Holiday or Grind ?

Think I've achieved something this week - I've managed to go the whole week without the cabin fever erupting.

I've even had enough supplies in to last it this far. Probably won't last until Monday/Tuesday (never go shopping on a Monday night ...) which means emerging out the front door. I've had the car parked in CK's drive (he doesn't use it and there's an understanding on lifts & stuff) which has kept it off the road but has me feeling very guilty about leaving it there.

I haven't been completely walled off from the world, although that is tempting sometimes. I've had a works laptop at home with me and have been occasionally checking in. It's a sign of IT progress that you can log in with your own broadband and have a completely secure connection. Handy for any organisation, they all have stuff that they don't want the competition to know. What it means is that I'll have an easy reintroduction to the routine on Monday, having got all the super urgent stuff out the way as it's come this week. I also haunt 2 forums, Facebook and have been keeping up with the guys & girls in WoW when I've not tunnelled into Grind Mode.

What have I been getting up to ? Lots of gaming, lots of music :-)

The gaming has been heavily in Warcraft, which is good and bad. I've been collecting Achievements, which is an ingame way of saying "I Done Stuff". It's changed the way I play, in that I've concentrated on a main character instead of switching around several like I used to. Mind you, that's partly because I've been grinding money.

Question : What did you do on your time off work ?
Answer : I was working For The Horde

Heh heh heh.

I've been overdoing it too, as I have to watch the time I spend in game. It's strange, extended Warcraft time hits me with a tensing up in my collarbone. But it does give me a perfect excuse to listen to lots of music.

I've had a few "new" albums appear in the last couple of weeks :

The XX - an iTunes live EP. If you've not heard of The XX, they're the Next Big Sound of 2010. My sister and I heard one track from them which was offered free as iTunes Single Of The Week. Within the day we both bought their debut album and we've followed that by buying the live EP. They have a fairly unique sound and are a Must Listen.

Sleeper - Smart. An older album but still a good one. One beef I have with the shops is that if they think a group or artist is finished, they'll not bother stocking their music. So an album like this or even a group like The Cardigans get criminally ignored, which leads to artists giving up before they've gifted us with all their talent can give. This album's another good one from Sleeper.

Cardigans - iTunes Originals. Kind of like a Greatest Hits, which I usually steer clear of because I've usually got all the tracks on albums already. This one got bought because it has commentary from the artists themselves. Really enjoying this one, it's recent enough to have a lot of their best stuff on it.

KT Tunstall - Tiger Suit. Another talented artist who's graced us with another excellent album. Here's the best track from it, which kinda sums me up to : Still A Wierdo

PS Listened to 1757 tracks so far for 4.8 days of music in the last 4 weeks :-) Over 800 different tracks in a week. Will have to see if I can break 2000 or 5 days.