It was almost a CAT-astrophe

Well it seems that the borrowers have struck again as the keys for our postbox have seemingly vanished. Which pleased Owen no end as it's given him the opportunity to try and grab the post when it's put through the door.



Which had in turn lead to us to try and baricade the front door before the postman arrives with two dinner chairs and the shoe rack as otherwise we would loose the post when Owen hid all over the house and the front door would also continue to be scratched into obivilion.



Anyway as usual I'm digressing, when Tap Dance popped by yesterday she decided she was going to have a look for these keys. So she was looking outside with the front door open when to her surprise and Owens complete bafflement a Cat suddenly ran into the house.



And promptly got into a face off with Owen who lunged for it a couple of times before I was able to do a dive and grab his collar. But both times he stopped short, quite probably realising he was about to catch the cat and didn't have a clue what to do next.



At which point the cat promptly bolted upstairs. So while Grumpy and I got Owen under control, Tap Dance went to retrieve the cat which really didn't want to go back outside. Which was understandable as it was raining quite heavily.



Now the funnest thing was afterwards when Owen rushed upstairs to do an inspection and there really isn't any other word for it as he was looking around everywhere. He lay down flat so he could see under the bed. He did his meerkat trick so he could check the top of the dressers and tried to check the top of the wardrobe as he wanted to make sure that evil cat really was gone.



What ever else you can say about him, Owen really does take his job of guarding the house seriously.



Later folks

I really hoped I imagined that

I was in town today and I happened to pop into HMV. Now I was walking along the shelves browsing when something made me stop, back up and look again as I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing.



And what was I seeing?



Why the newly released DVD for the brand new Film " Titanic II"



Now I know I shouldn't have but I just had to pick the DVD up to read the back blurb to see what the heck this thing was about.



The basic plot as far I remember is that someone decides to build a replica of the Titanic calling it the "titanic II" and decides to set sail taking a load of passengers on the exact same course the titanic was on ( only in reverse) from USA to UK eactly one hundred years to the day the original Titanic set sail. And....... the ship gets to the UK with out incident......



No of course not. I'm sure you've already figured out what happens exactly one hundred years to the day of the sinking.



Although this time the ships sinks due to a series of mega tsunamis which are set off buy melting ice sheets in greenland.



I finally put the dvd down with some reluctance as this film sounded so appalingly bad that it might actually be "good" and I'm trying to save money right now.



I'll probably go back to get it once it goes into the reduced sale section. Which by the looks of the film will probably be next week :-)



Later folks

The best laid plans

Well it's the end of another week. Which means it's almost the end of February, which means almost two whole months of the year have gone already!



I know I say this every year but seriously where does the time go?



As it turned out things are work changed again and this week was the last week we're technically together as a team. Now I saw technically as the team members aren't going anywhere for a little while as we're all going to be sitting in the same seats for a little while as some logistical odds and sods are sored out before we spilt to go into our new teams.



So it's going to be a little odd for a couple of weeks.



Mind you it was a pretty fun last day, which involved me getting such a bad fit of the giggles I had to take log out of the phone for a couple of minutes before I could get my breath back.



I wouldn't mention what the giggling fit was about mind you. It was one of those things where you had to be there. Plus you probably wouldn't believe it either, lets just say it has something to do with some very obscure facebook status updates.



anyway, it's the weekend now, so two whole days before I have to go back to work.



Later folks

More demotivation

Demotivational

Mardy Monday, Terrible Tuesday but will it be whiny Wednesday?

It's been a tough couple of days workwise. Not that I'm saying thats there's anything wrong with my job of course, it's just that with any job things inevitably come in Highs and lows and it's been a couple of days of lows.

It's also turned out that our final week together is not going to be as final as we were expecting as due to various technical do hickeys and organisational do whats, we're going to be together for another week.

Which is a little weird because we're glad that we get another week together but it's also a little weird as we were all well into the "psyched up phase" to be ready to move teams.

Still it keeps life interesting I suppose.

I have also found out that in my new job I will be working a fixed shift of 9am to 5pm. Which will take a little getting used too after so long of rotating shifts. But as they say a change is as good as a rest. Plus it will mean no more having to go to a presidency meeting or institute straight from work without having any tea.

