Just a quick one

(best Dr Nick voice) Hi everybody!

It's just a quick blog post as I have been extremely busy all day and I'm just about to head out to a New years eve party in Leicester. Yes I've been invited to a party. I feel so popular all of a sudden :-)

I will write more of todays goings on tomorrow. Which is a sentence that sounds a lot more deep and meaningful then I was expecting.

Well tomorrow is a start of a new year and a new decade. Although I didn't match last years total number of blog posts ( 415 vs 443) I still managed to do the equivilant of more then one blog post a day which considering that November was more or less a write off for blog writing isn't bad at all.

I am still deciding on my new years resolutions or I may just follow the new 'in thing' of giving up on giving up! I.e not setting any. I guess we'll see.

So I guess all that's left is to wish all of you my loyal readers a Happy new year and I hope that 2010 will bring you everything you want.

And for all of you spammers who seem to have recently found my blog please feel free to go away and never come back.

Later folks!

Strange days

Just when you couldn't think that things would get any stranger low and behold they do! Lets put it this way there are more contenders then usual for todays quote of the day;



" It's a standard box size"

" The ones where trains come, yes?" ( said in response to a question of which train station they were at)

" It's a standard laptop with a 13 inch screen. It measures 10cm by 10cm by 5cm"

" but why do you need tracking numbers to track a parcel?"

" But why do you not have a full and detailed list of services offered by your competitors to give to any customers who wants it?"

" But why would customs be suspecious of a diamond ring with gold band I said was £20?"



Anyway,



Later folks.

Don't say the Q word

It's been a slightly weird day as work was different to how it has been in the sense that as we're between Christmas and new year there is a inevitable drop off in demand. However we were all very, very careful not to say the Q word as we all knew what would inevitably happen if we did. It would be like saying macbeth in the theatre.

You just don't do it.

Two contenders for todays quote of the day
" Well it's the size of the standard jacket size he usually wears"
or
" Well their boots, which means it's as long as my knee height"

The Day of the triffids adaption last night was very good if a little strung out. It could have probably lost 15 minutes or so with no real impact to the overall story. There were some program makers who seem to have remembered the old adage that less is more and it was only towards the end of the program that we actually say some 'full' close up shots of the triffids. Up unto that point we had been treated to quick glimpses or long shots.

Yes the idea of meet eating plants that can move is far fetched but if you can get past that it was a good program. The 2nd part is on tonight and hopefully it will maintain it's high quality.

It's been very cold today, despite the weathermens prediction for lots of snow to hit the midlands, that good ole weather dead zone around geektown seems to be holding and the most we're forecast to get is sleet! Not especially exciting I know.

Well I've got one more day of work this week before I'm off again for four days. Life's tough init ? :-) I will then be starting 'normal' shift patterns which will be interesting.

Anyway, that's all for today as it seems that my technical experience is needed again as Grumpy has a question about something. Hopefully it's not about how to turn the printer on and off again.

Later folks.

Back to it

Well after three days of fun and games over christmas it's time to get back to it as it were as I'm back to work tomorrow.

Still I can't complain as I have had four days off, well okay I could complain but it would make me sound a bit childish and a bit sad. and lets face it I'm sad enough already :-)

I got lots and lots of nice goodies from santa and Tapdance and Grumpy on Christmas day, including so many books that it should keep me going until at least midway through January. Well I do read rather quickly after all.

The first part of the Doctor who two parter was okay, I think it can be best summed up by one review which said it wasn't a dream but it also wasn't a nightmare. Still I am hoping that as they've set all the plot points up the second part should be really, really good.

Tap dance and I spent the weekend up north as it were to see some of the extended family. They've had significally more snow up there, then we've had down here around geektown but the weather service is promising more snow later this week, so we might well have a a 'white new year'.

Grumpy and I spent today going into Derby to the large shopping centre they have in town. I made good use of some of the vouchers I had been given to get a CD, three DVD's, including Chuck season 2 and the Big Bang theory season 2, and four new books including one that has been written by one of the guys I used to work with. I was supposed to be getting a free copy but as it's been out for more then three months and I offically left my last work two months ago, I decided that it wasn't likely to happen. Plus they were having a three for two offer in waterstones. So with the new pile of books I got today I'm probably going to be set for reading until the end of January now.

It was odd in waterstones as I saw the section of books that are produced by the company I used to work for and when I saw that one was misprinted my first reaction was still " I better mention that at work" despite it being two months since I left. I suppose some habits are hard to get rid of after almost five years.

Still, onwards and upwards as they say. Musn't dwell.

Thats all for today folks. The new day of the triffids adaption is on so must dash.

Later!

One more day to go

Well there will be a lot of excited people tonight, struggling to get to sleep until the day they've been waiting for finally arrives. Yes there's only one more day to go until....... the first part of the Doctor who specials.

