I must: XMUST!

Well, apparently it's Christmas in a few hours. But I'm old so I wouldn't really appreciate that. I kept thinking that Christmas was getting less and less magical and more and more commercial, but in reality I guess that's just a reflection of my life that I'm blaming on the poor innocent bystander of Xmas. Or Xmust as I've been calling it for the last few years with no reason whatsoever.

My good friend Simon came visiting for a long weekend and, whilst I repeatedly warned him about the cavelike conditions in my abode he'd presumed I was over-exaggerating, as I usually do, and was somewhat surprised when he had 'the worst nights sleep of my life'. The funniest thing (for me) was walking into a spare bedroom to see him sleeping, fully clothed, complete with thermals, big jacket and a wacky hat I'd bought from a street market a few days ago.

The funny thing being that the rim of the hat was obviously made for small dogs or babies or something as it was so tight it had dug into his skull over night and left a half centimetre indentation all around his forehead like a lobotomy conducted with a butter knife. I have a photo but it would be too cruel to post it.

I then got ill for a few days. Luckily I'd finally got my internet installed, accompanied by a load of crappy free cable tv channels. So at least I could watch Jason and the Argonauts in Spanish while I lay around coughing up bits of slime.

Got a Ryan Air flight back to Stanstead for 90 euros which all went pretty smoothly, despite being staffed by children who kept swapping clothes throughout the journey, which they seemed to find immensely funny. Arrived and was told that I needed a credit card to hire the car I'd booked, which I don't have as I hate the concept of spending money that isn't mine. So had a mini panic and then got a coach with all the Polish people.

I don’t really have much to say because I’m still ill and tired, but Happy Christmas and etc. I’ll try to make more effort from now on. Been a bit lazy recently.

R

A word to the wise

Just a quick one.

Thought I'd share this wonderful bit of PR work on behalf of humanity. Just in case you need reminding about it... someone thought it would be a good idea to, you know, put it out there... in case you'd forgotten about it.

Just a heads up.

R

People like big food

I write this in a state of slight fear. For behind me there is a carcass.

Yesterday I went to the Christmas party. A rather strange evening which terminated with a mass panic as the crazed mob descended on the large arrangement of boxes at the back of the room. It was a really funny scene actually as all these people walk out of the building carrying boxes that look like those voilin cases that gangsters apparently carry around. Ours didn't contain guns, but large animal limbs. Why on earth gangsters hide guns in vionlin cases I really don't know, it's not exactly very consistant with their image. But I'm kind of jumping ahead of myself really, but I only mention it now because the scary thing is sat behind me right now and I'm not exactly sure what I'm to do with the heavy bastard. Am I supposed to carry it home on my bike? It weighs an absolute tonne.

Actually, I was going to write a massive report about it all, but I can't really be arsed to be honest. I've had to walk all the way out to work to pick up my bike (and use the internet as my laptop is broken still) and I'm now starving. I was going to say 'I don't have any food at home as well'... but I guess I can always gnaw on my pig leg.

But briefly... the party was 'interesting'. I think a lot of people weren't really 'into it' for various reasons. It was really cold and was in this strange derelict building with a distinct 'industrial' vibe with bare walls and concrete slabs everywhere... not exactly the personification of Christmas. But there was a tree that I ignored all evening. The paella was, as I'd be informed beforehand, large. Very large. We were debating the logistics of transporting the slab of metal they cooked it on. 'Strap it to the roof of a car' was the agreed upon method. The musical duo were moderately hilarious being two guys in white suits like I used to wear as a joke singing songs from before I was born. There was a lot of spinning going on on that stage, most of which was unnecesary. Work gave out 10 trips on a cruise to lucky employees, I was just thankful not to get one given how (allegedly) everyone from the parent company hates the game development people, probably because they do 'real' work like lifting things and stuff like that. Went to a house party after the xmust party and had a wicked time. I think. You can never be sure with these things as I'm always so wasted at house parties I never know what's going on. But I met some nice people and laughed a lot, as usual.

Had a weird revelation on the bloody pleasant walk in today. I was walking through a neighbourhood and read a sign... didn't think anything of it and moved on. After a few scuffled steps I realised that I'd just read spanish and hadn't even thought about it. How odd. So I tried it again, saw another sign, 'only for use by the fire department', brilliant. And another. And another. I stopped in the street and shouted "HOLY SHIT, I CAN SPEAK SPANISH!". It was a bit like the infamous 'I know kung-fu' line from The Matrix but with Keanu Reaves replaced with me and with a spaceship replaced with an uninteresting spanish backstreet. To be honest though, and that's not to say that I'm rarely honest, I think it was a massive overexaggeration to say 'I can speak spanish'. But I can certainly read a lot now and as I found last night, I can kind of get my point across now, even if it be on a much unusal manner in doing it. If you get me.

I keep seeing this ice cream truck drive past with this horrible advert of it of a woman idolising an ice cream. I don't know who holds a corenetto like that, but I think this woman likes her ice cream a bit too much. To make matters worse she bares a striking resemblance to Micheal Jackson. Be warned kids.

Can't remember what else has been going 'down' so I'll leave it there and lug my machine gun back to my abode.

Adios

R


Here's some photo randomness:

Cat head

I'm still recovering from jet lag at the moment so apologies for being a bit dopey.

If I write that does it sound like I'm sort of eighties 'go getter'? Because the reality is that I was working until 6am on Sunday like a massive loser and am still recovering. It's not exactly rock and roll, and I certainly didn't 'get' any 'go'... but it's nice to be in the excite-zone again. I'm not sure exactly how much I'm allowed to divulge on a public page, but I had a lot of sound design work to do for a project that's after a rather substantial amount of money... so it had to sound pretty good. And the big Lord Of The Rings rip-off style monster sounded pretty fucking impressive given the amount of time I had to work on it.

But I wont bore you with those details. I WILL bore you with the fact that it's our Christmas party on Saturday, where they're apparently cooking a massive paella (it's like pi-ella but pronounced correctly) and giving us all lots of presents. Apparently, amoungst other things, I get this masssive dry-cured pig's leg that's literally the size of a pig. Well... a pig's fat leg. But you get the idea. According to the legends it takes about forty minutes to shave off a poxy piece of meat, it comes covered in a green/blue mould and costs an absolute fortune. I think I would just prefer the money... but maybe I should wait until I see the multicoloured slab of carcass in all it's mouldy glory.

In response to the weekend, as a goodwill gesture, we get a couple of days off this week, and in addition to the random national holiday on Thursday that means I get to spend the rest of the week shopping in Palma for all the crap I should have bought months ago. Lovely.

Someone tried to headhunt me the other day. In the 'TAKE OUR JOB' way, not the 'attempted murder' way. I told them to bugger off, but it's nice to feel wanted. I've been waiting years for that to happen.

The weather's been beautiful the last few days. I went out at about nine this evening and it was still warm, no need for a jacket or anything. Although, for some reason I think it's actually COLDER in my stupid flat than it is outside. This place is seriously turning into a cave. Adding 'heater' to my nonexistant shopping list...

So in the unlikely event that anyone I know is actually READING this thing, I am coming back to the UK for nearly two weeks over Xmust and New Years Weave. I imagine I'll be heading to Bournemouth, London and Leamington for a 'shed-ule' consisting of family, friends and partying... with any luck.

I saw a cat with so much fur on it the other day that I actually stood there and laughed at it for a good while. Maybe I'm just secretly jelous though. If I can catch the furry little bastard (and I imagine it'll be pretty easy as it must weigh a tonne) I'd like to shave it's hair off and superglue it to my head. The hair, not the cat. I miss my hair. Especially out here where the only people that have hair like me are the English chavs that pass through Palma on their way to Magaluf for a spot of puking and fighting. Thankfully the city is totally devoid of tourists now. I'm looking forward to the summer when I can start scowling at the holiday makers like the rest of the locals, it makes you feel important without actually doing anything.

I really should post some photos as I haven't in a while... but the only photo I've taken in a while is of my friend wearing her moderately hilarious airport uniform... and you don't want to see that.

So I'm going to bed.

