Well I'm never looking at shadows in the same way again

Doctor Who tonight was absolutley awesome! (channeling my inner bill and ted there) It was by Stephen Moffat who wrote the excellent 'blink' from the last series. That episode was great, scary and made a lot of people look at statues twice. Tonights episode was the first in a two parter and will definately make people think twice about shadows. And librarys too. If Nemesis watches it could well make her very jumpy next time she's in her library at night! I can't wait for next weeks episode. Count the shadows! Stay out of the shadows!

Mind you that was the only decent thing on TV tonight. There were lots of annoying talent shows on tonight and I saw something even worse. I saw a advert for Big brother. Argghhhhh!!!!!! The show that will not die is coming back yet again and starts next Friday. Great now we'll have to put up wth a summer of Big brother and every tabloid paper and every magazine competing to bring us the next exclusive about one of these housemates whose name we won't remember two days after the freaking show ends.

On the plus side the weather did improve this morning, to be really bright and sunny. So bright and sunny ( and warm) that I was able to leave my coat at home when I went shopping. Or at least go and do the small amount of shopping I could do with the money I have. My replacement card better arrive as quickly as they said it would.

I had to do a clean up of the house today. I have to admit I've been letting things slide a tiny bit while Grumpys not been here. But not too much as I was worried Tap dance might pop into collect her post and give me a telling off for the state of the house.

Well it's church tomorrow, I should have my new calling 'formalised' as it were. Which should be interesting to just see the looks on peoples faces. Theres a calling for that?

Make sure you tune in tomorrow when all will be revealed.

If your interested of course :-)

later folks!

Zzzzzzzzzz!!!!

I don't know what it's been about today, but I've felt really tired all day. I'm glad it's Friday, I don't know if I could have made it another day.

Mind you not that I've got anything planned for the weekend, or can actually do anything as I have no way to get any money out. Darn bank!

Oh well, I gues I'll think of something to do. Whether or not it will be constructive is another matter.

later folks!

Like anybody would care that much

I'm really quite annoyed at my bank right now. Last year they decided to select me to take part in a trial of a new kind of bank card which has a special feature that can only be used in London. Yes that's right, London. The small facts that I don't live in London, live near London or go into London on a regular basis were apparently no big issue. And the reason for me beign selected, well political correctness. The bank can't only select customers who live in or near London otherwise they could be accused of being biased towards customers in the rest of the country and get sued. Of course the fact that most people who live outside of London couldn't give a monkeys about it was apaprently a no big never mind. So the new card I recieved ssaid all I had to do was activate it and Ic ould take part in this trial. As I had a lot more important thigns to be getting on with, I really couldn't be bothered and forgot about it as I saw no point doing it.

Well yesterday I get a letter from the bank advising me that they had noticed I was using my new card and I should do so as soon as possible as they were about to cancel the card I currently use. Of course I couldn't find the damn trial card anywhere. However the letter did advise if I didn't have the card I could ring them up to ask for a new one. So I did. They told me that they would send a new card out and it would be with me shortly. They matter of factly dropped into the conversation that this process of asking for a new card ( which I'm only getting because they were going to cancel my current one anyway) meant my current card is cancelled right away.

Oh gosh darn and blast it, this is mildily infuriating ( editor note actual language used in thoughts might have varied greatly from language indicated here).

So I can't get any money out until my new card arrives without getting to a bank which is real difficult during the week. It's a good job I stocked the cupboards up last week or I might have been in real trouble.

No apology from the bank about this of course, or for the fact that this only happened because they chose me to take part in a useless trial!

I have only one more thing to say about them
" MUPPETS!!"

Talking of muppets, that hole the goverments in really couldn't be getting deeper quicker then if they were using explosives to dig it for themselves. Diesel in the UK is the most expsensive in Europe but a newspaper has now helpfully pointed out that if you remove the tax we have to pay it's actually the cheapest. Which has kind of blown the goverments arguement that the high prices are only down to oil prices right out of that darn window.

Work was also interesting in the sense that as it's half term all the people with stupid questions have come out of the wood work, from the kid who wants us to publish his story and won't take no for a answer, to the person who wanted to do which piece of software each of our authors use indiviually to write stories.
One more week to holiday, one more week to Holiday, one more week to Holiday, one more week to holiday...................

I did get some prospectuses in the post today. I'm thinking of doing a course or something. Well I say something as I'm not sure what to do yet, but I know I need to do something to challenge my brain a bit more as I know I'm not as thick as I feel like these days. Grumpy keeps suggesting I should write a book as I used to be quite good at writing stories. But that was a long time ago and I don't know if I can still write that well anymore.

I'm also having to do a lot of work on my new calling right now. Which is strange considering I've not actually been called yet, but all will be revealed on Sunday. Even if you've never heard of this particular calling before.

I saw a funny article on a industry news site today. Apparently there was a big theft from a stand at a comic convention in the USA where $10,000 worth of comics were stolen. The number of actual comics stolen was only 7 and two of them alone accounted for 76% of the total value. It does make me wonder how much some of the comics my parents made me throw out when I was younger would be with now. I'm not going to look any values up.

Knowing my luck it would probably jsut depress me:-)

later folks!

I have one or two suggestions

Well the unwelcome sound of my alarm this morning was quickly followed by a second more unwelcome sound. Rain hitting my window. Yes it was raining again today. In fact it kept raining in a drizzle for most of the day, so the skies were all overcast and grey. This is so like last summer it's depressing.

I had to make a real effort to get up and moving really quick this morning because if I fall back asleep Grumpy isn't here to wake me up! Of course it's hard to get moving in the morning when it's so overcast and gloomly.

On the plus side I'm using Grumpys car at the moment which is nicer to drive then mine, but only becasue it's newer. I did get annoyed listening to the radio. The news was going on about the Prime minster meeting with oil chiefs to discuss how to bring oil prices down. Well that's a tough one...wait I know, reduce the tax on petrol! There, saved you a meeting. Apparently the final decision they made was to do more exploring in the north sea to look for more reserves. Yeah that will help with prices right now won't it. I can't believe he even bothered to have the meeting and it was such a half hearted transparent attempt to convince people that he is actually trying to do something about the oil prices. I doubt that will cut the tax mind you, their raking in too much money.

However the government keeps reassuring us that they are listening. Grumpy keeps commenting everytime the PM says that, that the PM should stop listening and start doing something. And I really wish they would stop trotting out that line about how the VAT on petrol is fair and in real terms it's 11% then what it was in 1999. Newsflash! People don't give a monkeys what the price and VAT of petrol was in 1999. They only care about how exspensive it is now.

Speaking of money MP's now want to give themselves something along the lines of a 60% pay increase. I wish my work would give me a 60% increase!

Work was a bit busier today as more people were in. However a bit of a dampener was put on the day as we discovered a sample of one of our books that isn't released until August had gt onto ebay by way of a third party seller. This means we're probably going to have to tighten the rules and list for the next set of books. Only takes one muppet to ruin it for everyone.

