I bought a fucking house :D

Yep, I finally decided it was time to find a home of my own. No more having to lug all my wordly possessions around with me and never having enough encumberance to pick up that very expensive axe that I'd love to own or pawn. Play Oblivion: The Elder Scrolls IV often enough with a reasonably cool head, a little looting of bodies here, clearing out a bandit lair or a goblin cavern there, a Fighter's Guild or Mage's Guild quest here and there and you tend to accumulate a fair amount of loot.

So there was I, your humble narrator, clean off closing the Oblivion Gate outside Cheydinhal but having to report to the Count in his castle that his son got killed (I won't be missing him), when the option of asking the Count about buying a house came up. I thought about it and decided that I could quite afford to splurge out 15,000 gold coins on a modest little home in town. Had I not just saved the town from certain destruction after all (not really - the Oblivion Gate would have just stood there indefinitely until I got round to it or all gates get closed at the end of the main quest)? So why shouldn't I settle my things down there and become a local hero, nay legend?

Of course the place is largely unfurnished with just a table and a bed. Fully furnishing would be more expensive than the house itself, but I cobbled together enough to get some storage, so I can plonk down all my extra weapons/armour that I can't bear to part with, potions, alchemical herbs/plants etc and unused spell scrolls and go back for them whenever I want. And I have a place to jump around (improving acrobatics) and cast spells in, in private without getting funny looks from passers by ("That bloke's a nutter! OI! NUTTER!"). No more having to be wander around the nearest Fighters or Mages Guild for a free bed when I need to sleep to go up another level (although I wish there was a way to invite that chick in the Fighters Guild who sometimes runs around in her underwear at night to come over for a housewarming *g*).

In the meantime I can always make more money for myself by creating useless potions to advance my Alchemy skills, ransack lairs, get extra perks for a job well done or loot dead bodies and then sell them to trades goods stores. Why can't real life be this easy? *chuckle*

Just about two weeks away from the two year anniversary of my mother's death and I still want to rip the throat out of people who try to force their ridiculous fantasies about a kind and loving god onto me.

I'm not going to be around much at all for the next few weeks, the way things are looking. I'm starting a work placement (aka slavery) in the far flung reaches of Lochwinnoch. Without going into the minutes of what my days will be like, I'll have very little time during the week (I'll be getting home less than three hours of when I should be going to sleep for the next day - oh for the energy of youth once more!). I'll try and keep it up for at least 1 - 2 weeks and see if I want to stick it out longer (suffice to say in a actual job I'd want slightly less hours and a far more convenient and closer at hand location with better travel links). I'll also be pretty broke (or "skint" for people who live in the same country as me and speak the same language *g*) as the weekly train ticket will be about 24 pounds (I'll get twenty of that back per week for expenses but I'll have to have the money for three weeks running before that happens - great system: get the unemployed person to have to hold back half his fortnightly giro payment for travel!).

On top of all that, my Paris Hilton For Men cologne is almost gone and I'm down to a small 30ml bottle of Just Me For Men by Paris Hilton. Clearly I'm made to suffer!

Week 8 of 13 was pretty stressful. One particular person there had me pulling my hair out, especially when he tried pushing his beliefs in christianity onto me no matter how clearly and forcefully I told him I wasn't interested and found such things offensive to me. He's not quite the full shilling but still (and the guy in charge is into all that spirituality stuff with crystals and astral projection)! Oh for the company of Richard Dawkins for even just five minutes. I did have an ally though in another guy, John, who likes a lot of the punk bands I'm into, lets me listen to his I-Pod, shares the same rationalist outlook on religion and is always talking to me about Playstation 3 games and giving me advice on what to look out for.

Which brings me to the happier news (and another reason for money being very tight). I'm going to be in debt to myself for a while, but I ordered a Playstation 3 a week ago from Amazon. I haven't had a games console since my second Dreamcast stopped playing games properly and most modern games won't launch on my computer even after being successfully installed (there's always some problem even if a previous one is sorted out). Still waiting on the actual console but I can't complain as the cheques haven't actually cashed yet. Alas if I could have had it now and gotten time to get to grips with it, instead of it probably coming during the week when I'll barely have time to look at it in my couple of hours of own life each night. The games I ordered have come already - Assassin's Creed and Grand Theft Auto IV (aka GTA 4). In addition I bought the Game Of The Year edition of Oblivion (which sounds like the best game ever from what I've heard) and the thick tome official game guide to it, as well as a Dual Shock 3 controller with rumble (I still have fond memories of playing Resident Evil: Code Veronica with the rumble pack on my old Dreamcast). Anyway, at least for a little while at night and the weekends (when it eventually arrives) I'll be able to take out my frustrations and rage without actually getting arrested *g* I take whatever relief I can get.

And in the other highlight of a pretty frustrating week, I'll leave you with the cover of this week's Scottish Recruitment jobs paper from Wednesday:



Didn't actually find any worthwhile jobs in it though, but it was at least a welcome distraction in my day at the evil STF and gave me something else to think about (er... *ahem*). Amusement for the week was provided by noticing on some list of names and numbers "SID Phyllis" and wondering if it was a joke (say it fast and see what word it turns into *g*)