R

It's my birthday and I'll ignore if i want to

It was my birthday yesterday. I always find them deeply depressing for some reason. And not for what you're thinking... I don't care about getting older. I mean, it's not as if you didn't KNOW age was going to happen, you were walking down the street minding your own business and BAM, 'age' smacks you round the chops and you're a pensioner. To me, the passage of time has always gone quite slowly and I always try to remind myself that I'm a year old than I actually am. Therefore it's quite a relief when i realise on my birthday that I've just turned the age I thought I already was.

Wow, what a load of nonsense THAT paragraph was. Anywho, yeah, there's just something a bit 'murr' about the whole birthday thing. I think it's because it's a natural time for reflection and therefore pining over things that are not the same or around at all. I found it harder this year as I hadn't told anyone in Palma and so I was sent a load of messages and emails from friends back home but no-one here even mentioned it... But I'm glad it's over now and I can concentrate on the TOTAL SLOG that is 'work' at the moment. I've just got in and it's 11PM... and I felt guilty for leaving 'early' whilst others stayed on (I was just hanging around really). I've got to go in for the whole weekend too. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence when a company gets itself in a position where everyone has to work massive amounts of overtime (it's completely self-inflicted)... but that's a topic for a different blog I think (where I moan about the nature of the games industry).

Anyway, I just thought I'd write something on here about a report that's been done saying that Palma is one of the safest cities in the whole of Europe. I always got a feeling that it was intensely safe, I'm not sure how you get to be INTENSELY safe... but there it is. Maybe you have to lay all the roads in felt and cover all the stop signs in bubble wrap to avoid people walking into them (the irony of walking into a stop sign hit extra hard to someone I know once... when we had to spend the rest of the night in a Barcelona Hospital and I hung out with a tramp for a long time).

What I thought was funny about this report was that the perception of people on the street is (allegedly) still really bad. Especially amoungst the older generation who are apparently statistically much less likely to be the victim of crime... funnily it's a total vice versa (not the crap eighties film) for the younger people. It just shows you how public opinion on things like crime is utter nonsense. I always got that feeling in Britain too. The problem I think stems from the fact that the newspapers sell newspapers via fear ("THE STREETS ARE FILLED WITH MURDERERS, READ HERE TO FIND OUT!") and the opposition politicians are trying to discredit the current government ("THE STREETS ARE FILLED WITH MURDERERS. IT'S ALL THE GOVERNMENTS FAULT!").

Jeepers (a word I'm using a lot at the moment for some reason unknown to me), this post seems to have turned into somewhat of a crabfest. But to be honest, I'm just trying to kill time while my washing machine goes through the motions. I've got to entertain myself until it's finished otherwise I run the risk of having to wear dirty clothes tomorrow... again. I don't think turning your socks inside out TWICE counts as clean. But in my defence, it's only because I'm getting home so late... As Simply Red once sung 'Money's too tight to mention'... but replace the word 'money' with 'time' and replace Simply Red with someone less crap.

I'm supposed to be going to a nice meal at an Argentinian girl's house near the town of Inca tomorrow... it's not going to happen, I can just feel it. Well... I say 'nice meal' when I infact know nothing about it. All i know about Argentinian food is that it consists of big slabs of meat, and not much else. I tend to prefer meat that doesn't look like it's actually come from an animal. If you can shape it to look like a mini sized dinsaur and dust it in bread crumbs then I'm a happy man... actually give me a slice of a cow's butt and I'll give you my confused eyebrow, and no-one wants that over the dinner table.

R

The horror (now with video)

I'm sat here in my freezing cold flat trying to watch a badly dubbed version of 'Love Actually' to improve my Spanish skills. It's a pretty sad scene... but what makes it all the more sad is the APALLING family themed band busting out some classic shovelware musak trash outside my apartment. It's past eleven PM on a Sunday, the day I thought Spain was supposed to be asleep.

It appears though that these two middle aged irritants didn't get that memo and have set up shop, a very large and loud shop, in the small square opposite my building. There's about four children running around while their parents dance on the spot.

I really don't understand the whole thing, but most of all I don't understand the loudness. All my windows and doors are firmly shut, but it's still louder than the aforementioned cheese cluster of a film. Significantly louder. It's all ammunition to my understanding of the spanish lack of respect for personal auditory space.

Annoyingly, I am in the perfect sniper position but don't have the equipment to carry out the job. No-one would know it was me, there's buildings everywhere... and I have a clear shot.

ARGHHH, it's starting to get REALLY annoying now. The man keeps shouting "OLAY!". It's also sped up too, making it all the more intense.

I went to a nightclub on Friday night. It may have been a gay club. I only say that because the place wasn't exactly crawling with girls. I remember there was one who looked like a Russian prostitute who was stood on something, grabbing a speaker by the 'ears' and dancing to it's 'mouth' (the loud bit).

He just said 'OLAY!' again.

I also celebrated Thanks Giving for the first time, which was nice. Got invited to a meal in an American house and had some Guamain food, really nice. We all had to do a mini speech to say what we were 'thankful' for... now, i'm not terribly good at...

OOOOH, THEY'VE STOPPED!!!

anyway, yes, I'm not terribly good at outpourings of...

Urgh, no they haven't, they're off again...


...outpourings of honest emotion with no cynicism or sarcasm, so it was tough, but i AM thankful for a lot of things at the moment so it was pretty easy.

Work's still going good. I got some seriously needed time with a Nintendo DS dev kit and the whole mix of my game is really coming together well now... apart from the videos, which frankly sound like crap, but that's mostly down to us using a cheap and nasty video codec.

I ate some gammon the other day. It's been so long since I ate any, my taste in carcass must have changed over the years because I really liked it.

Spanish advertisements: there's a woman with massive breasts, wearing only a bra, underwear and a top hat... and a TIGER on her shoulders. She would be quite attractive if she didn't look so
rediculous.

Tomorrow I am going to another board game party... which despite the name is actually a lot of fun. That's immediately after my spanish lesson, which due to last weeks being a really good one will mean that it'll be a really slog. They seem to take it in turns.

Apologies for the dodgy formatting as usual. If you don't like it, complain to blogger. It's not my fault they suck.

Here's a video from my window of the horror. Bare in mind that the walls and windows of this building are about as useful as paper for keeping in sound (and heat)...



R

Meat Wearing a Wig

So I was just cycling home through my district and it again struck me how I love living here. It's right in the middle of a downtown area that feels very cosmopolitan and 'real'.

Away from the tourism (not that there's much in Palma) and fancy buildings, it's just lots of tiny claustrophobic roads crammed full of cars bumped up on the pavement,
people picking through rubbish bins (a popular past-time of people here it would appear), kiosks selling Bella, old women waving their arms around with their beards flapping
in the breeze, rubbish bins being picked through by people (a popular past-time of bins here it would appear) and sophisticated looking couples trying to find the perfect
restaurant (there's many).

Annoyingly, from my cyclists perspective the pavement curbs are like unassailable cliffs of concrete that if not dismounted for can severely damage your primary mode of
transport. I've got a couple of 'thwunks' in my back wheel while from when I was learning this.

Oooh lightning!!! Gonna go record....

Okay, all set. Doubt I'll get anything.

So yes, there's something very nice about living in the middle of an exciting and alive part of the world... but to be honest, I've totally lost my train of thought now that the
lightning's kicking off outside... so I'll change the subject.

Work has been super busy recently. In fact I've been living like a hermit for a while, going to work in my isolated studio then coming home to work on various projects and
stuff. Since the jaw incident I don't really feel like going out much anymore although I'm sure I'll get bored of this... my ears are certainly very tired. Still, my currently salvage
job of a project is going really well and the quality has improved drastically in the last few weeks. Infact, to get technical briefly, I found a way to improve the resolution of the
audio by a factor of 256... I got all excited and ran round the office shouting "I've made the audio 256 times better, give me a raise!". I didn't get a raise, but my review went
very well and I got a nice write up from the big people. I never doubted that I would (god that sounds arrogant) but it's nice to hear it.

I tried to go out and get a mobile phone sorted on Saturday. I walked all the way out to the other side of town to 'El Corte Inglais' (the English court) which is Spain's biggest
department store oddly enough. I was bouncing down the road, all breezy and confident until I get to the crazy madness of the shop, you'd think I would expect it by now.