Institute was fun tonight. I did find out however that we've got two weeks left on the course, not one after tonight like I thought. This means I'm going to miss the last lesson as I'm going to have to pick Grumpy up that night. C'est la vie I guess.

anyway,

later folks!

It's all too familiar

The end of spring/start of summer 2007. The weather takes a turn for the worse and becomes rainy and miserable. Rhianna is at number 1 in the singles chart and we get stuck with the Summer of rain where we only have one good day of sunshine and that's the day Engineseer manages to get himself sun burnt.

The end of spring/start of summer 2008. Rhianna is at number 1in the singles chart and the weather takes a turn for the worst becoming rainy and misterable.....................

Why am I starting to feel like I'm in freaking ground hog day...........

Of course to go with the nice miserable weather, I got a huge pile of work as well. I do like Bank Holidays it's just the huge pile of work that results following them that I can't stand. My boss was off ill today and with the number of other people out of the office we seemed to be halfway to doing a repeat of the Marie Celestie yet again.

Oh for those of you wondering what happned to Mike Ball a small clue arrived at the office today, strangly enough as he hasn't worked there in a long time. He appears to have become a DJ, so sent one of the guys in the office a load of business cards. Still doesn't explain why his blog died mind you, but oh well. At least we know he's in the land of the living.

I discovered a huge hole in the reporting system that the warehouse team use to report order status to us. It was quite funny getting a explantion from the customer service team over there as it was like a bit like talking to naughty school children. Nobody wanted to admit to this error especially as it was not only large but pretty freaking obivous as well. Never mind at least we now know it's there and can plug it!

Grumpys now left for his Holiday. So the house is mine all mine, mwah, ha, ha, ha, ha. Of course he did generousily leave a huge pile of washing up for me to do. He seems to have an adversion to doing it. Luckily it doesn't appear to be genetic otherwise I would be in real trouble, he, he. :-)

anyway it's our penultimite ( hmm don't think I spelt that right) institute lesson tomorrow. Which will mean we'll soon have to find something else to do on Wednesday nights. Oh well I'm sure we'll copy :-) Wouldn't want the YSA roaming around unsupervised. Who know what we'd get up too?

Do you know? Seriousily, we have no clue what we're going to do :-)

later Folks!

No lie in

Well any thoughts of me getting a extra long lie in this morning as it was a bank holiday were rudely crushed by the arrival of our 'visitor' this morning, as he likes to bark. A lot. I suspect it's to do with him being in a different house without his owner so he gets unsettled.

Here's Chan on the Windowsill

and here is with grumpy in the Back Garden.

Fortuantely Engineseer and I had decided to do something today and in a inspired decision he decided to change the plans so we went to his instead of him coming here. Which meant I got to avoid the barking dog for the rest of the day.

Suffice to say we had a geeky afternoon, doing some painting, model making, and playing a game as Photoshop's lad J came round as well. So we were teaching him how to play and do some painting too.

As you can see from the photos here.

We headed out to the cinema this evening to meet up with some of the other YSA to see the new Indiana jones movie. It's very good but not as good as the Last Crusade. It was funny as on the row we all sat on in the cinema all the girls were crowded at one end and were chatting to each other a lot before the start of the movie. We could only catch snatches of the conversations.

" Surprise Still Human"

" It's unrecognisble from 18 or 20"

" It can happen"

" I know"

If anybody has any ideas as to what the rest of the conversation that linked these snipperts was please let me know.

Social was there but didn't speak to Engineseer or I "sigh". I do miss talking to her and I don't know why she wouldn't talk to me. Cordelia is also moving soon to the other end of the Stake. It appears that everybody else knew apart from me. I don't know whats going on here. I used to feel like I was an intregal part of the YSA, but I don't feel like that right now.

We were on the way home when Engineseer got a text from Black Widow asking if he was going to be home tonight. After a suggestion this was the text Engineseer sent back in reply.

" No I'm not as Saxon and I are going to invade Poland, the rest of the YSA however think we're being unrealistic and are instead setting their sights on France".

Tune in tomorrow folks. If I survive the huge pile of work I'll have to do that is.

Walk softly and carry a big gun

Well I've just seen the mid season trailer for Doctor Who and it's great. A certain character is back and seems to be packing some serious firepower. Anybody who has been watching the current season closely will now who I mean. I can't wait for those episodes!

My belief that people might be thin on the ground for ward conference was proven to be totally wrong today as the place was packed. Really, really packed! I can't remember the last time I saw the chapel so full.

Sunday school started off quite interesting as well. Our teacher starting talking about Clubs ( I'm not sure how that tied into the lesson I must have missed that bit), and how we should be supporting the YSA club more and turning up to Family Home evenings, as the last one had to be cancelled. Physics then decided to point out that it was strange to tell us to support the 'ysa' club as we all encouraged to 'leave' it by getting married as soon as possible. Our teacher did get that look on her face, which meant she was obivousily wondering if it was going to be one of those lessons. Fortunately she was saved by the bell, or in this case the Bishopric as Brother S came into to call my and physics out saying he needed to talk to us. Now I can't go into anymore detail then that until next Sunday at least. Suffice to say it wasn't for anything bad and you'll understand next week.

Traveller was also visting this week, so I gave her the sponsership money I had promised. The full amount as she had definately earned it! Apparently she's still got to have some work done, although they have already in her words 'scrapped' the dead nerve out. Which just made me shudder when she said that so matter of factly. I have enough problems with the dentist simply doing a check up letting alone scrapping a nerve out.

After the interview with Brother S I got back into Sunday school class to catch the last five minutes of the lesson, which of course meant I didn't have a clue what it had all been about. AS it had gone from talking about clubs to sharing each others loads. I guess that will teach me to forget to read the lesson. Those last five minutes did make me think though as one of the girls entioned that it was hard to share each others loads when we didn't know a lot about each other. Which made me realise she was right as looking around the room I knew that asides from one or two exceptions I have no clue about whats going on in some peoples life. And I suppose they don't know a lot about mine. I don't know whats happened to the YSA spirit in Loughborough but I really wish we could get it back. The lesson also made me realise that I'm slipping back into bad habits too and as Boss Lady told me, I need to ask for help if I need it.

All of the priesthood was meeting together today as it was Ward conference with the Stake president teaching the lesson. We were talking about goals when one of the missionaries said
" It's important to set realistic goals. I could set a goal to baptise the pope but it's unlikely to happen."
At which point Physics leant over and said
" He's right that's not a realistic goal. The pope lives where outside his zone"
After a pause he then leant over again and added
" But even if he was in his zone, the zone leaders would probably grab the pope anyway"

Most of the YSA seemed to vanish as soon as Church ended, so I got aaway pretty quickly as there wasn't much point hanging around. I got home to discover Grumpy had been late in getting back, so we were going to be having our roast dinner for tea. Again. ( this is becoming something of a habit.)

Grumpy is also in a bit of a mood as his phone keeps breaking, by randomingly turning off while he's writing text messages. I had a feeling he's going to need a new handset.

