Ahou-Baka Driftr

Location, Location, Location?

2009-11-16T17:41:00.002Z

Coming back from a 2 week holiday in Japan I've had quite alot to reflect on; more specifically on what makes a good vacation.

I've had the desire to goto Japan and luckily enough managed to achieve this; however I know it would not have been the same experience if I went solo. What I have learnt as a person is that no matter how great or fantastic any location is everyone will have a differing opinion and at times when people want to hang around in a group, it just doesn't work. On one hand you'll have someone who may want to rush through, tick boxes to say "been there, done that" while on the other hand you'll have someone genuinely interested in a specific topic that they have just discovered.

What this boils down to is, sometimes people just need time alone, even if it is on holiday in some fantastic location. This might not hold true for all but for me, I enjoyed just having a quiet hour or two wandering about Akihabara or being able to spend an evening alone at the Inn to just reflect on where I am and what I have seen and what I may get to see. This doesn't mean I'm not sociable; I had a fantastic time out in Shibuya with Otaku, Lee and Koji-san and having a nice farewell meal at Marios. Hell I'd do it all again tomorrow if I could.

The Japan trip was fantastic in itself and it also showed another side to myself I had yet to discover; I can be a shopping whore, a stupid idiotic socialite and a loner..and all at the same time. HAH!

It's best if I sign off saying that even though there were "tricky" moments in the holiday, I wouldn't change a thing about it good or bad. :)

The JDM Story Continues....

2009-11-11T18:58:00.003Z

Just a brief blog update: I'll be putting all my Japanese holiday experiences at Otaku-Yakuza Blog; it's a shared blog with my friend "Otaku".

This blog will remain personal to me and may include bits about the trip to Japan but it'll be more centric on things that either made me happy or angry or sad etc.

This blog isn't dead and neither is my other blog, the fictional story writing one. I just haven't had the time to really concentrate on that. Right now I am trying to plan a trip back to Japan in April/May 2010 and work on a project called "Project: Rinko Fantastic".

Today's biggest hurdle is that I have absolutely no money...that's a lie. I have £22 with Road Tax due the end of the month as well as MOT, fuel, food, leccy bill and water bill. As you can EASILY imagine... £22 doesn't cover that so...credit card it is...as much as I hate to actually have money oweing to the credit card company over more than a month...it's my only method of salvation.

I need a holiday. :(

The Land of The Rising Sun and more...

2009-11-06T22:05:00.003Z

So where have I been since August? Well some of it has been lack of news, some of it pure laziness and a chunk of it has been a fantastic, mind blowing trip to Tokyo, Japan. I will eventually blog about it in greater detail with pictures but looking at just 650 ish pictures and thinking I have to look at them, edit them, upload them and so I lose motivational drive...
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...and then I turn on my DS Lite (JDM blue, yo!) and say "Ohayo" to Kobayakawa Rinko, my virtual JDM girlfriend from Love Plus. I have not been so involved in a game since the days of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale but this game is a dating sim that never ends where as the former two are RPGs. Even though I can't read the Kanji and can barely make out what is being said, I am thoroughly enjoying spending time in this game and I hope with time I can learn some Japanese.

So let's rewind a little shall we?

During my trip to Japan, on the very first day my friend "Otaku" purchased an unknown game to me called "Love Plus" which happened to be ranked number 1 in the DS game charts. For the majority of the trip I teased "Otaku" about the game being an ero-ge (erotic game) but slowly I got sucked into it too, from watching on the sidelines to taking an interest in Nene, Rinko and Manaka. Nearing the end of our trip, I decided to look at DS Lites (the DSi is region locked when it comes to the latest games) but with new prices being relatively high I decided not to buy one...yet!

Sitting at the inn, the day before we fly, I flipped a 500 yen coin to decide the fate of buying a DS Lite...it landed on the 500 yen side up which meant the hunt for a DS Lite was back on. I chose to hit the bookstore (lots of second hand books and other assorted goodies such as figurines, games and consoles) and use my 300 yen discount (the story of which will be told when I cna be arsed to get round to typing up my trip). They had a few DS Lites in the store and they even had Love Plus. I purchased both and the rest is history...sort of. The story never ends...feel love 365 days.

Funky Wi-Fi Phone!

2009-08-05T17:16:00.003Z

Just had to blog about this...my relatively new phone, a Sony Ericsson C905, is AWESOME!!! I have it hooked up to my home network now via Wi-Fi and it's just too cool; it's like a mini (albeit slow) PC. I can move files to and from the phone without faffing about with the data cable or having to buy a bluetooth dongle.