Oh yeah and it's christmas too :-)

It was rather nice having a lie in this morning, even Owen seemed to be mindful and didn't make a sound, so I woke up when I wanted to not before.

However I was aware that it wasn't going to be a peaceful day as I had to brave Loughborough to get a couple of last bits and pieces.

Luck was on my side though as it wasn't anyway near as busy as I was expecting it to be. That's not to say however that it wasn't packed and the large amount of ice still around made it just a tad difficult getting from place to place.

I spent a large chunk of the rest of the day wrapping presents as I had been somewhat slack in wrapping them. Still their now all done and our tree does look rather cool with all the presents around it. Owen has been observing us for most of the day with a look of bemusement and seems to be trying to figure out what us humans are up to now.

Anyway, I'd just like to wish all of you, my loyal readers a very happy christmas and I hope that you will get everything you want tomorrow from santa.

Later folks.

All together now

(in best fake scottish accent) Freeedddooommmmm!!!!!!!

Okay well only for four days and it's a touch over dramatic but it's still four days work free.

But I did have to get through one day of work today to earn this respite. To my surprise it was a lot easier then I was expecting although that did seem to be more luck then anything else as everybody else seemed to be getting the difficult customers.

I was pleased that the gift I had bought for our teams secret santa seemed to go down very well indeed. I recieved a giant Simpsons mug and key ring which has a picture of Homer and Spider pig on. All together now
" Spider pig, spider pig, does whatever a spiderpig does"
It seems that somebody on the team has got my measure rather quickly/

Todays quote of the day
" But why does a box which is twice as big costs twice as much?"

As well as the new Doctor Who on this christmas, they will also be showing a special TV edition of the production of Hamlet that David tennant starred in as well. So all in all it's shaping up to be a good christmas season of TV.

Engineseer will shortly be back in the country for a flying visit, but not as flying a visit as Travellers, who I will only get to see once due to various running back and forth I will be doing as she's back off to Thailand very quickly.

I'm choosing not to dwell on why so many of my friends seem to end up living in other countries. I'm sure it's just a co-incendence ;-)

Engineseer and I are hoping to get in a game of 40k while he's here because it will proablybe the last chance I have in a while to beat his tau ( oh have I started trash talking him on my blog as well? I think I am :-)

With the end of the year fast approaching I realised that I seem to be finishing the year in a somewhat upbeat and optomistic mood which is surprising considering whats happened this year. Maybe it is optomism or maybe I've just been pushed towards being miserable so far I'm now coming back the other way.

Still whatever it is, lets hope it stays around for 2010.

Later folks.

Time and type wait for no man

While what seems like the rest of europe looks on in bafflement at the chaos the snow is causing in the UK that good old weather dead zone which covers the centre of the country and seems to be centred on geektown is doing it's usual bang up job of keeping whatever weather the rest of the country as far away as possible.

We seem to be about the only place which doesn't have snow!

Although I know a lot of people are having problems with the snow I couldn't help but have a little snigger about two items on the news. Eurostars explanation for their technical problems is that they have had the 'wrong type of snow', and that it was basically too fluffy. Which sounded rather funny coming from a straight faced PR man trying to explain that trains had been stopped by fluffy snow.

Then there was a PR man from a town down south trying to explain the problems they have been having on the roads and that the roads weren't gritted. His defence was that the problems were down to it " Snowing at the wrong time". Because it's well known that snow usually falls at precisely schduled times doesnt it........ oh wait.

Well only one more day of work before my christmas break. I can't wait!

Todays quote of the day
" But why do you need to know when it's ready to collect"

I've seen the trailer for the BBC remake of Day of the Triffids which will be showing over christmas. It looks really good. Although I fear it will be rather overshadowed by the two part Doctor Who special where David Tennant will be bowing out as the Doctor.

I can't believe that their making us wait a week between the episodes. Their so meeaannnn!!!!

Anyway,

Later folks!

A moment of silence

Grumpy and I decided to take a little trip out to borders this evening before it closes for the last time tomorrow. However when we got there we discovered that the local people of leicester had obivously been aware of the closure for sometime as the place had been more or less stripped bare. There was only a very bad selection of books left and there were already starting to take the shelves down in large parts of the store.

Despite this somewhat sorry scene I was able to find a few gems in amongst the dross and came away with 5 paperbacks, one hardback and a DVD for only £15. Not bad going, even if it is bad that borders is going!

We also discovered soemwhat bizarely that the petrol is Leicester is somewhat cheaper then that in geektown. Six pence cheaper to be precise. Which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, how can 20 minutes travel result in a change of six pence!

Today's quote of the day is a tie between the following two.
" It's the size of a shoe box........Long pause........ that's not much help to you is it?"
" It's exact size is about a third the length of a cricket bat and twice as thick."

