#oneaday Day 529: A different hotel

It's time for my monthly visit to the office, though this time things have been a little bit different for various reasons — not least of which is the fact that I'm staying in an unfamiliar hotel, as my usual place was full. This new place seems nice, if charmingly dated, though it is twice the price of my usual place. It's all getting expensed though, so no problem.

I actually have tomorrow off, which will be nice, as it's Andie's birthday and I won't have to brave the M25 in the middle of rush hour.

Today I elected to listen to some "criminal records" on the journey, because I just felt like it for some reason. My cheese of choice was Louise (Redknapp, nee Nurding), a fairly disposable pop singer that I primarily bought two albums for because I fancied her. Also I ended up quite enjoying them both, particularly the second, Woman In Me.

I was interested to discover that Louise had done some more albums after the two I was familiar with — including one from around 2000, and another that is quite recent. I actually really like what I've heard of the 2000 album, Elbow Beach, so far, but I haven't yet listened to the latest. I think that will be the accompaniment to my drive home tomorrow.

I've always had a soft spot for cheesy, disposable pop music, particularly from the mid to late '90s, because it's tuneful, it's catchy, it's uncomplicated and it plays well as background music you don't have to concentrate on too hard. As a teen, I did the majority of my music listening while doing homework in my bedroom, so it's always been a good accompaniment for doing anything that might be a bit tedious or repetitive — hence why I'm enjoying it so much as a soundtrack for driving.

It's also nice to be of an age where you don't have to make any apologies for what you listen to. I'm sure some of you are silently judging me for having owned two Louise albums in the past (my CD collection went to Music Magpie a long time ago though) but I don't care. Silly fluff it may be, but there's a place for silly fluff, particularly in a world that feels increasingly devoid of joy in the current moment.

Anyway, I'm typing this on my phone and getting annoyed at autocorrect, so I'm going to leave that there. I am looking forward to a nice sleep in this comfy bed, and then a leisurely drive back with some cheesy pop blaring tomorrow.

Maybe they'll have released the Epstein files by tomorrow!

#oneaday Day 481: I have returned

I have returned! And I'm in a foul mood, apparently, but that's nothing unusual after having to do that drive. I set out at 5pm and got home at about 8.40pm. That's not fun. Granted, I did stop to have some dinner at the South Mimms services in an inevitably vain attempt to try and avoid the worst of rush hour on the M25, but still. It would be lovely to be able to leave my place of work and be home in a duration of time that is less than multiple episodes of a podcast. Although at least the journey does afford me the opportunity to actually listen to podcasts, which I otherwise don't really make much time for.

I am also in a less-than-charitable mood because the whole trip this time around felt a little bit pointless. It is always nice to see my colleagues in person because I like them, but the only real benefit of me actually being in the office today was that I could participate in a meeting by sitting in an uncomfortable chair near everyone else instead of sitting in my own comfortable chair via Teams. The rest of the day I was just sort of… there, and don't really feel like I achieved much that I couldn't have done from home. In fact, I generally feel like on my trips into the office I achieve significantly less than I do with a day working from home.

But oh well. This is the world we live in, and it's not that much of an inconvenience to have to do this once a month. Just enough to want to have a little moan about now and again. But now I am home, and I can see my cats (literally, they are both sitting staring at me as I type this) and be with my wife and play Final Fantasy Tactics, which arrived in my absence.

So I think that's probably what I'm going to spend the rest of the evening doing. I haven't played Final Fantasy Tactics through properly since the PS1 original, so it will be nice to do so with a translation that makes sense and the new voiceovers. I will do my best not to power through just to get to the bits with Ben Starr in, but I am making no promises.

On that note, it's time to get isometric and turn-based. Normal business will resume tomorrow. Probably.

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#oneaday Day 305: In the Attic

I am doing my monthly(ish) visit to the office, so you join me once again from a hotel room. This time around I have had mostly good luck: while I am technically stuffed into the "attic" on the third floor, my room is next to the lift and stairs and it has a bath.

So I had a bath. It's always nice to have a bath in a hotel, because their baths tend to be much bigger than ours. And as a large gentleman, it is nice to have a large bath to match. Even if I miscalculated, as I always do, the amount of water displacement my fat arse causes, leading to me semi-flooding the bathroom. I managed to mop most of it up with one of the towels, but the annoyance of that threatened to put something of a dampener (pun intended and not apologised for) on my evening.

I wasn't feeling great anyway. The drive down here was stressful. Occasionally I find myself… I don't know if "dissociating" is the right word, but I'm going to use it anyway. I feel sort of "detached" from myself, like I'm watching things going on but as if I'm sort of a step "back" from them. Then, inevitably, I become conscious of my dissociation, which inevitably occurs at an inconvenient time, such as when driving, and that freaks me out and makes me stressed. So I end up in a bit of a cycle.

Still, I made it here safely, accompanied by the second episode of the Fun Factor Podcast, which I can highly recommend if you're as interested in classic video game magazines as I am. This time around they take a look at a magazine I'm not familiar with, not being from North America, but a lot of the stuff discussed was familiar — including the full postal addresses of actual children being published in a continent-wide magazine and no-one seeming to think that might be a bit of a dodgy idea.

Anyway, I'm here now, I've eaten Hotel Snacks and now I'm ready to just sit and vegetate a bit before going to sleep. The usual Police Interceptors garbage is on TV and I have some video games and ebooks with me, so I think I can safely stave off any further stress or dissociation with either or both of those.

Oh, I did finish a book last night, but I want to talk about it a fair bit and there ain't no way I'm going to battle my phone's keyboard to do that right now. So perhaps tomorrow (and tomorrow, and tomorrow)…