thursday 31st may teeth into onedotzero. wednesday 30th may curve's new www-release-only album arrived. nice. whilst listening to backwards glance i was thinking how they haven't been spoilt by time, or progress, or - probably - wealth or other miscellany. more of the same and always welcome. in the mornings before leaving i always scan my wooden box (one of my many wooden boxes - i have a it of a thing about them you know -) of minidiscs for the day's soundtrack. predicting what kind of mood you'll be in is always difficult. most bands usually evolve and change over time which forces the decision to be narrowed to 'early' or 'recent' albums in order to define your mood, but not curve. my decisions are more concerned with which album i've heard less recently as they all sound as fresh as each other. custard boy leaving drinks on the roof tonight. tuesday 29th may with absent colleagues back from far away places i was shocked when realising how much i miss people and (this is the scary bit) routine. work is now back to normal and things are getting built. things are getting thought up. things are getting coloured in. things are moving forward. monday 28th may a day, a cat, a park: muswell hill, being an honorary girl. apple and mango, driving. girly throws, the disgusting man, burning people, handstands, sentences of the day, equations. sun. calm, warm. and approval. good, then. sunday 27th may hampstead heath with the now legendary doughnut / jam incident, a crisp packet explosion. unfindable cars and absolutely no tickling. skies unfettered by the breeze and three swooping plane slipstreams carving out a huge letter 'h'. saturday 26th may it hit me with such impact. the smallest, most familiar action. a girl - around 8 years old - standing on a motorway bridge with her back to us as we approach. as we get nearer and nearer i'm watching her. she turns round swiftly, looking down and happily waves her right hand. there were a stack of cars on the road. she waved at ours. "woah..." i exclaim, "that was a qr moment." tracey: "what was?" it did happen. i saw it. clubber-dood walking back to his clubber-gang stuffed minivan: "hey, man! homelands?" "er... yeah." i reply, not realising what had happened. do i look like a clubber? hmm. after that, i took a picture of this enormous pole above us. it's big: friday 25th may welsh wedding day and i couldn't spot an ogmore by sea sign anywhere along the m4. it must be small. the ma boys back together and it's definitely been too long. nice to talk to ainsley properly, great to see matt and susan so happy and so together, plus getting brad back into my life. hey, guys, it's been too long, and matt - london. soon. in scenery like this you can't help wondering about london. travel definitely makes me see the alternatives. whether this is a good thing for me i'm not sure. either way, a day to remember. nice one, smatt. hang on - you're right! it is starting already. thursday 24th may '...i wrote this novel just for you. it sounds pretentious, but it's true.' cool things that are going on at the moment: - the crystal method are making their next album, due out this summer. if it's half as good as the last it's a treat. - jonny's site, consisting of lots of cool stuff. - the weather. just because. - an extremely handy route planner for cross-country weddings (one of which i am off to tomorrow). - stuff about orbital. (funny break is too catchy.) - funkstar deluxe's new york diary. watch someone become a rock star in front of your browser. - icon madness. - text messaging. sad but true. - strawberry milk and sennheisers. wednesday 23rd may not a cloud in the sky and still head down. today stopforaminute part two is now almost finished. with intellinav and cross-level variable swapping i have to say i'm quite proud of it. you can see it (before you should be able to) here. in return tell me what you think of it. it's a fair deal. i wish i had a cool name. like ethan hunt; sophisticated and daring. and i still think mission impossible is a good old story. tuesday 22nd may plant spotting and sunshine, corkscrews and carbonara. monday 21st may heading home from a funky-less funky's place, warm from tracey's infectious laughter and the stupidness of myself in their barbados wedding video, i was trying to bump little blue car's back wheels about a bit more. i was just playing. mind you, what's stranger is that i've sat here for five minutes trying to decide the best opening word for this paragraph. and only come up with 'heading'. time for bed. 17:44:47: ... i'm not helping your concentration much am i? sunday 20th may ...today: blue bath robe, grey jumper and that t-shirt again plus one left for me that smells better than before. don't forget: small words over the table in the dome, le jazz beat and those clusters of quiet, calm moments. like when you hear sound with your eyes. do you ever get that? saturday 19th may maybe something about shadows, mirrors, tertiary images and reflections. maybe the circumference of a memory, or a piece of music that slows time. maybe that space between reminiscence and tomorrow. maybe just mentioning things instead of describing them. either way, not overthinking things. and relaxing. ...until a whirlwind appears and an earthquake begins. a good earthquake. a breathless whirlwind. which leads me gasping, wide-eyededly but very comfortably onto.. friday 18th may man, you should see how high i'm bouncing today, despite an utter lack of sleep. 