We're also having a visitor tomorrw. Grumpys 'friend', works at antiques fairs on Bank Holidays so needs someone to look after her Dog. Of course Grumpy keeps getting stuck with the dog and he's also be 'pre booked' for august bank holiday. We were talking about it and he was be moaning the fact slightly as he might have wanted to do something on the bank holiday.
I simply told him " You have to learn to say no" at which point we both collapsed into a fit of the giggles as I realised what I had said. Something I had never expected to have to say to my father!

anyway, that's all for today folks ( if there's anyone still out there that is)/

tune in tomorrow, same geek life, same geek station.

Whatever

I was flicking through the TV channels tonight and caught the end of the Eurovision broadcast. And surprise surprise we came last. Again. Well technically joint last with Poland and Germany, but it was still last place. I do find it amusing that some people still insist that the voting isn't political in the slightist.

It's our Ward conference tomorrow. It should be interesting to see how many people are there as they decided to hold it on a bank holiday weekend. Either we got realllyyyyy unlucky when they assigned dates to all the wards in the stake or someone really didn't think that one through.

Grumpy will be off on Holiday this wednesday so he was doing a lot of running round trying to get last minute bits and pieces. So this does mean I get to borrow his car. Which will be nice. Now if only there were some YSA events on where they would be girls impressed by it. Oh well :-) C'est la vie I guess.

anyway,

later folks!

Well at least the weather co-operates from time to time

Well there was only a handful of us in the office today by lunchtime. So I might have had no one sitting near me to talk to and as it was a Friday before a bank holiday there wasn't much to do, but at least I could lean back in my chair take a good swig of drink and feel a sense of well I suppose satisfaction to look out of the window and see the rain pouring down. Lots and lots of rain, which will have ruined any outdoor plans anybody who took the day off had. It might have been wrong to feel a little happy that it was raining the worse it had all week but it did feel good.

Well it's the weekend now. Yahh!! And it's also a Bank Holiday so double Yahh! So it will be a long weekend, tripple Yah!! I have no idea what I'm going to do but I guess that's the fun of bank Holidays. You don't have to know :-)

later folks,

And just when I thought things couldn't get any weirder

To summarise today very briefly, Cats, Geekettes, Amniotic caskets, Daemons, Titans, Dreadnoughts, calling random people, the marie celestie.

This will start to make sense, just give me a couple of minutes to explain.

The day started off very strangly when I was making breaskfast, when I noticed two cats in the garden. Both were watching me through the window as I moved round the kitchen, but whilst doing so they didn't move their bodies. They just sat there moving their heads from side to side in perfect time together whilst staying straight ahead. It was one of the strangest darn things I have seen in sometime.

If you haven't visited Nemesis's blog I suggest you do so now by using this link. Based on what she's said and the comments from other vistors the location of YSA geekettes has been solved. They all seem to be in the freaking USA. Arggghhhhh!!!! They like star trek, know what a flux capicator is and even know the term " Frak" and " so say we all". YSA geekettes are real, their actually real, and their all in the USA! D'ohh!!

I am starting to wonder if someone is taunting me here.

I had to spend sometime writing up a report on the latest manuscript I had written for work and realised I needed a second opinon on it. So I went to find someone in the department next door. It did make me realise how cool my job is as their not many jobs where you can have a indepth discussion if the Amniotic casket technologly used in Dreadnoughts can be scaled up and be used in the Princerps MIU interface in Warlord titans.

If anybody has a clue what I'm talking about I'll be very impressed. Quadrupply ( if thats the word) so if it's a girl.

It got very quiet mid afternoon as a lot of people started leaving early as their having a 'long weekend' with it being a bank holiday and on. Well most people asides from Muggins here, but that's a different story. So as we had recently held an event I somehow, still not totally sure how this happened ended up ringing stores to get feedback on how it went. And to be honest it was a lot of fun. Well more fun then I usually have, having to answer emails on a Thursday afternoon.

It took me nearly an hour to get home tonight. I guess a lot of people really are starting their bank holiday weekend early. Well with any luck it will mean a clear run into work tomorrow.

I got home to find the house doing a darn good impression of the Marie Celestie. Dinner in the oven, extractor fan on, no sign of Grumpy or his car, doors locked. Weird! However unlike the orginal this marie celestie mystery was quickly solved as Grumpy came back as he had to make a very quick errand.

I was wondering if Engineseer would need my help with something tonight. As Tuesday it was covering muteral for him, yesterday it was instititue, seriousily we must be one of the only classes where the librarian regularly runs things, so I wasn't sure if tonight could be the third coz as the saying goes, things always come in threes. But no sign of a call so maybe I'm safe.

Maybe it will be tomorrow instead :-) ( yes being cheerful keeps me going doesn;t it :-)

anyway that's all for now folks,

Tune in tomorrow ( If I survive with my sanity intact after being stuck in a empty office all day by myself)

Same geek life, same geek station.

It's been a long day

I don't know what it's been about today but it's just seemed so darn long. It seems like an age ago that my alarm went off this morning and I had to drag myself outta bed.

Work was also okay. Not memorable, just one of those days where ever thing was the same old, same old. The office was also half empty as well opposed to Friday afternoon when it's going to be completely empty apart from muggins here, who wouldn't be able to knock off early as it's a bank holiday weekend as there will be no managers who can tell him that he can finish early. Saxon also appears to have started talking about himself in the third person for no reason what so ever.

it's been one of those days people, just one of those days.

later!

There are somethings I guess I'll never get

It was very sunny when I got up this morning. I'm not sure if I'll get used to it being this light when I get up, of course I'm fairly certain I say that every year and just get used to it when it starts to get dark in the mornings again. Oh well, c'est la vie :-)

I entered the office to what I can best describe is a 'wall of scent'. One of the women in our office had one a competition at a soap shop, and one a lot of soap. And when I say a lot of soap I mean a Lotttttttttttttt!! of soap. It covered an entire desk. It also wasn't any standard soap, it was some kind of special soap that people pay anything between £15 to £25 for, and that's per bar. The women who had won was selling it for charity. Unsurprisingly all of the people who came to buy some of this soap bar one were women. Who were willing to 'pay' around £10 for a bar. A bar of soap. I couldn't really see the attraction but I guess that's because I'm a guy and theres just some things that I'm never going to see in the same way as a woman!

She had to move the soap around mid day( it was on the spare desk behind me) as it was starting to give me a headache. It was like sitting on top of a perfume factory!

The rest of the day was pretty slow and quiet. But at least it gave me time to concentrate and blitz through a few things.

I got home to discover then Grumpy had decided to cook sausages for Tea as a change. Which was quite nice as it's been a while since we had sausages. Hmm, I wonder if I can persude him to do shepherds pie next as we haven't had that in a while either.

