Rewind to two weeks ago and I went to Emma and Matthew's SpiraCreative office. My original plan was to walk because it didn't look too far from where I walked, but after taking a cab instead to make sure I got there on time, I realise how silly that would have been because it was quite a few miles away.
Their office is in a really nice business park and situated in a large office complex that houses other businesses.
It felt quite weird going there really. Lots of businessmen were walking in and out the main reception in suits and ties and then here's me in a tshirt and jeans...
Emma met me in the reception and led me up to her office. It was quite small, but I guess it does for what they need it for. Matthew was there too.
We sat down and the first thing Emma wanted to talk about was the email I had sent her about further work being paid for. She was quite apologetic and understanding of what I had wrote and assured me that any work involving me that they do I would be paid for. I'm happy that both of them do genuinely seem like they want to make a business, but also not sell me out.
After that was sorted, we moved onto what they had called me there to see. Firstly, a client's site needs redesigning. It was very basic and in need of lots of work. I asked if the client had specified any particular colours or designs but they said not really. I pretty much have free reign over it.
We didn't spend much time talking about that site because the main reason they'd called me there was to show me EventFrog, their main project at the moment which they're very excited about. In fact, they're so excited about it that I noticed they'd already purchased about 1,000 postcards with their logo on the front.
It's a shame the logo looks awful, but we'll get to that later.
EventFrog is a bit like Myspace, but aimed more at organising events with your friends. It looks terrible currently and they need me to redesign it.
I put my designer's hat on and started spouting off all of the sites that I personally use such as the interesting features of Myspace, Facebox, Facebook and my new personal favourite Virb, which is being touted as Myspace done correctly.
They really liked how Virb looked and worked as I showed them various things. If you haven't got an account already, get yourself one. You'll need an invite, since it's in beta currently so email me if you happen to want one. I have no friends on there!
Emma had to go after a while. She had to be somewhere else, but me and Matthew talked for a further 90 minutes or so about the site and other things and I gave him my advice about what should go on the site and how it should look. It's quite cool to have that much control over someone elses website. I think they trust me because they know I'm talking sense. They know I'm not just making this stuff up when I talk about x, y and z because I can back it up with reasoning.
Me and Matthew began talking about EventFrog's logo itself and I expressed concern. I'm not good at holding things in, especially when it's to do with design. I'm very honest with my opinions so when he asked me what I thought of the logo, I told him I wasn't keen on it and explained to him why. It's a shame that it's pretty much the final logo and there's not much chance of me being able to change it. I can't really blame him of course, considering they've got all of those postcards, along with other kinds of advertising. They've even got a blowup frog. Yes, a blowup frog. Complete with crown.
He showed me the other designs that the company had designed for them, but they were pretty crap too. They all looked awfully boring and it was clear that whoever they had gone to for these logos weren't really professionals. "We went to them because they were cheap", Matthew said. Yeah, and look what you end up with.
This company also did SpiraCreative's original logo, which also looks pretty bad. I'm not saying my logo is amazing because it's not, but I know it looks better than their original one. It's easy to tell that both of them don't really have much of a feel for design, just like I don't have a feel for code.
Matthew on the other hand loves coding and it was interesting watching him show me different features of the site and him being quite pleased with it. I didn't want to put too much of a downer on him, but I did have to say that "Personally, I wouldn't use the site. I'd just use MSN instead to arrange something with my friends". I think most people would, but he tried convincing me otherwise. It didn't work. Maybe I'm in the minority though. Maybe this site will be huge.
He also showed me an old application he'd created which impressed me. It was called Creative Woodturning, which is a 3D modeller for creating things like wooden cups. Apparantly it's quite a big profession/hobby. The ease of use of the application was really nice. A few clicks and you had a 3D model of whatever it was that you were about to create for real. I explained to him that if you can get that kind of usability into EventFrog, you might have a really good site.
