And I Thought I Was The Only One Department: how reassuring to know that someone else has date-sorted their coinage, with accompanying statistics.

Me, in the comments:I do, though. I sort-of miss boredom. Who said the other day that the Internet was the new Staring Out Of The Window? We don't spend enough time staring out of windows anymore. Or doodling. Or listening to shit songs on the radio, in the hope that the next one will be a good one.

That's one of the things I liked about China: loads of people standing around and staring into space. Very healthy. # ·

Marcello, on the Theme From Z Cars: # ·

Unusually thought-provoking post on Status Anxiety, on the subject of comparing oneself with the abilities and achievements of others, which has had me doing a lot of thinking over the last 24 hours. Particularly since that's been a big personal topic for me this week. Anyway, I've finally left a rambling comment... oh crap, should I even be directing traffic that way? It sort-of feels wrong. Hmm. Well, I could do with finding my own way back, for the sake of reference, so... # ·

"Keep it low, keep it blue."

"We do not want see a quarter of a million in that box."

"We have a one-box game!"

"This is the best - game - we've ever - had."

Rats, I'm hooked. Curse you More4, and your daily 18:10 repeats!

Charlie Brooker, I blame you for starting it. # ·

My taxi driver from this morning used to work in this office block in the 1980s, when the Inland Revenue were based here. Apparently, the 12th floor (the empty one above this one, where I used to have my reiki sessions) was occupied by Central Television.

"You used to see the stars in the lifts, all the time. It was one of the perks of the job."

"Oh yes? Who did you see?"

"Well, Dave Bartram of Showaddywaddy was never out of the place..."

Dave.
Bartram.
Of Show.
Waddy.
Waddy.
In OUR lifts.

It's almost too much to take in. # ·

Bookmarked for future reference, i.e. when I have a free evening at home, i.e. HAH, so when the F**K is THAT gonna be... and breathe...

ILM: the youtube thread chock full of goodness.

Obscure archive music videos to die for. # ·

Talk about two continents divided by a single language. My favourite sentence from this week's Stylus Singles Jukebox comes from Brad Shoup, talking about "Fireman" by Lil' Wayne:Mainly because I haven't got the faintest clue as to what he's on about - and so I keep rolling the words around in my mind, over and over, like a mantra from which some eternal truth might eventually be revealed. # ·

Waiter Rant: Heaven & Hell. Modern-day parable, beautifully told. Unashamedly sentimental, and justifiably so. # ·

Robin at Speaking as a Parent, waxing eleoquent on conspiracy theories. Couldn't agree more, especially in the light of recent-ish absurd comments on Rachel's blog (which I can't be arsed to dig up and link to, but, well, really.) # ·

When I get obsessed with a subject, I get well and truly obsessed with it. Simon Reynolds @ Blissblog continues the Arctic Monkeys counter-backlash. YES! Somebody else from the hi-falutin Cult Studs wing of the music blogosphere has actually bothered to sit down and listen to the album! I feel like punching the air with glee. # ·

DON'T read hard copies of the Forksplit archives on the toilet at work. The ensuing hysterical spluttering will be almost impossible to mask. Frankly, it would be less embarrassing to be caught, you know. That thing which I don't do. (At work.)

Case study: Ten(emos) PLAY STA/TION! # ·

Betty praised the Arctic Monkeys. In her comments box, I concurred, at moderate length.

I also enjoyed what Marcello said. (Scroll down a bit.) # ·

Nick Cave played Nottingham last week.
He has never played Nottingham before.
I've never seen him play live.
I've been buying his albums since the late 1980s.
I've always wanted to see him play live.
I had a ticket.

The gig was last Wednesday.
Today is Monday.
I've just realised something.

I've missed the gig.
It should have been written in my diary.
But it wasn't.
When I added the new pages, I forgot to transfer the dates.
I forgot.
I forgot about a gig which I had been looking forward to for weeks.
If not years.

Current mood: wretched. # ·

Ee, the stuff I stick in people's comments boxes.

"I like to think that I, um, let's see, construct a discourse around internal and external perceptions of self-fullness." # ·

We're in technological dystopia. The modern world hates you when things go wrong.

Ancient cathode ray TV set in the cottage: died and gone to heaven. No time to arse about buying a replacement.

Sky Plus box: won't record C4 properly. Done all the soft and hard reboots. K has spent many evenings in Call Waiting Hell. Engineer coming out on Monday.

Laptop: constantly blue-screening. Done all the tests. More Call Waiting Hell. Can't remember where we're up to with this one.

Dyson vacuum cleaner: died and gone to heaven, apparently irreparable, need to buy a replacement.

Plus 30+ minutes updating iTunes + iPod software, downloading, rebooting, flash-bumping or whatever it's called, all done while multi-tasking with ironing, except that the water spray has also decided to expire and soak everything in sight when pressed.