Well I have two more days of work before I get a long weekend as it were from Friday through to Monday before having to go back to work for two days next week. We're going to recieve our secret santa presents on Wednesday, I just hope I got the right thing for the person I was given, I tried to go with as 'safe' a option as I could, but regular readers will no how irony likes to mess with me sometimes.

anyway.

Later folks

Ard Boyz, Ardy Boyz whatcha gonna do?

I actually found myself doing some painting this afternoon which is the first time in a little while that I've felt the urge to pick up a paintbrush. My local shop is running a painting competition in January so I've decided to give it a go and enter. As I'm now allowed to enter as I'm no longer a staff member, plus it will be a lot less embrassing if my entry gets slammed as a civilian rather then staff.

So here's the first part of my entry. A squad of so called 'ard boyz', as they like to to wear rather a lot of armour. To try and make them stand out I had a rummage in my good ole bitz box and converted these models.
This is only the first stage of painting, so they should ( hopefully) look a lot better when their finished. After these guys are done I've got another squad of boyz, three bikes and a trukk to finish for the competition at the end of January.

Think good thoughts for me folks. I'll post some more pictures when the next units are done.

Stay safe out there

After avoiding what looked like four bouncers dressed as elves, suffering getting walloped by a trolley twice, smacked by at least a dozen shopping bags, enduring one of the strangest additional sales attempts ever ( If I've just bought a car tax disc why would anyone think I would want a mobile top up), been soundly defeated by ice holding one shopping trolley to another and thus displayed a less then impressive level of strength in a public place, then getting shoulder barged into a bed display did make me wonder if I should go somewhere safer...

Like the middle of the motorway.

Yes twas the last saturday before christmas and althrough the house not a creature was stiring as they were all in town doing last minute shopping.

To say Loughborough was packed would be a bit of a understatement.

Still despite the massed hordes I was able to get my shopping done.

I've now just gotta wrap the things.

Despite it being another two months before my old company releases a book I haven't read in some form or another, I did know that they were releasing some books today, one of which I had read a early manuscript of. I hadn't read it since I gave my initial feedback and was interested as to how it might have changed. Although I had read it and despite the fact I wasn't going to be getting a free copy anymore I decided I was going to buy a copy anyway, as I wanted to satisfy my curiosity/

Unfortunatly I got to the shop too late and they had completely sold out! I wasn't too impressed and my mood wasn't helped but the staff members admitance that he had a copy of the next book in my old companies best selling series which isn't released till March april time and was throughly enjoying it. Although I was tempted to quote stewie griffin at him
" You will rue this day. Well go on start rueing!"
My annoyance vanished pretty darn quick. So what if I'll have to go back to get it. It's only a book, and as for the other book. Well I knew that people who still work for the company would get to see books long before we 'civilians' do. I'll just have to hone my zen len powers of patience and get used to have to wait.

Around last christmas Woolworths disappeared from the high streets, this year it is the turn of borders. Yes it seems that all attempts to save it have failed and it will close in the UK at least for the last time on the 22nd. So if you live near one in the UK I would pop in asap as it won't be there much longer!

Anyway,

Later folks!

Better then nothing

It was once again rather cold this morning. Fortunatly the ice on the car was thicker which meant the de-icer worked a lot better, which sounds strange but it did.

I was more worried however that I would have to face a repeat of what happened last night when exiting the staff car park. As when I got to the gate, when you have to press a button to be let out I found out that my window was iced shut. As you have to get quite close to the stand to be able to press the button, there wasn't a whole lot of room to open the door, and try and squeeze round it to push the button. I'm not sure who I provided the greatest entertainment too, the person in the car behind or security who probably watched the whole thing on the cctv!

Todays quote of the day
" I know where it's going but I don't know where it needs to be collected from. Is that a problem?"

Well it's now the weekend which means it's the last weekend before christmas which I'm sure will mean that the shops are going to be totally packed! Oh well maybe the cold will persude a few people to stay home.

Question of the day I couldn't answer very well
" How does de-icer work?" my response " It melts the ice"

Random question of the day I would like answered
" Why will our office radiator work or the hall radiator work but both won't work together?"

Random thought of the day
" Is the new fiero roche advert where they use the greek gods false advertising? Or are they saying the greek gods really did make that choclate?"

Later folks.

The sky is falling

The weather must have heard me complaining yesterday as it was rather cold this morning when I got up. Not only that the car was iced up. Not thick ice mind you, that really annoying thin kind of ice that seems to resist de icer forcing you to search for a scraper.

It did snow today and almost approached blizzard level of snow at one point, but it didn't last and the ground was too wet for it to settle properly. Now if I had been off work I would have been disappointed, but as I was working I was rather glad as long term readers know my reasons for not liking icey conditions in the slightist!

