As I said, I’m not one for raucous birthdays so the aftermath is pretty tame. With that in mind, a lazy, pathetic dog, a chocolate pudding and a shitload of washing up.

I’ve switched to my 50mm for a little while. Thinking about selling the 24-70 and getting a 35mm prime – it’s like £1000 just sat in my camera bag most of the time. Seems such a waste.

I don’t normally make a huge fuss of my birthday. It’s just another day, really. That is, however, an unpopular standpoint so I invariably get a bit caught up in it and end up having quite a lovely time. Yesterday (and the awesome-fun night before), despite its hiccups, was no different.

Having eaten some dodgy mayonnaise (self-diagnosis) and dealt with the dog puncturing a five-stitch hole in his armpit, we got underway and my mum came down for a visit. I never get to see my mum, so this was brilliant. The mini movie marathon was wicked, too. I love getting DVDs, and yesterday saw some gaping holes in my collection filled. Maybe I need to make a new-years resolution to not be such a grumpy bastard about my birthday and allow myself to get excited like child about it next year.

With drinking and sick dogs and birthdays and hipstamatic in mind, have some photos of the last couple of days. Flickr Uploadr really fucked me on the ordering of these in my stream. First world problems, yo.

Sheldon says that your body can’t process everything you get in a multivitamin, so what you’re really doing when you buy a multivitamin is making your urine worth more. I tried selling my urine on a two-tier pricing plan, but neither did particularly well.

Maybe I should’ve bought manganese.

My socks indicate that it’s Friday. Stupid socks. Stupid Tuesday. Is it just me, or does time speed up as you get older?

I both love and loathe that everything material that I cherish most can be packed into a bag and taken with me wherever I go. It’s probably quite sad, but my camera and laptop have become like companions to me, I would say they seem to have souls but I have never been poetic enough to say dumb stuff like that!

Finally had some tattoo done. The house has been poking holes in my bank account so every time I go to look for tattoo money, there’s never anything. Had some filling and inner-arm outlining done; the mask scares Charlotte, but my inner-upper-arm is rarely on show, so tough.

One more sitting left and we’ll be done I think [hope].

Been trying all sorts of ways to tie my hair up with my hair. So far, this is my favourite.

Some inauspicious church on my way back from PHP Conference London 2010

Cat, pretending to be either Lego or CDs.

Next door’s house at night.

Next door’s house in the morning, whilst Charlotte’s in the shower.

What a fucking riveting life I lead.

Drunken portraits!

Although this is a personal blog, I try to keep it as interesting as I possibly can, so that people might actually want to read it. I don’t like to talk about my feelings (mostly because I don’t really understand them) because indulging oneself can often become a vicious cycle. I don’t write a personal journal for the same reason. It’s really easy to wallow.

With that fresh in our minds, I had the funniest day today (if I didn’t know or care for me; maybe if I was watching my day completely impartially). I’d like to say that this is a metaphor, but it isn’t: my day got so bad, I physically filled a glass half full, and the bottom fell off the glass! You know those days, where you’re drained of all your energy, like the thing that’s keeping you alive, not just awake, is dissipating.

So, I go to sleep really hoping that tomorrow’s going to be different, but there’s a realist in my ear telling me that it’s just going to be the same again.

I guess this is the updated version of personal enrichment brought about by lack of TV; my mind has been being stimulated over the last couple of weeks. I’ve basically had an internet embargo going on, due to being busy with family stuff and a general unwillingness to go near my computer during my time off. It’s been refreshing.

Fortunately or unfortunately, however, it’s caused me to look at the way I use and abuse social networks and the repercussions that has on my relationships with people. Taking the most frequently accessed, Twitter and Facebook; there are times when I basically have nothing to say to people in real life because they already know everything that’s going on in my life. They know that I tried and didn’t like Starbucks, they know what song I like at the moment and they know what I’m doing this weekend. With some people, this starts a bit of dialogue that would, otherwise, not be there for lack of social networks, but it’s really the same few people. That’s not to say that I don’t value the digital interactions I have with people, because I really do, but I feel sometimes like it cheapens physical encounters because there’s nothing to talk about any more.

From this, I could go two ways, I suppose. Either stop using social networks in an attempt to try and personalise communication with people (as opposed to spitting in a crowd and seeing who gets wet), or stop seeing people in real life. There’s obviously a happy medium somewhere in there, but I’ve never been good at finding that so I feel like I’ve reached a bit of a fork-in-the-road. What’s more, is I feel like I’ve already made my decision. I’ve not posted to Facebook or Twitter for the last few days and I already feel like I’m having better interactions with people. I don’t have to preface everything I say with “I don’t know if you saw on Twitter, but…”, which is rewarding in itself. And now, here I am having a characteristic, verbose brain dump with lots of words and no real structure.

If I was going to commit Web 2.0 Suicide, I wouldn’t want to do it permanently. I’ve only used these networks to get back in touch with people I haven’t seen for ages, or to continue talking to new people I meet – it would be counter productive. I think I’d try to be more graceful about it; leave a final message on each network with contact details and a desire to talk and hopefully stir up at least one proper conversation. Maybe I’m being non-commital and self-destructive (oxymoron?), but I keep feeling like the less effort you make to keep a relationship going, the less that relationship is worth. Social networks make relationships zero effort and, by extension, zero worth and I’m not satisfied with that.

Subject to major edits/rewrites/hypocrisy/reorders.