I hate blog posts like this, you know. # ·

Didn't get the Arctic Monkeys tickets, despite arriving 90 minutes before the Rock City box office was due to open. Huge queue, stretching back almost to the Welbeck Hotel - but I reckoned I had seen worse on the morning that Blur tickets went on sale, back in 1997. Also, they were restricting tickets to two per person, which should have helped my chances.

Nice friendly chatty atmosphere, like queuing for the indie version of Last Night Of The Proms - Arctic Monkeys fans seem like a pleasant and varied bunch of people, and by no means all as young as one might think.

Stayed c.15 minutes, until a bouncer walked along the back end of the queue, telling people there was no point staying as he had counted heads at the front. As the back of the "guaranteed entry" section was way in front, we all shrugged and mooched off. Apparently some people at the front of the queue had been there since 6am. Good for them.

The bouncer told us that some tix would be available on the web at Ticketmaster and Seetickets, also from 18:00 when the box office opened. I was there, on the dot, pressing Refresh exactly when the Ticketmaster link became active (Seetickets was down due to excess traffic), but still didn't have any luck: "No tickets matched your search" or something similar, over and over again. Shrugged again, and gave up. # ·

Crikey, it's getting a bit crowded in here all of a sudden. Can I just squeeze through? Thanks. Oops, did I nick someone's glass? That's yours, is it? Sorry about that.

PLENTY OF ROOM IN THE LOUNGE, EVERYBODY! SHALL WE MOVE THROUGH?

Nope, no-one's shifting. Fancy a quick ciggy out the back? # ·

Funny how I've been mourning the passing of Smash Hits today, like a celebrity death or something. Bought it regularly from 1978 to 1984, occasionally from 1985 to 1991, and probably never since 1994. Peak years: late 1979 (Buzzcocks on the cover, when I stopped feeling embarrassed about buying it) to late 1984 (Julian Lennon voted Best New Artist in the Readers' Poll, for crying out loud).

But, hey. Popjustice is the new Smash Hits, as we all know. The spirit lives on. # ·

Excellent brainstorming session down the phone with S last night, bouncing ideas around for The Intriguing Opportunity Which I'm Not Going To Talk About In Public Even To Myself On The Blog Which No One Ha Ha Yes NO ONE Is Reading.

Then telly. Sky Plus box on the blink again, so Shamless didn't record properly curses curses. Watched this week's Life On Mars instead, then an early-ish (and booze-free) night.

S who sits next to me in the office goes to Hangzhou tomorrow, for a couple of weeks. She popped in briefly, and I dumped as much factual info on her as I could possibly squeeze into the short time available. She'll love it over there. Felt a little pang of jealousy, which is silly as I don't actually want to be there right now at all. Too much going on in the UK.

Enjoyable lunch meeting with E from the Evening Post - a sort of pre-interview interview, which turned into a general chat: noo-meejah, micro-celebrity, music, politics, the Lowest Circle Of Hell that is Miami airport. Bounced some of last night's ideas off him, and got a good reaction. (He knows about Xtra now. Heh.)

Liked the venue that he chose: that new Tea Shop on Broad Street, opposite Broadway. Good sandwiches, and a vast selection of teas. I chose a pot of Chinese Earl Grey, which comes out like green tea; it gave me that great sort of mental energy kick, that a good strong green tea can give.

Arctic Monkeys tickets go on sale from the Rock City box office at 18:00. I'm going to join the queue at 16:30, with my Gore-tex lined baseball cap (it's bitter out there), my iPod (to evaluate this week's Stylus shite), and my Forksplit archive printout (I've got as far back as November 12th). # ·

So, yeah, WHY hungover? Because it was MissMish's birthday, and we all met in Saltwater for a drink, STRICTLY between the hours of 6pm and 9pm, except of course most people were still there at 10.15pm, at which point the Gentlemen Who Make Good Listeners And Who Do Colours Well (TM) retired for our equivalent of port and cigars in the drawing room, i.e. a pint of Flowers at the Lord Roberts, um, well, two pints, and then, f**k it why not, rude not to, over the road to The Central until nearly 1am. So, seven hours out on the piss then. But it's OK when you pace yourself, like what I did.

Good to see Butterfly Ian again after so long. He's been too much of a hermit lately, so JP and Nomad and I decided he should be included in our little group rather more often. Phone numbers were swapped, etc. # ·

Hungover. But loquacious brain-fizz word-splurge hungover, which is the best kind. Keep sending people absurdly long e-mails.

Counted my blessings this morning, which are unusually abundant right now. Sometimes life is GOOD, you know? # ·

There was a post here a second ago, but I think - on balance - it belongs over at The Other Place. The writing's a bit rough, but I want the comments... so... off it goes. # ·