I couldn’t embed this in wordpress (something to do with flash I glean from a quick google), but you really must see this, be warned though, put that cup of coffee down first, I’m not paying for broken monitors!
Archive for November, 2007
The petrol station up the road from where I work does a mean sausage-roll. They are cooked to flaky-pastry puffed-and-golden perfection, not too greasy, not to dry. The highlight though, is something I really wasn’t expecting - they were decorated with slices of green pepper (bell pepper?)(capsicum) in the hot cabinet that they were waiting for me in - and the pepper imparted the most wonderful aroma and flavour to them. Subtle, but, and I hate the use this marketing word, ‘moreish’.
I look like a pile of something the cat dragged in this morning. No make up, not even my hair brushed. I’ll soon rectify that with a quick nip to the wonderfully lit toilets in here (it’s not like I have to fall over customers to get there at 09:05) but I thought I’d bash this off first. I just totally forgot to write last night,but, I have someone to blame, never fear.
There we were, Benny and I, innocently supping at our nice cold cans of beer (though he takes his in a pint glass if you want to be exact about it), candles dotted about, cats dotted about, and a nice red fire with a log glowing on top. Just minding our own business. Nothing exciting. Nothing fancy.
Until….
We got an email.
From Gordo.
Gordo the corrupter! With his gigantic collection of MP3’s from every genre known to man! Straight from his server to my little desk across the ocean. And what do you do when you receive such a fine gift? Well, you listen to it!, as much as possible of it!,and sing along, and get very pissed in the process 
So now I’m reaping the rewards. But I have my first fresh coffee inside me, and four sausage rolls (yeah I said four), and the sun is coming up, and I have a half-day, and I’m breaking into song every five seconds, so it’s all good.
I’m wondering though if I’m not worrying people with the particular song that I seem most likey to errupt into, the corus of which goes ‘been talkin to Jesus, all my life, oh yes He knows me and He knows I’m right, and He’s been telling me everythings gonna be alright’
Continuing on the ‘I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours’ (!) weirdness that’s been going on this past few days - I unearthed some interesting pictures of desks new and old.
Now, some of my longer standing visitors will have heard me banging on quite a bit about ‘the old job’, the job I did in Dublin for two years after I left college, where I met Benny. I found a picture of my desk there, which was perma-messy!
We used to eat lunch together at my desk, hence the flasks and the huge bags of crisps under the desk! The rest of the mess I make no excuse for, I worked hard in there, so cleaning was not high on my list of priorities 
(oh wait, that is an excuse though isn’t it?)
This next photo is of my old AV room (computer room, deriving it’s name from a fond school memory of a giant faded-glory hall which held the grand name of AV room despite only having a tiny television and video player on a rickety stand). To be fair, on this day I was cleaning it, making room for Benny’s stuff a little while after he’d moved in, but I can’t pretend that a lot of this clutter didn’t exist beforehand.
Here’s the AV room looking more like I remember it, and why I miss it…
And lastly, my current desk - a practical solution considering we tend to rely on the fire a lot for heat instead of heating the whole house with gas - the rather bland scene you see below
The chair, which I know looks horrible, is the chair I’ve had since I was in school and is as comfortable as anything. I have a real computer chair upstairs, but the old piece of tat I’m sitting on right now is far more comfortable. Perhaps it’s because I spent so many years sitting on it when I was doing homework - maybe I grew around it! eeeuw!
Basically, I just threw this configuration together as a temporary measure - the laptop wasn’t working at the time and I thought it more economical to keep activities confined to one room. It’s also cut out all temptation to smoke at the computer room (the ‘AV room’ here has a BIG window that tempted me sometimes, but otherwise we don’t smoke in the house). That and the fact that this computer was being entirely ignored in favour of the lazy mans option of the laptop - and this computer is a hell of a lot more powerful and shiny than the wee lapimatopima (yes, that’s what I called it). I kind of miss having a separate room though, so I might well move it back at some stage soon.
And so ends my photo essay on desks new and old
******
Work is unremarkable, although I did forget to tell yee my first sale that was completely my own work went through on Friday, which is nice (I’ve had a few prior to that but they were heavily influenced by other staff members so I didn’t count them). I suppose one of the issues I’ve been having with writing lately is that I don’t really want to write about work, for the usual reasons, but also because it’s just too quiet to really derive much interest out of it even if I was prepared to talk about it in the coded way necessary for a public blog.