I was planning to do some painting this evening, but that plan went out the window as I got a urgent call from Engineseer whose planning skills had seemed to fail him at the worst time and he'd managed to double book himself. He was supposed to be going to mutral to help Photoshops lad do some model making but was also suppoed to be at a YSA commitee meeting. So I decided to help him out by going to mutal for him instead. Which was fun, if only to remind me I'm glad I've not got a calling in Young mens as I really wouldn't be able to put up with the three eldest young men they have there who are complete and utter morons at the moment ( their all 17, almost 18). They were eating sweets in the chapel and when one of the leaders asked them to stop one of them actually replied;
" It's okay for us to eat sweets in here. Jesus told me I could"
I don't know if I would have been able to resist the temptation to give the little so and so a slap.

I got a email from Traveller via facebook. Apparently she had completed 50 miles of the 84 mile course when she hit something in the road, lost control and went right over the handlebars, smashing a tooth and gets lots of cuts and bruises on her arms and face. Now most people would have stopped then, but she managed to getback on the bike and go another five miles. She really is tough! She also said in the email that she understood if people didn't want to give her the full sponser money as she hadn't completed the course. Which was very sweet and very like her, but I'm still going to give her the full amount of money as I think she's certainly earned it.

anyway,

that's all for now folks, tune in tomorrow, same geek life, same geek station

Slow, slow, quick slow

It was rather a odd Monday today. Usually Mondays seem to go quite slow with everything seeming to go into super slow motion. Sometimes Mondays seem to go extremely fast and it's a struggle to get everything done. Today was odd as it seemed to be a curious mix of the two as at times the day seemed to be going very quickly, then it started slowly, then quickly again annd so on and so on through out the day. I've no idea why this happened and I do have the depressingly feeling that it was indicating it's going to be one of those weeks.


Especially as come Friday I will be the only member of the sales and marketting team in the office. That is not going to be a fun day at all.

Our broadband connection has started to play up again by having the same problem it used to have by refusing to connect to the internet properely for no obivous reason what so ever. We're just hoping that it wil choose to fix itself soon like it did last time as it's getting annoying.

The weather was behaving a little oddly today. It was like it couldn't make up ut's mind whether it wanted to rain or be sunny. Well as long as it doesn't rain all summer again like last year, it will be fine.

I've not gone long to go now until my week off. Finally! Grumpy will also be going on Holiday soon for two weeks as well, which means I'll be getting the house to myself. Of course the downside of this will be having to cook to myself every night but it could have been worse. At least I can cook. :-)

anyway, that's all for today folks,

tune in tomorrow, same geek life, same geek station.

Can you tell what it is yet?

It's been a rather strange day today, despite my best efforts I seemed incapable of getting anything constructive done until this evening. Which seems odd considering I've had the whole weekend to get stuff done, but I guess it's just one of those things.

And what was the constructive thing I managed to do. Well some drawing. Admitally it doesn't sound very constructive but it was. I'm coming up with some ideas for some stuff for work. Which hopefully people will like, otherwise the constructiveness wll turn out to be not so constructive and I'm rambling aren't I?

See I told you it has been one of those days.

Engineseer apparently had a bad night at work, well last night and had to deal with a rather large and violent fight at work. Why do I get the feeling Chavs were involved in that somewhere.
Traveller also doesn't seem to have much luck at the minute. She was supposed to be doing a charity bike ride between oxford and cambridge and I'm not sure what happened yet but she has posted some photos on her facebook page entitled 'oops' in which she's looking rather bruised and battered. So I'm guessing not everything according to plan.

Speaking of which Traveller's sister SW is finally returning to the UK at Christmas a mere two years after going out there for a 'brief visit'. He, he, she's never going to leave her final words to the YSA down " I'm not going out there to get married. It's just for three months then I'll be coming back to the UK."

Indiana Jones is out at the cinema this Friday. I'm ignoring all the doomsayers. It's Indiana Jone's. It's going to be cool.

Monday tomorrow. My favourite day of the week. It's also going to be very quiet this week as a lot of people are on Holiday. This is the sort of time I miss being able to listen to music.

C'est la vie I guess.

Okay new week, I may not be ready for whatever comes my way but I'll give it a shot none the less.

Bring it on!

and another review again

Well as I don't have anything else better to do right now I thought I would right another book review.

Gust Front is the second book in the Posleen war series and a direct sequel to a Hymn before battle which I reviewed here.

Despite the victories in the first novel, the best of Earths forces are still stuck in bloody stalemate defending two alien planets. Over three years have passed since the events of a Hymn before battle and the first wave of invasion is less then two years away. Earths defences are still being built and the fleet is still under construction in the shipyards. Theres a real sense of urgency but a hope that things may come together in time for the first wave of invasion. Unfortuantely the nobody told the Aliens the schedule and some of the Alien forces arrive early. It's not hard to guess that unsurprisingly all hell breaks loose.

Most of the action in Gust front occurs in the USA describing the landings their. There are a lot of references to roads and cities which probably make more sense to American readers but despite that the action is still fast paced and relatively easy to follow.

It's good to see that despite the nature of the story it's still believable and easily draws you in. Despite the threat of invasion hanging over the earth, people still fight, still bicker and put their own wants and needs first. Politics is also still around and several politicans actions almost lead to disaster for the US forces.

You rejoin the main character and his family and experience a lot of the action through their eyes. However it was extremely shocking to me when one member of the family does not make it through the book as I really wasn't expecting it. Several other characters also fail to survive and casualties among the Earth forces mount with horrific speed.

The Aliens are defeated if only just. But a large part of the earths planetary defence centres are in ruins, several cities are lost, casulaties among earth forces are high and this was only a small attack, the first invasion wave will be ten times as big. The situation is desperate and you realise that the Earth needs some kind of miracle if it's going to survive.

Four stars out of five.

Rain, rain go away

Well the weather decided again today that it wasn't going to co-operate so we were stuck with rain for most of the morning. And of course it was that light kind of drizzle rain which is just horrid.

I had to go to the bank this morning and ended getting stuck in a queue for 15 minutes. What made it even more annoying was the fact it was the queue for the 'fast cashier'. I hate to think how long I might have been waiting if I had been in the main queue for one of the 'regular' cashiers.

Doctor Who was actually quite disappointing this evening. I think it was the worse one of this series. I could see the idea they had, but it didn't seem to quite work. Oh well, hopefully the next one will be better.

It's been one of those Saturdays again really. Just spent the day doing not a lot constructive.

Aren't weekends great :-)

later folks!

Hopefully making things clearer

Drat mentioned that he wasn't sure what I was talking about when I keep referring to Home teaching. So hopefully this article I found will explain things a bit better for any non LDS readers.

Home teaching (formerly called ward teaching) is a responsibility of priesthood holders in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Home teaching is a church program designed to allow families to be taught in their own homes, in addition to weekly church services. Typically, two members of the priesthood, of whom at least one must be an adult( i.e 18+), visit the home of approximately one to three assigned families once a month. Home teaching is organized at the ward level

Companionships are responsible for visiting each of their assigned families once per month. Visits are normally ½ hour. Home teachers may share a lesson or spiritual thought (typically the message from the church presidency for that month) and inquire concerning the needs and concerns of the family. Home teachers establish a relationship of trust with these families so that the families can call upon them in times of need.