The simple things in life amuse me...although it was hard work getting it hooked up to my home Wi-Fi network. I suffer from a slight case of paranoia so more or less every security measure I have enabled, which meant that for a good hour of head scratching was due to me forgetting one security page on the router/modem.

Also, the phone has survived a few nasty falls and it still works. :) Super phone. :) Only gripe I have is the video recording is naff but then I can't have everything yet...can I?

Ze French...dey are lazy barstards

2009-08-04T20:35:00.009Z

I survived my trip to France and made it back to the UK. Nimes, France is not a bad place...if you natively speak French or fluent in French...and have your own hire car...all of which we lacked on our lovely 2-day field trip. Well I say 2 days it turned into 4 days but I'll recount the story properly.

Friday, late morning. I get a phone call from the Business Unit Manager. "Go to France now, now, now!!! Go! Go ! Go!" (well not quite like that but you get the idea of urgency.)

We hop on some trains (there is one flight a day to Nimes and we missed it by HOURS) and some many many hours later pull into our hotel at 23:15 local time. Oh before I carry on, the TGV is one AWESOME train system. Talk about fast and smooth. Superb. Ahh forgot to mention, just as we exit the Eurostar, we get a voicemail message from the Business Unit Manager; he was trying to get us back as the Frenchies are already performing the Engine run. We called back and because we were quite far into the trip, told to go to nimes, pick up a piece of paper and go home.

So back to the story we got to our hotel at 23:15. Next morning we get a taxi to the airport (where the engine run was happening)) and my first impression of Nimes in daylight was...what a shit hole. I had no expectations of the place but from what I saw on the journey the place was a mixture of industrial estate and desolate farm lands.

We get to our plane and told the engine run had no happened due to a hydraulic leak. Which is now fixed but now they have a fuel leak. They tried this and that and we suggested a few possible solutions but it didn't cure the leak and by 2pm the Aircraft Technicians said they need a part they do not have in stock and are now going home for the day and work continues on monday. During the day though I spotted one of our previous customers, Cargo Italia. Their DC10 parked up and looking very very lonely. :(

With nothing to do for the rest of Saturday we hit nimes town centre. Second impression of Nimes, this is a pretty smart place! And damn expensive! Everything is twice the price compared with the UK.

So first up the Colosseum where bull fights happen. The guy pictured is the Workshop Manager who went with me to Nimes.

Some more random pictures:

Time for some random dinner! We ordered stuff and had no idea what we ordered though I do know I got the wrong starter...!
Random starter...

Squid main...the rice was utter cack.

Creme Brulee...mmm...I could eat a jar full of this stuff!

We sort of hit the pub afterwards and met up with a random English brummie girl and some random french guys. I wasn't that interested but I took a picture of one french dude and this brummie girl...This was after it started to rain and to prove our britishness we sat out in the rain till every other person ran back into the pub. We were very very soaked!

Sunday was a total waste of a day. Our hotel was situated in amongst the French versions of Ikea and B&Q and even worse...all the shops were shut on a Sunday. So we spent it idyllically sleeping in our nice air conditioned rooms.

Roll on Monday and what do we see out on "the pan"?

Yeah baby! The Royal Netherlands Air Force DC10!!! Must be good to go, right..? Wrong. Still had the fuel leak issue but after 2 or 3 hours of faffing about it somehow fixed itself...I presume some numpty didn't torque up all the bolts correctly. After that they then complained another part was faulty...*sigh* here we go again...however after a quick swap of one component and we are ready to go.

If you are really geeky and want to listen to an Aircraft engine at various speeds click on these video links. If not...just watching one will give you an idea of the next two hours "at work".

After the run was finished we just had to collect our bit of paper and say goodbye to the Royal Netherlands Air Force guys and goodbye to Sabena, our "hosts". The rush home was manic to say the least. Just about made it to the train station in Nimes to catch the next TGV back to Paris (and in time for the last Eurostar home) only to find out...our magical "fully flexible tickets" were infact now "out of date". So we had to buy another pair of tickets home at some astronomical price rush to the platform and jump on the TGV. Next was negotiating the Paris metro to get our connecting ride home on the Eurostar at another train station on the other side of Paris. we follow the metro signs and...it's all closed off! Enter panic mode and speaking to French people in English and we find out there has been a fire in the Metro and it's shut for the time being.