Shopping in Spain is like a cross between an eighties stock market during a bad day and a Russian bakery during the infamous bread shortages which may or may not have
actually happened. It's basically a large gathering of angry people in fashion's worst clothing, queuing up for the one shop assistant who doesn't have what you want. I also
realised as soon as I walked into the door that I had no idea what I was asking for as I didn't know if my phone was locked to a UK network. Given that I can't just 'wing it' like
i would back home, I walked in circles for a while, got scared at the prices and walked out trying to not look like a total failure. So i still don't have a Spain phone.

The weather's pretty cruddy here at the moment, but I've heard from friends back home that it's been below zero so maybe I shouldn't complain too much. There's something
about winter that no matter how better you know you have it than other people, it still sucks big time. I was promised it would only be 'winter' for two months but it's been
bloody freezing for ages now and i feel like winter hasn't even started yet. The worst thing at the moment is that the streets/pavements are all wet and when I'm trying to
stylishly burn off on my bike I have a tendency to do massive wheel spins causing my body to flump down, fall off the bike and land in a heap on the floor. I was trying to
impress some fat old ladies yesterday with this maneuver and it seriously backfired. They even lunged out to help me from bike based pain, but it was too late.

In other news, England are out of the European football cup. At least that means we can get rid of Steve Maclaren. I never trust a man that's face looks like a gammon steak
with a cheap wig placed on top. I hate gammon.

R

Help me Ibuprofenobi, you're my only hope

I'm writing this drugged out of my eyeballs, like the guy downstairs who I found sleeping outside my door with a beer in his hand on Saturday.

I went out on Friday night, woke up on Saturday morning with my jaw feeling like it had been shattered and then sellotaped backtogether during the night. I'm not 100% sure what had happened, I'm guessing a severe case of teeth gritting has screwed up my jaw and gums and now I'm suffering the AGONISING result. Spent three and a half days lying around in pain before I plucked up the courage to go out to the 'farmacia' to pick up some painkillers... or 'analgesia' as they're called. Was slightly concerned that I'd got the translation wrong and was going to be confronted with double-time staring, not your every day Spanish staring. Luckily my analgesias are doing the trick though, well, doing the trick in that I feel like I'm floating all day, until they wear off and I have to wait around for two hours of agony until I'm allowed to take some more.

So that's been fun. And just as I'm almost fully recovered from my arm hack-job. The bruise is still there, a whopping two weeks after the incident.

I'm finally the proud owner of a spanish bank card. That was a palava, and one which I wont recount here as it's not a terribly exciting one.

For Halloween a load of us went out around Palma and ended up in a transvestite bar whose name escapes me. Bit of a bizarre evening, I remember one point where this man/woman was stood on this stage in the middle of the room with all this weird fabric being spread around the room like a web. I don't really know what it was all about, but when I switched on the tv the next night I saw it all replayed on local news... I thought I'd seen a camera crew running around.

Went on a lovely bike ride down along the coast to the German encampment of S'Arenal. I'd heard the bike ride was nice, which it was, but that the town/beach was horrible, which it was. The beach was this 4 kilometer stetch of boredom, but on the plus side it was pretty empty due to it now being 'off-season'.

Every morning I seem to cycle past a daytime tv crew filming, for some bizarre reason, on the cycle lane on my way to work. Guess it's because it's a nice view out to the Bay, infact it's the point where the video in a previous post was set, looks nice in the morning. Anyway, I'm starting to get annoyed at this disruption as I'm always late, so I've taken to gathering as much speed as possible and screaming past the presenters' faces going 'RRAAARRR!!!' like a formula one car. That'll teach them to give me dirty looks... and let that be a warning to the rest of Spain too.

There's been loads of things happening recently but I'm currently starting to feel the beginning of the pain to come back so I need to go and drug myself up again. But here's some photos of recent events, including the 'web' moment, some photos from my bike trip, a little cove called Portixol that I go to occasionally for a beer after work and even a rare photo of me from the weekend before I screwed the right side of my face up. Brilliant.

R

Ampugreat!

So just had a mini freak out. Was having a shower earlier (i'm just about to leave for work) and noticed that the aforementioned blood removal area has gone a yellow/green colour that seems to be heading in the direction of the vein where the lifeblood was sucked out. I'm hoping they're not going to have to amputate but you can never be too sure in Spain, they'll amputate if you say you've got a headache.

Brilliant

R

I'm fit

Had a couple of interesting days since my last update. As i briefly mentioned in my last post, I had a blood test due on Friday. The doctor was due in from 8 till 9 am so I had to get to work early, but thanks to the previous day's puncture I was late getting in. Stupid taxis. I've since learned that there is a bus that goes from a few streets up and takes me... well, nowhere near work, but it's better than walking the whole way.

So I arrived late which meant I was shunted in with the next batch, which wasn't so bad as it turns out a load of other people turned up late two. The queue was crazy though and we had to stand around for at least an hour, during which time I mostly stared out the window as everyone was talking in really fast spanish.

Finally get in and have to wait around longer for our 'doctor', who is really just some guy off the street with a white jacket on. It's funny how you can slap on a white coat and all of a sudden everyone will trust what you say. A bit like how you can put any old piece of random crap in a white room, put a plaque with some writing next on to it and call it 'art'.

Anyway, I was last. Hadn't done a blood test for years and the 'doctor' couldn't speak any English. Luckily my old flatmate translated and I get the weird sensation of having my veins sucked dry. Quite a bizarre feeling but not too horrible. What was horrible was about a minute later when I have some sort of epileptic fit, pass out and get one of the most horrible experiences of my life.

I don't really remember much of it now, I just remember a succession of images flicking through my mind incredibly fast, way too fast to make any sense of. It reminded me a LOT of the Flash Gordon film from the 80's when they wiped people's minds and you saw lots of imagines flickering up. I was desperately trying to pull myself out of it and figure out what was happening but at the same time had no idea of who, where and what I was. Apparently my body was 'spazzing out', I went totally white and "it was pretty scary to watch".

I felt better about 8 hours later and slept for a good 12 hours that night. I can't be sure but I think I had another smaller one whilst I was trying to sleep too. The 'doctor' said it was just psychological but I'm sure it wasn't, I didn't care about the whole needle thing and it was quite some time afterwards that it kicked in. Still on the plus side, I did manage to cover him, myself and various other people with blood, so that was some sort of victory.

When I was younger I used to pass out quite a lot, quite a nice sensation I always thought. This was like absolute hell... so definitely not a faint as far as I know. I donno though, but I know that I'm gonna do anything I can to avoid having any blood tests. Hopefully something will show up in the test that will shed some light.

Also had to have a urine test but couldn't pee, I wont go into too much detail but I had to resort to interesting measures, lets just leave it at that.

Have you ever had to change a bike tyre/tube before? I'm pretty sure I have, don't really remember it being too much trouble. Now imagine tryng to fit an average sized jacket on to a HOUSE and that's just a taster of what I've been going through trying to change my bike tire. Man, that thing is such a pain in the ass. I STILL haven't finished it and to be honest, I'm a little too scared to go back and attempt to finish the job. My thumbs and fingers are all knackered and it'll only make me scream like an angry girl when I try to do it again.

So I had to get another taxi to work yesterday. Yes, because I had to go in on my Saturday to record a load of kids for my current project. They're all mid teens, mostly americans and none of them had recorded before. I was a little worried how it was going to turn out but luckily the whole thing went great. Much of it lies on the people engineering/directing the session as you have to lead the actor in the right direction and get them excited about the character. This is especially difficult with self-conscious kids, so it was a lot of hard work for me as I was recording and directing the sessions. Luckily they were all really up for it and the end product should be pretty good. I'm looking forward to editing it all up and hearing them in game...

Spent the rest of the weekend setting up equipment and unpacking... still. It's nice to have the time to do this though. Glad I didn't go out and get really drunk this weekend.

Anyway, here is a video (my first on this website, lets hope it works) of my cycle home one night. This one was taken about a week ago and it was quite late so it's not as bright as usual. It was also the day after one of the storms we had so there was lots of crud on the beach. Notice the mountain range in the background that stretches right across the island, I love it.

R

The furniture has eyes

Ten days since my last update, blimey. What's happened... here's some random happenings:

Had a medical, complete with blue suckers being stuck to my whole body and an attractive spanish woman with a mole the size of a dinner plate on her face massaging my back. Apparently I have a good heart. I have my blood and urine test tomorrow, fantastic. I'm going to pee in a pot and throw it around the office, at least that's what I've promised. Wouldn't want to disappoint.

