Induction

Well that was a WHOLE 'nother bag of fish! Induction week wasn't so much of a romp as it was a crash reminder of what it used to be like back in university. My brain is frazzled. I need beer.

On Sunday I'm off to Cornwall. Poor me. The company has decided that it's alright if we decide to spend the weekend there as well, and has even offered to foot the bill for the extra accomodation and food. We're 10 minutes for Newquay. Can life get any worse?

[Post Script]

They arrived.

Photo Update

Dublin was great. So friendly, so different... SO MUCH GUINESS! But I have no time, I'm packing and then off to Crewe for a week [on business this time *frown*]



























[Post Script]
First Conclusion: No matter how hard you may try, it is actually impossible to iron something dry. You can get almost dry, but never quite there. It's a lesson in frustration.
Second Conclusion: Ironing the sleeves on double cuffed shirts is a COMPLETE pain in the arse.

It's time

Well I'm on the 08:35 out of Euston, heading to Dublin, so I'd better saddle up and be out of this apartment, like now. I'll be back in a couple of days so I'll see you all then.

Adios muchachos.

Funny Bits

I laughed till I cried. These could possibly be the 2 funniest links on the web. Ever.

Poke the Bunny - Persistence will pay off on this one. As will the added bonus of sound.

Spot the Difference - Close scrutiny of these 2 seemingly similiar pictures will reveal 3 rather disturbing differences. Again, sound adds to the whole experience.

Have fun now [and then drop a comment and let me know what you thought].

Baby Blue. Baby Pink.

Crikey Moses [as my mother would say], but that was one hectic week end!

Saturday: Kicked off with Adrian's braai [b-b-q for you non South Africans]. Now I've had some kind of online presence for about 3 years, beginning with a mild interest in IRC chat, and going on to start my own website 2 years ago, which then metamorphed into the blog it is today. Having said that, I've also never gone out of my way to meet any of the people who I've chatted with, or whose ramblings and musing's I've read, or read regularly. So really it's been 3 years of interacting with people on a 'virtual' platform while never once bothering to meet the actual souls behind the nicks and URL's. Saturday put much of that to right. I was introduced to so many people who I've 'known about' for such a long time and yet never met. And who would have thought it, but Jack is a fairly normal woman. I don't know what I was expecting really. Some kind of militant feminist? Who knows? Some larger than life demigod? Not really. Instead there was just a girl, who doesn't like Queen. How very surreal. But thanks to everyone for making the afternoon so enjoyable. More people are now on my 'daily read' list [Adrian and Lori were already there, while Jack has long been a respected, although not daily, read].

Saturday evening continued to be entertaining as I headed to the pub to celebrate a good friends birthday. Unfortunately, shortly after arriving at the pub things get rather blurry. I remember Carlesberg, and then ALOT of Jack Daniels. My next consecutive memory is of walking stumbling staggering crawling home at 2am taking crap photographs of absolutely everything I passed.

Sunday: Began on a rough note. Hungover, late, and with an appointment to be in Hyde Park for 10am. But in the end I feel that the experience of Party in the Park was worth it. I don't know if I'll ever go again [unless at the request of Nat] as there was a smidge too many pre-pubescent girls screaming and blowing whistles everytime someone like Busted, McFly, or Blue made an appearance. Which reminds me... who the fuck sells whistles at a festival catering to 100 000 people anyway? Who ever you are. Fuck you. If I ever catch you I'm going to force-feed you your own products! But back to my previous thread, yes, the underage crowd took the edge off the whole experience a bit, while also adding the day's official colours: baby blue and baby pink. The only thing worse than a 15 year old girl wearing a pale pink zip-up and baby blue track pants [with either 'angel' or 'princess' picked out across the arse in diamante] is her mother wearing the same thing. It was serious retch material.

But all that aside, I got to watch Alanis, Avril, The Calling, The Corrs, Nelly Furtado, and Lenny Kravitz live. Somehow I managed to drag myself away just before the finale by Lionel Richie and Peter Andre. Just.

But now it's time for a break. I'm spending a couple of days just relaxing and getting my affairs in order before heading up to Dublin. God help the Irish.

[Post Script] I've just realized that the phrase 'picked out across the arse in diamante' is almost exactly the same as one appearing in a recent Green Fairy post. This is far to coincidental for my rational brain to process as coincidence. I can only assume said phrase was stuck in my subconscious following an earlier read of her site and when the occasion arose to describe the same kind of pants [trousers] my lazy brain decided it was a better idea to dredge up something I'd recently read rather than go through the effort of being original. I apologise. Profusely.

26 Things

Tracey over at Sh1ft.org is re-running her 26 Things meme, which debuted last year in July, and I have decided to take part [mainly because this year I'm actually aware that it's running, and last year I wasn't]. The idea is to take a photo to match each of 26 theme's throughout the month of July. The list of themes for this year is available on the 26 Things site.

So far I have 7 of the 26 photo's done, which includes lines, far away, green, liquid, historic, button, and grand. My overwhelming wish right now is that there were more theme's along the lines of drunk, idiot, and embarrasing yourself, and less like relief, stretch, missing, and out of reach. That way I could use my stock of usual photo's to complete the meme in record time and probably have my entry posted by 8pm tonight :P

Still, it's interesting, challenging, and gives me something to do instead of lounging all day playing Playstation while on my holiday. I'll publish the completed project once I've managed to get all 26 photo's. Shall we say early August?