When I got home today I noticed I had received a call from a number I didn't recognise. So I called them back and found to my surprise it was from one of a number of agencies I had signed up with I was made redundent from my last company who were calling to see if I was still looking for work as they were going back through their lists of people who had signed up with them. Seeing as I signed up with them in October 2009 as this is the first time I've ever heard from them their lists must be pretty darn big.

Anyway,

Later folks

look up in the sky

and for my next trick

I will make this chinese lantern rise by waving my hands underneath it...

Sunset

The d'ohh factor

Sorry for the lack of posts this weeks folks.

It was mainly down to 2 reasons. Firstly that I've been very busy and secondly I've been hit with one of my worst ever cases of writers block. Everytime I tried to sit down and write a post my brain would go empty ( even more emptier then usual as it so happens) and I could not think of anything to say.

And writing several days of posts saying that I had nothing to say probably would be very interesting for you readers either.

It's been a interesting week at work because due to organisation changes our team is being spilt up ( which is why I had to go for a interview to see which department I was assigbned too) so there was a noticable sense that time is running out for our team. Which is sad as we work well together, but also exciting in the sense of we'll all be facing new challenges soon enough.

Although our team has seemed to have been struck with a bit of Homer Simpson syndrome as two members did something so silly that it automatically broke the " You're allowed one D'oh moment a day where you can't be mocked but anything beyond that and you're fair game" rule. One of the girls had to ring up our counterparts in France and trying to be clever proceeded to ask them in French if they spoke English. Only that's not what she asked them. She actually asked them in French if they spoke French. Cue one very confused french lady on the other end of the phone.

The other instance was where one of the team who when accepting a call from elsewhere in the building congratulated the girl who was putting the call through on being pregnant.
Only she wasn't.

Cue frantic attempts to convince the poor girl that somebody had actually told him that she was expecting and not that he has based this on her "size".

We have one more week left as a team before we start to get broken up.

In other news as it were, my fears for outcasts seem to have been well justified as it's getting castout as it were to a late night Sunday slot. Which means the chances of it getting a second series are probably near enough completely gone at this point. Which is a real shame as it was starting to improve. Yes it does have some major plot holes, but it was getting better and the scenery is awe inspring after so many years of the Candidian forests which seem to appear in most sci-fi shows.

And shifting it to another night makes no sense. Something which this much potential gets booted but we had to put up with the whole series of the Deep?

anyway,

Later folks

Baffling in the extreme

I've just watching the 4th episode of Outcasts and I'm still baffled as to why they keep insisted it's not a sci-fi show because for a show that isn't sci-fi it's certainly got more science fiction elements then any other show on tv right now, like Hollyoaks for example.

Although to be fair Hollyoaks does have it own potentially science fiction elements. For example how can anyone graduate their university when their never in class? And how do get so many blondes in such a small area?

But I'm digressing. Back to outcasts. Lets see for a show that isn't "sci-fi" ( I really don't know why people don't want to admit that their showing sci fi on primetv british tv, not likes their showing porn) in the first four shows they have had, interplantary spacecraft, talk of reentry and heat shields, emergency shuttles, white outs, talk of three moons affecting the planetary environment, solar power, pulse beacons, electromagnetic waves, planetary storms, brain wave reading, cloning, acelerating cloning, and not to forget behavioral modification.

You can see why they insist outcasts isn't a sci fi show.......... oh wait.

still it's showing great signs of improvement. The characters of Cass and Fleur are certainly developing into my favourites.

The only character I can't stand is Berger who couldn't obivously be more of a bad guy if he was running around in black top hat and cape, twirling his moustache while he went and tied damsels to railroads tracks whilst cackling all the time.

Okay I'm exagerating such a bit but you get the idea.

anyway,

Later folks

Holiday Complaints

(these are apparently some complaints a well known holiday company received from customers during one season)

"I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts."

"It's lazy of the local shopkeepers to close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during 'siesta' time - this should be banned."

"On my holiday to Goa in India , I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food at all."

"We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our swimming costumes and towels."

A tourist at a top African game lodge overlooking a waterhole, who spotted a visibly aroused elephant, complained that the sight of this rampant beast ruined his honeymoon by making him feel "inadequate".

A woman threatened to call police after claiming that she'd been locked in by staff. When in fact, she had mistaken the "do not disturb" sign on the back of the door as a warning to remain in the room.

"The beach was too sandy."

