Glasgow Airport

So, here i am, waiting in the departure lounge. Security and customs weren't as much of a problem at this end as they were at stansted. Unfortunately, you still have to take laptops out of their bags and have them X-Rayed. Those silly little plastic tubs they give you to stick your stuff in are annoying as well, i swear they're designed to extract the change from your coat pockets...Honestly, you put your coat in the tub, it goes through the X-Ray machine and the contents of your pockets are strewn about the place. Phone, change, keys etc - and whats worse is that they swabbed my phone for explosives residue AGAIN! I mean come on, do i look like i'm about to hijack or blow up a plane? Really?

*sigh*

Looking out across the tarmac now, still no sign of the plane. I doubt it'll get here for at least another half an hour. I really don't see why we have to wait this long for the damn plane. Check-in is too early. Hell, i had to get up at 6am, make sure i had my bag all packed, check out of the hotel, get in the rental car, check that in at the Hertz desk at the airport, faff about there for 20 minutes waiting for the dipshit woman to get the right forms and calculate the mileage - come on love, subtract the lower number from the higher number! It's that fucking simple!

** 3 minute interlude **

Jesus - i just got hauled into the security 'office' (in reality nothing more than a simple screen behind the X-Ray machine. I always seem to get picked for 'random selection' on the trip back from pretty much anywhere. This time, it was the Dell's spare battery that caused the grumbling. I should have remembered to take it actually, i only have the one battery and the CD-RW drive in at the moment, which is why i'm typing this on a dimmer-than-normal screen to preserve battery life, which, with one battery, isn't long enough! According to the battery meter, theres almost 2 hours remaining, although thats always dubious. The more you do on this machine, the faster it runs down. It could be the battery though - it's about 3/4 years old by now and repeated charging cycles have probably taken their toll. With two batteries, i seem to get about 3 and a half hours out of it, which to be fair, isn't bad.

I did have a really nice HP laptop that i took with me around the world in summer, although i never quite got used to it, and subsequently sold it, preferring to use this 'shit can'. Sure the HP was a widescreen 1280x800 res, and it had a DVD re-writer, but the feel of it was all wrong. I like this Dell. I really, really like it. It's comfortable to use, the keyboard is the right size and layout, the 1400x1050 screen is pretty crisp, and it has marginally better graphics than the HP. Then again, the HP only had intel integrated graphics, so thats not hard. At least i can actually *play* Half Life 2 on this, albeit at 800x600...

I've pimped it out a little as well. 768mb of PC2100, 40gb 5400rpm Hard Disk with 8mb Cache, 2nd Battery, DVD-Drive, it's a good little machine that i hope will last me for a long time. The only beef i have with it, is the USB port, which is dodgy as hell. When you plug something into it, it doesnt make very good contact, so i have to keep wedging it to one side with lumps of cardboard which point blank refuse to stay in the fucking hole.

Am i rambling too much?

Probably. Right, blatant subject change.

When i get back to London later on this morning/afternoon, i fully intend to have a doze - i'm tired. Waking up at 6am after 5 hours sleep isn't fun. I was having a nice dream as well, and it involved several women - which was nice. I'll tell you about that later...maybe.

Tonight, i'm fully intending to go to Steve & Dans LAN party - which ought to be good fun. Last two years, as New Years, i've either gone to bed early, or been too busy chatting on IRC to care.

Oooh. The plane just touched down. It wont be long now until they start calling us to board the plane. Although, they generally piss around a fair bit when offloading passengers, so i reckon i've got at least 20 minutes before i ACTUALLY get on the plane.

Well, i think that's my cue to stop writing and stuff this thing back into my bag, at least until i get on the train at Stansted.