Life has been a mixture of quietness on an extreme level and tying up lose ends with my move back to UK around the corner. Liz Lemon has been taken away and is somewhere around the north west of Spain about now I reckon. All my bags are packed. The cupboards are bear. I have a weekend to go here in Spain, which will be taken up by spending time with my mum, who arrives today. A gig and show in town at two different bars tonight. Tapas tomorrow night. Cleaning for landlord Sunday and visit later in the evening from him and early start on Monday for my final flight from Malaga to Liverpool John Lennon airport.
There are a few things I will miss in about Spain. The weather. To a point. I will miss a few people here. Especially ones that have made the last few weeks more bearable. Most of all I will miss tapas and especially a lovely fish bar call El Pulgilla. If you are ever in Nerja I cannot recommend this tapas bar high enough. It's on c./ Cristo, the main shopping/restaurant road. It's also were I will be spending my final night out on Saturday in.
There is so much I am looking forward to in the next few days though. Getting home for a start. I've been waiting to get home for a while now. And rather being a rushed job trying to squeeze everyone in within a week I've got all the time in the World now. I can enjoy everyones company a lot more.
Spending. Sales. Cannot wait for the sales to start. I've totally missed out this year on some awesome bands. The xx, Modest Mouse, Phoenix. There are so many great albums our this year that I missed. And I still have loads more to check out as the albums I have heard I can't help but keep on repeat for a day. Will be in my record store quite a bit in next few days.
(Also check out DiS top 50 of 2009 Spotify list, possibly the only playlist you will need for the next few months. http://open.spotify.com/user/seaninsound/playlist/5RabpgxoCB9QcDFshSAdNE )
Playing games. With such a packed few weeks I've miss the Team Fortress 2 Soldier Vs Demoman War (Well down Team Soldier) But now that all the items and new maps are live I really want to do nothing put play TF2. But gonna have to wait till back in UK. (So pleased that I have the BT engineer coming around a day after I arrive to set up telephone and broadband.)
But my big BIG purchase for myself, to cheer me up after a tough few months, is the purchase of a PS3. Going to get a few games, Assassins Creed 2, Unchartered 2. Really unsure about Modern Warfare 2. TF2 might take up all my online time and is just too good of a game. Pixeljunk Shooter will be one of my first downloaded games and so will the awesome Vagrant Story. Personally I'm not a huge Final Fantasy/RPG/Square fan but Vagrant Story is such a beautiful game, with a great story, fantastic gameplay and oozes re-playability like no other game I have seen, it is a must for any serious gamer out there.)
As well as a host of Nintendo games I didn't get round to getting this year, Boom Blox, Klonoa, Zelda:Spirit Tracks, Mario and Luigi, Boy and his Blob.
Not sure if I can fit all this gaming in. But I will try my hardest.
Opera. The browser. I'm a huge fan of Opera and have missed using it in the last few months. I've gone to Chrome. But that's only because my ISP wont let me connect to Opera's servers for some reason. I always prefer using the latest Alpha/Beta builds of Opera browsers but find it hard to find them at Opera.com and cannot get access to the my.opera.com blogs that give links the the downloads. Plus Sync, UNITE, Turbo all don't work for me with this ISP. And to make matters more exciting Opera is releasing 10.5 on the 22nd (I'd link to the blog post but can't get to it) What is in store? It will be nice to get back to using Opera again. Especially a faster one. But will I be able to give up Chromes Extensions so easily now?
And just generally catching up with friends. Making new routines of pub nights out/gaming and pizza nights in. Getting out and meeting new people, new faces and reconnecting with lost old friends. And football weekends with pops.
And that's just things I'm looking forward to still in 2009. 2010 is going to be fun. Almost all weekends in March are taken up by one gig or another. Holidays in Poland and Scotland (might not be a great getaway but this walking holiday lodge has the best food I have ever tasted) New albums from Sigur Ros front man, Silver Mt. Zion, Daft Punk.
I've not done an awful lot in the way of gigs and music in the last maybe 3 or 4 years. This year I hope to fix all that.
And despite wanting to fork out a few hundred on a PS3 there are more games coming out on Wii next year that I want to play then on PS3. Anything and everything off Kotakus' Wii for 2010 list will find itself in my gaming library.
The countdown has started. After the weekend I'll be home again. Can. Not. Wait.