LDS women have a similar system called Visiting Teaching. Women are assigned other women that they are to visit on a monthly basis. While the home teacher is responsible for the entire family, the visiting teacher concentrates on the needs of the women being visited, although this often involves the welfare of other family members.

Of course as you may have picked up, I haven't been able to fulfil this responsibility due to problems beyond my control.

I hope this makes things a bit clearer for anyone who was confused. Any questions give me a yell.

later!

Drizzle, Drizzle, the nice weathers gone on the fizzle

Well after several days of being good it seems that the English weather has decided to remind us that we're not actually in summer yet so we shouldn't keep taking this good weather for granted. So we ended up with some grotty really cold weather today which was capped off by rain this afternoon. Not that it was a heavy rain mind you, just a mediumish drizzle which was really annoying.

It was a usual Friday at work. Just trying to get everything clear and done before the weekend. So I'm already for the next load of work to arrive on Monday. I have to admit there is a small sense of "Ground hog" day sometimes.

But regardless of that it's the weekend now. So time to sit back, relax and plan but most likely fail to do anything what so ever constructive this weekend.

So just a sterotypical weekend for me I'll think you'll agree.

later folks!

"Remember your training and you will make it back alive"

It's a bit of a pain these days collecting the latest samples of books. Rather then them coming directly to us, I have to now go and and collect them from the main warehouse. This requires a short walk down the main road, pushing a large trolley full of books, whilst wondering if the high vis jacket your wearing is making you look as much of a idiot as you feel. It can be a bit nerve wracking walking up and down that road if there's lots of traffic about until your back on the main site. Today it was nerve wracking for a different reason. Mainly because with the books I had it was likely to become safer on the main road then in the building! But I'll get to that in a moment. ( time for flashback to first thing this morning).

This morning was one of those mornings that was " I really, really don't want to get up, can't they just pay me to spend all day in bed" kind of mornings. I finally managed to drag myself out of bed and get ready for work. I finally set out hoping that I would run into my get up and go somewhere along the way.

I didn't and I also got to work to find I had one of those, " Every customer with a difficult or stupid question is going to come out of the woodwork" kind of days in front of me. Ah, the joys of customer service.

We did have an interesting meeting about future releases. Which of course I can't say anything about due to NDA's in my contact. It's cool that I do get to know about all of these forthcoming releases but aso annoying as I can't say anything about them!

Which brings me in a roundabout way to the trolley full of books I had to go and collect from the warehouse. One of the books I had collected was from our best selling range and I was well expecting a flood of interest from staff, as usually it's amazing when one of these books from this series arrive how many staff suddenly turn all nice and friendly and absolutely need a copy of this book for work purposes.

Today was no different, from the moment I got back to the main site I was getting badged by loads of staff members who weren't on the samples list. ( I'm just glad the samples weren't ready yesterday during the national managers meeting otherwise I would have never got back to the office alive!) and it got steadily more annoying as I took samples round the building. One person kept asking me for one and when I asked what reason he had why he had to have to get a copy of the novel for work purposes nearly 2 and a half months before the release date, the best he could come up with was " I work for the company?". Needless to say. He didn't get one.

anyway,

that's all for today. see you tomorrow folks, same geek life, same geek channel.

You go away for one day

Well I Was rather surprised this morning to find those new traffic lights are actually working. They have finally got round to turning them on, only a mere month and and half after they were orginally supposed to have been installed.

Work was pretty much how I expected. I spent most of the day trying to catch up with the work from yesterday, plus finishing off the samples for this month. I really hate doing samples!

Anyway asides from that is was All in all a pretty boring day. Not much to report at all.

Sorry about that..

Would the car not breaking be really be so much to ask?

Well the good thoughts and hopes with the Car did so not pay off at all. I had a bad feeling after I had dropped the car off and the day wore on. Unfortunately the feeling was vindicated. Not only were they unable to fix the radio, they can not get the replacement parts or even a replacement radio as ford have stopped making it ( probably something to do with it being a cassette player) the speedometer is starting to act up so some technical bits like cables etc need to be replaced. Which will only (as the guy in the garage put it) cost £250 to fix. the only saving grace with that news is it doesn't have to be done immediately as the problems not that bad but it will need to be fixed at some point soon.

Grumpys suggestion if I was going to have trouble affording the repairs would be to get a loan for a new car. I pointed out that I couldn't do that as I was still paying the one for this car off. He then looked confused and asked if I was sure as he thought they bought the car. I responded that I was sure and he then got even more confused wanting to know eactly whose car he had bought! I think he was getting confused with my first car, the one that got totalled after I ran into some black ice, not the second one which was paid for with money from the insurance from the first.

Then to cap it all off the garage has now started charging a 'environmental charge' to despose of filters and oil changed during the service. But they only charge £1.50, which doesn't really seem to be a genuine cost that they incur, more like a attempt to convince people they are environmentally friendly.

Then of course as I've taken the day off, I'll have two days worth of work to do tomorrow, plus sorting out the latest round of samples, which is my all time favourite job, plus any other stuff which happens to come my way tomorrow and with the week developing the way it is, it sure seems inevitable that something will be.

If anyone wants to give me a break and let something good happen to balance out all the bad stuff now would be a good time. Anyone???


Well it was worth a try.

see you tomorrow same geek life, same geek channel.

Irony must be laughing it's head off right now

As long term readers will now, I've been having one or two problems ( okay massive understatement I know) with getting a home teaching list from the EQ presidency and this dragged on for quite a while. However I recently got a new hometeaching list and it was all sorted.

Or so I thought.

I finally managed to get to talk to my Home teaching companion this week and two problems became apparent. Firstly nobody had told him that I was his new home teaching companion and secondly that as he works up in Scotland during the week it was going to be a while before he would be availabile to do any home teaching. So there was me expecting he was going to say it would be a couple of weeks.

and I was right technically. It will be a couple of weeks before he's avalabile. Plus a few more weeks on top.

It's going to be September before he's avalabile.

That's right FREAKING SEPTEMBER! so after taking months to sort out my home teaching list they manage to somehow put me with the one guy who isn't going to be avalabile to home teach for another four months. Irony or someone else sure seems to be having a major laugh at my exspense right now.

Anyway, I've got tomorrow off as the Car is going in for a service. I really hope, they don't find anything wrong with the darn thing. I historically have bad luck with them finding things wrong during services.

Work was pretty much the same old, same old. too much of the same old, same old as a matter of a fact as I seem to be stuck in a bit of a rut and loosing focus a bit at times. I guess it's probably to do with the fact it's been so long since I've had a decent length break, that and I'm sure everybody goes through a bit of a low point with their jobs at some time or another. But as always I'm going to keep going. It's not too long till my Holiday now, and I'll be darned if I let anything work related beat me or get me down. I've managed to get through or at least muddle through worse problems in my life.

