Happy New Year!
(and damn you tickle for getting me drunk :-p)
(and damn you tickle for getting me drunk :-p)
January 1st, 2008
accomplishedDecember 12th, 2007
What's your preference - coffee or tea?
TEA!
Instant or brewed?
BREWED! (Can you get instant tea?...)
How do you take it?
I feel like shouting "through the eyeball because that is the fastest way to get anything into your system and vrroooooommmmm", but that would be a lie. I carefully place a teabag (pyramid tetley's generally) into a nice shapely mug, add a rounded teaspoon of sugar and gently pour boiling hot water into the fray. After about thirty seconds or so I add a light drizzle of milk before removing the teabag, swiftly stir the freshly brewed tea and then clink the spoon on the rim of the mug in a satisfyingly rythmic action before placing the spoon (face down so that the tea does not pool and congeal for the next mug) down on the side.
Do you have a favourite cup?
I like deep rounded mugs with a satisfyingly rich glazing. I often have a bit of a giggle with novelty mugs that say things such as '18 today!' too. Generally though no, no real specifics.
How many will you enjoy during a normal day?
Well today I drank 7 mugs. I'll probably have another couple before I go to bed as well but for a working day I'd say today is about average.
Does it matter if you don't start the day with a coffee/tea?
I like to do so but I can just about manage without it. Just.
...and now my dear fellows if you haven't tried this already,it's your turn.Do you take coffee or tea?
N.B. Before anyone tells me off I already know that this is not the correct hitchhiker's guide way to brew the perfect cuppa and will shoot you on site if you chastise me for not listening to Mr Adams
TEA!
Instant or brewed?
BREWED! (Can you get instant tea?...)
How do you take it?
I feel like shouting "through the eyeball because that is the fastest way to get anything into your system and vrroooooommmmm", but that would be a lie. I carefully place a teabag (pyramid tetley's generally) into a nice shapely mug, add a rounded teaspoon of sugar and gently pour boiling hot water into the fray. After about thirty seconds or so I add a light drizzle of milk before removing the teabag, swiftly stir the freshly brewed tea and then clink the spoon on the rim of the mug in a satisfyingly rythmic action before placing the spoon (face down so that the tea does not pool and congeal for the next mug) down on the side.
Do you have a favourite cup?
I like deep rounded mugs with a satisfyingly rich glazing. I often have a bit of a giggle with novelty mugs that say things such as '18 today!' too. Generally though no, no real specifics.
How many will you enjoy during a normal day?
Well today I drank 7 mugs. I'll probably have another couple before I go to bed as well but for a working day I'd say today is about average.
Does it matter if you don't start the day with a coffee/tea?
I like to do so but I can just about manage without it. Just.
...and now my dear fellows if you haven't tried this already,it's your turn.Do you take coffee or tea?
N.B. Before anyone tells me off I already know that this is not the correct hitchhiker's guide way to brew the perfect cuppa and will shoot you on site if you chastise me for not listening to Mr Adams
December 1st, 2007
I'm going to post this track because it amuses me and I just uploaded it for Tickle. Enjoy the German techno goodness ;-)
http://www.sendspace.com/file/nrg4v
http://www.sendspace.com/file/nrg4v
amusedNovember 5th, 2007
Ahh nothing like the smell of fresh gunpowder in the morning to get the lungs pumping. Last night I went for a walk to the supermarket after dark and was amazed at the sheer power of the fireworks exploding all over the place; more than I can ever remember seeing on a bonfire night before now. Oh and some bloke strode up to me just after I had drawn out a wad of cash from the ATM and blurted something at me. It was incredibly intimidating because he got almost chest to chest and I could hear the alcohol slurring his words but it turned out he just wanted a lighter. I told him I didn't smoke and he gave me the dirtiest look ever before, after hesitating for a moment or two, he stormed off in a huff. I have little doubt that if I was a less tall man he would have attempted to mug me for all I was worth.
