Work and Play

Not much has been going on work at the moment - just a lot of training and sitting around. Unfortunately, I seem to have started work at the wrong time, what with Xmas just around the corner.

Ho hum, at least it hasn't been too stressful - my body is slowly adjusting to having to get up early - i haven't had problems getting up, but I find that my energy levels in the afternoon are pretty low. I've been living on Red Bull but I don't want to make it a habit!

Saturday, we attended Josephine's birthday party and it was an excellent night out. The food at Cubana was amazing (shame we didn't know the proper name of the dishes - somehow we managed to translate a dish into "Jamacian pattie"!). I'm very much looking forward to seeing the photos that Josephine took! Also, I wish I could have drunk a bit more - going to the blooming bar was a nightmare - it took ages to get served!

p.s Josephine's colleague is luvely! :)

Poker

Hehe, I had a fantastic night of poker on Saturday night - managed to double my stake at the game at Mike's house. I think the credit maybe due to the fact that I didn't drink that night!

If you've been to Mike's house, you'll know that he has the best collection of booze in the world! For someone who likes a drink, its like someone handling you the keys to a bank!

Anyway, come Saturday afternoon, I was slightly dreading the game as I thought I would walk out penniless. But come the game, I managed to stay composed and on top of my game. I knew that watching those late night poker games would pay off!

p.s you looked lovely on Saturday, Jo!

Oh well, bring on 65!

Well, looks like this is my last day of "freedom" - I start working on Monday.

Its so strange that I was quite happy to be unemployed until around August, and then it suddenly hit me that i missed working. Ok, its not just the work aspect, I guess I missed the social aspect too - talking to my cat is fine, but there's only so much conversation I get out of her.

I also think that being away from people has dented my social skills a little - I find that I talk less now to my friends and that I'm less inclined to go out and have dinner and drinks. The act of having a shower and getting changed seemed like such a hard thing to do - "Oh, I'll do it a bit later on".

I'm not saying that having a break isn't a bad thing - I didn't get to finish college or go to University, so I've been working from the age of 18 onwards. But I think my break may have continued a bit too long!

Kingston is a great place to work - the Bentall Centre is a very good shopping centre, and there are also loads of major stores around it. Also, our car park is literally a 10 second walk to the office, which is a major bonus!

Relevant Lessons Of Life

I watched School Of Rock on Sunday night, and i thought it was a great movie! While I'm not a great rock fan, I have been known to play the odd Air-Guitar from time to time (isn't it just embarassing when someone catches you doing that!!)

Just got me thinking about my time in school and how I wished I had a teacher like that, who tried to share a passion of something (music) to their students. I personally think that I learnt nothing relevant to life from school - everything I know is self taught.

• Lets use Maths as a starter. There are some people who want to measure the strength of a geometric triangle, but what use is that? I'd rather know how many litres there are in a pint so when we switch over to Euro measurements, I won't be ripped off. In my day, Maths was such a general subject that embraced all the disciplines - geometry, algebra, statistics, etc etc. Why couldn't they have given us a choice instead? For example, split the subject into different disciplines - all those who want to learn the geeky stuff can study it as a standalone subject. While those who want to learn Maths relevant to life (how to calculate APR so you won't get ripped off while working out your credit card statement) could study it as another subject.
• I learnt to play the violin at school. It was either that or learn to play the piano. Thats it. And you didn't have a choice either in what you had to play. I think its such a shame because if I was given some input in what kind of music I wanted to play, I would have chosen more modern pieces, such as The Beatles or maybe The Who. Probably this is one thing that may have changed in recent times, I don't know.
• Oh ok, this one is a bit silly, but it still bugs me even know! I'm quite a fast reader, and I was probably one of the fastest readers in the school. Everyone I was a book work who loved reading. In English, we had to review a book, and because there weren't enough books to go round, we had to share with the guy next to you. And who do I get stuck with? A guy who reads a page per hour! It took him forever to read the book (The Hobbit by the way) and by the end of it, I was ready to eat the book to kill myself. I mentioned this to the teacher and that maybe we should swap partners, as it wasn't doing either of us any good. Teacher looked up at me and just said no. Grrrrrrr!!
• We had the worst library in the world. I'm sure that the local prison had a better library system than us. Yet for some reason, my school could afford to own a playing field! It wasn't just books that we were short off - there was a lack of computers (its a miracle I even passed my GCSE Computing, I barely saw one at the time!), a lack of teachers (loads of substitues all the time), and the furniture was purchased sometime during the reign of King Henry the Eigth! But hey, at least we had the prestige of owning a soggy playing field!!

Conclusion of all this? My kids are going private.

Start Date

Surrey County Council have finally given me a Start Date of Monday 11th December 2006.

Finally!

Not going to say too much about this online, but lets just say I'm not happy at how long this has taken.