We were supposed to be having YSA FHE tonight but it was cancelled due to a lack of YSA. Oh well. If it's nice next weekend we going to try and see if we can organise a picnic at bradgate park after stake conference. It will make up for the complete lack of oppotunities to have one last summer at least.

well that's all for now folks,

see you tomorrow, same geek life, same geek station.

Clocking up years

I woke up this morning and it was hot. Really really hot and sticky, which as it was only 8am in the morning did not bode well for the rest of the day.

All of the doors were wedged open in the chapel which did help to provide a nice draft coming through the building. Of course if it continues to be this hot and hotter during the summer I think we're in for a few rather hot Sacrement meetings. Our building has heating but no A/c.

Sunday school class was interesting. If only for all the wrong reasons. Engineseer, Physics and I seem to bring out the best or the worst depending on your definition, in each of our respective sense of humours. Much to the dismay of our Sunday school teacher. However she did make a reference today to marriage and pointed to the three of us and said " You three are clocking years up. You need to get things sorted out."
Slightly bemused, I asked what she was talking about. Db responded that she meant marriage, which gave me pause as I could already see where this is going.
Engineseer quickly used his escape clause that he didn't need to think about that yet as he's about to put his mission papers in. I responded to DB that it wasn't a concious decision on our part that we weren't married. DB responded to this by saying that it was easy to get married and we could get married like that if we wanted too. This lead me to two thoughts, firstly if there really was a secret lesson in young mens that I missed that you were taught this secret to getting married instantly, and secondly if DB is one of these lads who believes that if the girls fall at his feet that automatically fall at everybodies feet.
At which point Physics chimed in " Las Vegas"
" What?"
" Go to Las Vegas and get a girl drunk then it will be really easy to get married."
" Small problem with that plan."
" you'd think so. " Physics responded. He then went on, " How about Thailand instead. Just got and flash your english passport around you'll find a girl real quick."
At this point I could see Engineseer shaking his head, in bemusement wondering where this line of conversation was going to go.
" Of course you'll have to make sure it's an actual girl"
and with this the teacher quickly interjected to move the lesson on.

At the end of the lesson the Teacher looked at me, Engineseer and Physics, and announced she didn't know what to do with us and she was wondering what she could do to help find us wives.
Physics smiled and said;
" Wives? Great that means I get more then one."
" No not just for you"
" We all get lots of wives?"
" No, we're not getting any right now"
" Oh right."
After a moment contemplation Physics then added, " That's okay we don't get one, Wifes are exspensive"

So they you go everybody just when I thought things couldn't get any lower in the old love life area, after having the home teachers and the parents trying to put their two sense worth in, now the Sunday school teacher is trying to stick her two pence in.

I explained what had happened to Photoshop and he found the whole thing highly amusing, especially when I pointed out that with the teacher using terms like "clocking up years"( I'm 26 by the way) I was starting to feel like I was ready for the Oap's home. He helpfully pointed out that, that was a silly thing to say. He only got married when he was 27, so I've got another year, then I'll be ready for the Oap home. I said that, that was a great comment as I now was wondering if I should be off down the post office to draw my pension. He pointed out that, that was a stupid thing to say.
Pensions are now paid directly into bank accounts. I don't need to go to the post office.
Thank you photoshop. Not helping.

We had a CES broadcast tonight followed by the Institute graduation. Which was a lot of fun, especially as a couple of other stakes didn't quite get Brother H's humour. Especially when he suggested that the guys could give the refreshments out to the girls and if they accepted that meant they agreed to a date. When he asked if the girls wanted to do this he only got a deathly silence in return.

Anyway, Monday tomorrow. And as all regular readers know. My least favourite day of the week. Not a lot I can do about it unless I become ruler of the world and ban Mondays.

Wait..... there's an idea.

Later folks, tune in tomorrow, same geek life, same geek station.

Hot.

It's been rather a odd day today weatherwise. As it's been very hot but I can't remember seeing the sun once. IT was also a bit humid as well, so it wasn't a nice kind of warm more a yucky sticky kind of warm at times.

I also had to go in to work this evening to run a retail stand for our division at a tournament. Which was a remarkably odd experience, especially driving to work at that time of night. But I survived it, even though my feet are now killing me.

I guess that's about it for today. Sorry I've not going anything to say ( if anybody is still out there that is). I've just had one of those kind of days.

I'll leave you with some pictures from the dance last night. Which if you remember was a sixties theme. Just in case you thought some of the leicester YSA had really weird fashion sense.

Cordelia strikes a pose.
Engineseer strikes a pose.


J strikes a pose. ( is anyone starting to see a theme here?)
Cordelia Dances, Boyfriend attempts to inch away.
No prizes for why he's smiling. The Band. Who were rather good considering this was their first ever gig.

If there had been a prize for best dressed. I'm sure this guy would have won.
Every picture is supposed to tell a story. Any suggestions for captions for this one?
Bro H, Doing a little dance, making a little grove, generally getting down tonight.
Lots of random YSA.

The hall before lots of people arrived.
Our stake centre
Yes this photo is real. Yes some YSA made kebabs using sweeties ( candy for my US readers) instead of meat. Pure Genius!

Any see you tomorrow folks, same geek life, same geek station.

Just checking in.

It's going to be a very quick blog post as I want to keep up my record so far this year of one post every day but I've got to head out to the grad dance soon.

To sum the day up very quickly. Lots of work, lots of driving, little traffic, no sign of roadworks moving.

I'll go into more detail tomorrow.

Later folks.

It's like the Marie celeste but with traffic lights

Well those roadworks are still there. However I did notice one thing. There were no workmen around today. In fact they all seem to have gone along with all of the porta cabins and containers. It's like they packed up and left forgetting to remove the cones and turn the new lights on. I say this in jest of course, but I still can't help but wonder.

It was another really nice morning today, so once again I got to open the Sunroof. After the rain, rain and more rain of last summer I had almost forgotten what it was like to drive with the sunroof open.

Work today was well work. It was just one of those days. Pretty boring I know. It's very hard to say anything interesting about dealing with customer service issues all day!

A group of us did decide randomly this afternoon to go and get some ice cream from the ice cream van which has visited the site every day for the past couple of weeks. No one has ever gone out to him on previous days but once we had a few other people appeared. I guess we were trend setters. Probably the first and last time you could say that term could actually apply to me :-)

I was on the way home when I discovered that the A453 was shut. No idea why, there was just a police car blocking the road off. Which meant I had to go on a tour of the countryside to get home. It used to be the magical mystery tour, but I've had to do it so many times now it's not really a mystery anymore :-)

Well it's the grad ball tomorrow. It should be interesting and will probably go one of two ways. Either way I will be sure to get photos! The most interesting part however will probably be getting home as the main road between the staken centre and geeksville will be shut.

I think I feel a magical mystery tour of leicester coming on.

Tune in tomorrow folks, same geek life, same geek channel.

As you asked

As you of you might remember, I mentioned in a previous blog post , I entered a painting competition at work but didn't win anything. A couple of you did ask to see a picture of the model and here it is.

To be e friendly or not e friendly, that is the question.