On other news I am still at the office ordering various complicated springs. Theoretically this is again my last day, but who knows. If it is my last day then perhaps I'll take a week off to enjoy my birthday in style.
On other news I am still at the office ordering various complicated springs. Theoretically this is again my last day, but who knows. If it is my last day then perhaps I'll take a week off to enjoy my birthday in style.
November 2nd, 2007
OMG, supermice! Is it just me or does 'dangermouse' pop into your head when you read that article *grins*. Also, there was an article in the opinions section where a reporter had obviously been struggling to come up with a story and must have had a bottle of volvic sitting in front of him. He proceeded to point out how their slogan 'Volvic, fills you with volcanicity!' makes no grammatical sense. He went on to say
"Is volcanicity, then, the irrational urge to put a comma between subject and verb? Unlikely. It is more likely that advertisers just like inserting unneccessary commas and apostrophes to annoy Lynne Truss."
Hands up then, who is as sad as me and understood that joke? Does it make you blush to laugh at your embarrassing geekiness? Thought so... It did me anyhow.
October 31st, 2007
Tell Me About You
1. Name:
2. Birthday:
3. Place of residence:
4. What makes you happy:
5. What are you listening to now/have listened to last:
6. Do you read my lj:
7. If you do, what is particularly good/bad about it:
8. An interesting fact about you:
9. Are you in love/have a crush at the moment:
10. Favourite place to be:
11. Favourite lyric:
12. Best time of the year:
13. Weirdest food you like:
14. Do farts make you laugh:
Recommend
1. A film:
2. A book:
3. A band, a song and an album:
Me
1. One thing you like about me:
2. Two things you like about yourself:
3. Put this in your lj so I can tell you what I think of you.
1. Name:
2. Birthday:
3. Place of residence:
4. What makes you happy:
5. What are you listening to now/have listened to last:
6. Do you read my lj:
7. If you do, what is particularly good/bad about it:
8. An interesting fact about you:
9. Are you in love/have a crush at the moment:
10. Favourite place to be:
11. Favourite lyric:
12. Best time of the year:
13. Weirdest food you like:
14. Do farts make you laugh:
Recommend
1. A film:
2. A book:
3. A band, a song and an album:
Me
1. One thing you like about me:
2. Two things you like about yourself:
3. Put this in your lj so I can tell you what I think of you.
October 30th, 2007
Gah agency work is so confusing. Now I'm being told to come back in tomorrow, but they're not sure if they'll have any work for me... Looks like I could be working with springs a wee bit longer yet
cranky*sighs* last day at the office today. Tomorrow I shall probably be back in manual labour again and my access to the net will once again dwindle. It's been an interesting experience, this office thing, but I guess I am ready for a change of pace again. Maybe an office job someplace else? Well I guess beggars cannot be choosers, but I can hope at the very least.
Yesterday I watched a program I hate called 'cold case' which you may have spotted recently. It's all about some detectives solving cases resigned to the archives long ago and this particular episode showed why I hate it more than most. The woman had killed some guy thirty years or so previously, and had since settled down and raised a family. The cops pulled her in while she sat watching one of her kids hockey games or something and the sense of black and white justice they try to portray just makes me sick. What is the point in justice? Why do we actually lock people up? It was taking the moral high ground in sending this mother to prison because she killed someone, but is that all that prison is about; retribution? If she hasn't killed since and sending her away would destroy the family and potentially fuck up the children for the rest of their lives then who is really the bad person here? To my understanding a lot of the theory behind prison is that it prevents them from wanting to do the same again (not that it works) but why impose something like that on a mother who has done no wrong for 30 years. Grr. I raised this point in front of Vics' parents and was told to get off my soap box. I seethed inside and said nothing.