3 conversations across various media: opening line from steve today: "mr. mark? a word in my office, please..." (meaning come outside onto the roof and give me all the gossip - sometimes he's like an old woman in the post office you know.) text message received: "doo doo doo doo. in case you're confused, that was supposed to be the twighlight zone tune." text message sent: "you can't see but i'm wiggling my eyelashes like a madman right now. jesus i'm bored!" thursday 17th may still deciding what to tell you and what not to. delays to be expected; this may take some time. in the meanwhile there's this: "this is where we should write something soon... markie is gonna be at the helm for uploading the diary text so everyone say 'thank-you markie' right now, can I get an amen?" and rolling the religious theme over to the evening we have this, which i wanted to put up on the entrance page but thought it would freak some people out. so i decided to freak them out here instead. and i love that t-shirt. wednesday 16th may today the clouds over london are ambiguous. they kind of move both ways - happy and summer-looking in with their little swirling child-like fluffiness and peak-a-boo blue spy-holes and at the same time deadly with sinister dark patches and an obvious willingness to drop tons of water over us all. still, it makes a moody photo i suppose. (don't clouds always?) turned out it the clouds were metaphorical after all - i don't know whether to blame bill gates and the coders of ie5, macromedia for flash anomalies or myself for trying to do more than i probably could. either way, blame or no blame, i have to go deep inside my code again which means a harder day tomorrow than today was. plus, of course, wednesday number three out of three is thursday, although close but floored again by brad being busy. not a problem, just another could-have been. car tension and bridget jones only kept my mind occupied for it's duration less ten minutes. some days i guess it's not meant to go right. the clouds rained all over us. but at least i found out there is one person i can depend on. maybe bad days just highlight what's good and what is important. i think it just hits another part. i'm thinking of what my mum would say. she'd say, 'you've got your health and that's a lot more than a lot of others have'. true, and tomorrow's thursday. thanks, steve. tuesday 15th may these have been rattling around the inside of my head for about a week now. i keep hearing them and don't quite know why. it's a funny world. al: "so right. okay, if you took an elephant and a missile and put the missile inside the elephant and then blew it up - now that's got to make a right mess!" "i'm sorry but i've got shit on my shoes and you're a shoe-shining boy" then, later, almost unconscious due to drink: "you've got shit shoes you shitty-shoe bastard" i'm laughing, but i've not actually even seen it. and it's getting funnier.aah. last thought of the day - whilst lying in bed just about to fall asleep: i'm not eating enough bananas. monday 14th may email received from tom h: "more... friends, sun, beer, music, girls, visions, greenness, g-strings, vodka, compassion, more friends, more beer, consciousness, minidisks, more sun, more visions, more music, more compassion, more photography, more opportunities to offer oneself for work experience? more camber sands, more nad c320's, more fun..." i never knew that 'keeping ahead of the game' was an industry term. god i hate mediaspeak. stuff like 'swing by', 'hook up', 'do lunch', 'network' ew ew eeeew. what's wrong with proper words? does codifying these make you more 'in the loop'? well if it does, count me out. sunday 13th may feta, olives and a phone call that made me feel more like... me. hoofing the footie with 'could i be more of a trendy designer?' peejay. the referent of cool, methinks. perplexed b-sides and the decision to be less worried. faith, my friend, is something you do have. curve can make me feel better. even if i'm already totally fine. saturday 12th may tired, tired, tired and grumpy grumpy. not as grumpy as tired then and with the sun on the king's road and the sunroof down things are by no means bad. happy birthday, dad. have any destination decisions been made? friday 11th may email received from funkstar today: "ah, words of inspiration from two star-crossed lovers. sounds beautiful my friend and i hope that you walk a long road together. the sights and smells of a relationship in its infancy are more vivid than anything you remember." all my friends know me. i mean, really know me. sometimes random attitudes are put back inline when you don't want them to - sometimes you want to feel different to see what it feels like. yet sometimes others speak for me, and say more than i ever could, augmenting my mood. i wouldn't change a thing. i am blessed. i am still bouncing. some jobs never seem to end. a week ago i thought the sony video had gone but it is still around today and until