I decided to get up early today so I could leave a bit earlier in a effort to try and avoid the roadworks that resulted in the two mile traffic jam yesterday. The other major roadworks are still there, and their now two days late from when they said they were supposed to be finishing and bear in mind that date was put back a month anyway.

Of course having left early (I really should have seen this coming) I discovered that the traffic this morning was very very light and the roadworks from yesterday were already gone. So I got to work rather early. It always a bad sign for the rest of your day when you get to work early and Irony is laughing it's head off at you.

We're still having a slight problem with the temperature in our office. Initially it was too hot, so some people wanted to put the AC on, others to be environmentally friendly and open the windows. The enviroment people won. Until Lunch time when they decided it was too hot and they wanted the AC on. So we closed the window and turned the AC on. Then a little while later someone then complained it was too cold and could we turn the AC off and open the windows. Which we did........... I really hope we don't end up doing this all summer.

I've just finished reading another manuscript for work and I'm currently writing up my notes. I having to be especially clear with this one as I tried to explain to one of the editors a problem with the story with relation to established background. i realised after about thirty seconds I had completely lost the editor and might have well been speaking dutch. Well at the least I'll hope the author understand what I means. My knowledge of our background might be very geeky but at least I can put it to good use. Even if I never get a credit in any of the books I help proof. But c'est la vie I guess. I know I helped, even if no one else does.

It was very nice driving to institute this evening. I was able to open the sunroof, (first time this year) and put the window down. I even had to wear my sunglasses too. It's really nice weather at the moment. Unfortuantely it's not going to last, but we'll take whatever we can get for now.

We told Bro H about the comments some other stakes had made about the grad balls we had organised in previous years. He was not impressed. Which is fair as the comments were totally uncalled for. We were a bi on the light side this evening. Bro H did say he might start to become paranoid from now on as there always seem to be the largest classes when someone else is teaching.

There was a lot of talk about the dance on Friday. It seems that not many people will be getting theme dress. My suggestion was that I might go as someone from the 1960s whose going to a fancy dress event wearing what somebody in 2008 might wear. Engineseer seemed to like this idea but suggested time travel might be better excuse for not coming in 1960s clothing.

His liking of this idea did seem a bit dampened when I pointed out that trying time travel ( no I don't know how we got to this point of the conversation after starting off talking about fancy dress) would not give him an excuse to drive at 88 miles per hour from geeksville to the stake centre. He shrugged and announced it would be fine. If he gets pulled over he already has a good excuse ready
" Me speeding. Why no officer, I was merely driving at a speed appropriate to the road conditions in a effort to charge the secondary gyro relays which in turn power the flux capaciter which would allow me to break the transwarp time barrier allowing me to travel to a different time zone"
I'm not sure if he was joking or not. He was a bit demob happy as he's now handed his university project in.

Anyway, That's all for now,

tune in tomorrow, same geek life, same geek channel

I really shouldn't be surprised

Well they've had a month longer then they said they needed initially so I was half expecting the roadworks to still be there today. However I did try and be positive and try and be optomistic so they could prove me wrong. Unfortuantely they didn't prove me wrong and the flaming roadworks are still there.

However some new roadworks have appeared which quite frankly caused chaos. I got stuck in a two mile long queue of traffic as one small part of the road, less then 10ft, had been reduced to one lane. That's right less then 10ft of roadworks caused a two mile traffic jam. What the heck?

Work wasn't too bad today. There were less emails then I thought. But even so it took me all day to answer them, but I was able to get the workload down to a reasonable level by the end of the day.

However what was really odd was that in the main building there is no central enivormental control system. Each office has it's own Air conditioning unit and of course they can all be set differently. Some were barely on, others seem to be set to artic! So going round the building it really was a case of hot-cold-hot-cold-cold-very cold-hot-hot cold. Extremely confusing.

The day was made more interesting however by a protest that started at the end of the road. Apparently a group of students had found out there was a weapons designer in the industrial estate over the road and decided they didn't like this and were going to protest. Enough of them turned out the police had to send six vans of officers to keep everything any control. Well fair play to them, we're a democracy and they have a right to protest and all that. I just wish they would have choosen some other time to do it, then rush hour when I was trying to get home!

I've started doing thebrain training game on my DS again and despite my best efforts I'm starting to become addicted to sudoku. Nooo!!! Must resist...

Well that's all for today. It's a lovely evening, blue sky, etc so I thought I would go and sit in the garden and enjoy it.

Apparently it's not going to last but I guess that's spring for you.

later folks,

Looks whose in town

It's so nice to be able to wake up on a weekday morning when you won to as opposed to being woken up by the strident blare of an alarm clock. Of course I'm going to have to put up with the alarm clock tomorrow and for the rest fo the week but one day out of five ain't bad.

Yes it was a bank holiday today, one of my favourite kind of Holidays as I get a day off and it doesn't come out of my holiday allowance. Hurray!

Needless I decided to take the day easy.

However mid afternoon I got a call from Tap dance to say that the Techno Clan were in town. So I headed over there to see them. Once I got there we took the kids to the park and of course me being me I remembered to take my camera with me. So here are some photos of the Mechanicus clan in action!

(click on photos to see larger image)

It's amazing what gets caught in curtains. Dust, bits of string, young nephews. This is FB the youngest of the techno clan.
Smiley is on the left, Poser is the one on the right. She's also the one whose upside down.
Can you spy what the rest of us can spy? Duplo is busy here keeping an eye on everybody with her device that lets her see all. Also known as a toilet roll tube.
From left to right. Magnetix, poser, Smiley and Lego.
Fb on the left with Multi task and Duplo on the right with Tap dance behind her. Please note she did not hit me in the face just after the photo was taken even if it looks like that that's about to happen.
Poser and Magnetix. and no I have no idea what poser is looking at.
Poser, Duplo and FB on the skateboard ramp which they decided was a great slide.
Mid slide.

I have no idea what Magnetix is running away from here.
It's fair cop!
Despite appearences Lego has not just thrown poser down the ramp.
Again despite appearences mechanicus is not about to push his youngest down the ramp.
Tap dance, having fun.

All suggestions for better captions greatly recieved.

That's all for today folks,

tune in tomorrow,

same geek life, same geek station.

I want one of those, and one of those, and one of those..