About 12pm, it was time to go and he was all pumped up about what I was going to do for the site.
"But shall I do this first?", I said, showing him the client's site I have to design. He paused for a moment and his excitement dropped a little. "...yes", he said, with a short sigh. It was easy to tell he really wanted to get going on EventFrog.
I headed back home and for the next hour or two, wrote an email with various links to sites that I thought might be of interest to the two of them.
Fast forward a few days and I'm now back in Liverpool. I almost didn't get here though, because Gary fell down my stairs and done his ankle in and could hardly walk. It meant that I had to carry all of my stuff on my own from my room to the car. It didn't bother me too much though and he was limping pretty bad.
What really bugs me though is that Ahmit was right there as I was carrying stuff out of my room. It bugs me that even if he wasn't on the phone at the time, he wouldn't help me. Why? Because he says it's too heavy. I'm a complete weakling and even I can carry everything I need to. Is a monitor really too heavy?
What really was heavy though was my suitcase. It had everything in it. My clothes, three A3 folders worth of work, paper, pens, pencils. It was so heavy. Still, I managed to get it all to the car and then we drove back to Liverpool where we went to have a meal. We also picked my Nan up.
The meal wasn't anything special, but what was most memorable about it was the "Monster ice cream" I had. It was huge. It was actually for two people, but I ate it all. Four profiteroles, two flakes, two wafers, huge amounts of cream, syrup, cake and chocolate and vanilla ice cream. It was very very nice. It was very very fattening. I wouldn't be surprised if it had well over 1,500 calories in it.
Fast forward a few more days and the really interesting stuff began to happen.
Firstly, about a week ago, me and Tori began flirting online. As in basically telling each other that we wanted to have sex. Tori is my friend. I've known her for like two years or so. Tori has never seen me as anything more than a friend and yet here she was saying she wanted to fuck me. Very confusing.
But, all of last week, we basically told each other that when she comes out with me on Saturday next week for my birthday, we'd get a hotel room and have some fun. At first, I really didn't think she was being serious, but after a few days, I asked her and she said yes. And with comments such as "I would love to suck you", it wasn't hard to tell.
Of course such nice things never happen to me and there is a 'but' to all of this. I'll come back to this in a minute, though.
Fast forward to last Saturday morning at 4am and I was happily installing the update for Command & Conquer 3 (which I've been playing non stop since I got back) and it froze up. Confused, I restarted Windows and got the first blue screen of death that I've had in literally two or three years.
I restarted again and got the same thing. I restarted again just to make sure. Same thing. I could not start Windows.
Panic ensued.
No computer means no Uni work will get done. Worse still, I had a horrible feeling that the hard drive with all of my work on it had failed. As in it was broken. There's a good EIGHT YEARS of my life on the hard drive. I felt ill that it might all have gone.
I spend a further hour trying to fix it, but to no avail so I went to bed feeling very nervous about what the hell had happened to my computer.
The next day, I knew that the only thing left to do was format Windows. The 'f' word is not one I like at all. Formatting is bad. Very bad. It takes a long time and you have to reinstall everything from scratch. Of course, luck was not on my side. In order to format, I needed a Windows disk and mine was all of the way in Chester.
Chris, Laura's boyfriend had built her a PC and I asked her if she happened to have a Windows disk, but no. However, she said she was going to see him a little later on and that she'd get one off him. A little relieved, I set up Laura's computer in my room instead (she wasn't using it) and at least I could use the Internet still.
Unfortunately, when Laura returned later that night, she told me Chris had leant his disk out to a friend. This was not going good.
I called Tony instead. I wouldn't know what to do without this guy. He's a friend of Laura's but has always been willing to help me out with all of my computer problems. I asked if he could come and have a look at it but he said it wouldn't be until Monday at the earliest. So, all weekend I didn't have my computer. It's quite a boring experience using a computer that's not your own. It's just not the same. None of your music, pictures, programs. However, as I said, I could at least go online and use MSN.