Yesterday I watched a program I hate called 'cold case' which you may have spotted recently. It's all about some detectives solving cases resigned to the archives long ago and this particular episode showed why I hate it more than most. The woman had killed some guy thirty years or so previously, and had since settled down and raised a family. The cops pulled her in while she sat watching one of her kids hockey games or something and the sense of black and white justice they try to portray just makes me sick. What is the point in justice? Why do we actually lock people up? It was taking the moral high ground in sending this mother to prison because she killed someone, but is that all that prison is about; retribution? If she hasn't killed since and sending her away would destroy the family and potentially fuck up the children for the rest of their lives then who is really the bad person here? To my understanding a lot of the theory behind prison is that it prevents them from wanting to do the same again (not that it works) but why impose something like that on a mother who has done no wrong for 30 years. Grr. I raised this point in front of Vics' parents and was told to get off my soap box. I seethed inside and said nothing.
annoyedOctober 19th, 2007
Is it shameful to admit feeling a little bit of nostalgia at having read allmost every Goosebumps book ever in my time... Just been on a checklist and found this to be very true... Am now considering whether to add them to my virtual bookshelf on LJ just for the hell of it. I know, I am sad.
cheerfulOctober 18th, 2007
Oi!
Laura!
You have a funny shaped head & Me and Tom still remember that day you left the door open
Ahem... that should just about do it. Dum dee dum
boredOctober 17th, 2007
Amusingly enough, the majority of the office has just buggered off home to go watch the football, leaving the place pretty much deserted. This could never happen in any other kind of work. So very very strange. Oh and someone actually nearly got rejected for an interview because they thought the applicant wasn't English :-s
On other news, and this is mostly posted for the benefit of![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
lizziwig, I have booked Rosie's ticket for Castle Kulu *jumps up and down at the thought of raving in a castle again* and there were no problems with Danny not being able to go BUT Matt has not booked his yet and when I asked why he said it was because he 'may have work by then'. Somehow I get the impression that he's stalling for alltogether different reasons *looks imploringly at ,lauramaverick*. Ah well. We shall just have to wait and see. Whatever happens, it's going to be a fun December
On other news, and this is mostly posted for the benefit of
lizziwig, I have booked Rosie's ticket for Castle Kulu *jumps up and down at the thought of raving in a castle again* and there were no problems with Danny not being able to go BUT Matt has not booked his yet and when I asked why he said it was because he 'may have work by then'. Somehow I get the impression that he's stalling for alltogether different reasons *looks imploringly at ,lauramaverick*. Ah well. We shall just have to wait and see. Whatever happens, it's going to be a fun December
October 15th, 2007
I don't think I've really ever told any of you this but one of the things I do to pass the time is to collect and paint warhammer 40,000 (a tabletop wargame) and although I have never really played a game of it before, I still very much enjoy putting the things together and painting them. Anyhow, until a couple of weeks back I had pretty much ignored the lore behind the game, but as it happens the people who work in the stores are incredibly hard sellers and to my shame managed to convince me to buy a book by Dan Abnett based in fictitious universe. I began the book with very low expectations, imagining it was just going to be another irritating attempt to draw money out of the fans of the game, but it's actually pretty good. It's set in the far future when mankind has long ago set foot into the stars and forged an empire of considerable might, and it is led by the enigmatic figure known as the emporer who has gone through many genetic enhancements and can theoretically live forever. Science has gone a long way and has conquered religion, basically becoming a faith in itself, and the closest thing people have to a God is the immortal figure of the emporer himself. Religion though, as we know, can be a very powerful force and much to the dismay of the imperium of man it can never quite banish it, and the story is about humanities fall from grace as the imperium splits in half with some worshipping the emperor and some the Gods, who are found to be truly in existence after all. My short introduction here is not all that great as I'm rushing it in my lunchbreak but perhaps I'll add a bit more afterwards. Most definately worth the read however
October 12th, 2007
It's 'bacon butty day' at the office! I told Laura this last night and she said that at her workplace-to-be they had 'tie days' on Tuesdays and Thursdays and we both decided that the corporate environment breeds some very strange things. The bestest thing in the whole wide world today though is that it's only a half day so not only do we get a butty but we also get half the day off!!! Roll on midday!!!
