Aside

On a completely different note, do you know that I know someone who was sent a dead bird in the mail from a grieving ex-girlfriend? How completely insane!

I reckon he must have pissed her off something bad.

Fall back

How is it that a single extra hour in bed can make such a difference? I felt so absolutely refreshed yesterday morning when I awoke. Just a pity that today it was back to the usual. I woke up feeling shit. Staggered downstairs to open up for the cleaners. Got the fire going (the bane of running a pub in winter). Made sure everything was functional before opening the doors. And then mental meltdown.

Pity about the coach load of old ladies wanting lunch, and soup at that - how horribly stereotypical?

Tomorrow I get to suspend my first employee *smiles in glee*.

Lastly: Spring forward. Fall back. Just a good way to remember how to adjust your clocks.

Schumacher's Diary

Here.

For a healthy lifestyle Foolstop.za.net recommends...

Putting finger to keyboard

Just as I thought, the prospect of getting back to 'big smoke' is providing me with itchy fingers and a desire to start writing with more gusto - and hopefully thought - again. My blog has stagnated something horrible these past few months in Shaftesbury. It's not that I've had a bad time here, but more that the day to day experiences that I've had just haven't felt blogworthy really. The amount of times I've started writing, only to stop after a minute and think, 'Who the hell could care about this?'... after which I lose total inspiration. But anyway...

I'm loving the video for Blind Pilot by The Cooper Temple Clause... so so intelligent.

So it's a bit cold out

I've just been out in the car. I had to scrape the ice off my windshield before I could see out of it. The windshield wipers didn't come close to cutting the mustard.

Upon closer inspection it appeared that the entire car was frozen from bonnet to boot. I guess it's safe to assume that the temperature is somewhat below freezing at the moment then.

More

Well thanks to BT still sending me their free modem with the broadband subscription that I cancelled I now have broadband with Pipex (because the modem that they sent me was kaput). Broadband rules. And will more when I upgrade my connection to 1meg so that I can share it with Chris at my new pad (when I move in in around a month from now).

At the moment I'm pretty much worked to death. I'm at work most of the day between 9am and 12pm trying to make sure that everything still functions. I've had a couple of minor emergencies to deal with - but then I knew they were going to come... just to test me.

Plans for London are moving along at pace. I'll be in the city on the 5th and 6th of next month to meet up with Julian, who I'll be working with there, and to see the new place and probably start to move some of my stuff in. Getting the Wega there is going to be the hardest part I think.

I don't know how this move is going to affect my usual holiday back to Cape Town yet. I'm hoping that it won't, or that at worst I'll just have to bump it back a bit, but that'll all become apparent in the near future. On the flip side at least I'll be in London when Tam and Cails come to visit.

Speaking of...

...moving to London. I've just provisionally accepted a position as the assistant manager of the Brewers Inn in Wandworth - 2.4 miles as the car drives from my new (or soon to be new) place of residence. Go me!!!

The position comes with a raise (which still needs to be negotiated) and the tentative promise of straight through shifts instead of splits. Go me again!!!

Could the timing be any better?

Ah yes. As is usual life has thrown me a curve ball (a good one though) at what must be the worst time it could have chosen to. How wonderful it is to be me.

For a long time now I've been meaning to move back to London and find work in the city. Up until now my intention has been to find work there first and then move down once I have a job secured. And now the curve ball - a room in an apartment with 2 of my closest mates (all of us went to school together in South Africa) is opening at the end of this month. It's incredibly well priced. In a good area. Is on good terms (no minimum contract period). And well... I want it.

The catch is that I don't have a job in London yet; although there are prospects for me to move within the brewery that I work for. The second catch is that while I enjoy working for the brewery I'm tired of the licenced trade and I want to get into another sector (too many early morning following on late nights is wearing me down, and I'm tired of dealing with drunk idiots). Plus I've always told my boss that I would give her more than enough notice before I left her as we have a good understanding and I wouldn't want to leave her in the lurch. The catch to that is that the room becomes available in about 2 weeks and the boss has just left to go on holiday for 2 weeks. This leaves me in charge back here, with no prospect of time off in the next 15 days.

My thoughts at the moment are as follows: I should definitely take the room as it solves 50% of the changes I want in life at the moment... all I then need to do is change jobs. This becomes easier as the room is in Wandsworth and so is my companies head office. So I'm thinking that with my excellent record with them (and trust me, it is excellent) I may be able to wriggle into a day job there. 100% solved. The trick is now not going back on my word to my boss.

