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
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