\o/
October 11th, 2007
ARGH! I have a forest of workpackets to put together, about a hundred drawings to find and I've just filed a sub con for electro tin plate when I should have chosen ultrasonic clean, something which is very bad and is going to involve around an hour and the senior technician to sort out. Once he's sorted it I'm going to have to run the sales order number past the works order number and cross check them in the didgeridoo to get the PO number so that I can then order the correct sub con process and ARGH it's like a totally new language to learn in a couple of days. And to top it off I found out today the hard way that the only person who had a clue what the hell was going on with most of the stuff I'm doing was the person who attempted to impart her knowledge on Monday then flew off to Australia. The short explanation? I'm actually more in touch with what I'm meant to be doing than most people in the office... Now there's a scary thought. And there's lizziwig saying she'd made an incredibly boring post.
lizziwig saying she'd made an incredibly boring post.
stressedOctober 10th, 2007
Good Morning, United Springs, How can I help?
*head-desk*
October 9th, 2007
Yesterday I turned into work in freshly shined shoes, a shirt, ironed trousers and almost with a tie. Your once noble and good friend Tom has turned sellout temporarily and got an office job and it sucks. I'm sat here right now with nothing left to do but tell you all how bored I am. I haven't a clue what I'm actually meant to be doing, everything is very confusing and plastic, and the phone besides me keeps ringing which makes me guilty because I'm meant to be answering it (havn't been trained yet...). Dum dee dum. Y'know what is quite funny though: the company I am working for is called United Springs. It makes springs. That is all. I never knew entire companies could be built around the manufacturing of springs, but it seems I was wrong. Y'know what else is funny? Some of the springs I've been doing important paperwork whilst-not-knowing-what-I'm-doing are being sent to places where they make planes, so next time you're flying a mile from the floor remember this: If I've made a mistake and ordered something like the wrong type of metal then it may melt and kill you all. Mwah ha ha ha haaa. *sighs* maybe I should go get a round of tea in.
October 3rd, 2007
At the place I am working presently, a factory complete with all the mundane trappings of the industrial workplace, there is a cord dangling from a light high above our heads which is looped and tied at the end. It looks like a noose. I am working alongside an African that I dont think I have spoken of yet, but he's about the only interesting thing around and possibly his tales are the one thing keeping me from making use of the noose. His world is different from ours and is coursed through with witchdoctors, spirits and Devil. He talks of his homeland whilst pounding his chest and speaks passionately of all the problems his people face on a day to day basis. To him some people work for Devil, and some for God, and then there are others, people I suppose like me, who he seems to think are caught in between; a sort of purgatory existence, and he feels sad for us. He says it is too bad that we have not found either God or football, because the feelings one can get from such things are simply beyond comprehension. His favourite two phrases are "Life man, life is very very hard" and "I know you dont understand". Last week he rang and woke me up and for a brief time I thought he had told me he was quitting, something which brought about a fierce dread of going back there again, but it seems I misheard since he is still there and still being a very nice personal orator. I wish sometimes that I could introduce him to my other friends but I doubt that will be possible and besides, I think his African heritage may clash a bit with certain feminist ideals my friends enjoy fielding from. Roll on Friday.
August 25th, 2007
Intelligence is a concept that eludes me constantly. One minute I am with people who consider me supremely intelligent and I find myself thinking (and this thought comes with incredible guilt) that I am needing to talk down to their level, and then the next minute I'm talking to people whose intelligence totally outweighs my own and who can run rings around me. And books too; I can find myself having to read some passages two or three times before I come to understand them. Not academic books, just normal everyday books. It's almost as though I live in a no mans land between the intelligent ones and the rest and almost never do I meet someone and think I have met an equal. The question of what intelligence actually constitutes is something to tackle another day, but what I mean in this sense is mostly just simple comprehension of concepts in a timely fashion. I don't want to have to spend half an hour absorbing an idea only for it to be gone again the following day, thereby forcing me to repeat the whole procedure again. My brain just can not store these things effectively. Half the stuff I learned for my dissertation on rave I have almost totally forgotten now. It just sucks. I guess I'm being very emo but I just feel incredibly stupid today. ARGH!!