I reckon that when she comes back from holiday I'll be owed about 4 of 5 days off. I should hand in my notice immediately. Take my days off and go down to London to check out the room (although I'll have had to take it on by then anyway). When I get back I start work again for the remaining period of my notice, while at the same time doing some serious e-mailing to the company to see if I can transfer to London - the prospect of not working there scares the daylights out of me!

More on Broadband

According to the Pipex 'order status checker' my connection should be setup by the 28th of the month. My modem and details are on their way to me. Damn I'm stoked. 11 days and counting...

Now all I have to do is decide what wireless equipment to get (and whether or not my PS2 should have a wireless bridge... for pure geek appeal) and when to get it. I'm bugging the hell out of Adrian to this end. Sorry.

Work news at the moment is that I've been asked to do an internal relief management while my bosses go on holiday. It's a pretty hefty step up and includes me taking responsibility for the entire business. It also means that I'm in the middle of a crash course in everything I don't already know about management here. It's alot to take in all at once, and I know it's not as confusing as it seems at the moment. But you know how things get when someone is explaining 6 different tasks you've never had to do one after the other. Gets a tad too much to take in all at once, but I'll be fine. I can hack it. And the extra pay won't go amiss either. The area manager got a wind of this internal relief though and he reckons that if I do well then I may have to go do relief management in other houses (pubs, bars, hotels)... which I'm not averse to I guess. The pay is good-is, although the lifestyle and stress that come with the job is a bit on the naff side. We'll see what happens, it's all 'now' stuff anyway and I don't know where I'll be in the future.

All this being promoted and shit really makes me wish that I was doing something I saw as a career for myself. It's all bodes well, and it's great that it's happening... and being shown the respect of your work peers feels good. I just can't help feeling that what could be seen as 2 or 3 promotions in just over a year would have been better spent in a career I could see myself doing in the long term. Still, I live in the now. And the now is treating me well enough.

My break will come.

I concur

Do you know what? I completely agree with Natalie... although I think her writings fine and mines the one that's stagnated badly. To keep my side of the site ticking over I cover the arbness of my life... but gosh, I wouldn't read that crap if I was you, it's more just to keep me in hte habit of writing that to keep you enthralled.

I swear it must be this country life. Drives me completely insane really! The last time I went to a decent club was way back when I went to Southhampton and the last time I waslked down the street without being recognised by someone, which isn't as great as you'd think, was my first month of work here. I miss being a face in the crowd.

I do have news though. I carefully wrote up my application to the marketing department of my company and sent it last night, so hold thumbs. It was a bit of a shot in the dark as I don't even know if they're looking for someone, but even if they aren't at least they'll know of me.

That's it for now, I have to scarper for work.

Broadband

Well thanks to some rather badly timed advice from Adrian I called BT up last night and cancelled my order for their broadband package. Obviously they asked why and I pointed them in this direction and told them that Pipex was rated as faster, more stable, and also about a tenner cheaper per month.

And then there's the new 1 Mbit service that they offer. Hmmmmm. Can anyone tell me if it's really worth it for a home user?

Some how I know that Adrian will be the first person to respond to this post.

After the fact:
I am now signed up with Pipex Xtreme Solo2Go - yay!

All I need now:

1 x PS2 compatible ADSL router
1 x Wireless Access Point
1 x Wireless LAN PC-card (preferably the 3com 11g card or the 11b with Xjack antenna)

Arriving on the 23rd October

BT Broadband service:
Will be charged to your BT phone bill

One-off activation charge £0.00

Monthly rental £28.00
If you pay your bill by Direct Debit or Monthly Payment Plan your BT Broadband monthly rental will be £27.00/month.

BT Broadband equipment:


1 Broadband modem & 2 microfilters per pack at £0.00 each £0.00

0 Additional microfilters at £6.00 each £0.00

Equipment total: £0.00
delivery is free

And there's more

If I get Broadband I can link my PS2 up to it and play network games wid me mates. Fucken cool.

Broadband? When did that happen?

*grin* Broadband has landed in Shaftesbury... middle of nowhere. Now I just need to find out if I can transfer my connection to any new addresses that I may move to within the next year. Like you can with Sky.

Oh. And then I need a wireless router and a wireless LAN pc-card. No problems there though.

Precedent

Some people should be shot... or at least emasculated.

