Or cheese, as Tom suggested.

My original aim was to begin work on something of sufficient quality to submit to the Flash contest running on redism.com. It’s a corporate sponsored site, but it’s run by Underwired and so I thought I’d chip in. I wanted to go down the generative/interactive route that I’ve been heading towards for a while. So, trusty copy of Maeda in hand, I booted Flash.

I got quite a lot done, several different pieces. They’re all fairly basic underneath but each successive piece is visually more impressive. I’ve put the lot up as a section in content called OneNightOfFlash. I’m just on a Flash roll at the moment. Although I still don’t have my submission, I’m well chuffed with what I’ve acheived tonight and I’m hopeful that I will get a chance to sort out a more sophisticated, finalised piece by Friday.

Wah-Hey! It’s my birthday and I’ll stay up until six in the morn’ if I want to! And what better way to spend a birthday than by making a new front page for your website? I can’t think of one.

Over the last week or so my laptop has been quite ill with serious disk problems. I borrowed some disk space from Jay at Underwired (thanks!) and reinstalled and now everything’s much healthier. Which is good, because if the laptop dies, I die too, pretty much. I’ve been working lots, producing at least three designs in the last week. None of which are very good, but I’m having quite a good time nonetheless. My new front page design has been in the works for about a month, which is not bad going for me to complete a project.

Anyway, the wind has been howling all night and it is actually starting to get light now, one virtue of the clocks going back. Louise and I are going up the London Eye later (wind permitting) which I’m well looking forward to, but I do have to get some sleep beforehand. I will try and get pictures of London from the top, but I fear my digicam won’t really do it justice :-(.

Last thing about the front page is that there is more to come. My aim is to make it so it never really stops moving. The version that I have uploaded now has four seperate looping animations. I hope to get time to add in another three or four and to generally liven up the background grey meshwork. This will really give it the feeling of being alive, which is what I want. For now, enjoy!

I went up to the city center today to meet Underwired, a company of a couple of guys (and a third person, I found out today) who I’ve been working with remotely. They are an interesting company with a big-name client list. I get the feeling that they could provide interesting opportunities in the future but for now they are playing their cards close to their collective chest. I was kind of angling for a closer relationship with them and I would have liked to really impress them with ideas and skills, this didn’t really happen and in retrospect was hoping a bit much for a first meeting.

I’m not sure where I’m going with the work thing. I would like to get into proper programming and build quality large-scale apps. I applied for a bunch of programming jobs but got no response, which is extremely disheartening. This and meeting with Underwired leads me more towards sticking at the web game and trying to get on more interesting projects. The thing is that I seriously have to raise my game if that is to be the case, my rent is now four times more than Norwich and I would actually like to buy some stuff from time to time. Also I still kind of want to work under someone who knows much more than I and can teach me a thing or two. This has been a goal since leaving Uni, but I’m wondering know if it is so relevant.

Oh, why can’t it be easier and why can’t I get a job without writing covering letters?

Anyway, whilst I was up in town I had a bit of an explore. I came away from Underwired’s offices just by London and Tower bridges and caught the Jubilee up to Westminster where I had to change to District. As I did I thought, “I’ve never been to the Houses,” so I went and checked them out. They’re pretty cool, a bit dirty but damn fancy. Big Ben rocks out, obviously. I crossed the river and had a look up at the London Eye as well. That’s fucking massive! It’s so tall! Louise and I will be going on it pretty soon.

Tomorrow my sister is coming down because she has a couple of job interviews here. Thursday is Louise’s birthday — what will I buy? Friday I have to go to Milton Keynes for a meeting with Steve, a meeting that might turn into a long-term collaboration. Busy busy.

I just got out of the shower to find that the sun is shining rather nicely out on the balcony, so I’m sitting out here drying and downloading Illustrator. You got to love long network cables. Although I would rather be airporting it, the cable is a much cheaper option.