Which brings me back to Tori.
On Sunday, she was saying how she's got a teddy in her bed and I joked about how she could have a 5'8 one instead. Her reply was "hun this really isnt going to happen im sorry".
I don't really mind if she doesn't want to sleep with me, but come on, please don't lead me on for a week or two saying you want it. It's not fair to do that to me. You mess with my head if you say you want it and then say you don't.
I just said ok and then felt pretty rejected for the rest of the night.
The next day, I talked to her again, having quickly forgotten about any kind of chance I had with her, but it's hard to do that when she then started coming onto me again.
"being spontaneous here, but do you wanna come up?", she asked me.
"This might sound like a stupid question, but why?", I replied.
"I miss you"
"But you'll see me on Saturday :)"
"ok"
"But I miss you too. Where are your housemates?"
"In their rooms. It makes me sick."
"Why?"
"They get to have sex and I don't. This is your chance to come fuck me"
I looked at the screen for a few seconds, confused.
"Look", I said, "you can't do this to me. You can't mess with my head like this. Yesterday you said 'look this really isn't going to happen' so I accepted it. Now you're saying you want me to come up. That's not fair."
She took a minute or two to reply.
"I'm sorry", she said. "I didn't realise I was doing it and I'm sorry"
She went offline straight after she said that.
I really want to have sex with her, but if she can't make her mind up about whether she wants it or not, I don't really fancy being messed around day after day so I just had to tell her to stop.
The next day, she didn't come online at all and I was fairly sure she had probably blocked me while she was thinking things through.
To add to the bad news, Tony didn't come on Monday to fix my computer but thankfully, he came last night and fixed it. I was so very happy. Not only did he fix it, but I hadn't lost all of my stuff afterall. I did however, have to format, but I'd rather format Windows than lose all of my stuff. It took me until about 3am to get everything back the way it was.
So, I'm currently typing this on my own computer, rather than Laura's, hence the lack of chatlogs of my conversation with Tori.
But, Tori came back online today. She said she wouldn't be going to the Krazy House with me and the rest of everyone because her ex would be there. I asked her if she was still going to be coming the pub.
[15:22:35] Tori: yeah i'll be at aj's
[15:22:40] Tori: you will see me
[15:22:55] Tori: i am sorry hun but i hope you can understand my reasons
[15:23:19] 03 / 65 / 3,900 / 234,000: Fair enough. As long as I get a long cuddle and a kiss. :)
[15:23:28] Tori: lol
[15:23:34] Tori: depends what type of kiss you mean?
[15:24:40] 03 / 65 / 3,900 / 234,000: Well, you know what kind I'd like, but I don't think you want to, even though you said you wanted me to come up the other day.
[15:25:29] Tori: oh right
[15:25:41] Tori: look, i am really truely sorry for messing you around
[15:26:04] Tori: i was a bitch for doing that and i didnt mean to hurt you
[15:26:32] 03 / 65 / 3,900 / 234,000: So I guess you are saying it's not going to happen again now
[15:26:53] Tori: to be honest, i dont know
[15:27:16] Tori: i'm very messed up in the head right now and i cant make any decisions
So, once again, it went from a "come and fuck me" to a "I don't know". Which of course is as good as saying "No".
It sucks. I thought that maybe my birthday would be that little bit extra special after she had said she wanted to have some fun with me, but I guess not now. She said "see what happens", but if we're sitting in a pub and she's not going to the club afterwards then that pretty much means nothing is going to happen. I was so very ready to kiss her in there or at least find the confidence to talk to her about what she had said. But if she's not going there anyway, then there's no chance.
I'm going to end this entry on a high note though, saying that I'm still looking forward to my birthday immensely. I'm hoping it's going to be an awesome night out with as many of my friends as possible. The fact that it's also another of my friend's birthdays on the same day is also quite cool.
Roll on Saturday.
