Hullo. It's been a while. In lieu of anything actually exciting happening, here are two videos of the kiddies :)

I am brilliant. Discuss:

http://www.nocturnalgamer.com

One of Oscar's first milli second-long smiles, caught by my mum, who spent most of her visit last weekend with her camera glued to her face:



And here's some more oscar pics:

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Just... amazing!

Here's some pictures my mum took yesterday. All my ones are still on my phone while I wait for a bluetooth thingy to arrive from a tardy ebay seller. Grr

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This is Oscar, our son. He was born this morning at 3am, after 1 hour 23 minutes of labour. He weighs 8lb 3oz, 50cm long. Mum and baby are healthy and fine. Right now, he's full and asleep.

Website updatery kinda thing.

http://www.nocturnalgamer.com

Feel free to sign the guestbook, that mysteriously refuses to show new entries for hours, until it's good and ready.

And then last night, I got catalepsy again for the first time in ages. I got it a lot as a kid. I wake up, but my body is still asleep. It's a bit of an altered state, and you hallucinate a lot. I woke up last night, and felt something jump on me from behind. It wrapped an arm around my throat so I couldn't breath, and proceeded to thrust it's groin on my back very fast. Lasted about 20 seconds before I regained control of myself.

I am having fucking odd dreams at the moment.

Last night I had a disturbing dream.

It was really really short. There was an old woman sitting in front of me. She was sat slightly forward, and had a reasonably fierce expression on her face. She was tapping the fingers of her left hand on the wooden arm of her chair, which made a strong staccato sound. ~tap tap tap tap tap~. ~tap tap tap tap tap~. She was impatiently waiting for me to do something. Over the top of the tapping of her fingers, there was a beeping sound, which woke me up. After about 30 seconds of wakefulness, I realised it was the phone downstairs, which was running out of batteries, off its cradle.

I've dreamed about her before, which is odd, eh? Last time she was dressed in black robes inviting me to join her circle of initiates.

Ok, so it sounds rubbish. But it was bloody disturbing at the time.

Fo sho.




School starts next week!

For want of something else to do, here is some random drivel.

Alice just shut her thumb in the front door. I'd feel more sympathy if she hadn't been having a huge tantrum and slammed the door herself, having been told already today about 3 times not to slam doors. I might take her to an urgent care centre (mini A&E) in a bit if it's still bad. Big dent in a small thumb :-( Poor thing.

I went babysitting for a friend last night. She works for the same person as me, and doesn't have much money, so I didn't mind helping out. I was feeling mildly less sympathetic when she rolled in with her mate and a random picked-up man in tow at 2.30am. I don't mind watching TV, but having nowt else to do for 7 hours sent me a bit barmy. Exhausted today.

Alice only came back from my mum's for a week last night, so it is nice to have her back. Lots of cuddles this morning - she even climbed into my bed for cuddles, which she NEVER does! She's a bit grumpy though - nothing unexpected since she hasn't been home for two weeks (we were on holiday the week before).

I really don't have anything exciting to write here, I'm just writing for the sake of writing, and because childrens' telly drives me nuts, and the PC is in the same room, and I need distraction...

There's loads of other stuff going on, but nothing I really want to write about in public. Hope you're all well, and all that.

yours
A dull man.

Halen's waaaawesome London Sincon 2006 report. (Copied and pasted verbatim from the Sinfest boards because I am teh lazy).

Hello. How are you? Good. I am tired. But happy.

Please forgive me for the state of these photographs. Drink and mini phone cameras don't mix, especially since I switched my camera to fine detail (for close-ups) half way through the evening, which makes every photo from then onwards a capricious blur, not helped by my shaky hand, and the fact that the people I was trying to photograph were weaving happily from side to side.

APALLING PHOTOGRAPHS FOLLOW.
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I actually forgot again. I updated my website wot you can find here:

http://www.nocturnalgamer.com

It's a bit ranty though - much funnier in my head and all that. Feel free to post in the guestbook and make me feel like people actually read it.

Amusingly, google image search has picked up the picture I posted about 3 months ago of a japanese girl in maids uniform, and associated it with the word "hentai", which is another name for japanese cartoon porn. Highest number of hits my site has ever seen.

So I travelled to London with some friends for a mutual friend's engagement party, which was quite fun. The journey home, less fun. Party finished about 2.15, and we walked to a hotel where some people were staying. Well, most people walked - the bride-to-be didn't walk, I carried her in an exercise in futile chivalry. Me so manly.