very late this evening. working late shows you care, and i do, but working late when you're exhausted shows dedication. i think. oh, and we are playing gt3 on the ps2 debugging machine in our lounge tonight. the realisation that this game is sony's flagship title and won't be released here for another two months makes us just so cool. well, in my book anyway. if only we could afford that viper... thursday 10th may i didn't take my phone to work today, which is usually a benefit to my sanity, as i left it charging ready to take in today then forgot. not so sanity-saving today. i got home after much larks with ade, tom and tom - excellent to see you again, guys - plus a pint-a-lap trip to the dogs - which, incidentally, found ann taking a photo-of-the-month (above) shot of philip and i - to find 'no messages'. boo. i sat down, tired and half drunk (hmm) and beep beep incoming message. *smile* these days are too good, too warm and too... aah... you know. < contended sigh > wednesday 9th may on the way to the studio this morning i took a different route - walking instead of driving often throws up new possibilities so i cut through rivington street making a beeline for the bean and the latte waiting finding two more graffiti things. the first i couldn't really understand and the second took a while to get the light just right. concentrating on f-stops and bracketing i didn't see the crowd approaching from the other end of the street. i finished snapping, turned and walked off. on turning round, i saw the crowd slow down past where i had crouched down looking at the wall, inquisitive over what i was looking at. a few looked back at me, blank faced and puzzled. i smiled as i ordered coffee. the invitation to nottingham trent's show in london arrived today with a nice little verse inside. if you're designerspeak-friendly then you may find it amusing. i did. our father who art an apple adobe be thy name thy projector shall run when thy lingo is done on mac as it is on pc give us this day our double page spread and forgive us our pantones as we forgive those who work in the printers and lead us not into infringements but deliver us from arial for thine is the grid the column and the gutter for ever and ever for the jobs we are about to receive may the money make us truly thankful plus this is big wednesday number 2, two in a row. more laughter, drinks, nerves and, amazingly, quiet sighs. this is more than all good. tube train gates closing whilst 'looking away', plus feet on the sofa. in trainers. today i had the warmest hug of my life. tuesday 8th may visiting the saatchi building was an experience with its immaculate frontage, minimal leather and concrete interior. phil's observation was spot on when he noticed 'it's like i'm in the matrix'. and shooting it into a zillion pieces would be fun i imagine. what i noticed on the doorstep, laid in concrete was something that made me think about money: 'strange to find the calendar my enemy and scared that when i die so will the things i think about' taken from here. i haven't heard the song today but i keep singing it. makes a change from all that orbital, spooks, coldplay and rae and christian. and steve's calling again. hang on... sunday 6th may after washing, wiping, hoovering and dusting the car i felt like a drive. i found this on my travels: saturday 5th may the a40 towards london at 90 after a relatively calm but unexperimental 2 hours boarding. looks like we could be ready for milton keynes next time... friday 4th may luke turned up today, out of the blue, from new york city. it was just so cool to see him again after all these years, all grown up and chilled out. and it took him all of half a second to mention his girlfriend. he's so proud! here we are, stargazing on the roof. hey, luke, the future's full of good things i want to hear all about them, so stay in touch, okay? the old school very much lives as tanja, lisa, kari (cool name), kate, mum and i shared a meal in the restaurant opposite work that, incidentally, lisa runs. could i be more shoredtich? oh yes. not even mentioning peejay's leaving drinks! and it was a beautiful sentence by jen: 'there's my family and my extended family: stu, lou and you..." what can i say? i mean, look at the photo - how happy am i? oh, yeah, and the saatchi's rang us today. thursday 3rd may blinking the hangover away, i'm still reeling from last night. i think i'm in shock, but it's got this floaty feeling. still warm. with a big day pixel-shaving and electron-splicing on the playstation 2 showreel editing i keep thinking it's friday. which is an arse because that means wednesday is one day more away. ah well, as funky said, 'softly softly catcheee monkeee.' and we even laughed about that, too. still bouncing. wednesday 2nd may nerves, dinner, drinks and head-back laughter. so much in common, even the nerves. and in exactly the same way. if you remember this entry, then you'll know why. and the next part of the story is that she is everything i just re-read. i think a week is not long in far-away contentedness. i feel warm. i bounce. tuesday 1st may sony, playstation 2, e4 in la, linked to me how you wonder? we're making their video. now this is why i work where i do.