There's nothing quite like the gentle care of a loving woman...

...especially one in uniform. There's also nothing that a 1000mg shot of paracetemol can't fix. And you get both in Day Nurse... or Night Nurse (the drowsy equivalent).

I have a cold. A nasty nasty sniffling eye-throbbing ears-blocked cold. I hate feeling like this.

Aside: Congrats to Nat to being accepted into the J4 design course - see I told you so. Pity that we'll miss the chance to have another of the Skanky 'krew' in England when we begin out battle for world domination (which starts when I eventually get to London). Maybe next year hey.

Rugby Idol

It's my new idea. Forget Pop Idol, or Big Brother, or any other over done reality shows. What South Africa need is a reality rugby show. That way we might be able to find - somewhere - a person who is capable of kicking a rugby ball through two metal posts with a success rate higher than 50%.

As much as I think that old Naas ruined the running game of rugby for a couple of years with his ultra reliable boot, I reckon we should bring him out of retirement for this years RWC. YOu just can't afford to lose 15 or so points in a game... 15 points would have been enough to win 2 of the 4 World Cup finals played to date. Come on people. Let's see to kicking reliability, otherwise I might cry.

Kill Bill

Just chilling here watching The Times' DVD expose on Tarantino's new flick - he's so passionate about what he does, how lucky.

This morning while setting up everything at work I came to a new conclusion: if I don't get out of the licenced trade soon I think I may die of heart disease before I turn 30. There's just something so damn appealing about that layer of fat tied onto the top of a roasting joint of beef. I cant help but eat it, and while I'm actually chewing it I swear I can taste the cholestrol. Mmmmm...

Ironic lyrics heard at work today

"Now John at the bar is a friend of mine
He gets me my drinks for free
And he's quick with a joke or to light up your smoke
But there's someplace that he'd rather be
He says Bill, I believe this is killing me
As the smile ran away from his face
Well I'm sure that I could be a movie star
If I could get out of this place"

So maybe not a movie star, but something that at least requires me dust my brain off again.

Why so bold?

Ok, so I don't know what the hell is going on with this boldness so hopefully it'll fix itself soon.

Only news at the moment is that my car failed it's MOT - give me a break, I didn't know that the fog light wasn't working - but it's been seen to and is now 100% legal again... or will be when I get the time to take it back to the garage. And then it'll be advertised again... and hopefully sold this time.

And having just read Nat's comment about the rugby... looking at my work shedule it seems that I'll be working during pretty much all of South Africa's pool games. Go on Murph, stick it to me again...

Oh yeah. Loads of thanks to Janine for the Home Grown present. It's good to hear some music from back home.

Null

Boring week = no blog posts

Check back later.

Worldby.com

It's got to be said, www.veniceby.com is possibly the most convienient accomodation site I've ever used. But then again, I haven't really used that many.

:P

I have taken to using spastic amounts of post-it notes

Venice

News on the horizon is that there are plans afoot to spend a week or so in Venice sometime in November. It will offically be my first venture into Europe. I think Venice is a good first choice actually. I mean, France is closer (just a short hop on a ferry really) but Venice, well Venice is Venice. Canals, Gondola's, and all things Italian. So at the moment I'm shopping around for cheap flights and decent (but preferably cheap too) accomodation - if you have any recommendations apart from the usual cheap airline URL's then please drop me a line here.

On a completely different note, I'll tell you what is actually annoying me no end at the moment: this completely aweful 80's fashion revival! Really, we all knew that the 80's were a fashion mistake in the first place so why are we repeating it? You can argue all about history repeating itself, and how fashion comes full circle every 4 or so decades, but I think we owe it to ourselves as a population to ensure that 1980, and the 9 years following it, are surgically removed from this cycle. Look at the 60's: smart, suave, clean, or completely hippy-fied. The 70's: flared collars, bell-bottoms, over-the-top fashion expression. The 90's: grunge, wool, the beginning of a mainstream rave culture. All of these decades where stylish is their own particular way. And then stuck somewhere in the middle we find... the 80's: oversized tops, solid turquoise/orange/pink/green, leg warmers, white acrylic belts, and bad hair. Why the hell are we doing it to ourselves again, I ask with tears in my eye's?

Thankfully there seem to be others that agree with me on this point.

And now it's back to Kesey and the Merry Pranksters until I fall asleep drooling out of the corner of my mouth... as you do.