After that I walked to Trafalgar square to jump on a night bus to Harrow, where my mum lives, at about 3am. I doze off for a bit, and wake up as I'm jostled by the heavy-breating man next to me. Worried he might be trying to start a fight or some such, I ignore him, and am shortly delighted by the noise of him being sick on the floor next to me. Hmmn, lovely. I put my feet on the seat in front of me and pretend nothing's happened. A while later we're nearing the end of the journey when the bus driver notices the swimming pool of yak on the floor, promptly ordering everyone off the bus, and driving off in a huff.

Now sensible people at this point would wait an hour for the next bus. Not me - I vaguely recognise the name of where we are and do some incorrect distance calculations in my head. So I walk it. After a while I notice I can actually see pretty well, which would be because it's dawn. I walk over the top of harrow hill (which by the way, is extraordinarily posh and exclusive), stopping off in the graveyard to take some pretty pictures of a graveyard at dawn, and such :)

Got home at 5.11am, and now I am a zombie. Anyway look, graveyard:

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Another year older, hurrah. Got drunk on Friday, lazed around with family on Saturday (interspersed with tantrums from limit-testing 4 year old). Mostly played with new toy.



Hmmn, SO cute. The ipod is quite cute too. Ahaha. Oh dear.

My old MP3 player was actually held together with selotape, bless it.

p.s. OMG SINFEST HAS MOVED FROM KEENSPOT OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD!

New forums very exciting an' all that!

My four year old daughter came home today with a school report card. What's with that?! She's four years old, and at pre-school nursery, and she gets reports? I told her, I said, "if it's not straight A's, you're in for a whupping".

Ha ha! I'm joking! I'd only whup her if she got a C!



ok not really. It's in school report speak though. I've offered some translations below:

Report: "Alice can organise her thoughts verbally and will rephrase a sentence when necessary to improve clarity"
Translation: "If you don't give her what she wants first time, she'll keep on at you until she gets it"

Report: "Alice has an enquiring mind"
Translation: "She asks the question "why" every time you speak"

Report: "Alice is a friendly, confident, chatty child..."
Translation: "Talks constantly"

Report: "takes a natural lead within the group"
Translation: "Very bossy"

Report: "who likes the company of other children who tend to look up to her"
Translation: "She's tall"




OK OK OK I'm being facetious. Really it says that she's a genius and wonderful and perfect and stuff, which is absolutely right, because she is (despite being REALLY mean to me at bathtime today, *sniff*). But still, a report from nursery. Heh! I feel for the poor teacher having to sit down and think up things like "She can identify similarities, differences, patterns and change during scientific work" about 4 year olds!

Yesterday, I answered my colleague's phone. The conversation went like this (identifying details replaced by ~~~~~~) :

Me: Hello, Yvonne ~~~~~~~~'s phone
Strangely voiced stranger: Oh... is Yvonne ~~~~~~~~ there please?
Me: No, I'm afraid she's not here. Can I help you?
SVS: Well... I was hoping to speak to Yvonne. My name's ~~~~~ ~~~~~. I'm a researcher at the University of ~~~~~~~~~~~. I've been told there's a meeting at 8.30 tomorrow morning at ~~~~~~~~ Health Centre, and I wanted to check with her whether I could attend?
Me: Ah right. I don't think she's due back today I'm afraid
SVS: Well, I don't really like to ask, but do you possibly have a mobile number for her please?
Me: Sure, hold on one sec...... ok it's 07~~~~~~~~~~34
SVS: Great. Well. Thanks very much Steve. *click*
Me: No prob... wait HOW THE FUCK DID HE KNOW MY NAME?

Never heard of him before. Would certainly remember that voice, and apparently, he's about 3 foot tall, and I've certainly never met anyone of that description through work.

Following the logic, psychic dwarves are working at our local university, which means it's run by Willy Wonka. I demand chocolate.

Ok, so thanks to Trustedfaith on the Sinfest forums, I've got my guestbook working on the Nocturnal Gamer site. But it's sad and empty, and it needs your loving. Go leave me a nice message please:

http://www.nocturnalgamer.com

Click on "abuse me" in the left hand menu :)

Right, right, right. I forgot, I updated again. Here:

http://www.nocturnalgamer.com

Apart from a small wobble, where the entire site disappeared off the Internet, when my hosting provider for the domain name fell over for a day.

Hurrah. And stuff.