Anyway, I have a nice new wardrobe to impress my fellow civil servants. Its strange because for the last 15 years, I have had to wear a suit, hence there was no need to plan what i was going to wear.

"Lets see now, the blue suit or the grey suit"

Now, it seems that i've stepped into a woman's nightmare now! Doubts have been entering my head like;

"Do my shoes look too casual?"

"Does this shirt make me look like someone from the Scissor Sisters?"

"Why can't white jeans come back into fashion?"

Hopefully, i've managed to buy stuff thats both casual and formal at the same time.

Christmas Decorations

The thought of decorating our flat this year for Xmas is making me all giddy! I've just started thinking about what I want to buy, and I've been amazed to see how cheap decorations are these days, thanks to those factory workers in China!

I remember helping my parents decorate their Take-Away, and we would always use the stuff that we purchased ten years previously as it was too expensive to replace, but the way that they're priced now, you could buy new stuff every year really - althought, I'm very much for keeping some of my older decorations as a legacy (sorry kids no million pound trust fund!) to my children.

My god, it hurts!

We brought a Xbox 360 on Friday.

Result - sore thumbs, late nights and an inability to want to get out of my night clothes!

Working soon........

Got my contract today in the post - and then I realised I don't own a pen, so I had to go to my mum's house to nab a pen! How ironic - i have every form of technology in my house, yet I don't have a pen!

Anyway, I think i'm starting work on the 20th of November - i'm feeling a bit apprehensive and slightly nervous at the thought of having to work again!

Oh well, if it all goes pearshape, I can always beg Josephine to take me on as her assistant - I make a great coffee!

November Rain

Funny how something totally random has made me "reboot" my blog.

I've always loved Guns and Roses - in the late 80's and early 90's, they brought something different from the likes of Kylie and Tiffany. One of my favourite ever songs from them is "November Rain". I always thought that this soppy ballard was a bit of a departure from their usual angry rantings.

Anyway, I switched the TV and some woman was rambling on about how November Rain was the worst ever Guns and Roses song, because of it soppiness.

Come off it! November Rain is an epic story of love and tragedy. The song paints a picture of everything good and bad about love, and most of all (in the video), Slash can be seen playing an electric guitar on a hill top without the aid of er, a source of electricity!

Anyway, if you haven't heard the song for some time, give it a try.

Running Man

Still don't think this guy is as good as me or Johnny, yet its still a funny video!

Nght Drive

Had to drive back to Woking from Streatham at 11pm to deliver a set of keys - anyway, drove there with one eye open as I was knackered. So in order to freshen myself up a bit, I decided to drop the top and drive back topless.

Bad idea! I had no idea that it was blooming windy and cold! I thought "hey, its June, it'll be warm"! Fat chance - i was shivering like hell, and having a shaved head doesn't help -icicles were growing off my ears.

A few blokes were giving me the thumbs up when i was passing them - i was too cold to return the gesture!

Anyway, bring back summmer!

Life in June

Thanks to Julie yesterday for her lovely BBQ - I tried to provide some support and assistance towards the cooking, but I was way too tired (er, also, my hands were full of meat!) I was quite impressed with her salads. I'm not usually a salad person, but she does toss a mean salad.

I have a job interview on Thursday! Am looking forward to this as I think I have a fair chance of landing the job. Just need to do some more research between now and Thursday.

I had my head shaved on Saturday - found a great barber near our flat, where they do a 5 minute job! Honestly, I have showers which last longer than that haircut! I think the girls are all quite impressed with it, and their looks of admiration is quite good for the ego!

Furniture and films

Gawd, why can't they make furniture "safer"? I've been banging my shins on my coffee table and bed, and it blooming hurts. Surely there's a way of making the corners less damaging to one's shins.

I suppose maybe I should look where I'm going - but I have a theory that the table and bed are just below my peripheral vision, hence why I'm failing to spot the exact height.

Or I suppose I might not have a coffee table in future!

Watched "The Butterfly Effect" today - its an amazing film (but full of time travel paradoxes) - I'm a sucker for time travel tragedy films, so you can imagine how eager I was to watch this. Its about a guy who realises he has the ability to go back in time to "make right" the tragic events suffered in his childhood - yet things don't quite go as expected. It has some overtones of "Back to the Future", yet less of the comedy and more of a thriller.

8/10 for me.

Boys Boys Boys

Teenagers in the 80's should remember Sabrina and "Boys Boys Boys".

Awful awful vomit inducing song. But great video. Its amazing how she got away with this video!

Sneaky new speeding detector?

As if there aren't enough ways to detect speeding motorist, now add acoustics as another method.

read more | digg story

Julie in her motor as well

Julie, do you like the additional vomit stain on the side of the car?

Hot or Not?