We were also given our 'names' for our teams secret santa today. I thought last years was hard and I had known the person for several years, now I've got to buy something for someone I've barely known for three weeks and I've barely spoken to them at that! I'm just really worried I'm gonna commit some huge faux paus but getting them the wrong thing.

Todays quote of the day comes from one of my colleagues which was delivered in a deadpan voice in answer to another colleagues questions of where was all the snow coming from?
" The sky"

I've just seen the trailer for the new Iron man movie. It's aweeessssoommmmeeee...........
I can't wait for May.

Well it's Friday tomorrow. Which means another dress down day ( we're having them on every Friday in december) and it also means just one week till Christmas.

Yaah!

Later folks!

so near yet so far

Despite the warnings of lots of snow and really cold temperatures what did we eventually get? A rather wet nasty morning as it turns out. Not nice at all, especially as I seem to have picked up yet another cold.

Yes a cold, you might remember them before the days of swine flu when it was okay to have the sniffles without it being something that could wipe out mankind!

Okay a little dramatic but you get the idea.

Bad weather aside it was a really, really good day today at work. Everything went really well and after three weeks I'm starting to feel a lot more confident then I was, in my knowledge and my own abilities to do this job.

Grumpy also pointed out that I seemed to be developing thicker skin as it were and didn't seem to be letting things bother me. Well it make be that or it's more a case that I've just learned to accept that there are somethings I can't solve and just need to move on and forget them.

Quote of the day comes from the staff canteen when one person looked up to see the latest timbaland music video on the TV
" When did lenny henry release a single?"

anyway,

Later folks.

All I need now is a cat

Do you expect me to talk?
no mr Saxon I expect you to..... answer the phone.

As I've now been assigned a desk a work, I had a egonomics check today ( I don't know if I've spelt that right) which was basically a assessment to see that I was 'sitting' at my desk correctly. What I didn't realise was that the 'average' office chair is only designed for people who are about five and a half foot. Which meant that I was getting all the support I needed from my current chair ( learn something new every day). So I was issued with a new chair which is pretty cool and did make me feel slightly evil villianish sitting in a chair like that. I was then even more surprised to find out that this isn't my 'final' chair and was just meant as a temporary replacement as they will be ordering me a new chair as they didn't have any of the correct sized chairs for people who are six foot.

The women who came to do the check also rearranged my desk, including raising the monitor in a way that did make me wonder if it was really a transformer. She seemed quite amused at my bafflement to the whole egonomics process.

Quote of the day,
" It's the size of a piece of paper"

I've just seen the trailer for the new sherlock holmes film. I have to admit that it's piqued my interest slightly. It looked much better then in the first trailer. But I still don't see Grumpy going to see it.

Apparently it's supposed to snow tomorrow. But then again this is a forecast by the same weatherman who had forecast a heatwave all summer long, a cold winter, a mild winter, then a cold weather. I'm still not convinced that they don't just roll a dice to come up with the weather sometimes.

Stealing something is not smart. Using your own car to steal something is even less smart. Using your own car complete with personalised number plate is so less smart then smart, it's on the other side of the planet from smart. So I was somewhat amused to see a guy end up in court today for just that. But if you can afford a bmw why would you want to steal something anyway?

bordom, a need for excitment and being a bit of a muppet are three reasons which spring to mind.

Later folks.

Focus, Focus, Focus

As I'm now 'officially' in a team at work, I now have my 'own desk'. Fortunatly unlike a lot of customer service places I don't have to share it, so it's all mine. However I did notice something this afternoon that was somewhat distracting. My new desk now faces the window which brings a perfect view of the sunset. And it was a awesome sun set this evening which was very distracting as I just wanted to take time to watch it. Previously it's either been the case that the sun sets when I'm at work when I can't see it, or set when I was driving home so I didn't have time to watch it. But now, now I get a perfect view. I just hope they don't decide to swap desks on me otherwise they might well have to drag me from it!

I spent the evening putting our christmas decorations up and there's nothing like getting into the christmas mood like sitting in the dark watching the lights on the tree and in the window. It was a very cozy feeling. Even if Owen has looked extremely baffled all night and was remarkably unsettled by the sight of me up in the loft. He actually ran off downstairs which is quite unusal for such a inquisitive dog!

The quote of the day had to go to this one
" the package is as wide as my hand"

The bad taste award of the day has to go to a drinks manufacturer who have created a ice cube tray that makes little ice Titanics and icebergs. The packaging for the ice cubes reads
" 'Ice ahoy! Gin and Titonic is guaranteed to be an unsinkable addition to your next party.
'This reusable ice tray contains four icy Titanic ships and four menacing icebergs. Pair them up in your mixed drinks and re-create history. Go ahead...sink another round!"

anyway,

Later folks.