Tullis came to stay last night, coming down at about seven or eight and has just left. It was nice to see him, I had hoped that he would be one of the first of the Norwich crew to make it down, given his road warrior spirit. He got a note on his car saying “Not a parking space. Please do not park here.” Which is strange because there seems to be cars parked out in the square pretty much constantly. I have no idea who or where it came from either and I’d quite like to find out. I want to get a feel for everybody else here, make sure we’re not aliens. Most people are pretty young, only two or three over 40 with the rest being about a third 20 somethings and two thirds thirty somethings I’d say. It’s a nice split. The people below us look reasonably young which hopefully means they won’t have a go at us for rinsing the bass. The Resident’s Association is a name that looms on signs but nothing else. We have not been contacted and have no way of contacting them, except via the landlady perhaps. I’d like to know what it is they do and how they feel about us really.

Dan, Nikki and JC have all been round as well. Dan has been here on and off since about Thursday I think. JC is like our nearest neighbour, so we should be seeing a lot of him. He was explaining the travelcard situation to me. Given that I can use it on a bus as well it seems like a much better idea than previously thought. It is quite expensive, weighing in at 77 a month.

I’m starting to be able to recognise planes from their silhouettes, although I’m pretty much guessing! Last night I saw a plane with it’s headlights on. I didn’t even know they had them but it’s a fucking cool sight. I highly recommend you come and check it out :-)

Oh yeah, our local offy, whilst not serving a particularly hot range of beers, does have a nice cold meat selection and some good cheese — better than Sainsbury’s in Norwich. It’s a testament to the posh level of the area. From what I have gathered from JC it’s a pretty swanky area and I see no evidence to dispute that. But then what can I say, I’m sat on my balcony with my laptop blogging in the sun. I’m trying to learn a bit more about the various bits of London as it’s all pretty much a mystery to me. North, South, it seems they all have their good and bad characteristics. I’ll just have to go and check them all out. Louise is up in Soho today for a meeting for Raindance, a film festival where she’s going to be helping out with admin stuff. I’m looking forward to getting my ass over there too and reminding myself why I have upped-sticks so dramatically.

So far, I’m really enjoying the great adventure. The prices are high, but everything’s cool.

The whole moving thing is slowing now. For three days Tom, Louise and I have been piling, sorting, moving and faffing all manner of crap and a whole lot of it to. We’re beginning to feel more at home, the jungle, which started off fairly quiet, is getting louder progressively :-).

Tonight we did the walk to the tube to meet Dan and Nikki, we went to the pub next to Parson’s Green for food. Man the food! Duck salad with panchetta and potatoes. It was really nice but not exactly what I expected from pub food. Fulham is pretty much the porsche town I expected and that kind of makes me a bit like a stereotype, but then I don’t look like any of the suit-wearers in the pub. However, none of the bar staff are going to be saying goodbye at the end of the night like you would in the King’s Arms.

The radio stations are a lot better though…

Well, today was a manic day! After trying to sort everything out during office hours, I spent about two hours just cruising around Norwich in traffic, picking up, buying and setting down. After all that calmed down we got the van and got on with the heavy lifting, my the heavy lifting! After about five hours of solid packing the van was full to three feet with a wardrobe (light, wooden) on top. We finished in time for me to nip to the pub with the City Road and Thickthorn gangs, but Louise continued packing.

After the pub we had our last mini-after-party, the room was hot despite the fact that I was still loading the van and had the front door open. As that died we bid each person goodbye, lots of hugs. Martin, our recruited driver/overseer took the van back to Thickthorn — we didn’t want to leave our entire worldly possesions outside City Road! I wonder how the tightly packed stuff performed on the way over. We may well make adjustments in the morning…

So I’m off to have my last shower. We’ll be up at the crack of hell to get going. We aim to set off from Thickthorn by ten, which means up at eight thirty. I haven’t got up in the AM for about three months!

So tomorrow we will finally get to see whether we can get everything in the house and if we’ve made a terrible mistake or not! The excitement begins here!

Oh, and goodbye to everybody that I haven’t yet said goodbye to, especially Greg, I missed you tonight and I’m sorry I forgot to drag you out. I’ll see you all soon everyone.