Got my stuff from England moved in. That was great. The movers were pretty quick and hassle free, everything appears to be intact.

Had a cigarette thrown in my face on a night out. Thanks spain.

Enjoyed the cycle ride to work repeatedly. Until today when there was a drawing pin in the wheel. I'm hoping it wasn't a deliberate act of industrial espionage by one of the warehouse men. Possibly payback for me leaving the door wide open when one of them was getting changed in the men's room so all the women can see his 'tackle'. Urgh, it's going to be a nightmare getting a new tyre :(

Had another massive storm here. 3 tornadoes flying around the Bay of Palma apparently. None of them hit ground but the weather was pretty bad and a Danish woman died according to the news.

Went out a lot, probably too much. Feel appalling now. Been going to that bar Soho I've mentioned before. We get drinks at about half price and they're already pretty cheap. I had this bizarre drink from Easter Island, the bottle is shaped like one of those crazy statue heads that's made of angles. Was really nice, in fact I've decided to take note of it as it will become my weapon of choice if I choose to become a alcoholic or bum at some point in the future.

Got annoyed at people staring. Seriously, it's starting to get ridiculous now. People will just STARE right at you and keep staring when you've gone past them. If you did that in England it usually means you either want to fight them or make love to them... therefore I get slightly confused when I see old madames giving me the sex/death stare... which one do they want? Either way I'm not interested.

Spent plenty of time with my parents whilst they were here. They're the first people I'd seen from my 'old life' so it was strange seeing them here. Visited some beautiful parts of the island, my current favourite is Deia, a little town up on the side of the mountains (bit of a sympathetic use of the word 'mountain' really, it's more like a massive rocky fold in the earth) that over looks the Med. Had an unnecessary argument with my father on the way home before saying goodbye. Just like old times.

Work has been up and down. But having heard so many negative rumours and general moanings I am starting to find it a little harder to enjoy my time there without being cynical. I'm naturally cynical when it comes to the games industry because I know what it's like and have been spun lies and misinformation for far too long, but I was hoping I could live in 'happy land' for a little longer. Oh well... best get working on my CV again ;) Seriously though, it's all good, just want to get this first project finished as I'm looking forward to starting something new rather than trying to resurrect a mouldy corpse from it's cold, hard audio grave. Getting slightly annoyed at the hierarchy of management, it's about two tiers too high and I'm having to get far too many head nods for my liking. You can never please everyone in audio, especially the more opinionated and/or insecure types. Stupid public opinion.

Trying to set my studio up but am finding it difficult to find the time. I've done a fair bit though, I'm currently sat in the bedroom i'm not really doing anything with. I'm surrounded by all the excess furniture that I dont need in the other rooms. There's about five cupboards in here.... and they're all ugly, they all have this ominous and monolithic presence about them, probably because they're spanish and are doing the furniture equivalent of the 'Mallorcan stare'.

again, too lazy to post photos. Use your imagination.

R

See no evil, hear no Mallorquin

I donno why I bother with that bloody 'remember me' setting on this website. It's useless.

So I had an interesting experience with a spherical looking lady in the hallway earlier. She was milling around the outside of the building whilst I was attempting to open my post box for the first time. Only problem was that I don't actually know which flat I'm in, so I'm randomly trying to open mail boxes (they're not marked well, if at all) and this old senora comes up and starts babbling mallorquin to me, which I don't speak (it's very different to Spanish).

I figured she was telling me off for trying to steal everyone's mail until I realise she's as blind as a cardboard box and is asking for assistance to open her mail box. Unless SHE was the mail thief. Either way, I helped her out and she's still screaming at me in some crazy cat-lady fashion while I try to help her up the steps like a good English gentleman.

I'd heard that over here you have to treat the elderly with the sort of respect the English usually save for royalty, so I was on my best behaviour for fear of being battered via her massive walking stick. I must have done okay because she babbled something about having a good evening (in Spanish) before rolling off down the corridor after I'd helped her out of the lift. I walked away feeling confused, mostly due to her getting annoyed at my attempts to communicate with her.

My parents are currently visiting. Went to Peurto Pollenca yesterday which is on the other side of the island. Super touristy and English. Didn't like it really. I was glad to get back to Palma which feels like a proper city for real people and not a construct for the visiting masses. I would post some nice photos of yesterday but it's late (due to me having somewhat of a heavy day) so I can't be bothered. But it was great to see more of the island, some truely amazing landscape out here, with vertical cliffs jutting right out of the perfect blue sea. Shame there were so many German tourists everywhere appreciating it at the same time.

Get my stuff delivered tomorrow and work has given me the day off so I get to sort all that stuff out (and go out with my parents if it doesn't take too long). Looking forward to being reunited with my... I don't know... stuff. Nothing really specific, but it would finally mean that I've 'arrived' at last.

R

Piso

Okay, here are the photos from my flat. It's all super nice, I think I've been pretty lucky really. Waaay more space than I need and the price is pretty darned reasonable. It's in an exciting part of town called Santa Catalina (or at least it's very near to it) that has a lot of bars and restaurants and generally feels in the middle of all the action.

I got three bedrooms, I figure of the two spares I'll turn one into a music/sound studio and the other into a guest room/gym. Funnily one of the extra rooms has a crazy painting on the wall of all this cartoon stuff. I kind of like it in a absract kind of way.

There's a balcony over-looking a park and facing a bunch of boring buildings which seem to house old women that have no doubt been getting excited at seeing me walk around in my pants when I've been hungover. The crazy thing about the balcony is the 'safety' rail, a somewhat overambitious title for something that's about as much use as a toothpick. The first time I looked over the balcony to the five floor drop to the hard tarmac below I freaked out... and I like heights. Here's to hoping I don't come home from a night out and start dancing like a madman on there.

The walk to work every day takes an hour in each direction. Sure, it sounds bad, but it's actually pretty nice given that I walk along the beach and marinas that align the path. It just sucks when it's raining, which it has been doing pretty consistantly of late :(

One thing that does bug me is the sound proofing. It must be the dubious quality of Spanish construction at play again, because I feel like I'm watching the tv with my neighbours it's so loud. They were watching Lawrence of Arabia yesterday, it's a long film.

Ooh, my washing has just finished washing itself. Best go check. I was a little worried as I had to bloody sellotape the waste pipe to the connection, which isn't the most secure way to connect a washing machine. I was crapping myself that I was going to walk in and see the hose snaking around the room spraying dirty water everywhere. I just got back, and success. No snakes.

So this week (i'm writing this on Sunday, not the Monday the date of this post suggests, I've come back to add stuff) has been quite social. Went out on Wednesday night to Molinar (near Portixol), Thursday around Santa Catalina, and Friday around the centre of Palma. Nothing much to report, all very good fun although I don't remember much as usual. Friday was my first 'fiesta'... a wholly unnexciting event, well, I say that as if I actually experienced something. Given that I didn't leave the house due to the crappy weather and bad hangover there wasn't much chance of me rockin' out too much.

Anyway, I want to watch a bad american film with bad Spanish dubbing to pratice my language skills. It's currently my 'weapon of choice' for increasing my language. I just hope something good is on, and not Sister Act 2 again.

R

Tor-nad-oh

Are you ready for muchos informaticos (that may or may not be Spanish)? Good, cos there's been much going on 'downtown' (which I've been told is a rude euphemism). In fact, I think I'm going to split this bad-boy into two entries cos I've got plenty of photos to add.

First off... weather. Yeah, sure, how English and boring of me to discuss weather. That's what you're thinking until I drop the rotating bombshell of the word 'tornado' into the fray.

On Thursday I was having a chat with someone in my studio (which has no windows to the outside due to it's isolated studio-esque nature) when all the power goes down again (note the use of the word 'again'). There's a bit of a ruckuss in the main dev studio and upon going out and looking out the window I see that everyone's going crazy and it's pitch black outside... it's 4pm. It takes me a good few seconds to twig that something is wrong. Seriously wrong. I've seen some crazy weather before but jeez. There was water bursting out of drains in the ground that were supposed to be draining the water away. I seriously thought there was a big constantly flickering light on the top of the building due to the crazy power outages, but it turned out to be CONSTANT lightning. After a few minutes it lightened up a bit, but that actually made it worse as there was apparently so much sand in the air that had travelled from the Sahara that everything took on a totally yellow look. It was like looking out across another planet, very odd.