On and On

It's hard to explain but there was a real sense today, when I got up of the year is coming to a end and that in a few short weeks we'll be into a new year, 2010! Yikes! I know I say this ever year but I'll say it again. Where the heck has the year gone? It doesn't seem longer then a couple of weeks ago that we started 2009.

Although lets face it, the events of 2009 will be sticking in my head for rather a long time to come.

We still haven't put our christmas decorations up yet but we have decided that we will do so tomorrow. You see this is what comes of having only men living in a house. It takes ages to get anything done!

Although there's no way we'll be matching the neighbours efforts as well to say their houses are brightly lit would be a understatement. Just looking across the road I can see three illuminated santas, two christmas three's and a bell, not to mention a whole lotta lights. Oh and a snowman.

And that's one of the more understated efforts at house decoration that are on display are round the estate.

Well it's Monday tomorrow which means another week of work and and a week containing what I'm sure will be many, many, many 'opportunities' to face and overcome.

anyway,

Later folks.

English?

I wondered if there was a sign today that I am getting old as whilst christmas shopping I looked at the list of items that my nieces and nephews want for christmas and I had to wonder if what my youngest niece wanted was actually written in English. Now usually I can understand a lot of stuff and chatter away about stuff that the average non geeky person will not understand in the slightist, but the list of items had me stumped. I finally had to ask one of the shop assistants if she could translate and point me in the right direction. She did so with her kindest smile which seemed to say " you obivously don't have kids do you? Otherwise you would know what this was wouldn't you?"

It was extremely busy in town but as Grumpy was away for the day I wasn't in a rush and was able to take my time. Or at least as much time as you can take in shops packed full of christmas shoppers.

After much pondering I also decided to attend a author signing event of one of the newest releases from my old place of work. I know some people might be baffled at the amount of contact I still have with my old company as most people when their made redundent thats the last they have to do with them. But in my case I was working for the people who made my hobby, so I would have to give up my main hobby to have no contact and that's not something I want to do. I enjoy my hobby too much.

Anyway the signing was fine if a little strange to be talking to a author from postion of fan boy/civilian as opposed to a member of staff but hey I guess that's something I'll just have to get used to. Besides at least I know have a new book to read. Besides at the rate I'm reading these days it might even last me a whole week.

Asides from that it was a pretty quiet day. It was cold though and apparently their forcasting very cold weather this week which doesn't fill me with a sense of happyness as regular readers will now all about my ( I would say understandable) adversion to driving in icey conditions.

anyway,

Later folks

No! Really?

Sometimes a news story comes along that makes me stare in disbelief, especially if it seems to have come from the scientists and researchers of the we've got nothing better to be doing university.

Todays case in point.

Ever since the start of the credit crunch thereh as been a whole load of adverts around for companies who will buy your unwanted gold and send you some money. You get rid of gold your not using and get cash back as the meerkat would say " Seemples!"

Not quite, apparently according to those pesky researchers always hot on the trail of the next big blinding obivous fact after a extensive study they have found that these companies who buy the gold.......... wait for it.......... Are not giving people the full retail value of the gold they send. In some cases less then half the price. My what evil companies, how dare they attempt to make money themselves. Why aren't the papers full of this story, you can imagine the headline
" Commerical companies in attempt to make profit shock!"

oh wait.......

Two classic quotes from work today
" It's about the size of two small jars" but this was beaten by " It's not antique it's vintage"

Well it's the weekend again and after this weekend there's only one more to go until Christmas! I tihnk I'm going to try and hit the shops nice and early tomorrow before it all turns into a complete and utter scrum!

I'm also trying to keep from reading my latest book in one go, as it's from one of my favourite authors whose rather slow at writing. It's over a year between books and that's only if you count books from the spin off series. If you only count the main series books the gap is almost four years!

Anyone would think it takes a long time to write a book!

Oh wait...

I think after getting the shopping done and out of the way I will try and do some painting this weekend as I haven't done any in a few days and don't want to get too out of practise.

Well it's not like I've got anything better to do.

Later folks

Gremlins in the works

Sorry for the lack of blog yesterday folks but a bunch of technical gremlins decided to come to stay and proceeded to take out our broadband connection.

Fortunatly we managed to get it fixed this evening after talking to a surprisingly helpful technical department at our service provider. Grumpy had tried ringing earlier in the day but had become confused at the terminology so decided to wait for me.

Which was probably a good thing as when I tried to explain things last night it ended up with me demonstrated a 'analogy' using the door to the dining room.

It also confused the heck out of Owen who I'm sure must have wondered if I had in fact finally gone nuts.