So we now have to run outside queue for a taxi and somehow make it to the Eurostart in the next 40 minutes! You'd think that was plenty of time...20 minutes of that was waiting for a taxi. Everyone who couldn't use the metro was using taxis!!!

Somehow, we made it to the Eurostar in time and I eventually made it home through my door just after 1am this morning.

It was a fun and eventful trip with the bonus being getting paid some stupid amount of money for sitting on my arse! My best guess is an extra £1400 into my wages before tax. Lovely.

Shipped out!!!

2009-07-30T17:29:00.002Z

Oh joy of joys. I am being told I have to go to France to observe an engine run. In the normal world, this would be fun...being paid money to sit on my butt and watch other people do work. This however is a world whereby money is so scarce there is no hand towels, no printer toner and a ration on paper...which begs the question, why spend money shipping me and one other out to France to watch other people work?

Anyhow, I made my protest though I came across as an obnoxious bar-steward rather than being all pro-company.

So...weekend I am in France, enjoying 32 Deg C sunny weather watching other people do work and all being paid for. Brilliant. :)

Note: I do still want some printer toner and paper so I can actually get on with my day to day job. :rolleyes:

Day 2 of Operation Clean Up the Crap...

2009-07-29T18:34:00.003Z

...or whatever I called it in my last blog entry.

Anyhow it's day 2. It's been raining. It still is raining. Countdown to house inspection is in a couple of days.

As you can see not a massive amount of progress other than the huge weeds been removed. I have however cleaned the kitchen so other than the sink, it's pretty damn clean. Just the hallway to do tomorrow...no point doing it now, it'll get mucky from us walking about.

Right, time to grab some foodz!

P.S. Terry found out I suggested to hide his favourite shoes. I am....doomed.

Operation "Clean up the crap" - Day 1...

2009-07-28T19:41:00.002Z

First we surveyed our target; the garden!

HOLY CRAP that is some jungle! So we bring out the tool (or should that be fool...ie me) and hack'n'slash our way through! After 3 hours, this is as far as I got...note the green bin is full (it started life empty). Eep!

With the light fading fast, I abandoned the current attack vector and headed on in for a nice meal.

When will this operation end? Who knows...

Caught on Camera!

2009-07-27T16:04:00.009Z

So what do you do when you have 2 days off plus the weekend? Why you head on over to Terry's house with Yuki and a camera!

"Oh no! Where's my head?"

Mmm...Yuki goodness. ~~Kawaii~~

Tea Party with Pinky Street!

More Yuki pr0n

"Ano....~~Nyyyaaaaaaani~~??"

"My book! Boo-hoo!"

...who is this delighting in photographing a distressed Yuki!!!!

"Put 'em up Terry!"

"KYYAAAHHHH~~~~!!!ECCHI!!!!!!"

...and now for something completely different. GGGGGUUUUUUNNNNNDDDDDDDAAAAAMMM!!!!!

So yeah, I still need to paint the Gundams but that is another job for another weekend!

Until the next blog entry, ja ne miina-san!!!

\\(^_^)//
m(-_-)m
\\(^_^)//

To clear the tumbleweeds...

2009-07-04T16:29:00.002Z

So it's been a long time since I blogged. Well I been too freaking lazy to bother. At first I got addicted to Left 4 Dead. Playing Versus was so much fun and when the other campaign maps were unlocked to be playable in Versus...well 300+ gaming hours logged is the result. Since then I got a touch bored so I fired up Oblivion. I've since logged about 25 saved hours on that, probably 40 hours actual play time.

Right now I am down in Bournemouth so blogging through my sister's internet connection. I should get off my lazy ass and actually post some in-game pictures from Left 4 Dead and Oblivion, just to spice up the bland wall of text once I get back home.

So...anything to blog about work...too much, too trivial and all the same crap.

Well hopefully this blog post will clear off the tumbleweeds and get things rolling again.

Ta ta for now for any readers who are left!

Score!!!!!