"We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as yellow but it was white."

A guest at a Novotel in Australia complained his soup was too thick and strong. He was inadvertently slurping the gravy at the time.

"Topless sunbathing on the beach should be banned. The holiday was ruined as my husband spent all day looking at other women."

"We bought 'Ray-Ban' sunglasses for five Euros (£3.50) from a street trader, only to find out they were fake."

"No-one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled."

"It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England it only took the Americans three hours to get home."

"I compared the size of our one-bedroom apartment to our friends' three-bedroom apartment and ours was significantly smaller."

"The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the accommodation'. We're trainee hairdressers - will we be OK staying here?"

"There are too many Spanish people. The receptionist speaks Spanish. The food is Spanish. Too many foreigners."

"We had to queue outside with no air conditioning."

"It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel."

"I was bitten by a mosquito - no-one said they could bite."

"My fiancé and I booked a twin-bedded room but we were placed in a double-bedded room. We now hold you responsible for the fact that I find myself pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked."

Blast it

Someone mentioned today a report that they had read by a group of psychologists that came up with a acronym that describes when your most likely to make a error. The acronym is Blast.

Or

Bored
Lonely
Angry
Stressed
Tired

Which is really a rather clever acronym. The only downside is that the acronym seems to more accurately describe the average persons day at work rather then anything else.

Speaking of which it's Monday tomorrow which means the start of another week of work. And I'm on the late "mids" shift which always seems a bit of a pointless shift to me but mine is not to reason why :-)

Pondering on the start of work tomorrow also made me realise that I only have two weeks left with my current team. Which is sad but also exciting in a sense knowing that I will shortly be with a new team. After working with the same team for about five years at my last place, I'm still not totally used to how quickly teams can change at the place where I am currently.

But c'est la vie I guess.

We were also treating to a lot of British summer weather today.

And by that I mean it rained, and rained and rained and ..........

well you get the idea.

Anyway,

Later folks

X-Men: First Class

More meerkats

The dangers of interviewing the public

There's a reason your not supposed to do that when driving

I was someone surprised to find myself stuck behind a rather slow moving car when attempting to join the motorway on the way home from work. And when I say slow moving I mean slow moving.

This car at most was only going at 35 mph! I have never seen anyone drive that slowly joing a motorway.

The problem only got worse when we joined the motorway as stuck behind this slow moving vehicle, I simply had no opportunity to move out and around as I simply didn't have the speed to be able switch lanes.

I slowly started to become suspicious that something wasn't right as the car seemed to be moving from side to a awful lot across the lane but my suspicision quickly developed into horror when the car proceeded to very into the middle lane crossing the line before the driver corrected avoiding a collision with a fast approaching frantically braking lorry but inches if not cm's.

Then finally there was enough of a gap to allow me to quickly get out of the inside line and get around this slow moving pest. But as I was zipping past I couldn't help but dart a quick look at the driver and immediately realised why this car seemed to be barely in control.

I could see the female driver with mobile phone in hand obivously writing a text message whilst driving.

I decided the only sensible thing at this point was to get as far away from this car as possible as quickly as possible.

Still slightly stupid drivers aside it's been a fairly good day and we even got some typical british summer weather early................ and by that I mean it rained. And rained, and rained. Plus it wasn't nice rain either, it was that really yucky light rain too.

Hopefully it won't last too long. As I'm sure we'll have a whole summer of that kind of weather to look forward too *sigh*

Anyhow, it's Friday tomorrow, which means a dress down day at work and only one more day until the weekend. Yah!

Later Folks

Hate to see what he'd do if he was upset

The start to the day came somewhat earlier then I was expecting.

7 hours and fifty minutes earlier then I was expecting to be precise. As I was suddenly woken to the sounds of Grumpy scolding Owen. I was almost then to turn over and go back to sleep when I heard him scold him again which somewhat worried me as he sounded upset. So failing to take any heed from the lesson of the cat and the dangers of curiosity I stuck my head out of my door to see what was going.

And quickly realised why Grumpy was upset.

You see for reasons best known to himself Owen had jumped up on his bed and promptly wee'd all over it.

We're still not entirely sure why Owen did it. Grumpy suggested that maybe Owen had done it as a way of being nice. I promptly responded that if this was his idea of being nice I had to see what he would have done if he was p****d off. Grumpy replied that it was more a case that Owen had p****d on.

