Oh yeah, today is definitely a weird day, no doubt about it.
I popped home at lunchtime briefly, and whilst waiting at the bus stop to get back into town, a taxi pulled up. A man wearing a plastic rosary around his neck, and obviously absolutely pissed out of his mind got out, staggered towards me, and slurred in a really strong Scottish accent,

“Isnae it a beautiful day? Ye keep on smilin’ an’ remember that aw ye need tae gi’ by in this warld is love. God bless ye!”

With that, he staggered off again, leaving me totally bemused.

Have you ever had one of those weird days?

Mine started before I even woke up, with an extremely bizarre dream. Usually, I don’t remember much of my dreams, but this one was an exception (although it’s patchy in places).
My Mum was at home - the house I grew up in, not the one they moved into around 3-4 years ago - and she had stolen an eggshell from my finished breakfast to make a potion in it. I’ve no idea what the potion did, I just remember that when I tried to ask her what she was doing, she got annoyed. She drank the potion, and the dream flashed to the two of us in a propellor aeroplane, flying towards my sister’s house. We crashed right through the bedroom window, disturbing my sister, who had been in bed. Strangely enough, she didn’t seem upset. Instead, she offered to show us around the house as she said she’d recently refurbished and redecorated. The house did indeed look different, with a huge cabinet/shelf unit in a corner that my nan actually owns, a futon that two friends in Bristol use as a guest bed, and 2 kitchens, one painted in pink and pale blue, and the other long and white, with numerous cupboards and bare countertops. I started opening the cupboards and drawers to look into them, and found them all absolutely empty. When I reached the fridge, my sister told me that there was nothing to see in there. When I opened it, all it contained was a decomposing brussel sprout, and some wet lettuce stuck to the shelf above the salad container.

Then I woke up with a start, and realised it was 8.37am and I had 23 minutes to make it into work. Amazingly, I got there for 9.02am, still half asleep. Walking into the second half of the office to hang up my jacket, I had this split-second moment of panic that I wasn’t fully dressed. Thankfully, a quick check confirmed I had clothes on in all the right places. I’m just hoping that now I’ve had a couple of hours to wake up, I’m actually functioning!

So the killers of James Bulger have been released by the parole board. Both just 10 years old when they murdered the toddler 8 years ago, they’ve now been given new identities and kept well out of the sight of the prying media and the protestors who wanted to keep them locked up for life.

There’s a lot of hoo-hah about whether they have changed in the past eight years. They’re legally adults now, almost 19, and have spent almost half of their lives to date being ‘rehabilitated by the system’. Does the system work, though? A lot of people may argue that if a person is evil, and capable of murder, they will always be evil. But Robert Thompson and Jon Venables were children themselves at the time, brought up in an environment that wasn’t particularly family or welfare oriented, if the background is true. Does that account for what they did? Can anyone truly be born evil, or is it all down to upbringing? The nature/nurture argument raises its head..

Time for the personal opinion, and feel free to switch off or argue vehemently at this point:

I think what they did was atrocious. They tortured, mutilated and murdered a toddler in cold blood, and nothing - absolutely nothing - can excuse or wave away that. However, they have spent the last 8 years of their lives in an entirely different environment to that in which they spent their first 10 years. They have apparently expressed remorse for what they did. According to those who have dealt with them, they have made amazing progress - studied and passed exams, pursued hobbies, gone through years of psychiatric therapy.

Now, they’re being released. For 8 years they have had restricted contact with the ‘real world’. They’ve got new identities, fake backgrounds and documentation to support them. No photos of them have been released since they were sentenced. Or have they? There are large numbers of people out there who want to see real justice done - everything from life-time incarceration to public hanging in the streets. Allegedly, a recent photo of Robert Thompson is available on the internet. It’s fuzzy, to be sure, but people are latching on to it. It’s their only lead - for now. And with the speed and quality of communication nowadays, it may not be long before more is found out about them, despite the authorities’ precautions to stop that from happening, for the boy’s safety. After all, the Kaycee Nicole saga is still fresh in everyone’s minds.