It's also been a couple of rough days at work. I'd be lying if I didn't say that my confidence has taken a little bit of a battering. This is not a easy job, far, far from it. However I was able to 'regroup' as it were this afternoon and have a long internal monologue with myself ala scrubs.
Yes I know, otherwise known as talking to yourself, where I basically told myself to relax and remember something important. I'm just out of training and got another five months to go on my probabtion. Yes I should be aiming to get everything right but it's okay if I'm not perfect. And if I keep comparing myself to everyone else I'll probably go screamingly insane inside a month.

Another thought occured to me on the bus on the way back to the car park. Not to so immodest but I wondered if the other problem might be that I was so used to being so good at my work for so long I've forgot how not to be perfect and can accept that I may not be.

I'm just going have to knuckle down and make sure I learn from all of the 'opportunities' that come my way and make sure they don't happen again.

It's going to be a long six months.

Probably for the best

It may just be my log in but if not I forsee a lot of people sitting around in darkened rooms rocking back and forth nervously unsure of what to do with out their fix.


Am I talking about drugs? Far from it, I'm talking about something else which is far more innocent looking but will snare the unwary with it's addictiveness. Yes the game Farmville on facebook appears to be down, gone, disappeared into the depths of cyberspace...... the fall of mankind is sure to follow.


Of course it could also be a sign that I spent waaayy too much time playing that game and that I could be doing something far more constructive.

Richard branson revealed his new spaceship today which will soon be taking paying passengers into space. Apparently good old Arnie unveiled the spaceship although I'm not sure having a man who made his name for being famous for blowing stuff up in movies was the best choice to reveal a spacecraft.

The third series of the Big Bang theory is due to start shortly which I can't wait for. However knowing my luck it will probably be on Wednesdays! Still Institute is due to finish for Christmas this week so that will at least give me a chance to see a few of the episodes if they are indeed going to be shown on a wednesday.

I have to admit I'm find it a little difficult to get in a christmasy frame of mind right now as it doesn't seem like it will be Christmas in only 18 days. I suppose that's in part because things have been rather here, there and everywhere over the past couple of months there hasn't been that real sense of build up I usually get as Christmas approaches.

Still here's hoping the Christmas mood kicks in soon.

Later folks!

Duck and cover

Regular readers will now by now that I really like to keep up to date with the latest news, be it technological, political or entertainment news. Plus with the benefit of having a near photographic memory for useless information I find it very easy to keep up todate with many things.

Of course certain news items tend to draw my attention more then others. Anything related to a TV show I like will go up the list of must reads pretty quickly, plus anything related to the church usually merits a must read. This was how I was pretty up on what happened with the whole proposition eight thing when a lot of other people in my ward didn't have a clue what it was all about.

So when I saw a article about the TV show big love and the phrase " is going to cause no [small] amount of controversy.” I already had a feeling where this was going.

Now for those of you who don't know Big love follows a polygamist family in Salt lake city utah. The family are supposed to be " Mormon Fundamentalists", who aren't part of the 'mainstream mormon church" who everyone know and commonly refered to as Mormons. I'm sure you can already see why some people get confused because you have two groups of people who both call themselves Mormons no matter how much the producers claim they try to make the differences clear. I remember when the first series was shown in the UK and the barrage of media articles that resulted. However it didn't last long as Big Love only managed one series on our TV before disappearing, never to be seen again not even on digital freeview channels. Which is quite an impressive feat considering what is shown on some of them. TJ Hooker repeats anyone? No me neither.

Right where was I? Well apparently the show caused ructions in the last series when they recreated part of a church 'ordinance' but the producers still claimed that they were still making the difference between the main church and offshoots clear.

Well they seem to have totally abandoned this claim for the new series based on a quote from a producer about one of the male characters getting a boyfriend. The quote was as follows
" But attempts to “pray the gay away” are just the tip of the iceberg. “There’s a provocative nature to what we’re doing,” Olsen suggests. “It’s more than just the Mormon culture. We’re highlighting certain aspects of the church’s relationship with its gay members that I think, as the story unfolds, is going to cause no [small] amount of controversy.”!

Now of course I could be wrong but that doesn't really sound like their still trying to make the difference clear anymore does it? Especially with what happened with Proposition eght still fresh in peoples minds.

Now at the end of the day is this likely to make a whole lotta difference here in the uk? Well no seeing as we don't see the series but I just found it annoying in the sense of, if you're going to use cliches abut the church in attempts to win ratings at least admit it.

Although this has reminded me of what happened when I was taking my GCSE's. One day there were a whole lotta girls coming up to me and having a go, while a lot of guys were congratulating me. It took a little while to figure out what the heck was going on. Apparently one of the history teachers was telling people that Mormons still practised polygamy. In the next class one of the girls challenged him on it and he insisted he was right. Until she pointed out here was a Mormon in the school at which point he changed was he was saying pretty darn quickly. That history teacher was also partially responsible for me ending up having to give a talk to my english class but thats a story for another time.

anyway,

Later.