2008-09-23T21:40:00.003Z

Hehe...alright (said in Quagmire's voice). Managed to bag another lady in The Witcher; this time a woman called "Gossip" and she is part of the poor people character list. Must have logged about 4 hours tonight on this game - most of that was spent running around looking for certain NPCs to progress the story. Me being too tight fisted wouldn't bribe the guards to let me explore a different section of the town so I was banking that these critical NPCs that I had to talk to would walk through the area I am quarantined in. Suffice to say, after two hours of me doing nothing much other than exploring the small part of town I have access to, I gave up and bribed the guards. Well it didn't go that smoothly; the guards asked for 60 orens (gold pieces), I offered 30 and they told me to "go away". subsequently they wouldn't talk to me for a short period of time so I had to go off, do other things come back and up the ante. I kept doing this until I paid them 60 orens. Annoying but I don't want to spend more than I have to...that and the money used was blood money, money from selling the identification badges of a certain group of people I am hunting (or rather slaying with great ease whenever I find them).

Oh I also eventually decided to level up and had gone up 4 levels without realising it so had quite a few talent points to dish out. (^_^) Ahh another wonderful part of the game, is the alchemy involved. You get some ingredients, the all important base (being good quality slightly magical alcohol liquid) mix it together and drink the random item you've made and see what happens!! (-_^) The alternative is to find potion cook book type scrolls that'll tell you what you need and in what quantities.

In between of playing Witcher, I continued with my small short exercise regime. I really surprised myself today; 328 skips in 2 minutes 53, that's over 113 skips a minute. I know now that to keep the progress going I have to up the speed as well as quantity. Debating on what to do with the press ups and sit ups. Still maintaining at 25 of each but I think it might be better to do those first, skip and then do another set of press ups and sit ups and if I have enough energy, finish off with some more skipping. At least it'll extend the duration of the exercise window; still wanting to buy that chin up bar thing and some cheap weights. I spent the money on The Witcher; wise investment. \\(^_^)//

Think I'll load up some anime and crash out for the night. See you people later!

P.S. Finished watching an anime called Special A; will need to write up about it at some point.

P.P.S. Keep an eye out, I'll be making another blog purely for whatever fiction crap I write (when I am inspired to do so). Don't hold your breath though. (^_^;)

Geralt - The Ladies Preferred Choice

2008-09-22T18:44:00.002Z

I picked up a new game over the weekend, The Witcher: Enhanced Edition. If you have not heard about this game, it is another RPG only a more gritty and relatively (to Oblivion) linear affair. So far the story is good but what is really good about it is the way the whole game seems very cinematic and really pulls you into the story of Geralt, the Witcher. Also the fact that if it's female you can almost guarantee he will try and bone her. In the game you get a character index of people you have met (bar non-interactive NPCs) and almost all the women I have met I have managed to bed. Muwhahahaha! Even managed to bed a half-elf woman who I happened to save by accident! I was rather bored and no fighting occurs during daytime unless you are provocated so went to see some "haunted house" to raid it of treasure only to be met with (what a surprise) a trap. Needless to say I was excited by the prospect of butchering some weak humans and so slayed them all with ease. Then i find out they had a half-elf female as hostage/rape victim of whom I bed. (It's my priviledge, I rescued her!)

Hours have been consumed in this game just wandering the town of Vizima looking for quests and finding monsters to slay.

Brilliant game.

Exercise progress has halted since the day of the clean up till today. So started skipping again and it was hurting after 158 and managed 258 in 2 minutes 40. Not bad at all. Just need to keep at it rather than shy away from it. Oddly enough, I wasn't short of breath more the muscles were giving up before the lungs!

Time for dinner and then more butchering, shagging and adventuring for more ladies to bed!

The once upon a time Unclean One

2008-09-17T21:53:00.003Z

What a fun evening I am having. Cleaning the house for tomorrows inspection. Hurray! I've partly done the house a couple of weeks back and here we are tonight cleaning those same areas again. Why you may ask, is it not a simple task of wipe over, still clean? Why still the need for deep clean? Well the answer dear reader(s) is that the housemate isn't very hot on cleaning up after himself straight away. In the kitchen I try to keep commonly used areas clean, wash the dishes when I can and clean the chopping board after use. Housemate on the other hand just leaves a mess. Also on the night of me cleaning the part of the kitchen (ie the floor which is always a bad spot) the housemate comes trampling in, shoes fresh from running and just ruins my evenings hard work.

I got home from work tonight, hoovered the general areas we always walk over and housemate comes back and he hoovers the same area again. OK, so I didn't do it as well as could be, but I had two bathrooms and the garden to do as well. Of course, in all defiant mode the housemate is hoovering the floor then points out all the areas I should do to make the house cleaner. It's like the work I been putting in means nothing like I been sat on my arse on this time doing nothing about it. The house won't even be spotless; I live out of my room and so does the housemate. The housemate has no fear in wearing shoes all over the house and in that respect I do too because I am not going to walk around in socks or bare feet where outside stuff has been dragged in.