Mike, just to give you some ideas on what you're going to look like in the near future

Window time!

We're having our window fitted to our bedroom today - at last! I've been to disgusted to look at our window at the moment, and it'll be a relief to have the luxury of drawing our curtains back for a change.

Tell you what though, the window cost a lot more than I thought it would :(

Once its all done, I must get round to organising a house party. Make a mental note to myself to convince Mike that he must cook!

No more cowboy dancing!

Had a great Saturday night out - laughs, drinking, dancing, and dropping women on their head. It had it all!

Although, I do have to stop being such an exhibitionist when I've had a few drink -I swear, in a former life, I must have been a Las Vegas drag queen or something! Wonder if this is a product of a boys school education (the exhibitionist nature of me, not being a drag queen i mean!).

Anyway, here's a list of the highlights of that evening

• Magnus smoking my hamlets - dude, you smoking doesn't look right for some reason!
• Being charged a service charge while ordering a drink from the bar!
• Being slapped round the head by Karen, for flirting with everyone - male or female.
• Jo's high heels - how did you dance in them??
  

I'm looking forward to Saturday's party - its Mike's turn this weekend.

Light and Darkness

I was never really into Buffy the Vampire Slayer, hence why I never really gave "Angel" a chance when it first aired. Recently, Homechoice have started to reshow the first series of it on Video on Demand (my gawd, VOD is just beautiful! Instead of you becoming a slave to the TV, the TV becomes your biatch!) so I decided to give it another chance.

Geez, I can't believe I missed out on this - I've only seen 10 or so episodes of the first season so far but I've been struck by the sheer beauty, grandeur and horror of a world filled with monsters and heroes.

The main character, Angel, is a 250 year old vampire on a path towards redemption after a life of murder and rage. His broody and dark personality represents a soul tainted with the blood of innocent, yet somewhere among the chaos and darkness, shines a light towards the path of hope for those in need of an angel.

Give it a chance - you might just enjoy it.

Updates are fun!

Just had a surreal night.

Karen hasn't been feeling very well since Sunday - so we called the NHS helpfulness to get some advice. (its an amazing service actually - to think that you can get free medical advice anytime of the day shows the quality of our health service). The nurse recommended some medicine. So, 3am in the morning, I went out to the only 24 hour chemist in London - Zafash in Earls Court.

I haven't driven at 3am for sometime, and it was a great drive - i tried not to drive at silly speeds, and tried not teaching boy racers in their Corsa's a lesson, and I tried not getting wound at silly mini cab drivers who think that driving a inch behind your rear bumper will get you to drive faster than 45mph!

Zafash Chemist was empty when i got there (i can imagine a few quiet nights there), and as you can imagine, it was a little more expensive there than other chemist.

But to me, I find it hard to believe that London has only one 24 hour chemist - there are other chemists that shut at midnight, but its not the same.

The drive back was pretty boring - I guess by that point, I just wanted to get back to bed!

In the Sun

Discovered that my favourite ever song "In the Sun" has been re-released as a charity record (proceeds to a Hurricane Katrina charity).

Song by Michael Stipe (of REM) , with aid from Chris Martin (Coldplay) and Joseph Arthur (original singer and songwriter of track), you can't help but think of that time last year when a city was wiped out by the forces of nature. Its an amazingly haunting anthem to the disaster.

Anyway, you can buy it on iTunes for 79p. Go and get it. Do something beautiful today.

Sofas

Can't decide which sofa to get!

This one, or












this one












I think the first one probably looks a bit more comfortable, while the 2nd one looks a bit more slick!

The plan is to buy two of the same sofa, but I keep changing my mind every two seconds!

Oh dear

I haven't updated my blog in ages - Josephine has done quite well actually in updating her blog so a big pat on her back and a bottle of Chardonnay on the way to her (haven't seen The Three Stages of Josephine for ages now!)

Whats been going on?

• Looking for a job - okay, i need the money now, there's so much I want to buy, yet not having the resources to do so is quite painful. I wasn't well paid in Chohung Bank, but at least I had enough to buy some toys from time to time - last time I treated myself was to buy some Super Unleaded for my car!
• Moving - have a completion date now for the 9th of February - a LOT to do till then and some serious DIY is needed (hint hint Magnus, Mike and Simon. Oh and Julie to make the tea)
• Sisters - both are pregnant and both are expecting their babies in May - great, more babies to play with! :)
• Reading a new book about the connection between the Pyramids, Alexander the Great and global warming! Actually, money permitting, I'd like to go to Egypt and crawl down the Great Pyramids - not sure when the last time i crawed down a 4000 year old building (my mum's house doesn't count).
• Reminder to Mike - update your blog.
  
• Friday drinks - please, someone come out for a drink on Friday! I'm dying for a pint!