Last night I thought I saw you staring, staring at the sky! Last night, I thought I saw you wishing for your dreams to die!

Not really! In actual fact, I went to a gig / club night in Dumfries, a town fifty miles away. I was expecting to have to go on my own, as Toneh had to start work at 6 this morning, but ten minutes before I set off, he phoned saying he was coming anyway.

I drove us to Carlisle, and then we got the train, as I didn't really fancy:
a) driving all the way to Dumfries and back, as my recently-broken foot complains at excessive pedal use and I don't much like driving anyway.
b) having to find somewhere to park in a town I don't know at all
c) potentially ending up staying until the end of the night (3am), which, much as I wanted to, didn't seem even remotely sensible, considering I've had very little sleep recently and was on the verge of dozing off all day.

My return ticket cost £2.30! Considering it costs £2.20 just to make the ten-mile bus journey from Carlisle to my home town, !!! Ont train, we noticed the girl in front of us had Mesh and VNV Nation CDs, and it turned out that she was going too. Even though I had a multimap map of Dumfries, we all got completely lost on our way to the venue and called a taxi service (who of course told us we were only five minutes' walk away).

The venue was cool - grotty, but only in the dark sense, and you could stand outside as you pleased, which always good, as it sitting in the dark struggling to talk over the music can get annoying after a few hours. I'd wondered what the attendance would be like, as I could hardly believe Dumfries was the alternative epicentre of the world, but the place was pretty full, the clientele ranging from nu metal kids to ubergoths, which is an improvement on Carlisle's rock scene anyway. (School kids with a range of degrees of alternativity and a couple of (slightly) old(er) bitter types.) Noj's former flatmate was also present, and allegedly texted Noj, with a "hehe, your sister's at a goth night!" to which he replied, "I know."

The first band were pretty good, but not especially exciting - I kept mistaking them for the background music. The second were metaaaaal! They were mostly bad (though they covered "Roots" by Sepultura) but, seemingly after enough of a break, any band you can raise your devil horns to is balm to that itching I have for live metal.

They played industrial stuff between bands. Nobody was dancing, but Toneh suggested we did anyway. The third band were punk and also bad, but! While most people I know just sit around moaning in such an event, Toneh suggested we dance like muppets, with the hand jives and the shelf-stacking and everything. So we did. Which was fun. And if the band found that offensive, they're f00ls: if we're enjoying your music, what more can you ask?

The fourth band, Motormark, were mint! Digital punk, if you will. Sadly, even though we'd been told all the bands would finish by 11.30, the main attraction - Panic DHH, Alec Empire's guitarist's band - hadn't even started by then, and we had to go and get the train. We were going to stay at some random person's house instead, but I both had to be back in Carlisle early the next day, to avoid having my wheel clamped, and get some flipping sleep, as I've got to give my final presentation for my course on Monday, and to write it (yeah, oops), I need Energy and Strength!

Oh well, twas a good night! (Even though the small completely driving-safe amount of alcohol I had only served to give me a headache. This is fast becoming a pattern.)

Today, my uncle brought me a birthday present (yes, quite - I still haven't got my present from my parents (a geetar) yet!) Twas the latest Stranglers album, and it's mint!

In less happy news, my brother now has broadband, but before I can have it, I have to abandon my beloved pretty hardly-any-trouble-at-all Windoze 98 and get Windoze: Teletubby Edition (aka Windoze Xtremely Patronising). It's almost tempting to just stick with a modem, as I now think modems are wonderful, after four months at the University of Melbourne where my Internet access consisted of gnomes in America printing pages off, shipping them to Australia, and then typing them up again. (And no, I will not use UNIX! Computers swallow enough of my time without making matters difficult for myself!)