Well, good grief... It's been over three months since I last posted anything on here - clearly my life has become ever so hectic, or something - but I could hardly miss out on posting something today, as it's this blog's ninth birthday!
It's also, by sheerest coincidence, Back to the Future Day - the 'future' date that 'Doc' Emmett Brown brought young Marty McFly to in an effort to prevent a disaster involving his son in a film released in 1989 (or 1985, as it happened right at the end of the first film, technically). Cue all kinds of internet wackiness, and police forces all over the world tweeting warnings about travelling at 88mph, or hoverboard usage, or something to do with DeLorean cars...
...Even our histrionic Prime Minister got in on the act, with a feeble attempt at a joke about his counterpart in the Opposition going back to 1985 where his policies supposedly originate. Nice one, Dave: try to engage with 'geek culture' and show what a twat you are.
But I digress.
Honestly, lots has been happening over the last few months. So much, I can't possibly hope to mention most of it here because I'd like to get this done and go to bed, thank you very much. It is somewhat regretful that I haven't at least documented some of my telly viewings because, since my girlfriend moved in last year, we've had Netflix and Amazon Prime keeping us amused whenever regular television lets us down. Which is most nights.
After becoming addicted to Bridezillas while visiting her best friend in LA last year, my girlfriend and I have been... if not actually pleased or happy, then at least gratified to see it turn up in ITVbe's schedule recently, and one of my colleagues introduced me the the festival of schadenfreude that is Channel 4's First Dates. Then there's the recent return of Doctor Who, of course. Meanwhile, on Netflix, we regularly watch Fringe, amongst other things, and the likes of Castle and Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries on Amazon.
I've even been somewhat successful in getting my girlfriend to give a damn about TransFormers through Beast Wars and TransFormers Prime on DVD, and her interest was piqued by Weird Al Yankovic's voicework on TransFormers Animated.
Speaking of the inimitable Mr Yankovic, we attended his recent concert at the Hammersmith Apollo (I make no apologies for using its old name, since Hammersmith station has two signs directing people to the Apollo, both of which feature different names, neither of them the current one!) followed within a week by the Barenaked Ladies performance at the club inside the O2 dome.
But before all of that, we had a week(ish) in Chicago, where we did lots of cool stuff, saw lots of cool things, ate lots of amazing food (well, not so much me, as I had food poisoning for the first half of the holiday) and generally had a grand old time on our first 'flying solo' holiday together - staying in a hotel rather than with friends or family, and finding our own way everywhere via public transport. Which was fantastic, I must say - very similar to London, with their Ventra cards and halfway decent buses and trains. Since my first 'proper' international holiday about 20 years ago, I've visited quite a few bits of the States - places like New York, Washington, New Orleans, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles (a couple of times) and Florida - but nowhere so far has felt quite as familiar and comfortable as Chicago. I've described New York in the past as being "like London on a bad day, populated by 9 million of the world's most impatient people", but Chicago was more like London on a good day, and populated by some surprisingly friendly and open people. Not least, the day we arrived, having got confused over how to get to the hotel (the bus we thought we were taking only runs during the week, and we arrived on Saturday), a lady on the bus we ended up on, who interrupted her phone call just to ask if we knew where we were going, where we'd need to get off, etc. and then offered advice on some of the sights to see.
So, basically, it's a case of having way too much to write about, and not enough time to write it in.
Weirdly, though, I have decided to start another blog on another subject... It shouldn't require much input from me as it's on a very specific subject. At least, that's what I'm telling myself...
In other news, work has been pretty crazy in all kinds of ways I probably shouldn't write about (yet). It's just getting to the almost slack period in the monthly cycle before it all goes nuts for Christmas and the New Year... but it should all be OK. And who knows what the New Year will bring? I have a few ideas, at least...
I'll try to get back to this blog before then. Honest.
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