Well I found that the power of postive thinking really does bring benefits ( and plus thank you so much for all of the postive thoughts from you my readers as well!) as I found I got the job I had interviewed for. Which was fantastic news! It's more of a sideways move this time then upwards but c'est la vie. It will be very similiar to my current road but rather then dealing with with just european issues it will be worldwide.

So it's certainly going to bring a whole load of new challenges as I'm going to have a raft of new stuff to learn, but it's going to be fun.

anyway later folks

thinking good thoughts

It's been an interesting day. Mainly because I had a interview for a new postion at my company and interviews are always interesting. Btw I should know hopefully tomorrow about what the result is so please think good thoughts for me people!




What I mainly found interesting is the way the interview process, in fact any interview process makes you really examine who you are. Once you take away obivous defining factors such as employment or religion who are you really as a person, deep down underneath.



Of course it also shows how brave a person you are too, depending on how far down that road you want to take yourself.



Well deep thoughts aside, I'm keeping a postive mental attitude. I did everything I could do, it's now in the hands of others.



Nemesis how posted a video on her latest blog post, which was quite good but also weird in the sense of hearing her voice again after such a long time! It's was like wow she is actually still a real person and has not just turned into a series of posts on a blog! But that's what you get in this church I suppose when people seem to move on regular basis for the four corners of the planet. And I don't totally mean that in jest because for a want of better term I know a lot more people in this "social group" who have moved abroad then anyone else.



Well it's Wednesday tomorrow which despite the postitive mental attitude will probably bring it's usual dose of mid week sump shernanigans. ( If I spelt that right but even if not you get the point :-)



Later Folks

A new dirty word?

I have to admit that I was looking forward to the start of the new BBC one series outcasts with slightly worried feelings. As to be perfectly honest the signs weren't good.

Although it's undoubtly a science fiction show a interview with one of the stars revealed that science fiction was a banned word on set . The actress said and I quote

"'Sci-fi has its own dedicated TV channel,' says North, 'and the BBC doesn't want to give the impression it's putting out a sci-fi show on prime-time BBC1.

This is futuristic drama with the focus on pioneering humans who, out of necessity, just happen to be living on a planet that isn't Earth. There are sci-fi elements to the drama. "

Okay and star wars wasn't science fcition either, it was just a futuristic drama with a focus on a bunch of humans who are trying to overthrow a evil government which isn't on earth and contains sci-fi elements to the story...... oh wait....

Plus they've obivously forgotten about Doctor Who going out during prime time but I digress.

And if all that clap trap about it not being sci-fi was not enough to set off a lot of warning bells the next thing was even worse. One of the actors ( who used to be in ugly betty in case anyone cared) in a interview emphasised theres lots of sex in this new show.

Right so we have a new show that is obivously sci fi but their saying it isn't and a actor who is trying to sell a drama series but listing one of it's highlights as theres lot of sex.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I don't know if this is good.

So I watched the show with a wary finger near the remote just in case. It was okay, there was one very unexpected death ( which I should have guessed as this series is made by the same series who makes sppoks after all) but over all the episode seemed to bounce around all over the place. Plus for a series that insists it's not science fiction I lost count of the number of "sci fi" things present.

Still it has lots of potential. Assuming it can survive past it's first series of course.

later folks

Max power

Well that's not his real full name, although his name is certainly max. He is one of Tap Dances two budgies and one of OWens 'Friends' who come to stay when Tap Dance goes away. We always refer to them as Owens friends and he's noticably excited whe nthey arrive and depressed when they leave.

Things you never thought you would say at Church on a Sunday

" I think you need to shorten your skirt"

3 x 4 makes

Not seeing so clearly

So picture the scene, I'm back home after actually being out on a Friday night for once. I'm in Grumpys office, going through my photos, there's suddenly a momentary flicker of lights and then all I can see is this.

No this wasn't I could see on the screen it was what I could see in the office. We had, had a complete power cut. And not just us. Geektown was dark as far as the eye could see. Owen was delighted mind you as he thought the whole thing was fascinating especially when he had to be taken out for his evening walkies.

Grumpy and I were not finding it quite so fascinating mind you, especially as we had to try and find where we had put the torches. At one point I had to use the light from my mobile. Plus Grumpy had been watching NCIS and was little annoyed that he never got to see how it ended.

