I got a new mattress today. Or rather, it arrived. Dad picked it up on his way home, and we put it on my bed.

It’s the same mattress I’ve had all my life, ever since I was big enough to go in a real bed. It’s the same bed I’ve had since I was nine. And it now has a nice new mattress – plush for that first inch of “travel” (as it were; god, the bike geek in me comes out again), and then firm and responsive.

And I’m lying on it now. Lying on it in my room, the room I’ve had all my life. The mattress is bare; it needs to air for a while before you cover it the first time. I took the time with no mattress to tidy my room majorly, clear some more shelves, and put another fifty-odd books away. That led to me doing something I’d never wanted to do – double-stacking. There’s no other way to make things fit, other than to have two rows of books, one in front of the other. Sad, but it has to be like that.

So: the room is dim bar my bedside light and the glow of my Powerbook’s LCD, I’m lying on my bed, listening to Kruder & Dorfmeister, typing wirelessly onto the internet. Oh, and I have a new kick-ass haircut.

I may be a geek, but if the nine-, twelve-, fifteen-year-old me looked in through the doorway now, he’d have probably thought me quite cool. Well, he’d be surprised how well he’d dress when he was older.

And now, even though I’m hoping to hit the next phase of life, to move out of the family home – my home for twenty-one years and four months – I have a new mattress to bed in. Perhaps soon I’ll be employed and not be around to use the new mattress. If I’m still here, I’ll make good use of the mattress, dreaming of the days when I won’t wake up on it. It almost seems like I’ve jinxed myself.

Never mind. It was going to happen anyway; my back was growing to hate the old one.

Slight redesign. Everything recently seems to have been reaching hiatus, and I’m trying to break out of that. I want to write more, but the format of this was overpowering – I kept writing too-big bits in the “brief” column, which probably would have done for the main column, but it sometimes frightens me; it demands titles, authority. Not any more. Titles are gone. Dates are reduced in importance. The asterisk motif comes out a bit better, and the text shines through.

Also, I am going to write more here now.

So the Raleigh Chopper has returned. Lots of nostalgic men will no doubt be queueing up to buy one of the 2004 that have been made, to relieve their youth with some terrifying handling and ludicrous handlebars. But if you’re going to buy a sit-up-and-beg bike… why not go the whole hog (literally), and buy something like this: The Kona BikeHotRod. Now that’s a real chopper. And it’s got a disc brake!

(OK, so it’s bike geekery, but I just wanted to point out that there are alternatives to the Chopper…)

Poor Matt Webb. His server hard disk died on him, leaving him trying to recover the data he could, and thus we are bereft of Interconnected. He is, however documenting the recovery and keeping a weblog of sorts over at a blogspot site. And on it there’s a marvellous description of the magic to be found in physics classes. It’s a wonderful piece of writing: inspirational and yet clearly by someone clued in to, and geared up by, what they’re writing. Sometimes Webb posts things I barely understand; sometimes he posts things that make me doubt his grip on reality. This, though, is neither; it’s wonderful.

And as I read his writing, I remembered something: I want to write a book. I just have no idea how. (Or where to begin. Or how to construct a story without needing to research every detail to death).

So, like, I said: I spent New Year in Glasgow. Very pleasant it was, too; a longish period of time with just two of us, living normally, in our own space. Lovely. Being a holiday period (especially so up here in Scotchland), most of our time was spent idly, either watching dramatic moving pictures or eating because, well, eating is good. I also, as espoused below, discovered the joys of free wireless. Anyhow, I wanted to start posting more frequently to this thing, and there’s so much to say about this wonderful holiday… but not in full. So, like countless other webloggers, I’m using a big fat list post to substitute for any real content.

What we saw:

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Zoolander
Heist
American Psycho
Half of The Rules of Attraction (bad)
Half of The Breakfast Club (good)
Eddie Izzard’s Circle
Almost Famous
Minority Report
Wonder Boys
American Splendour

What we ate:

Pizza.
Turkey Dhanya & homemade Naan bread.
Turkey Enchiladas.
Tom’s Expansive Spaghetti Bolognese.
Lamb in Black Bean and Green Pepper sauce.
Lots of breakfasts; spiced scrambled eggs, fried eggs, sausages, hash browns, etcetera.
Chicken breasts marinaded in white wine and ginger, in a mushroom and peppercorn sauce, served with basil-seasoned Penne and a caramelised-red-onion-and-pepper garnish. (My own concoction).
The best steak of our lives, along with duck pate, feta and spinach salad, raspberry cranakin and lemon and ginger tarte.
Lots of beer.

What we did:

Went to the cinema a lot.
Went out to drink a fair bit, and found the Glasgow bar that I’d be happy to call home (that wasn’t Nicensleazy).
Went shopping for each other in the sales.
Read the books we gave each other for Christmas.
Cooked for one another, with another, in the nearest we could make to a home when you’re living out of suitcases.
Went out for a marvellous dinner on New Year’s Eve, saw 2004 in standing in a busy lane with one or two hundred other happy people, all out for the evening in a secluded little lane.
Lusted after white goods. And clothing, for that matter.
Slept, dozed, lay in. Slept in the most comfortable sofabed ever, a bed that lay in a bay window, with fairy lights above it.
Visited a record shop that can only be described as Championship Vinyl (and nabbed a Jose Feliciano LP for a quid).

Some pictures to illustrate:
(poor quality down to digital camera not having much battery and so having to use cameraphone)