The next day I learnt that someone from work was on a motorbike during the storm and the tornado came infront of him and ripped out a electricity pilon infront of him, he's totally covered in cuts and is lucky to be alive really. Luckily no-one on the island was killed, but many were injured and they may officially call the island a 'disaster zone' due to all the damage caused.

Being a bit of a tit, I actually love this sort of stuff and was a bit disappointed to not actually see the twister itself, but on driving around later in someone's car we saw a LOT of ripped up trees, presumably from either the tornado or lightning strikes. Went down to Portixol, a nice harbor that I've mentioned before and many of the bars were wrecked. Luckily the 'favourite' was perfectly fine... although the power was still down so our beers were slightly luke warm. Sat around discussing global warming and dolphinariums all night. Regretted it in the morning.

Friday was a horrible mess... but I'd organised to get my flat sorted with Angel for the evening and after a rather drawn out day we headed over only to find that she'd forgotten to confirm with the landlady and she had decided to bugger off to a party in a town called Inca for the evening. So it had to wait ANOTHER night.


Did nothing on saturday day, well, unless you count sitting around in your pants and watching the Simpsons 'something'. Around 9:30 pm met up (again) to get the keys. It was a bit awkward because I have to use Angel to translate for me, but it goes ahead and the place looks much better than the last time I'd seen it. I'm really, really happy with it. The ladylady had even left some strange Mallorcan liquor so had a few drinks with Angel on the balcony and then head out to some bars with some friends that were already out. It was a really great night, everyone had fun, although I don't really remember much. I was going to write loads about the night, but thinking about it there's not much to say really, great fun but not terribly interesting to anyone that wasn't there.

Actually, it's late and it's taking me over an hour to walk to work in the mornings so gotta be up early tomorrow. Therefore can be bothered to write the second installment of this...

Here's some unexciting photos from the night out though. I donno what's up with the one with the bike helmet, I don't remember that now :/











to be continued...

R
Oh, but before I go, here is a typical bit of Spanish parking. This is normal and she (Angel) was surprised that I thought it was amazing that she got out of there with no trouble whatsoever. Having said that, most cars here seem to have at least one 'battle scar' so maybe it's not as easy as they make out.

Superhero palabra

I really have to stop playing so much table tennis. My forearms are really starting to hurt. Although it may just be a 'free-gift' from the karate training from Monday that involved me repeatedly blocking punches for about 15 minutes. I was pretty bruised after that. I would say "you should see the other guy", but it was a girl, and she was punching me.

Had a good Spanish lesson the other day. The lady even said "super-bien" to me... which i presume is like a normal bien but better, it probably flies or has x-ray vision or something. All the other adjectives are probably insanely jealous of super-bien's abilities, I know I am.

As expected, the apartment is STILL not sorted. I'm bored of talking about it now. Hopefully it should be finished tomor... actually, I'm not going to finished that comment, I think I keep jinxing it with this stupid blog.

Earlier I heard someone on the floor above me tapping that insidious BOO, TAH-TAH beat on the floor. I thought I was going mad for a brief second.

Had some sort of Swedish sausage the other day. It looked seriously rancid, like an actual animal's "member". To make matters worse it ended up tasting exactly like hotdog... but imagine the WORLD'S BIGGEST HOTDOG and cover it in grease that has been smeared on a dirty industrial kitchen floor and trodden on for a few days. I also ate some reindeer today. Apparently it was 'one of the bad ones' though... probably Hitler's reindeer I imagine. I've been trying to eat a lot of 'meat' recently. I figure anything with a 'face' is good for me because of all the exercise I'm doing. Vegetables, soup, fruit and salad... none of it has enough 'face action' for my liking... so best avoided. (don't worry mum, I AM eating well)

Having a great week so far. Although I'm starting to get rather odd 'whats the point' feelings. I get them every now and then. That whole 'futility of mortality' thing again. I'm sure everyone gets it, but it hits extra hard when you see things advancing and you start accomplishing your goals because you're trying to find new goals i guess. I need a new goal. Or maybe I'm just getting bored again. Or lazy. Or old.

Finding the days are going by incredibly quickly. Probably because every second is packed full of stuff, from the minute I wake up to the point I get home. That's why I'm only updating this every two or three days. It's tough because I never get a chance to sit down and enjoy any of this. Must get some 'power sleep' now, similar to normal sleep only really intense. It's the sort of sleep Mr T would probably have.

R

It's not all 'BOOM-tat-tat' you know.

I found out the other day that we get free food at work. At my last place we used to get free fruit twice a week and there'd be this mad panic when the fruit basket arrived. If you weren't quick off the mark you'd be left with the rotten fruit or worse, the 'name the bizarre fruit' fruit. We'd occasionally have competitions to discover what the hell this obtuse looking blobby thing was and how you approached consuming it. I think one time someone found some huge spider in the basket that had probably hitched a ride from Papau New Guinea or wherever else the mystery fruit basket had travelled from.

The mad fruit panic was only beaten by the sandwich feeding frenzy that would happen after fancy visitors hadn't finished off their free buffet and an email would go out. There would be these sly looks around the office from people to see who else had spotted the email, then people would sloooowly get out of their chairs, perhaps performing a stretching routine so as to make the fake toilet trip more believable... then they'd slooooowly walk out keeping a shifty eye on anyone else... then someone would scream out "FREE FOOD!", the cover would be blown and plan B would go into action where pushing, shoving and kicking your way to the 'booty' would be fair game. The funny thing would be that the food had been sat around for at least an hour and the bread would be all crusty and hard anyway... so it's not like it's really worth the effort.
Anyway, there's no feeding frenzies or fruit panics at my new place due to their being free food ALL the time. I missed breakfast the other day and so just went to the kitchen and knocked up a salmon and cheese sandwich accompanied by twin babybels and a handful of carrot 'fingers'.

There's something about spending 20 minutes making the ultimate sandwich during work hours with word food that just feels a bit 'wrong' to me... but it didn't stop me doing it the next day. I feel so lucky to be at a place that treats it's staff so incredibly well though. There's all kinds of crazy crap in there: cereal, pepsi, tea/coffee, biscuits, yada yada. Also, on Friday i went to my first monthly birthday thing where they go out and buy this massive wad of cakes and beer and stuff and everyone sits around chatting on the last friday afternoon of the month. There's the big speech before then which included a 'welcome' to the new guys and we all got a big round of applause one at a time... which was slightly unnerving... although for some reason I felt the need to bow like a comical matador as if I'd done something special during mine.

I've been playing even more table tennis recently too. Got beaten for the first time. I get the feeling me that my new table tennis arch nemesis have begun a war that will battle through the ages... or at least until I get bored of thwacking plastic balls at wooden tables. The problem I have with it at the moment is that I'm playing for three hours after work and then have to walk home for another two (or so) hours whilst I mutter my spanish learning tapes under my breath. So by the time I get home from work I'm totally shattered, covered in sweat and it's kicking on for ten or eleven. Which also reminds me of the fact that I keep getting stung by the ceerrrazzzy shop closing times. I actually did an "ARGHHHHH!" at the sky outside my local 'Eroski' the other day, Eroski being Mallorca's half-hearted answer to Tescos.

One day I walked home and went to check out what the police were doing (I mentioned the A-Team van hanging around previously). Turns out it's some sort of police show or something, I'm not really sure what the purpose of showing police techniques off to tourists is, but there you go. Anyway, I had to laugh at one of the stands that featured a manequinn dressed as a police man weilding a large bat... hardly gives out a 'to protect and serve' message to all the lazy-eyed tourists walking around.

Later on I walked through the nice park and caught the fancy light and water extravagansa they put on every night (I think). It's actually pretty effective and you can walk right into it if you want to risk catching unknown numbers of diseases from the water. This is the place that blasts out intense classical music morning noon and night on a far too short loop. At first it's nice... then you start to feel uncomfortable.

