Lateshift: For old-skool and becandled alike.

21:39 / 30.12.03

Christmas mornin', we discovered that we did not feel any worse, and went home for the holidays, which was great fun.

Then on Monday, my mother called and told me my father had had a mild heart attack, but that he was okay, and everything was going to be fine, and then my fiance came home shaking and shivering with a one hundred and one degree fever. I bundled him up, fed him and looked after him, and he's improving. So far, I have not gotten it. My dad came home from the hospital today and sounds fine, and maybe now he and my sister and brother in law will finally quit smoking. So the past 48 hours have been kinda wound up.

21:49 / 30.12.03

Jesus Christ. And there I am being all jokey about illness, I'm everso sorry. Well, I hope your Dad makes a full recovery, and that, yeah, good stuff comes out of this. Well, that sounds like the worst Christmas *ever*, for the entire Mazarine clan.

But 2004 is going to be much better! I can feel it in my ‘water’, or something.

21:52 / 30.12.03

Jesus. Sorry to hear that, Maz... hope all turns out okay.

Well, I'm here too. And despite being at work I am very hapy because this morning I found my passport and managed to cancel my application for a new one in time (cos they've been dickig around with it for ages and I'm going on holiday next Tuesday so I was getting a bit worried.)

So right now I'm just sitting here reading newspapers and listening to Foetus. There are worse jobs.

22:04 / 30.12.03

I keep meaning to get a new passport since the summer, when my old one expired of old age. I don’t really want to give it up though. I think I’ve still got a halfway decent barnet now, but the photo in my passport is me when I was 16 and I’ve got bigger hair than Bob Dylan, with no backcombing required. It looks bloody mental.

It’s just turned midnight here, by the way. Happy New Year!!!!! to you all. I'm drinking a toast to you as I type.

22:09 / 30.12.03

It's okay. It was one of those wake up calls my dad needed so that it's not a massive coronary in five years. And my fiance never had it so good- soup, juice, hugs, affection, all the blankets and pillows he could ask for- it's a shame he was so sick.

And don't stop joking about illness on my account, no big, I'm just glad this appears to be a short term bug.

cusm

22:15 / 30.12.03

Happy NYE, you mean. Still another 24 for 2004.

As for myself, I'll be here on shift till 10pm my time to give the good wishes for y'all over the pond when the clock ticks. Then its off to the party for me...

22:16 / 30.12.03

No,Maz,I think maybe this Lateshift is cursed. I think Kegboy had some family scare or other over the holidays, and my Nan’s already-precarious health has plummeted in the last week or so. It’s like Final Destination. Except with a better-looking cast.

Cursed! Cursed, I tell you!

22:22 / 30.12.03

Happy NYE, you mean. Still another 24 for 2004.

Oh. My. God.

Well what the dickens is my brother doing trying to throw a party tonight? And am I doomed to relive this experience again tomorrow night?

It is a fucking curse, I tell you. Nothings been right here since I persuaded everyone to skip Christmas day. I thought we were being all cool and atheist, but everything’s been bloody odd all week.

I’ve got to stop getting drunk for no reason, too.

22:28 / 30.12.03

Indeed. It's actually TOMORROW night when I'm allowed to bring booze into work.

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:28 / 30.12.03

I may be off the booze for January, after too much indulgence over the holidays. Also giving up smoking, which I suspect will be much easier if I don't drink. It may, however, entail viciously excluding myself from various social events, which would be a shame.

I'd like to start Operation Sauce-Denial now, but my incredibly bourgie friend has demanded that I bring two bottles of wine and one of champagne to his incredibly bourgie New Year's dinner party, and I'm buggered if I'm being a Eunuch at that harem, having laid out the readies.

Sorry to hear about the various oddnesses and illnesses hereabouts. Mistiming Christmas can have very odd results - I had my family Christmas a week early and it has sent my sense of the passing of the season utterly out of whack...

22:37 / 30.12.03

Hey, I only said I’m going to try to stop getting drunk for no reason. I’m just going to have to work a little harder to find reasons, is all. Its just this kind of mental laziness that has doubtless led me to the sorry state where I literally don’t know what day of the week it is. Which would be fine if it was just a matter of ‘is it Tuesday or is it Wednesday?’, but when you find yourself toasting the new year in on the wrong night, you definately need to find your focus, I think.

23:57 / 30.12.03

There's a Mythbusters marathon on New Years Day, I think I'll loaf in bed and do that. Maybe I'll buy some cheap champagne and sip over the course of the day.

00:00 / 31.12.03

What's Mythbusters?