Last day
And so finally my last day of work has rolled around. It's probably going to be one of those that does it's best to never end, but I'll get through. Following on today I have a rather busy week and a half away from the 'office' after which I'm heading up to Crewe for a week long induction with the new company [at a rather nice hotel with a indoor pool and jacuzzi]. Did they say work?

Pray for me. After the hours and times I've worked over the last 2 years this job may just kill me through shock alone. What, only a 37 hour work week? I thought everyone did a minimum of 48?

I'm going to feel like a part-timer.

Get F1 here

Check out a quick link of a Toyota passing within 5 feet of me in London. You'll probably never get this close to a running Formula One car again... unless you're in London next year [when they plan to run the demo again].

PS. Thanks coda. I didn't know extentions where case sensitive. After all these years? Where the hell have I been?

What have I done lately?

As mentioned recently Damien and I took part in Tim's sixth Monopoly Pub Crawl [London Edition]. We didn't finsh... again... but even so it was a great day out. I recommend it to anyone in the city [although I'm not sure I have the balls to show my face there again after failing to finish twice in a row].







The day after the pub crawl I headed out to Wimbledon to watch the mens final from Henman Hill. What a feeling to have been a small part of something so great! It's one of those things I can now scratch of my 'to-do-in-life' list. While I was there I also got the chance to stand in some of the court areas which weren't being used on the last day, and in all honesty it did feel a bit like I was standing on hallowed ground. The sense of history at the All England club was quite amazing. I don't know what it's like during the rest of the year, but to be there during those two weeks was amazing.




Yeah. The Swiss went mad when Federer won.








Next on the list: F1 in London this evening. Adrian's braai on Saturday afternoon. Lauren's birthday party at the Front Room on Saturday evening. Party in the Park on Sunday. Dublin sometime after that.

Make friends

Download your own Blobmate, the BBC3 channel ident, because they're just insane. Your Blobmate will burt, fart, giggle, wolf-whistle, even scream like a maniac on occasion, and all from the comfort of your desktop. If it doesn't at least bring a grin to your face you might want to see a GP about that missing sense of humour.

Ammended: I forgot to include the Blobmate link. Fixed now.

I apologise

If you happened to be in the Trafalgar area in the early evening of Saturday the 3rd of July and came across a rather drunk young man sprawled on the sidewalk making odd gurgling noises and looking for all the world like he wasn't going to live through the next half hour... I do apologise. That was my room mate [following on another unsuccessful attempt to complete the Monopoly Pub Crawl].

But don't worry, I chaperoned him home and put him to bed.

Currently...

• Currently wearing: Cream-coloured Quicksilver trousers with a blue 'Tim the Tourman' T-shirt and no shoes.
  
• Currently typing my blog posts at a kpm rate of: About 150, but back-spacing roughly a third of that thanks to typos.
  
• Currently perving/stalking: Kate Beckinsale. Natalie Portman. Some arb girl on the tube today.
  
• Currently thinking about buying but can't afford/justify: Well it was a Boblbe-e backpack to replace my well worn Karrimor, but I cracked today and went out to Covent Garden to buy one. So now it's just the Sony Ericsson P900.
  
• Currently brushing teeth with: A baby blue plaque buster and Colgate 2-in-1 Whitening (cool mint).
  
• Currently receiving 0 spam e-mails a day (it's a miracle).

Complements of coda.coza.

You will also notice that my blog actually publishes exactly what I'm listening to in real time, because I don't only listen to one album at a time. I do, unfortunately, tend to play one game at a time and read one book at a time. But that's just me.

Red Ken rocks (IMHO)

From the Times Online.

Regulars at the Royal Opera House are in for a shock on Sunday when Lenny from Motorhead becomes the first heavy- metal guitarist to play at the venue. The Vilar Floral Hall’s usual atmosphere of polite chat and clinking champagne flutes will be dispelled by Lenny’s enthusiastic rendition of classics such as The Ace of Spades as part of the One Amazing Week promotion organised by Ken Livingstone, the Mayor.

Now I know that there are those among you that would scoff at me for loving Ken for this kind of thing, but it's precisely this that makes me feel he's the right mayor for London (or any city that I live in for that matter). He does things that I see around me every day, and which make a difference in my life. He targeted London busses as something that could be improved, and as a result they have. In fact they're excellent (if you don't mind some of the dregs that travel on them). His quip about not recognising George W. Bush Jnr as the democratically elected President of the States mirrored my own feelings. And his insistence that he would charge GWB Jnr's entire calvalcade the London congestion charge made me laugh about loud. Ken is a real person, living in a real London. In my 22 years living in Cape Town I couldn't tell you of one initiative that the Mayor took, or one improvement that he made (it definitely wasn't the busses, that's for sure), or even his/their name/s.

On the other hand I can identify with Ken, and while other political leaders make empty promises, in my experience to date Ken comes through on his. And for the record, I think the congestion charge was a brilliant idea and I have no problems with it's implementation either.

Now how I got from a light hearted beginning onto a political mumble I don't know. But there it is.