Still haven't got my flat sorted... although I do now have the required money for the transaction... oh, actually, thinking about it... no I don't. Maybe i'll go to a cashpoint later today and take out my allotted 300 euros again. Hopefully I can FINALLY sort it all out tomorrow. But getting some money was an adventure. I got 500 euros up front from work as a cheque that I had to take to the bank at lunch... a 40 hour walk in the midday sun along a highway, there and back. I'd been repeatedly warned at how arsey the bank would be, but luckily it all went out without a hitch. Strangely, every customer in the bank was English, all of which refused to speak ANY Spanish (how difficult is it to at least say 'Hola'), which I found intensely rude. So as a sort of protest I tut'ed at someone slightly too loudly... that'll teach him. I'm getting to the point where I can do 'things' now with very basic spanish... as long as people don't revert to English then I figure I'm making progress. As it is, people look at me with confusion but I always get success so at least I'm getting my point across... somehow.

Yesterday (Saturday) I went for a BIG walk around town. I got up too late again for my pipedream Valldemosa excursion. Came home and had a SIESTA for the first time. Then I headed out to this electronica music festival type thing. I didn't know anything about it, but it turns out to be right at the foot of the big cathedral where there's this square with a stage set up.

I was expecting the horrendous music I hear blasting from people's cars that I moaned about before... but it turned out to be a 'experimental' music shindig.. some of which was actually pretty cool. I was with a group of about 8 people, all Spanish, I only knew two of them but it turned out to be a nice evening. I was desperately trying my best with the language and also communicate via the use of comedy hand and body gestures. As far as I'm aware I didn't call anyone's mother a 'whore' or any other language barrier mishaps.

The festival type thing reminded me of how boring most electronica is to watch at a gig. There's something really unexciting about a bunch of nerds sat behind laptop screens staring away as if they're being force fed propaganda. I was keeping an eye out for anyone that just looked like they were playing Doom, jumping up and shouting "YES! LEVEL SEVEN!". In addition to the boring factor, it became more and more obvious that the majority of the music was just coming from the laptop guys and any 'performers' were just playing instruments badly over the top of it, which made you think "why didn't they just play a CD?".

We left the music before midnight cos people were getting bored of all the long droney noises and headed out to town where I encountered my very first tapas. I was repeatidly told that it was a crappy place, by all acounts the place we ended up in was the equivalent of a nasty post-club kebab. It wasn't too bad though, although if I'm honest I'm more of a Thai/Chinese/Indian food guy, but I'm sure I'll have some amazing stuff out here in the future.

We then headed out to a bar called soho which looked like any grandparents house circa 1950's, complete with old radiation emitting tv's and that horrible phsychodelic wallpaper that died out the same time as disco. We were all a bit dopey though so I grabbed a lift back after that which saved me the 2 hour drunk-walk. There's a photo of me sat in one of the horrible wicker chairs that broke on me when I touched the damn thing.

I've found myself complaining a couple of times about how bloody cold it is at night. Then I got told that it's like 11 degrees back home and super-heavy rain. This weekend it's been in the low thirties with mostly clear blue skies... and I'm moaning! It appears that you quickly get used to good weather. It's nice to not have the horrible "it's sunny, i must get sunburnt" philosophy driving everything though. I feel that if miss today's sun it's absolutely no big deal at all.

Anyway, things are feeling much more positive now. I think I was just exhausted from the weekend before and that always brings out the negativity in a situation. Hopefully I can have a great week.

R

Banks must die

So the last few days since my previous update have been very up and down. The weekend was chilled out but fun. Kind of sat on my butt for most of Saturday. I donno what is is about the weekends here but i seem to wake up at about 3pm feeling super dopey. Maybe my flatmate is drugging my tapas or something, I'll keep an eye out for olives stuffed with pills. So after my lengthy lie in I headed downtown to meet some friends at a random bar in the old town. Problem was I had no idea how to get there, or where the neighbourhood was... thanks very much Google Maps you massive piece of crap. Everytime I write an address it zips me half way around the world to Delaware to somewhere that isn't even remotely similar to what I searched for.

So after milling around for a while I realised I'd walked too far so headed back via some back streets. There was me thinking 'blimey, it's nice round here, people are hanging around the street corners and chatting, how lovely'. After a while I started noticing odd things... like the fact that the majority of these people 'hanging around' were women.. and rather scrunty women at that. Mostly with cigarettes drooping out of the side of their mouths and with cheap make up presumably applied with a garden trowel. And they were approaching random cars. Shit. I was in the fabled 'prostitute zone'. I got offered some action a couple of times... and followed by a pimp on a bike.

After some time I randomly bumped into my Swedish friend Andreas who was, coincidentally going to the same place as me. We found our way to, what I'd heard was an amazing little spanish place in the back of nowhere. Turns out we were the ONLY people in there and the bar staff were looking at us rather suspiciously. It was cool though, apparently an old bakery. And in keeping with the standard spanish decoration style, there was random crap stuck to the walls. Bikes, bits of meat, comical honking horns, what looked like old mechanical torture devices, you name it, it was stuck to a wall.

Post random banter we headed off to 'the african bar'... so named because it didn't actually have a name, but was another odd looking place with even more random crap stuck to the walls. Apparently it belonged to some fashion designer and he 'designed' it all, presumably whilst off his head cos the toilets weren't exactly practical for women (i'll save you the details) and the bar itself wasn't any better (think massive

*****OOOOOOHHHHHH!!!! I HAVE to int erupt myself there as I'm actually recording sounds out of my window right now. There's been a nasty storm for the last few hours (which I got caught in on my three hour walk home tonight) and I've been recording the thunder. Anyone who knows me well knows I'm on this search for the holy grail of the perfect thunder clap... and I *think* I have just recorded my best one ever. I may post it on here later if it's any good.

Getting back to it... yes, think massive tree in the middle of a tiny bar and that's about right. So the 8 or so of us stayed for a while, whilst the video of weird animals in cages played on repeat in the background reminding everyone of how futile mortality is.. or some pop-psychology nonsense like that.

We then moved to the world's smallest bar with the world's loudest, most broken speakers I've ever heard. They were so bad I had to leave after about five minutes. God, I felt like an OAP. I had to leave because it was too noisy. But in my defence, if speakers are being pushed beyond their range you can seriously damage your ears as distortion is worse than volume. I've just gone from being 'old' to being a 'nerd'...

So off we head to Bluesville again. I don't really like it in there. Infact, I haven't really found anywhere I've been massively keen on so far. Everyone here seems to like really small bars, which is cool, but you feel a bit isolated from the party that is Palma. I got talking to this Spanish guy and he ended up latching on to us for the rest of the evening. Which only consisted of us going to a lesbian bar. I was quite intrigued about until I realised I'd been there before. There was a large lesbian looking down on me from some stairs for quite a long time. She looked like Arnold Swartzeneggar when he dressed like a woman in Total Recall... "Twoo Weeeks".

Had to run home, for forty minutes, in the pouring rain. Except 'pouring rain' over here actually means 'DEATH RAIN'. It appears to only rain here when there's a storm... which happens quite a lot. So that was lovely, especially given that my limbs seem to go crazy when I'm drunk, with everything flying everywhere, and it causes me to pull my right calf muscle. It still hurts really bad now, three days later.

Sunday I watched some tv and msn'd my girlfriend. Write off.

Monday, yesterday, was very unpleasant. I can't really remember why. I think I was still tired and a build up of small unpleasantries got to me. After work I went out with the composer and met up with some of his friends. I wasn't in the mood and it is very difficult when you're surrounded by people talking another language to enjoy yourself. And it's completely my fault for not knowing the language. So I got annoyed at myself. I'd also had a Spanish lesson earlier and it hadn't gone as well as I'd hoped. I don't have the dominatrix anymore but a new lady called Victoria. She's incredibly pretty and very supportive, but that might not be what I need, as I think I learnt more with the dominatrix.

Anyway, I found myself leaving early on the evening, which brought me down more as I felt like I'd failed the evening. I found myself missing my friends and family again and last night was pretty difficult :( I'm only 'reporting' this as you can't expect the whole experience to be good, and yesterday and much of today I've been pretty down. Woke up today feeling pretty much the same, and was seriously starting to resent things I don't like about here. People's awful taste in music for one. Everyone seems to listen to this horrible 'boom, tah-tah, boom, tah-tah' rythm... and it ALL sounds exactly the same. The Spanish have a great pedigree in the arts, but modern music doesn't appear to be one of their strong points. I also get annoyed with the way that shops and services shut at, frankly, stupid and economically suicidal times. Banks shut at 2pm, supermarkets shut... well, I'm yet to get a handle on it but it's not cool whenever it is... and EVERYTHING shuts on Sundays... except random Sundays. This weekend was a random Sunday apparently. If I hear one more person try to argue WHY things should be shut on Sunday I think i'm going to... I donno... open a shop that ONLY opens on Sundays. Yes, I 'get' that it's nice to have a day when you don't do anything, but do you have to FORCE the whole nation to do nothing? If you want to go to the beach on Sundays, no-one's stopping you whether the shops are open or not. Grrrr. Sorry, I'm in a bad mood.

