happy new year everyone, i hope you had a good christmas time! i did, two weeks off work was great, just lazed around the house, got drunk with friends, played a lot of computer games and watched a lot of films. sorry for the lack of blogging over christmas, i was barely on the computer, my brothers have fucked up my parent’s computer, probably from downloading porn.

Re: the title, i really miss the old new year, new start weekender that collective aka used to put on around this time of year. fuck, i just miss the old collective aka gigs, out of spite especially, but the old packhore and fenton gigs in general as well. some of my best student times were spent at those.

It’s a shame that i don’t really go to gigs anymore, other than dillinger 4, i really can’t remember the last gig i went to in leeds. maybe when i’m jobless i’ll go to more gigs. i’m really looking forward to the dear landlord tour, but that’s not til may. i might try and go to a fair amount of those. i think i remember reading that banner pilot are over at that time as well, which will be good.

Talking about being jobless, i can’t remember if i’ve blogged about this yet. before christmas, on the day of our christmas party, we were all told that we’re getting made redundant at the end of january. so now i’ve only got 14 and a half days left this job. it’s a strange feeling knowing that i’m leaving soon, it’s the only job i’ve ever had that i’ve had to work notice properly. do they actually expect me to give a fuck for the rest of this month? it’s also a bit sad, i do quite like it here, out of the 5 other people in the office 4 of them are good people, one of them is a bit of a tosser, just rude and things, but that’s quite a good ratio. it’ll be nice not having the 45 minute commute each way though.
It’s really shit looking for jobs at the moment, well, sensible jobs for me. we’ve got 18 months left on the tenancy for this house, which is a great house. so realistically, it’s got to be a job in the leeds area. my uncle has said he could probably get me a job working for his mate’s company, but that would be in manchester, which would be far too much of a commute for me. but then there’s barely any engineering jobs going in yorkshire, and those that are, are for really experienced people. so i guess i’ll just be dole scum looking for a job, or get a shit job.

One advantage of getting made redundant for february is that it’s the super bowl the weekend after i’m redundant, so i won’t have to call in sick to watch that. and it’s also the winter olympics! i got quite into it last time, it was when the british women did amazingly well at curling. i just love how specific some of the sports are, like the biathalon, cross country skiing and shooting combined, who the fuck thought that up? and the skeleton luge, going head first down a bobsleigh track on basically a tray, are you mental? never mind the skiing/snowboarding/bobsleigh which are all pretty cool. oh, and i’ll get into ice hockey maybe. i’m basically planning on watching nearly all of it, i think it’ll be on from about 2 in the afternoon until about 11, so pretty much perfect timing for would be dole scum like me.

One thing might interfere with my olympics viewing though, and that’s that i’m considering going on holiday for a week or two on my own. i figured i may as well whilst i’m out of work, and i’ve managed to actually get a bit of money saved up recently. but i probably won’t, as it just wouldn’t be sensible.

In other news, there’s yet another social networking website that’s popped up, formspring.me, you can ask people questions, either anonymosly, or with your name at the bottom. my address is:

http://www.formspring.me/Danph

ask away.

I’ll probably do another architecture blog on monday, not sure what on, possibly burj dubai, or just tall buildings in general, seens as it’s a hot topic right now.