I've rarely seen the housemate do any cleaning outside of failing an inspection and it almost feels like the housemate blames me for it all. So what if I don't stay at work till 10pm monday to friday or go home to another house at the weekend, it's shared responsibilities not just keep your room clean. I'm determined not to keep the house clean on a weekly basis as I will see that as the housemate getting me to clean the housemate's own arse. I'll keep my area clean and part of the communal area.

To top it all off, the housemate bemoans to me about the oven. In all honesty I couldn't be arsed to do it yet I just have to clean it tonight because it's been mentioned. Then I got to wake up early tomorrow morning to clear out all the de-weeded vegetation to the green bin. I was hoping to get the housemate to do it yet zip, zero nadda. The garden was literally a jungle and this is a garden that doesn't have any green stuff in it, so all the green stuff growning was weeds. It took me a damn long time to de-weed the garden as best I could. The housemate's response to de-weeding the garden was to spray weed killer. Which did sod all to the remaining plantation.

If we fail again, I honestly don't give a crap. I bust my balls, got my balls busted and busted my balls again tonight.

Time to find another job and another place to live.

Go! Go! Go!

2008-09-16T17:32:00.002Z

Update on today's skipping progress, 247 in 2 minutes 35; yet another improvement. :-)

Weekend just gone, my mother and sister went to collect my mum's new car. I don't think I have blogged about why so here it goes:
My mother was on her way from my sister's house to collect the children from nursery. Unfortunately on her way out of my sister's road the steering on her Civic locked in the right position when exiting a junction. She wasn't going fast, after all you could see where the accident happened so I'd guess she was doing maximum of 15mph. She was on the wrong side of the road when another vehicle approaching from the other direction hit her head on. The Civic is a write-off. I can only assume the other driver was doing substantially more than the 30mph speed limit on this road to inflict that kind of damage.
So two weekends ago, I went down to my sister's to help find a replacement car for my mum using the money she was given by her insurance company. We searched quite a few cars and it ended up being a Toyota Yaris we purchased. However my mother could not go pick the car up till the weekend just gone.
On the sunday evening after collecting her "new" car and having made her way back to her flat, my mother called me and amazingly enough she was telling me how my sister was complaining about the car we all decided was the right car for mum. ALL the issues she had were relating to using mum as a VERY cheap child minder and taxi service and the car have a small boot, not easy for the kids to get in and out of...I mean, hello???!! My sister was there to help select a car too...if she had those issues, she should have highlighted them on that day!

Annoying,

Another annoying thing happened at work recently. Our IP address had been blacklisted as spam so sending emails to our vendors, customers and technical support groups was hampered greatly. For a short time it was amusing but in the long term was a pain in the butt! Our IT guy is trying to work out if this is a malicious attack or someone being FAR too careless and getting infected with a worm. We all had to run an anti-malware program and surprise surprise, one of the top ranking people at work (who works off site) had a BUTT load of malware on his laptop! None of them are the particular worm that our IT guy is looking for but it goes to show that higher ups are not very savvy when it comes to security!

Random stuff:

Ninja Cat!!!

This is totally wrong and I would guess is in the states...click at your OWN risk!!!!

Woo Hoo! Improvement!

2008-09-15T21:09:00.001Z

I took friday and the weekend off from the skipping, push up and sit up regime. I felt no pain today so decided to go back to the regime.

Accomplished 238 skips, 25 push ups and 25 sit ups. An improvement and only after a few days work out. Lets hope I can keep this up for the rest of the week and continue to improve as the weeks go by.

I'm really happy with my progress and my recovery rate now is such that I feel like I could do 2 sessions in an evening. ^_^

There should be more to post up but with time running short now, I want to get some gaming in, watch some anime (Special A and Code Geass R2) and of course sleep before I go back to work tomorrow.

See you lat0rz pee-peez!

The Paaaaiiiiinn!!!

2008-09-10T18:15:00.002Z

Just completed 212 skips, and 20 press ups and 20 sit ups. My body still hurts from yesterday and had trouble walking today at work.

Needless to say, the above work out has really mashed my body...I wonder how bad I am going to be at work tomorrow. It really does feel painful along my calves and shoulders at the moment.

Hopefully a late night soak in a hot tub of water will cure out some of the pain...

If I can type again, I'll update the blog...if you don't see me again...well you can gather the kind of pain I will be in!

