2048, a webspace odyssey
As my last post was my 2^10th, this one, a non-integer power of two, doesn't seem to be as impressive. Indeed, the next power of two post is some 1023 posts away from this. Given that it's taken since October 2001 to get this far, there's gonna be a whole load of waitin' goin' on.

Ah ah ah ah stayin' alive
Yesterday seemed to have a keeping my life sort of a theme. As I'm now over one week into a four week notice period for quitting my job, which means that I'm soon to be a) free, and b) not paid any money any more, I devoted some time yesterday to attempting to find a job to provide me with the sort of life I want to lead. While, I'd happily spend all day in bed and the rest of the time driving around, perhaps performing the occasional gig, it's simply not an option: my expensive habits - CDs, pies and petrol - cost money. So, the job seeking continues and there are some very interesting prospects out there.

I had been awake since 2.45am yesterday, so perhaps it wasn't the best idea to be gigging that night. Especially not in the somewhat difficult comedic landscape of Scarborough. It's difficult because it's not a nice drive to get there - there are some bloody awful roads to use. It's also difficult because the folks in Scarborough are hard to please. I'd died on that stage quite horribly earlier on in my career. It was also made difficult because I'd had little sleep and the weather was rubbish. Still, we survived the journey there and even arrived in time to watch the audience arrive.

I survived my 10 minutes on the stage. I wasn't really at full comic pelt. The audience weren't particularly responsive, but I relaxed into the set anyway and got them in the end. It wasn't a ripper. They were polite. I was too tired to let it worry me too much. Looking back, I felt like I was going through the motions more than I was connecting with the audience. I listened to a recording and I wasn't too bad, but laughter-wise, it was not my finest hour.

Then it was time to try to survive the journey home. With snowy and icy roads, horrible rain, a car I'm not used to driving in the snow, which also seemed to have a problem with its brake-system (I'm not kidding), and the dulled senses of someone who had not slept in the last 20 hours... this journey had more of a risk of dying than the mild and figurative risk of dying normally associated with the stand-up comedian. Quite simply, we could have ended up running through a crash barrier and into a ravine. Not good.

My passenger was calmed by my reassuring voice over as the car started to skid out of control (albeit mildly) in the snow, while I got a much greater high than I did on stage as my body injected adrenaline into itself (or whatever it does when it thinks you might be about to die). I talked us through the difficult drive through the moors. The snow, the fog, the absence of grip and, in some ways, brakes, were all calmly managed and we emerged unscathed.

Then I was pulled over by the police. They didn't like the fact that I had my front fog lights on. They also didn't like the missing headlight on the left of the car. I decided not to say "why do you think I had the fog lights on - I can't see", or "you think that's bad, you should try the brakes". I kept calm I was polite. I told the officer that the car was going in to be serviced this morning (which it was), she said that that was convenient. As it was true and as I was too in control of myself and tired, to notice the sarcasm in her voice, I didn't flinch or try to defend it. I was sent on my way with nothing other than a 5 minute delay in my journey.

I got home alive. That's the main thing.

This morning, the car went in for service. I've had it 2 months and put over 10,000 miles on it. I wonder how many of my CDs I'll need to sell on ebay in order to be able to afford to pay for everything that's wrong with it...