00:21 / 31.12.03

Mythbusters is a Discovery Channel show. They test urban myths/legends with the cold and funky hands of science. The two hosts are so nifty, and they don't just test a myth half-heartedly, you know, it seems unlikely, so they give up- they want to figure out if it's even possible for a rumored event to have occurred. They've escaped from Alcatrez, for example, on a raft they made out of raincoats. They're so cool, and I wish I had their jobs.

00:24 / 31.12.03

That sounds way cool! Sounds like an excellent choice for NYD!

00:56 / 31.12.03

They're so neat. They would make like, the most perfect uncles.

03:21 / 31.12.03

Anybody out there? *cavernous echo*

03:24 / 31.12.03

I'm still about, on and off.

03:27 / 31.12.03

Aces. I'm bored out of my mind. What is everybody doing?

03:30 / 31.12.03

GRE Math prep over here- I haven't done an algebra problem in at least six years, and it kinda shows.

03:32 / 31.12.03

Good lord. What for, Maz?

03:40 / 31.12.03

Gotta take the bastard things again. Took 'em back in October or November, did well enough on verbal, aced analytical, tanked quantitative with humiliating colors. Since I'm not ready to commit to five years for a PhD program, I thought I'd get a second masters instead, in Library Sciences, but unfortunately, unlike my current Masters program, they want to see GRE scores, and I have to score above "drooling" in quantitative for their tastes.

It's a lot of work, avoiding work.

03:47 / 31.12.03

Christ. I always shit in mathematics. My mind completely and totally freezes up. Hope the prep hammers it out for you, Maz.

I'm contemplating watching the cast commentaries on the second Two Towers disc. But I can't be arsed to go into the next room and find it.

04:06 / 31.12.03

Well, I'm off to bed. Night all.

04:15 / 31.12.03

I always shit in mathematics.

God, they'd have kicked me out of the classroom if I'd done that.

the Fool

07:52 / 31.12.03

Its 8.45 new years eve. I've got a stockpile of chemicals to last me 2 days of non stop mayhem. 2 days 2 parties. DERRICK CARTER as the cherry on top of the cream on top of the cake. Dancing, much dancing. It should be interesting!!!

Love to you all, hope you all have a big one.

Happy new year and stuff...

10:07 / 31.12.03

Ah well... last missive for the Late Shift from Stoatie in the early afternoon of New Year's Eve, England time... I've just been out to buy a bottle of whisky to drink at work tonight (and some rum, too, cos it's what Captain Jack Sparrow would've wanted, as (al-Qaeda permitting) there's never any news on New Year's Day, so they don't mind us getting pissed at work... gonna buy fortified food now (chips and stuff) to ready myself for the night ahead... if I don't manage to post (which I definitely SHOULD) then happy new year one and all!

cusm

16:26 / 31.12.03

Cheers Fool! That's my plan once I'm off shift here round 10pm. Its making for a fine menu this year. We've mushrooms in caramel chunks, numerous grams of powered MDMA, 2C-I, DPT, 5-meo-DMT, some very fine weed, and my sister in law managed to score some coke this morning. And then there's the case of champaign. That all ought to keep me busy for a bit.

gingerbop

18:07 / 31.12.03

Happy New Year already, people 4 hours ahead of us.

I've given up. All my friends have abandoned me for Berlin, Edinburgh, or a nice evening with their partners. Im going to the village party with, woo, my parents. Im feeling very sad. And then im sad, and i'll get drunk, and i'll just cry, and it'll be terrible.

Anyway, hope everyone is having a better time than I'll be having.

cusm

21:58 / 31.12.03

gar. 3 more hours till I can go play...

21:58 / 31.12.03

(places hands on table) Is there anybody there? Is tere anybody there?

uncle retrospective

22:27 / 31.12.03

Well I'm in work for another hour and a half.
Is anyone still about?
Happy NEWYEAR!

Spatula Clarke

22:31 / 31.12.03

The money I promised you and your brother is under the loose floorboard in the hall.

Yep, I'm here. Trying to force some words out of my head and into my fingers for the report on my final year project, just as I have been for the last week. Failing.

But yeah, happy New Year, all.

cusm

22:44 / 31.12.03

Been clawing through the dark corners of my desk, hunting up treasure in CDs I haven't listened to for years. King Crimson's: Red, good rocking guitar prog. Shadowfax, jazzy tribal synth from 1990 that I used to listen to a lot. I think in a way, I've actualyl more an ear for it now than I did when I used to listen to it regularly.

Almost makes me want to dig through my old CDs at home, see what I've neglected for years that suddenly appeals to me again. But that's a dangerous game. There's great behemoths of prog lurking in there, and a gauntlet of metal to dodge and even then I might end up with Tangerine Dream. My musical tastes have wandered in some odd places over the years, not all of them particularly speakable nowadays. But there is still all the Zepplin and Who in there that might be worth a dusting. The classics, ya know?