If Robert Thompson or Jon Venables do anything else to draw attention to themselves, even if it’s going 1 mph over the speed limit for 5 seconds, they’re out. It’s over. I think they’re going to spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders, and going back into the real world is probably scaring them good. With that in mind, I don’t think they’ll strive to be anything more than model citizens. Whilst I don’t condone what they did - and I never will - I think that just living their lives is going to be permanent rehabilitation, and to some extent, still a prison of sorts. I’m not going to wish them luck, but they’re going to need it..

From a nameless (for security reasons) source:
“The network is protected by Borderware firewalls, with a Token Ring network in a demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the outward-facing firewalls and those protecting the internal network.”

Is it just me, or does anyone else think it sounds like they’re expecting war?

Ugh. So, so tired today. Headed off to Birmingham last night for the James Marsters thing (he of Spike fame in Buffy). Really enjoyed it, great bloke, very funny, extreeeemely cute, thankfully minimum drool factor upon getting the obligatory autograph/handshake. As the event finished too late for me to get a train back up to Sheffield, I stayed overnight at my parent’s house.

Of course, having to be in work this morning, although thankfully not until 10.30/11ish, I decided to head into Birmingham with my Dad on his way to work (7am shift). Slept badly, although I always do the first night on the pull-out guest bed, and was awake when my Dad stuck his head round the door to wake me up at 5.50am.

Now, any sensible person would have gone to bed the previous night at a sensible time. But did I have that much common sense? Of course not! So I dragged myself up, got dressed, managed to reasonably fake being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and waited until my brother had said goodbye to me before collapsing on the train. Woke up enough when the train arrived at Sheffield to make it home, and lamented the fact that if I tried to catch an hour’s sleep, I’d wake up in a blind panic 3 hours later. Damn! Got into work at about 10.20 - earlier than I’d anticipated - and despite caffeine, still sleepy…yawning as I type. Not good.
Must catch up on sleep tonight…must catch up on sleep tonight. Must..mmm, wrist rest makes surprisingly comfortable pillow…zzzzzzz.

So I woke up this morning, got out of bed, and the room spun. Half sat/half fell back down on the bed, and figured heading down to the doctor’s would be a good idea. Of course, the wait at the doctor’s was obscene - arrived there at 9.10am, saw the doctor at 10.30am, then had another half hour’s wait to see the nurse for a blood test. Turns out I’m a bit anaemic, and have slightly low blood pressure. No huge problem; they’re sending my blood test off to Northern General just to check the levels of my epilepsy medication in my blood, and then they’ll probably stick me on some iron tablets. I had the same problem quite a few years ago, in sixth form at school, so I’m not too concerned. Directors at work were happily understanding about it, and I should be back in tomorrow.

Token nutter in the waiting room. Talking in a loud voice, questioning the other patients about why they were there, attempting to scrounge cigarettes (although no-one in there smoked). He finally left only to return 15 minutes later with a bag of shopping and tried to sell us all “dirt-cheap” tins of tuna and corned beef so he could get money to buy cigarettes. In the end, one of the ladies in there got up to complain to the receptionist, who came in and berated the man with, “Malcolm! You’re not due back here till 12, go for a walk and leave these patients alone!”
Grumbling and protesting, he picked up his bag and huffed out, telling the receptionist as he went, “Fine! I won’t bother coming back at 12!”

Saturday, Wolverhampton:
An Audience (that-was-supposed-to-have) James Marsters (but-didn’t)

Instead, we got Amber Benson (Tara in Buffy), Robin Atkin Downes (Reptile Boy in Buffy, cinema-screen-jumping-bad-guy in Charmed, Byron and Morann in Babylon 5, someone in Titans, lots of other stuff), J August Richards (Gunn in Angel), Christian Kane (Lindsey in Angel - mmmmmm, *so* cute), Greg Vaughn (Dan in Charmed, also way cute), and Four Star Mary (the band behind ‘Dingoes Ate my Baby’ in Buffy). Great day, amazing atmosphere, witty and charming guests, autographs from all (bar Amber Benson, who had to go quick), a party (with dubious disco lights and music) afterwards, and the promise of James Marsters at another event on Monday 18th June.
*happy sigh*

I’m getting really bad when it comes to catchup over the past week..so here’s another oops-I-should-have-updated-last-Friday page long post.