Keep rolling and go down swinging

I think this is one of the most restarted posts I have ever written. I must have started this post and then restarted it seven or eight times by this point.

It's not been down to having a writers block mind you. If anything it's the complete opposite, I seem to have too much to say but I just can't think of the best way to say it.

I've just had a load of thoughts that have been buzzing around my head since church this morning. For some reason I found church a bit flat today and uninspiring. I don't know why as I usually like testimony meeting but today there wasn't some quite 'there'. I know that sounds somewhat vague but that's about as close as I can get to putting my 'finger on it'.

But then again that sense of uninspiredness may also have been down to another couple of issues that I suddenly realised have been bugging me and I had failed to realise what they were until today. I'm still mulling them over right now in the hopes that I will come up with a solution.

So this will only be a very short post for today. Plesae tune in tomorrow when I hope I will make a lot more sense.

Later folks.

Somewhat confusing

Although it was fairly cold today it was also sunny. Really, really sunny. In fact so sunny I wished I had taken my sunglasses out with me as it was quite difficult to see at somepoints which is somewhat bizare considering we're now deep into winter.


Most shops have now fully launched themselves into their christmas 'mood' so there's lots of tinsle, shiny lights and christmas music seemingly everywhere. Although it depends on the store and how 'big' the store is as to how good the christmas music is as it seems to go from really cheap muzak style songs from covers to the 'genuine' christmas songs that we all know and love and are utterly fed up with by about two weeks into december.


Apparently there are rumours that the new film by James Cameron is going to be the most exspensive 'flop' ever. I'm going to try and reserve judgement until I see it but I have to admit I was amused by the films new nickname " Dancing with Smurfs". That's in reference to the blue skinned aliens in the film in case any of you didn't know and were wondering how the heck Smurfs had anything to do with this.

I always find it a bit awkward near to christmas as there's usually lots of stuff in the shops that I want to buy, but I know I shouldn't as someone might buy it for me as a christmas present. But then of course if someone doesn't buy it I buy not be able to buy it until the end of January. Now admitally this isn't the biggest problem in the world " Oh no I have to wait a month to watch a DVD I might only see a couple of times and then leave to gather dust on the shelf" ( yeah like that doesn't happen with the DVDs you buy) and was more of a problem previous years as there was no point asking for the main thing I wanted, i.e hobby stuff as there was no point as I got such a huge discount. I decided eventually that I was probably spending waaayyyy too much time thinking about stuff like that and should probably just not buy anything and save my money.

Still I was able to see quite a lot of cool books that I do want, because after a long drought of books a whole load have been released at once, including a new book by Alison weir who is one of my favourite historians. Which is something I hadn't expected because I only started reading her books to find out more about the tudors after watching one episode of "the tudors" which was the first and last time I watched that show. I've also seen a couple of other good history books as well but I'm not sure how many to ask for as the trouble I have these days is finding enough time to read. Which is bizare as considering the amount of time it usually takes me to finish a book, it's not like I need several days to finish one.

anyway,

Later folks.

A little earlier then usual

In a change to the past few years rather then having a christmas meal at the stake centre where the boys and girls take it in turns each year to cook for the others, this year we had our institute christmas meal 'out'. We went to a local carvery which made a interesting change as it felt very 'different' to our other christmas meals.

It was also one of the only times when you would see Bro H in a pub as well. Also somewhat bizarely our group was the loudest group in there. Which did make me imagine a headline along the lines of " Mormons loudest group in pub shock! News at 11!"

Of course it wouldn't be the christmas meal with getting the standard picture of the foot for Nemesis.

The budget also stretched to desert as well. It wasn't a bad meal at all. Especially as we didn't have to pay for it :-)

Later folks.

More Mekboyz mischief

What happens when you need a model and you don't like the 'official model' that is produced. Why you make one from bits of other models of course.

Take the base of a warbuggy
take a really big gun

Add some wheels, some crew and a few other bits and pieces

repeat as many times as needed then add sand

Then add some paint. Hey presto the start of your very own big gunz battery.

Latest mekboy creations

Long term readers might remember my post from a little while ago about turning a model of Wall E into a ork "killa kan". Well since leaving my last job my enthusiasm for modelling as been somewhat lacking, which although annoying it was according to Grumpy understandable.

However in the past few days I have felt my enthusiasm returning in part I guess as painting and modelling is still one of the best ways I have found to unwind. Below is a photo of a some of the first conversions I have been working on.
For those of you who hadn't guessed this are once again conversions based on Wall E. I'll post some more pictures one they are finished and painted

Caption competition

You know how this works by now. Leave your suggestions for a caption to this picture!

High energy

Grumpy was worried the other day that I was already loosing my enthusiasm for my new role as I seemed to be a bit down when i came from.