August 22nd, 2007
This morning I half woke up finding myself searching frantically for a hosepipe in my room to wash down the floors. I was spluttering to Vics something like
"Pipe, where's the pipe, need to get the hose"
and then as reality suddenly began to form around me I got just a little bit embarrassed. To me the most disturbing part of my job is the swilling out of the mess left behind by Halal and I think that that's what was playing on my mind. I did this not once but twice last night in a fitfull bout of sleep. Curious thing is the unconscious. Good thing I have little to hide from those I sleep near...
"Pipe, where's the pipe, need to get the hose"
and then as reality suddenly began to form around me I got just a little bit embarrassed. To me the most disturbing part of my job is the swilling out of the mess left behind by Halal and I think that that's what was playing on my mind. I did this not once but twice last night in a fitfull bout of sleep. Curious thing is the unconscious. Good thing I have little to hide from those I sleep near...
embarrassedAugust 15th, 2007
Y'know, you never quite realise how fucking powerful bulls are until one gets playful and tries to charge at you. God bless cattleprods and large heavy sticks...
I know that a few people are thinking that working in a slaughterhouse is a bit of a bizarre thing to be doing, but I couldn't really turn it down in the end. It's not that I love wading through blood, watching halal in action or leading lambs to the slaughter, because that would be a bit weird; it's because it gives me chance to test my convictions. Many of my friends are vegetarian and I felt I needed to prove to myself that hypocrite was not my middle name. If I'm to eat meat then I really should know exactly what it has gone through to get on to my plate, however gut wrenching it may be. It is odd though and it's pretty commonplace to see people wander through literally soaked in blood and unidentifiable black bits. They call the place they actually do the killing 'hell' because it looks that way at the end of a halal session and I had the weirdest and most disturbing dream in a while just last night, but I still dont regret the decision to take it on because if I'm honest I am severely lacking in knowledge of how the world really works. I have to admit I feel a bit like Macbeth though, in that I can't get rid of the slaughterhouse smell. Vics says she can't smell a thing but I'm convinced it's following me around. Anyhow, we dont have much coming in tomorrow and I'm only there just over a week longer so it's not as if I'm attatched with ball and chain. Hope everyone is well. Was nice seeing those that went to Rosie's birthday party last weekend, see you round.
I know that a few people are thinking that working in a slaughterhouse is a bit of a bizarre thing to be doing, but I couldn't really turn it down in the end. It's not that I love wading through blood, watching halal in action or leading lambs to the slaughter, because that would be a bit weird; it's because it gives me chance to test my convictions. Many of my friends are vegetarian and I felt I needed to prove to myself that hypocrite was not my middle name. If I'm to eat meat then I really should know exactly what it has gone through to get on to my plate, however gut wrenching it may be. It is odd though and it's pretty commonplace to see people wander through literally soaked in blood and unidentifiable black bits. They call the place they actually do the killing 'hell' because it looks that way at the end of a halal session and I had the weirdest and most disturbing dream in a while just last night, but I still dont regret the decision to take it on because if I'm honest I am severely lacking in knowledge of how the world really works. I have to admit I feel a bit like Macbeth though, in that I can't get rid of the slaughterhouse smell. Vics says she can't smell a thing but I'm convinced it's following me around. Anyhow, we dont have much coming in tomorrow and I'm only there just over a week longer so it's not as if I'm attatched with ball and chain. Hope everyone is well. Was nice seeing those that went to Rosie's birthday party last weekend, see you round.