ends in a few hours and I’ll be able to head home.

In the mean time, go and enjoy mine and Abi’s ‘12 of 52‘ — her, and her pretty pink (coral) lips. Me and my… serious gamer.

[Lots of pretty photos if you scroll down. If you fancy some ranting on photography, read on...!]

As I write this it’s 4am… so, again, excuse any mistakes I might make. I feel fairly coherent, but it’s just the silence before the storm. The sleep deprivation will catch up with me in a moment and I’ll start jibber-jabbering about useless bollocks. Oh, I might start writing chiefly in British-English too, but that won’t be a problem, a’ight? It actually takes quite conscious effort to write in universal English that everyone can understand! I don’t think I’ve written ‘bloody’ even once in the last year of blogging — that’s how dedicated I am to making my blog accessible…!

The photos this week come from the last four days — I was at a LAN party, if you didn’t already know. I had a go at photo journalism. Or simply ‘people photography’ I guess.

I’ll just come out and say it: I find it so, so hard for me to point a camera at someone. Perhaps because I hate people pointing cameras at me, and I’m a deeply sympathetic person. I’m quiet, because I hate noisy people. I don’t waste other people’s time, because I hate it when people waste mine.

So… to circumvent this… I usually try to ‘work my way into’ someone’s presence. If I want to take a photo of someone, I’ll simply hang out with them for a while. And then slowly… I’ll just fade into the background. Once people are comfortable with my presence it’s much easier to take photos. This can take some work, as I’m rather foreboding — I am very much a ‘foreground’ person, as opposed to the background-occupying grey-clothing types. It’s not through choice either. I’m just 6′5″ (197cm!!), hairy and stick out like a sore thumb.

There’s probably some ‘knack’ to taking photos of people. Getting people comfortable with you pointing a camera at them must be a large part of the trick. Me being comfortable at doing the pointing is probably the other major factor… but hey, I’ll get there. I just need to take more photos of people! Easy!

These photos should give you a rough idea of what a LAN party’s like. They tell a story, I guess.

I have some other ‘bonus’ photos (of me!!) that I will throw up later today, as I want to keep this post purely LAN-oriented.

Now time to rest the ol’ noggin so that I can write legibly tomorrow…

Love ‘n bubbles, dunked and dolloped,
-S

P.S. You can hover your mouse over each photo for my notes/observations.

(Is that a boy or girl? I am still undecided…)

I do hope that suffixing things with ‘gasm’ doesn’t become my catchphrase. I can just see it now… thirty years in the future, sitting on a couch, doing an interview for some crappy daytime TV show… ‘Go on, say it.’ — ‘But I’m here to drum up interest for-’ – ‘Say it! We’re not here to hear about your new book!’ — ‘OK OK… gasm. Gasm, gasm, gasm. There, I said it.’

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

I wonder what kind of phrases/quotes will be remembered when I die. I wonder if I’ve already said my greatest words of wisdom (what a sad thought…) The phrases you find online, one spoken or written by influential and important people, were they great at the time? Will something I’ve written in the past year come back in 50 years, without context, and sound far more pertinent or awesome than I ever intended?

I’m ranting, sorry. My eyes hurt because I’ve been either under or oversleeping — why do my eyes hurt when I oversleep? God knows. Also, my eyesight is failing again which means I need to get new lenses. I wish I knew for sure if this was just genetic (both my parents have poor eyesight) or if it’s the continued, excessive computer-use. Or maybe it’s both. How bad can it get…? I’m only -4 at the moment, and apparently I shouldn’t worry until I’m at -8 or so… but still…

This week’s photos come from New Year’s Eve. Just a few minutes before New Year’s Day actually. It’s been incredibly cold for the last couple of weeks and conditions haven’t been great for photography (and I’ve been sleeping at odd hours, which doesn’t help).  I think I alluded to a previous love of low-light photography — it was basically all I did at college, when I first started taking photos.

I’ve been out the last few nights trying to take some more photos, but so far nothing else has worked. It’s pretty hit and miss, pointing your camera at puddles (like yesterday’s 52), or into misty windows. If there’s any kind of photography that actually lies, it’s photos of night-time or low-light scenes. Photography is all about drawing with light (literally), so when there is no light it’s no surprise that the results are a little weird.

As always, you can hover over photos for my notes. Not much this week, but with Christmas and New Year celebrations, I think you can forgive me. I’m going to try and do some more night-time photography in the next few days, while the moon is still quite full.

(This actually looks really cool when cropped to just the end of the road… there’s some fogginess and some nice light… but I’m showing you the whole thing because of the MOON! There’s a couple of stars in there too, if you look closely…)

(This week’s 52 wasn’t a crop of this — they are different photos, from different angles. I love the light in the puddle in this version though!)

* * *

And we’re done for another week! The last photo was actually going to be this week’s ‘19 of 52′, but I went with the ‘puddle of ink’ at the last moment. I still haven’t got my driving license… did you know that? I really should get it this year…

For the last few months I’ve been trying to troubleshoot my sleeping problems. Looking through the archives, it seems I first reported trouble sleeping over a year ago — yikes! — and then a few months ago I alluded to some continuing issues. I think things have been improving, but I’ll be damned if I can attribute that to any one change! I’ve been exercising regularly (cycling for a few miles every day), and of course I’ve travelled quite a lot this year which has given my mind the SPACE it needs. It’s amazing: the moment I leave my room (which is usually only when I travel), my composure completely changes. I don’t think I’m particularly highly-strung at the worst of times, but when I travel I’m positively mellow.

So, anyway, the bedding! First I got a fancy 400-thread Egyptian cotton bed sheet and a nice protector to go under it. That didn’t help much (though it does feel really good to slide up and down against), so I got new pillows and covers. They helped a bit. Then earlier this week my newest (and most expensive, eep!) purchases arrived: a Hungarian goose down duvet, and a 400-thread Egyptian cotton duvet cover. Today I spent a few minutes re-making my bed — and as you can see from the creases, I am yet to lay on it! I’m looking forward to tonight, that’s for sure.

You’re all invited to come and try out my new bedding, incidentally! Come! There’s plenty of space.

* * *

In other news, it looks like I’ll be in San Francisco in the middle of September. Microsoft is flying me out there for a software launch event! From what I can tell, official business will only last for a day, which means I should be able to spend a few days exploring San Francisco. Do any Angelenos want to come up and see me?! I doubt I’ll make it down to LA unless I can squeeze a whole week out of the trip.

* * *

Photography-wise, I’m glad to say that my exhibition of photos from the Faroe Islands went well. I also sold a few photos from Norway! At last!

I updated my Montenegro gallery, so you can now buy those too. The gallery on this site is actually the most complete collection — Flickr is still missing a few, which I will update in the next few days.

I think that’s all for now…!