That's far from the case, is what more a case that I am finding the pace of the work a bit tiring. My last job to be honest wasn't the most highly paced job in the world. My new job is very much the flipside of the coin pace wise, it's fast , high energy and constant which is still proving to be a bit hard to get used to. Despite my best efforts some habits are hard to shake, especially when you've been doing them for almost seven years.

Not that I'm not making progress in getting used to it ( if that makes sense). My caffine intake has dwindled to almost nothing and I haven't had any chocolate in weeks. Plus I'm drinking a lot of water each day which should be doing more good then the coke I used to have.

We were assigned our teams today and to be honest it was a touch anti-climatic as we're all going to be staying with the same team we were training with. We should get assigned our permanant desks tomorrow as it's our last 'proper' day of training. I feel that I am grasping the systems now quite well and probably as well as I could be but not as well as I would like. Once again that's probably my weakness of being my own worst enemy as nobody can beat me up like me when it comes to little errors I should just forget.

Still my new found sense of optimisim ( still hanging around somewhat to my surprise) is trying to steer me away from this. I've only just finished my first month, I've still got five to go before my probabation ends. I've still got lots to learn but lots of time to learn it in and get it right.

now if only everything else in my life was that easy.

Later folks.

Picture it

Somewhere over the Swiss alps a ballon is rapidly loosing height. Two of the four passengers will need to go over the side to save the others. Which of this passengers will make this noble and willing sacrifice? Well in this case none of them as Homer Simpson and Cheryl Cole join forces and gang up on the others tipping the queen and Santa claus over the side.

The latest twisted reality tv show? No even more strangly it was a exercise in a training sesson this morning. Each of us was assigned a character and we had to argue why we shouldn't be turfed over the side. It was give Santa claus and and you may have already worked out I wasn't especially successful in saving Santa.

I still maintain I would have survived if Cheryl cole and Homer hadn't ganged up on everyone else. Which is a sentence I'd never thought I'd write.

I got home to find that the printer wasn't well printing and Grumpy was also unable to turn it off. After much consideration and attempts at trying to fix the thing I was stuck for a answer as I couldn't even try turning it off and on again as the on off switch wasn't working. Finally inspiration struck!

I pulled out the plug and then put it back in and hey presto one fixed printer. If only all problems in life were as easily fixed as that.

It wasn't as cold today but it was rather wet. I'm not fond of it being wet or cold but at this point I just wish the darn weather would make up it's mind. It's getting annoying.

anyway,

Later folks.

Finishing Touches

Looking back on this the first week of the last month of 2009 from somepoint in the far future, I will probably look on this week as a week of endings.

This week is the last week of my training and starting from next week I will be assigned to a new team. I don't know yet which team I will be assigned to or if I will be put in a team with any of the others from my training cohort. I could very well end up by myself. It's that kind of exciting/nerve wracking feeling, as I will shortly be dealing with the christmas rush as well as getting to know new colleagues whilst still learning. I'm certainly not confident/stupid enough to think I know everything yet.

The second reason why I will look on this as a week of endings as I finally recieved the last bits of paperwork and other bits and pieces from my old job. Which I kinda guess because the official 'end' on the almost seven years I spent there even though I officially ended there a month ago and left the office for the last time almost two months ago. It wasn't as weird as I thought, as I guess I've gotten used to what happened. Time and the world have moved on, there's no point on dwelling on it. I've seen what happens to people who were let go from that company who can't let it go. It ain't pretty.

Even if it's very weird to see photos from the office on facebook. A new one went up today and my first thought was " Oh you can't see my desk" then of course I thought, no wait it's no longer my desk. I also noticed that when somebody asked me about my old job today I used the term they rather then we.

Anyway, moving on.

We had a sharp frost this morning which meant another frantic search high and low for the de-icer which took me a long time to find. Mainly as th last time I used it I actually put it in thec ar so I'd know where it was, then promptly forgot where I put it. Even with the de-icer it took a long time to clear the windscreen. One of the guys at work said he had used boiling water to clean his windscreen and seemed surprised when we told him you should never do that. He then proceeded to ask lots of others and seemed even more surprised when he got the same answer from everyone.

The weathermen are forcasting a mild winter again but I'll believe that when I see it or in the case of the weather right now " Hear it". ( it's raining so I can hear the rain hitting the window even though it's dark outside.....dark at night what are the odds.)

Based on some comments I've recieved from people in relation to a post from a few days ago it seems that my superhero alter ego superpower would be to leap out of bed in a morning in a single bound, Monday mornings would be kryptonite, the chink in my armour would that I don't know everything at my new job yet, I'm a womanizer and I speak like Duffman from the Simpsons. I guess that would make me Saxon Man and I would have to speak in the third person.

Saxon man says he wouldn't be the best superhero but he would still be great..... oh yeah.....

Later folks.