So now, I think I’ll make another cup of tea and settle down to watch the episode of Long Way Down we recorded on Sunday night. Though it doesn’t seem to be as good as Long Way Round by all accounts. Hey ho, Ewan’s still easy on the eye one way or the other 
I am bored of the sound of my own voice at the moment. I sit down to type, and I don’t want to read what comes out. Whinge, whinge, whinge is all I think when I sit down to write, and I really, truly don’t want to revisit what I spend so much time wrestling with internally in typed format.
I have a lot of monotonous dirge going around in my head, I’ve talked a little of it out, but it’s not done cycling around yet. I can only hope it hurries up and moves along. But I have no say on this, it’s up to my brain as to when we’re done processing the same tired junk, as to when it’s happy enough with the solution so that we can get stuck into something else.
I’m also experiencing the same old winter symptoms, the ‘I really shouldn’t have another piece of chocolate/biscuit/packet of crisps/slice of toast’ that inevitably proceeds my having another piece of chocolate/biscuit/packet of crisps/slice of toast. The thought of going out for a walk is horrid depressing too. It’s cold and it’s dark and it’s boring and… I am so sick of this unending drivel. I want to go out for a walk, but it’s like I have this split personality thing going on where my motivation has been handed over to this other childish aspect of myself, and my patience is wearing thin with it. But it’s very debilitating, it really does manage to override my good sense the majority of the time - what is it? Why can’t I get it, and keep it under control?
Yes, it does sound like a touch of depression, the sneaky kind that colours everything negatively and makes you short tempered with yourself, the kind that weakens your spirit but hides under a veil of ‘maybe I’m just a little tired’ etc.
No big fuss, just the usual crap. Happens sometimes even when I can’t blame it on the weather. It’s just one of the things I feel I have to trade for having a very active brain and a body open to extremes of feeling. Highs and lows, blah di blah.
I think I need a notebook at the moment if I’m to stand a chance of writing anything amusing or interesting here for the next while. I know I had more than one interesting thought today, but the only one I can remember was my semi amusing observation on how much of a cynic I am.
Upon opening my favourite Tesco ‘finest’ pizza, I noticed the dreaded ‘NEW!’ sticker, and immediately braced myself for there being less topping. You see, I knew, that no matter what the ‘NEW!’ referred to, it was guaranteed to mean less topping. And you know what? I was right. Huge, big thick base and a wee skimpy puddle of topping in the middle, and a thin covering at that. Penny pinching arseholes.
I’ve wrung the cloth of my mind enough for tonight I’m afraid. Fingers crossed tomorrow is some kind of improvement. Perhaps I shall dream tonight of hunting down and strangling my whingy, irritable, repetitive other. It would be fun if I could be a big black panther, and it a moth.
This last picture is particularly nice I think, the light and the attention to detail there, I can nearly taste that Absolut with seltzer Kate (not to mention the ciggie)
I shall eat your camera and it’s little grey strap thingy!
Click into the video to go to the page of the guy that made this, there’s a few other good ones in there too. There’s just something about this that really tickles me.
I was directed to this link by Catana at Gifted Mind and I’ve enjoyed browsing through it today so much I decided I simply must share it too. I hope you enjoy
A customer who came into the launch I had a week or two back just came in to take me out for a spin in his pride and joy. This is a car I have had an interest in ever since I came here, and one I never thought I’d see in the metal, let alone go out on the road in it. It’s a limited edition you see, a ridiculously, theatrically powerful little car which you can read about and see a picture of here.
62mph in 6.5 seconds, 218bhp - it feels like a warp nacelle (albeit a rather light one) is strapped onto the back of the thing. I was pushed right back into the chair within seconds of ‘take off’ and honestly, I used up my entire days quota of adrenaline within about twenty seconds as we roared up to 180 kph on the motorway. That’s 110 mph give or take, (50 over the speed limit), he didn’t do it for long, but by Christ was it exhilarating. Talk about setting your pulse racing, I’m still coming down off it now, a half an hour later.
Fifty thousand quids worth of kit, and only 400 of them made in right hand drive, 2000 on the planet. And I just had a drive in one. And it was bloody good.