So enough moaning. I played table tennis tonight. I kicked some ass. Although had some stiff resistance in the form of a guy from Guam who played like a Chinese person, which instantly freaked me out. Like 'shit, he holds the bat like he's from China, he MUST be good'. And he was.

****... didn't finish writing that all last night so I'll carry on. It's now 10pm a day later, I'm exhausted. I had to get up early and walk for an hour to the center of town to go to the bank and get some money for my apartment deposit. The first bank say a flat "no". The second bank has a queue of one person... and it takes about 50 minutes to get served. They also say no. I then walk to the main Santander branch in Mallorca, this huge structure that literally scrapes the sky.

What I've noticed about all these banks is that they are huge buildings that tower over everything else in the area, you walk in obviously expecting a grand and impressive interior but are greeting with the equivalent of a scrunty little backstreet Norwich Union branch in Bradford complete with cigarette stained fluorescent lighting and computers from the 1970's. There'll only be one person dealing with the public, who will consist of one person... and yet whatever they do takes at least half an hour and requires thumbprints, multiple signatures and repeated walkoffs from the bank teller with whatever wad of paper they're dealing with.

But I'll stop moaning now. Actually, no I wont. The third and final bank wouldn't give me any money either. The most i can take out is 300 euros from the cashpoints and I need 800. So I rang up Lloyds, really so I could just moan at them about it too even though it totally isn't their fault. Had to get a taxi in to work (late) and by the time I'd arrived I was pretty pissed off... I was all ready to walk in all grouchy but was disappointed when I was reminded of how someone ripped the door handle off the entrance in superhuman style a few days ago... and that always makes me laugh. DAMNED LAUGHTER! It was funny though.

Apparently my work would help with money by paying some extra upfront to me... but it transpired that even doing that was a total pain in the ass thanks again to the antiquated and archaic banking system... but hopefully tomorrow I'll get 'some' sort of money at some point before I die.

Again, I must apologise for being down today. I've had a bit of a horrible week so far and I've been feeling a bit sorry for myself. I think it's just the culture shock finally kicking in and I'm starting to resent certain things and feel a little isolated and highly frustrated. I know it will pass and I made sure I did my background on culture shock before I arrived so was expecting it, but that doesn't make it any easier... in the same way that knowing you're going to die doesn't make it anymore pleasurable... if fact I'd suggest it makes it less pleasureable. Hopefully I'll wake up feeling more positive and things can move forward with my apartment.

Apologies for the lack of photos, to be honest, i just can't be bothered to upload any at the moment cos it takes so long to reformat everything... soz.

R

Huge toe nails: IN YOUR FACE!

I've been a bit busy this week, hence the lack of updates.



Hmm, lets see... On Sunday night I went back to Agua Bar (the place with the lack of women when I'd previously been there for 'ladies night') for an open mic night.

It had a very friendly and very 'ex-pat' feel about the place. I met up with a couple of guys from work, one of whom played the keyboard for most of the night. It felt a bit like Cheers in there... where everyone knows your name... except no-one knew my name, so it was as if a random English guy had stumbled on the set and started talking to Woody about blowing up tanks with rocket launchers.

On Monday I started my karate training. Yes, that's right kids, I'm going to be capable of hurting people with my bare hands in no time. Or at least, I would if I were learning one of the more vicious martial arts. Alas, Karate is one of those fighting styles that is ONLY useful if you are surrounded by foes that are directed where to stand, when to attack and what to do. It's as if synchronised swimming was converted into a deadly contact sport by people that don't like water... people with rabies, they don't like water, maybe they should take up karate. I imagine it would be difficult to get rabies sufferers to follow orders, the foamy mouthed zombies just don't have the patience for it.

So, yes, one of the guys at work is some sort of karate master (I'm hoping) and so offers training three nights a week down in the social area. I thought one night would be fine, but as I learnt last night, you get disappointed looks if you don't turn up to EVERY lesson. I'm not exactly sure what the trainer Ake (pronounced 'Okk-ay', getting punched in the photo) gets out of it, but it's good of him to do it... for free no less. It's quite funny having a karate lesson in Spanish and Japanese... I have literally no idea what is going on, but I'm using it as another excuse to learn the language... as long as it doesn't backfire and I end up in a bar asking for a vodka and coke in Japanese. Strangely though, I've commented before on how some Spanish words sound Japanese. The road I'm looking at out the window is called Teniete Oyaga for example.

Anyway, so I enjoyed the karate, I figure it'll be a good way to keep pseudo fit and mix with a different set of people. The sockless nature of karate reminded me that I hadn't cut my toe nails since my girlfriend's last visit... so a few Spanish people had my super long toe nails shoved in their faces as I attempted my Jackie Chan moves. For your information, I've just cut them in preparation for tomorrow's session.

Afterwards I got a lift back with Angel who offered to take me on a jaunt somewhere (possibly to the allegedly nice town of Valledamosa) if I want. Quite a number of people have offered to take me on a trip at weekends, which is super flattering. As a new person, especially as a foreigner, you feel that people are doing you a favour by spending time with you rather than their 'real' friends. So when people offer up their free time of their own accord it is both reassuring and a big confidence booster. I've been made to feel so welcome here and I seem to be getting on with everyone. It's not easy to just waltz into town not knowing anyone and latch onto established groups of friends, so I'm so happy the way things have turned out so far.

On Tuesday the producer's girlfriend came in for a recording session. She's half Norwegian half American, so we're lucky as that meant we could utilise both accents and cast her for two characters. It was a bit harder than the previous session, not least because I didn't know about it before the day and therefore we hadn't sat down and discussed what we wanted from the characters. But we ended up with some good material.

After work I went round the same producer's house and spent the evening with the two of them and a couple of other guys playing board games and drinking for... about 7 hours. It was a really fun night and we all got on really well whilst playing the most complicated games Germany and Italy have to offer. I won the Italian game. It went on for too long, much like fascism I imagine.

I was supposed to go to Hogan's again last night, the bar where the composer plays at, but got lazy and fell asleep. That was yesterday night. Party on. Tonight I could be going out to Salsa dancing (or is it Samba, I always get them mixed up) but given that it's 11pm, I don't think it's going to happen.

Tomorrow my first 'public' video is being displayed to the world, admittedly only via the internet, but it's like a new era when you do your first 'for the public' thing. It's no big deal, just a teaser trailer for our first game (there's 2 games in production), I've done plenty of these things before, but today I had to get it approved by the chain of command. All the 'important people' came into my studio and nodded their nodders after hearing my incessant sparkle noises. It's not my 'finest' work, but to be fair, I'm always horrendously critical of my work, I don't think I've ever been truly satisfied with anything... a character trait I'm quite thankful for as it means I'm constantly, and rather depressingly, striving for an impossible perfection. I may post up a link to it, although I'm not sure how I feel about my company name being intrinsically linked to this blog (although it may already be, I can't remember).

News on the flat. I get my keys next Monday. Hopefully by the end of next week I'll be all settled in my new place... although the logistics of getting all my tat up to the fifth floor remain somewhat of a headache that I'm trying to ignore.

Spanish is starting to go well... oh yes! I had my first Spanish lesson. It was a bit of a strange one, I got asked to speak to the woman who'd do a test with me to assess my current ability... a little daunting to START with a test, but there you go. Then I get told that she'll ONLY speak in Spanish to me, great. So in a walk and am confronted with the fabled Spanish dominatrix I'd heard so much about from my colleagues. An attractive lady with a sort of 'school master' look about her who goes straight into the routine with me. No test, no explanation, just full on lesson. She's there forcefully pointing her pen at Louis, Pepe, Ana and various other 80's style characters on a large laminated worksheet, over pronouncing her Spanish and gesturing me to respond to her (presumed) questioning. To be fair, I'd learnt most of it before, but it makes SUCH a difference when you've got those deep eyes staring you down, knowing full well that you'll get a disappointed head shake accompanied by a 'NO' if you get anything wrong. I learnt more in that hour than I have in... well... more hours than that. So I really enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the brief moment when I made her laugh and for the tiniest amount of time she dropped the ball on her strict teacher persona. I've walked past her since whilst she was teaching someone else and she winked at me... I'm not sure what it means or whether I should get scared yet.