So after finding the torches we did the only sensible thing we could do in the situation.

We went to bed.

However before I went to Bed I took the opportunity to look out from Bedroom window and see a sight that is very rare geektown in complete darkness asides from the moonlight. No house lights, no street lights, just the dark. A quiet unbroken stillness that was a bit creepy but also quite beautiful in way.

anyway,

Later folks

and maybe you'd need that sound effect here too

all you need is the bionic man sound effect

One way to boost the number of attendees

Looking for the loopholes

It's been a bit of a interesting day.

Mind you this interesting day started off rather coldly as for reasons as the central heating wasn't on! The bathroom may be nice and warm when the central heating is on but when it's isn't that tiled floor it just a little bit cold!

Still it certainly helps wake you up.

Work was.... well it was one of those days when you had a lotof rather bizzare conversations that although at the time seemed sane and normal you look back on them at the end of the day and wonder just why you were talking about that to begin with.

There was a conversation about whether you should or should not attempt to extort cookies as a form of forgiveness and how you could make them not count if you were try to eat healthly.

Another was if you cut a pizza in half and eat one piece, could you say you only eat one slice of pizza and thus make it sound like you haven't eaten as much.

And would the girls be able to resist singing random lines from Rhiannas new song despite it's rather risque nature.

In fact risque is rather a understatement as I can already see the massive outcry you'll be getting about this especially with regards to the video which apparently features her wearing a lot of outfits which lets just say are not things you would wear in the high street.

Anyway, it's only one more day until the weekend and we have our YSA Chinese New years eve party tomorrow which apparently feature chinese lanterns and fireworks. Hopefully not at the same time or things could get messy.

Later folks

The printers are revolting

I'm starting to get the feeling that some sort of conspiracy going on with printers right now and their all ganging up on me.


The one at work refused to print out my shift patterns. Grumpys is still refusing to work but has now changed it's tune slightly in saying on one hand that the printer is not connected to the computer but on the other hand if you open the printer queue it gives you a list of items in queue.


And then when I tried to borrow Bro H's tonight after institute tonight it promptly refused to print out anything in black and white which is annoying when your trying to print off a letter as opposed to a photo!


g'aahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


and that's the technical term for the frustration I'm feeling right now.


Still the day was full of good things too. Top of the list was the very good news that traveller is safely out of Eqypt and out of harms way. It was a good way of showing how much Leicester YSA has changed as when I mentioned it at institute only two of the students knew who she was! I do miss her being around ( not just her of course, I miss all of my friends who have moved to other countries, seems to happen a lot with this church) , next time she comes home for a visit I'll just have to make sure I'm not my usual polite self and bully my way past other people to speak to her as last time she was here she was always monopolised by other people and I never got the chance to speak to her.


I was also walking through reception at work today when I noticed a group of people waiting for interviews. I was halfway up the corriodor before my sub concious nudged me that I had missed something and I should go back and have a look. It was when I went back I realised that one of the people waiting was one of the key-timers ( part timers) I used to work with in the first department I worked in at my previous company. So we were able to quickly catch up on things ( it's been a while). Who knows? If his interview is successful we may be working togather again at some point.


This chance meeting also made me realise how much your job can have a influence on how you define yourself. It's amazing how the smallest things can make the biggest differences.


So anyway those two pieces of goods news certainly helped me get over the usual mid week slump. It's all downhill now to the weekend.


Later folks

Swinging into it

It's always quite hard going back to work after a holiday as it always takes a couple of days to get back into the swing of things.


Of course this week has ben no exception as not only faced with going back to work I've also had to contend with a week of early shifts.


And of course Monday did not get off to the best of starts as due to a lorry fire the access to the motorway was blocked and I had to turn around and come all the way back through geektown to go the long way to work as warmer temperatures or not I'm still not willing to trust the backroads first thing of a morning.


Still mustn't complain too much as at least I had a much better Monday then the lorry driver.

Half of the old pop band bewitched have relaunched themselves as a duo this week. Possibly not as successfully as they had hoped as one reviewer described them as "Primark Lady Gaga's".

The government also launched a new online national crime hotspot map today. Also not as successfully as they hoped as it showed two police call centres to be major criminal hotspots.

anyway,

Later folks