Well I'm pleased to say that the Iron man film was awesome. There were some great moments especially Stan lee's camo, the over eager robot with a fire extinguisher and the interaction between stark and his assistant. Engineseer and I both agreed that we want one of the iron man suits, one of his planes, his cars and his rather cool house. Yes I know we are a pair of geeks. But we're geeks with ambitions. Not really achievable ambitions, but ambitions none the less. :-)

Church was actually pretty full today which I was surprised about as it is a bank holiday weekend. Although only one member of the bishopric was there. Which meant he had pretty full pockets by the end of Priesthood with all the tithing envelopes he had to stuff in there. Traveller was back for a visit. She's doing a sponsered bike ride from Oxford to Cambridge, or it might the other way round I can never remember. Anyway it's 85 miles! She was srurprised at how much I said I would sponser her, but it's a good cause and I thought it would be abit mean to only give her a couple of quid when she's riding 85 miles. I also found out she's moved to Thailand once she's finished her teachign course to work as a teacher there. So that's another member of Loughborough YSA leaving the country. Anymore and I might start to get paranoid :-)

In Sunday School O came into our class for the first time as he's almost 18. He breezed into the class and announced to me
" Hey CB"
" What?"
" I said hey CB"
" I know what's that supposed to mean?"
" Well that's your name. Their your initials"
" Um, Nobody's ever called me CB "
" Well I will now"

At which point Physics decided to jump in with what he thought would be a good suggestion to stop him doing that.
" Throw something at him. Throw it now"

I was tempted to follow his advice but managed to resist.

In priesthood I had to reach forward to get the attention of one of the other Elders to point out to him that his wife was at the door. I have to admit I wasn't listening to the teachers question at that point as I was trying to make sure I didn't fall over the chair in front of me whilst reaching. The teacher then saw me and said;
" As your up brother do you agree or disagree"
A moment of blind panic then happened and I glanced around wondering what to do. Physics was sitting there with a grin on his face and quickly indicated two thumbs up, which I took to be a sign to agree.
" Umm yes" I replied to the teacher. Who accepted the answer and moved on with the lesson. Not that I know what I said yes to mind you. I don't think it was anything bad.

We managed to fix the door back onto the oven. Although it did become somewhat of a epic struggle and took both me and Grumpy working together to fix it back on. Which meant we had to have our Sunday roast dinner for tea instead. Hopefully this will not become a habit!

There was the first part of a two part drama on tonight called Flood which is a (work of fiction obivousily) about a massive flood of London. So of course all sorts of panic, destruction and disaster cliches happen. However the really funny part happened when the titles started to role and a advert for the environmental agency popped up advertising a phone line where you can check if you home is at risk of flooding. Or to put it another way
" Now we've put the fear of floods into you, you can check to see if these fears are justified ":-)

Well I don't have to go to work tomorrow as it's bank holiday. Yah! Of course the downside is that I will have a days worth of extra work to wade through on Tuesday, but I'm trying not to think of that until tomorrow night.

anyway later folks,

Tune in tomorrow, same geek life, same geek channel!

Got a screw loose

Grumpy ran into a bit of a problem last night when cooking dinner. Mainly the door to the over fell off in his hands! As you can imagine he was not impressed. We were able to find the problem quickly though. Several screws had fallen out. Unfortuantely into the door where we couldn't get at them so Grumpy had to go around the shops this morning trying to find some replacements. Which didn't impress him. The twit who also cut us up on the roadabout on the way back from Loughborough didn't help either.

The weather has actually been already today. It hasn't rained. For once. Of course I've probably just fated us now but c'est la vie I guess :-)

I bought the DVD of the Ark of truth today. The first Stargate film based on the series. It's very good and a nice way to finish the series.

Talking of things geeky, the second part of Doctor Who tonight was very good. I can't mention what happened though as Engineseer hasn't seen it and I wouldn't want to spoil it for him.

I've got to leave it there as I'm about to head out to the cinema to see Iron Man. It's been getting some good reviews so I'm cautiousily optomistic about it.

later folks!

It's all so light

It's currently 8.45 in the evening here in the UK and as I look out of the window of Grumpys office it's still light. Extremely light as a matter of fact which seems odd as it's almost 9pm in the evening. However that did make me wonder why we always seem to get surprised every summer as to how light it gets in the evenings. I mean it's not like the exact same thing didn't happen the summer before is it?

Apparently today is the 30th aniversary of the first piece of spam email being sent to someone. My only thought is who decided to make a note of that. It's not like you keep track of recieving junk mail through the post is it? The other thing I've noticed with spammers is that they seem to have given up trying too hard. I mean if your going to send me a bit of spam mail at least make a effort with coming up with a story that is actually believable. Not some story about how yet another african king has died, your left with a billion dollars, in a middle of a refugee camp with no power and I can have half of your money if I give you my bank account details. Of course the worrying thing is there are some people who fall for that!

Oh the government got a good kicking in the local elections yesterday. Whether or not this will actually wake them and start to take notice of things is another matter entirely.

It was very, very quiet at work today. So quiet in fact the silence was starting to get to me. At least everybody else is able to listen to music. I just have to sit there listening to the deafening silence which is usually present in our office come Friday.

My PPI interview went very well. Our new EQ President has all the signs of becoming a brillent leader and I really think he's got a good chance of getting things moving again. Things have been a bit too stagent in the quorum for too long. At the end He thanked me for coming out and said that he appreciated the sacrifice in wearing a suit for ten minutes on a Friday night but I should go an have fun with my Friday night as ten minutes was as big a sacrifice as he was expecting :-)

Now if only I had, had something exciting to do. C'est la vie I guess.

Anyway, it's the weekend now and more importantly it's going to be a long weekend too. My favourite kind of weekend after normal ones. Plus I have money, as I've been paid and I'm going to the cinema too. Now if only the sun can keep shining it all might just turn out perfect.

Well as perfect as it's going to be without a geekette appearing and asking me out, but I guess beggars can't be choosers.

Later folks,

be sure to tune in tomorrow, same geek life, same geek station.

Here comes the rain. Yet again

I'm currently in the office and out of the window I can see it's raining. Yet again. I'm starting to get depressing flashbacks to last summer already.

Work today was interesting in the sense that the time seemed to fly by! But they may have something to do with the fact I had a lot to do. Time never seems to drag when you need it to. :-)

Grumpys out tonight in a chance from his usual pattern. So I have the house to myself for once on a week night. Which feels a tad odd but never mind. I least I got to choose what I had for dinner. The downside of that of course was that I had to cook it as well.

The office is going to be very quiet tomorrow as two thirds of the people are either out on visits or on Holiday. Well maybe we'll get to knock off early. Here's hoping :-) It would actually be useful as I have this PPI tomorrow with the new Elders quorum leader. He's limiting them to ten minutes each which means I will spend twice as long in time driving there and back as I wil lin the interview but I guess that's how things go.

Engineseer and I are going to see the new Iron Man film on Saturday. Hurray, Blockbuster season is here at last! We did throw the inivitation out to the rest of the YSA. And who knows maybe some girls will come. To see a film based on a comic book character...... Yeah I'm not confident either.

I was thinking about how my life seems to be good fodder for a sitcom right now. I was wondering if there was enough weirdness for it to make the jump from sitcom to movie.

The saxon Man: Tale of an uber geek!

What do people think? Any suggestions of who you would want to play you in the film?

I got a letter from my old university today. It appears that they have actually set up a proper alumni network and I've been invited to join. So I'm going to have a look at the website and sign up. It could be interesting...maybe :-)

I had completely forgotten about the Bank Holiday on Monday. So extra day off which doesn't come out of my Holiday allowence. Always a bonus.

tune in tomorrow folks, same geek channel, same geek life.