On the way home there was a large police presence in the center of Palma for some reason. No big deal but I had to chortle at how the police have clearly modelled their vans on the one from the A-Team.









R

Put this post in a shopping bag

One of the things that has annoyed me is finding some form of decent snackage. Something cheap, plentiful, not too detrimental to the health and of course something that doesn't taste like dried dog crap. I have sat next to me an assortment of horrendous Spanish snack food, all of which I've dabbled with... all of which I've hated. Today's attempt was sun flower seeds. How anyone can bork up good ol' sunflower seeds is beyond me... but cook them to buggery and coat them in fat grains of salt, and there you have an classic example of why Spain is in the snack dark ages. Next to the salty, strandy, putrid seeds is my bag of biscuits. Mmm. Well, except that on eating the first one I honestly thought I'd bought dog biscuits by mistake. I guess the fact that they say they were cooked in olive oil should have been an indicator that they weren't going to be a custard cream replacement. They look delicious, they taste like they've been sat in the sun for a week and dusted in... dust. Which they probably have. Earlier I also threw out a bag of cashews too. You may be wondering how they managed to screw up a simple nut, and to be honest, so am I. But they did. The search continues.

I woke up this morning with a cockroach on my hand.
Looking on the bright side, at least I got out of bed quickly.

Yesterday was my first recording session. It was a lot more laid back than ones I'd done before. For starters I think the actor turned up two hours late, and I wasn't even informed. He was really good though, totally had fun with the characters and we got some amazing material. The most important thing is to direct the actor in the right way, get them to not give a toss and just to go a bit crazy with it. My favourite piece of direction from us was "Just imagine you're beating up James Brown".

Was supposed to be going out last night but came home and got so tired I fell asleep by midnight... which is when I was supposed to be meeting people. How very British of me.

Despite the fact that I had my first thunderstorm, it's still incredibly hot and I've been sweating all day without doing anything. It sucks. I'm fed up with sweating. I'm also fed up with stepping in the suspicious brown water that's leaking from one of the bathrooms... near the toilet. Luckily my sock has now dried to the same amount of dampness as the rest of my clothes, a kind of moist perspiriness (is that a word?)... so at least I'm not reminded of it now.

Anyway, I'm going to go back to eating my delicious seeds. If only because it reduces the amount of crap in the bins. They don't have bin bags in this place, we just fill up shopping bags and take them out one at a time... so I'm surrounded by crap that I'm too lazy to walk down the road.

Classy

R

I'm a one pan master

As is becoming standard, I seem to struggle with Tuesdays. Crappy night's sleep for some reason. Felt a bit 'murrr' all day. It's probably all the Albondigas (meatballs) I've been having for lunch and the frozen piella with olives thrown in as somewhat of an afterthought for dinner... every day. See the problem is, the sinks are all blocked up in my temporary flat (still) so I'm having to wash the pans in the bathroom. Well, I say the plural 'pans' whilst I am reminded that only one of the hobs work, so it's just one 'pan' that is utilised. Due to both of these factors cooking options are somewhat limited to aforementioned 'throw it all in a pan' style affairs. Still... at least it means I don't have to spend all day in the bathroom cleaning those blasted plural pans, I hate them.

ANYWAY, after a long day without enough water but with too much bad attitude (on my part) I played my first Spanish football match. I LOVED the old Monday night football nights at my old place, so was really looking forward to hacking people up with my meagre limbs flailing around. Alas I was somewhat unprepared for what was to come. It was hot. And not in your British, 'ooh, it's t-shirt weather, how quaint' way. It's hot enough to sweat without doing anything. I'm sweating right now and it's nearly midnight and all I'm doing is typing, in-doors, whilst lying down. We played on a very small five-a-side pitch and the game was SUPER fast. So much so that I had to take my top off (I don't think the audience of two girls were blown away) before I'd even kicked the ball. I nearly passed out about... actually, it wasn't really a set number of times, it was more a consistant feeling of impending heart attack. I also had to keep stealing my poor team mate's water before he'd had any... without asking. But in my defence, I really did think I was going to die.

It wouldn't have been so bad had I not played so bloody terribly.

Afterwards we sat in the bar next to the pitch (photo) and everyone sat around chatting whilst I did my best to pretend I wasn't on the verge of passing out again.

Think I'm gonna give it a break until the heat comes down a bit.

What happened yesterday? Got home, got confused as to what day it was. Realised it was the bloody England match and had to race downtown to see it. Alas, I got lost for the FIRST time. Ran around a bit longer and finally found somewhere playing the game down some back alley. It was at this point, standing in the doorway, surrounded by my fellow country-men, that I remembered why I don't like your traditional Englishman. I heard so much "FAAAKIN' ELL!" that night. Mostly from the men with the fat necks that looked like their faces were made of bright red gammon steaks adorned with thick gold-plated chains and accompanied by their spherical wives doused in flowing zebra-skin curtains. This awful, awful woman shrieking like a macaw every couple of minutes was like a fire alarm but with it's horrible sun-damaged boobs hanging out. I was reminded of how classy, refined and well looked after the Spaniards are. Well... some of them :)

It's really an unfair representation of the people of England though. Only a certain sort of person goes to watch an England match down a back alley in Palma. But I couldn't wait to get out of there. It was strange though because I found myself alien to both England and Spain at that moment. I guess that's all part of the transition period.

So today was another standard day. Had my first team meeting, blah blah blah. It's all going quite well I guess. In the unlikely event that there's any sound designers reading this... I captured an impulse response of the Nintendo DS speakers today... and my GOD was it difficult. I had no idea how much crazy aliasing the DS does to audio. I've captured a lot of bizarre impulses before but that was by FAR the hardest one to deconvolve. Maybe I should just stick with digital spikes rather than sine sweeps.

As usual, went to the cateen to grab some lunch with some guys from work. I quite enjoy it as they're all so incredibly helpful with my Spanish. I'm very lucky with the amount of support I've had from everyone. I feel I want to buy people something to say thanks, a bottle of wine or something, but I donno if that would appear a little brash.

Anyway, here's a photo of the post-lunch coffee we have in a little courtyard outside every day. The three of us had lunch late today so most people had gone back to work by this point. They try to stagger lunch breaks to avoid over crowding the canteen. For some reason it never seems to cause problems during work.

After work I went to do my first appartment visit. A three bedroom place near Santa Catalina, which is pretty close to the center of town and the Bay of Palma. It's on the fifth floor, has a terrace/balcony, washing machine, dish washer, blah blah. It was really nice, recently (and indeed in progress) decorated and I think I'm going to take it. The land lord is this girl, who was actually really attractive... and I had to do the whole 'double kiss' thing when I met her... except I hadn't done it before (here) and went the 'wrong' way and almost ended up snogging her. Turns out she's an English teacher... although she appeared to barely speak a word of English. Luckily Andres (on the left in the photo above) was kind enough to translate for me. Anyway, I'm having a think about it although I don't see myself not taking it as it's the only place I've even heard of that's not got something horrendously wrong with it. The damage is 800 euros, including some bills (I forget)... about £550 at the time of writing. Not bad, although there's no parking.

Speaking of flats. People are moving into my flat next week, so hopefully some profit from that will help pay for the place above. Which reminds me, I've got to send off those keys to the stupid estate agents. The man-voice even had the cheek to try to make out she'd said something different previously... which I know is rubbish.

Tomorrow is my first actor recording session, so I really want it to go well. I've been setting up all afternoon and actually have a good set up at the studio. I FINALLY have aircon and some new acoustic panels after the old aircon leaked all over some of the old stuff. My talk-back and monitoring system into the recording area is all set up and there's a fancy glass panel so I can see into the performance area. I'll put up photos when I have some. It actually looks like a PROPER studio...

Anyway, getting tired. Must sleep.

R