Headed back down to London on Thursday to meet up with Zack. I was supposed to be meeting them at 11am, but my coach got held up in London mid-morning traffic. I sat there on the coach inwardly cursing that I was going to be late and had no way to contact them as Zack’s cellphone didn’t work in England. Finally got into Victoria at 10.45am, grabbed the nearest person for directions to the tube, then discovered I didn’t have change to get a ticket from the machine and the queue to the window was about three miles long. Rushed into the nearest shop, bought the first chocolate-thing I saw, and rushed back out to the machine. After 3 attempts to get the 4th necessary pound coin to be accepted by the stupid machine, it finally went through, and I grabbed the ticket and ran down the escalators at break-neck speed. Amazingly, I made it to Piccadilly Circus for 11.01am, torn between hating London with a passion and loving the tube for its usefulness, despite the near-tropical-temperatures-high-humidity factor.

Met Zack and Juli (who couldn’t stay long, due to work) and collapsed in a nearby Café for desperately needed caffeine. After Juli had gone to work, Zack and I headed to Hamley’s to get lost amongst more toys than you can shake a stick at.

2-ish saw us at the London Eye - which is absolutely *huge*. Approaching it over Westminster Bridge, I decided that it would be a very bad idea to discover a fear of heights. Zack had booked the tickets the day before, so we didn’t have to queue for very long. We got into a carriage (enclosed glass roof) with about 12 others, who we discovered were all American. I ended up as tour guide, pointing out all the sights and buildings to them! The view is totally amazing, and as the Eye moves fairly slowly, there’s plenty of time to take in the sight of London from above.

By the time we were finished on the Eye, it was around 3 o’clock, and we were both absolutely starving. Unfortunately, the dinky little Indian place that Louise and I had eaten at the previous Saturday was only open for lunch from 12-3, so we headed to Leicester Square and found another Indian restaurant that whilst definitely more expensive, did really great food.

Madame Tussaud’s (Waxworks Museum) was next. I’d never been there, but the figures are *so* realistic. They model the wax figures in detail right down to exact eye pigment and the lines on the palm of the hand and finger joints. We looked over stars of film and screen (Patrick Stewart was scarily realistic. I half expected him to move at any moment) and royal and political figures (the US presidents were good). The Chamber of Horrors was thankfully not as horrific as I’d envisaged, and the moving taxi journey through the ‘Spirit of London’ exhibit was just plain bizarre.

It was just gone 6pm by the time we left the museum, so after stopping off briefly at a Starbucks, I had to head off to get my coach back. Had a great day though! London twice in one week - I must be mad!

So not having posted in this for the past couple of days due to being down at parent’s house, time for a little catchup.

Went to London on Saturday with Louise as planned to see Phantom of the Opera. Takes my breath away every time - just the overture and the rising chandelier alone has me rapt. Had a gorgeous Indian meal for lunch down there at a place called Kerala (would really recommend it - Great Castle Street, off Regent Street, £5.95 for an all you can eat 3 course buffet meal; starter, main course is rice of the day and a choice of 5 curries, dessert like fruit salad or something..mmmm). Went to a Chinese place in the middle of Chinatown for dinner, but was rather dubious. Again an all you can eat thing for £7 per head, but it seemed like a very rushed atmosphere. You pay in advance too, which was unusual. It was interesting to try it out, but I wouldn’t go there again. Spent far too long in Hamley’s (largest toy store in the UK), oohing and aahing over the vast quantities of games, toys, puzzles, etc in there.

Sunday was Louise’s birthday, and we went out for a carvery meal at a place called BJ’s for lunch. Louise is 20 now, which is actually very scary, considering it didn’t seem so long ago that she was yea-high to a grasshopper.

Spent most of yesterday doing not-very-much, but makes a change considering I’d usually be working! Today’s Dad’s birthday - busy time of the year for family birthdays and the like.

Off to London again on Thursday to meet up with Zack. Can’t wait!

Richard and I went to see Pearl Harbor last night - very good film, although with Cuba Gooding Jr again playing a Navy cook who wants to be a proper sailor, and lots of ship sinking footage, I sometimes felt like I was watching some bizarre mutated offspring of Titanic and Men of Honor. Long film at just nudging three hours (see, another Titanic similarity!) but it kept me watching, even if Richard was growing restless at the romance storyline throughout the whole thing. Bit of a tear-jerker too, if you’re that kind of person (and yup, I’m hopeless like that!). One to buy on video, I think, don’t know if I could sit through the whole thing again knowing what happens this time.