Feeling: the pressure

14 days to go and 6400 words (and 2 game designs) to be done.

Shame that it's also a fairly busy time workwise.

I'd really rather start playing GTA IV right about now.

LOLing: Simon's cat

It's funny because it's true.

Enjoying: mean doctor slang

Ever wondered about the often incomprehensible acronyms and scribbles on medical charts? Chances are the doctor has more to say that you might think - and it's not always nice.

This website lists hundreds - possibly thousands - of these terms and makes for some entertaining reading.

Some of my personal faves:

Donorcycle - motorbike: the biggest cause of donated organs!
BTSOOM - Beats The Sh*t Out Of Me
PRATFO - Patient Reassured And Told to F*** Off
DENTIST - Doesn't Even Need Treatment - It's Sorted, Truly
LFTWM - Looking for 3 Wise Men (applied to young pregnant females who deny having had intercourse)
LGFD - looks good from door (but not closely examined, possibly an obnoxious patient)

Choosing: new wallpaper.

One good thing about the trip and the plethora of pix that came with it is the opportunity to change my desktop. These are the current choices.



(Holyrood Park, Edinburgh)



(One of the many oddly hyper symmetrical forests dotted around the countryside of southern France)

Dreaming: about going to Hell

Not a title you might expect to see all that often but I had a fragment of a dream this morning that is still bouncing around my lobes in a not entirely comfortable way. The details are fading fast but the vibe remains.

I was in a line in a marginally shabby hall near a few simple office tables with people sitting processing forms. One of the tables had a small machine similar to those used for finger-prick blood sugar analysis type tests but I was a little disturbed by the fact that they didn't change the needle between people, as though it really didn't matter anyway.

I hestitated about this and was told something along the lines of "just do it you baby" so I put my finger (my middle finger) in but turned it around nail side down. There was a small prick of the finger and a tiny drop of blood and then I wrapped it in a messy looking cotton-ballesque/papery kind of bundle.

I then proceeded through some narrow rooms, on my way somewhere and in the first were sinks/trenches(?) full of sewage (which looked a little like the toxic waste sections of Portal) and the next housed a man washing his hands that I knew I didn't want to talk to. There was suddenly a lot of nice looking sinks with soap beside them and after the last room I felt as though I wanted to wash my hands but felt that I shouldn't, it was a trap. Around this point I think I realised that this was hell and it was only going to get worse.

All very disturbing really - in my half awake state I then pondered what my hell would really be like - loud and crowded and aggessive dogs barking perhaps - and even now I have this vaguely uneasy sense.

I can put it down to the stir fry I made last night with a bunch of chilli in conjunction with being asked to formalise my Godfather status of some friends kid perhaps (which by the way I'm not in the least bit troubled about) and who knows what else is going on in my head.

I'm not a particularly religious person and I see the concept of Hell as a construct for social control but it wasn't a pleasant dream.

To top it off, there is a slightly lame half inflated blimp outside my window now which keeps bringing to mind the Spinal Tap episode of The Simpsons -

[During the Spinal Tap concert, a large devil appears and immediately deflates]
Tufnel: Well. It seems some silly twit did not get a big enough oxygen tank, but that's supposed to be a devil.
St. Hubbins: Filled up with air, it's very evil and impressive.
Smalls: We salute you, our half-inflated Dark Lord!

I have a strange mind sometimes methinks.