Ja ne!

Fitness-hoooo!!!!!!

2008-09-09T21:29:00.002Z

I been reading about different people asking various ways of either bulking up with muscles or getting fit in general and one person mentioned skipping rope. I remember them; used to use them as a kid all the time and was dead easy...cross your arms or double skip. Easy.

WRONG!!!!

I tried it out last night, managed 207 skips and 6 stops (rope tangling with my legs) before I was shattered. It's a really harsh fitness exercise, especially as I was hitting over 80 skips a minute easily. My calf muscles hurt but no fear, for tonight I wanted another bite of the cherry....187 before I gave in to the pain (like a wimp). Feeling deflated that I didn't equal last nights target, I decided to do sit-ups and press-ups. As a kid I did 100 of these each every morning before school. Easy.

WRONG!!!!

I managed 20 press-ups and 20 sit-ups before giving in. These weren't slow up, wait, down, wait, these were quick (to me) repetitions.

I have no idea how I used to do this as a kid but I was bored back then...15 years of inactivity really screws you over.

So target this week is 200 skips, 20 sit ups, 20 press ups. It gets ramped up next week to 210 skips, 25 sit ups, 25 press ups.

Once I get some money together I'll get a chin up bar thing and some el'cheapo weights (read as various bottles cobbled together to form some sort of equipment). Getting fit should be a good goal for a lazy slob like me. Don't need to lose weight, skinny enough as it is, but gaining muscles would be good.

From a very knackered sleepy,

Gnight!

The Unclean One...

2008-08-20T12:23:00.002Z

Bah! Got letter through yesterday from landlord. Apparently the house is filthy, garden unkept etc. etc. etc. You guys get the general idea.

Some of you may or may not know I have a housemate so you would think chores would be shared...right? Wrong. Sure the housemate cleans HIS room but the communal area that none of us really use...nope. So I have the thrilling task of ripping out 5 foot high weeds in the garden that none of use.

Best bit of all is how pissed off he looked at me when he told me the bad news like it was all my fault the house is in that state. Shared responsibility...eh? Oh and his solution, hire someone in to clean and garden for us...I mean WTF??!!! Spend shit loads of cash to clean the house OR just spend some time at home cleaning? Of course the housemate will use the excuse he works long hours but no-one forced him to work from like 6am till 11pm Mon-Fri.

I'm fustrated more than anything.

/Rant

Transitional Transistors Torment / Sanders Salvation

2008-08-19T12:09:00.001Z

A few days ago I recieved back my parts from vendor after being tested with "No Fault Found" (and also paying the testing fees due to no fault found).

I spent the weekend and yesterday (monday) slowly installing components, testing, if it passes, install more components so on and so forth until it was almost completely assembled...only on a piece of cardboard!!! I should have taken a picture but I was too hacked off to even tidy up properly let alone clear things up for a photograph. Obviously I had to now get the bits into a PC case which is no simple job when you are trying to have tidy cables.

So far, it seems to be a-ok but I have not fiddled with anything in the BIOS. I have left the BIOS as it is from when it returned from vendor after bench test.

So far I have successfully re-installed Windows XP but on the wrong HDD. The HDD I wanted to use it on has data on it and fearing the worst I used the larger HDD that was supposed to be used for data storage, as it was empty. So the 500GB WD HDD which has 5 partitions is now the data HDD and the 750GB Samsung F1 HDD is now the OS drive (2 partitions). What a mix-up but it works so probably keep it that way. For now.

Last night I got as far as managing to install video and audio codecs to watch anime again AND managed to install Clive Barker's Jericho and play that with max settings at 1280x1024 resolution. That game looks good.

So what's left to do? Alot. Patch up windows, install anti-virus, install firewall, install web browser firefox, install drivers for the wireless keyboard & mouse, install the games I want to play, copy contents from my old PATA HDDs to one of the two larger drives, index all the data, review the indexed data and re-organise, verify the files against files already burnt to DVD, install CD/DVD burning software and most importantly install winamp 2.81. Yes, 2.81 because anything newer looks crap and is bloated. There is probably more to do but right now I can't think of it.

I read an article today that baffled me, as a general consumer of PC goods. As a general consumer I use a PC for various tasks ranging from video and audio editing and encoding, playback of music and films, web browsing and gaming. In reference to gaming that is mainly GPU (graphics card) limited, generally speaking the more expensive the card the more oomph it has...the current king is the AMD ATi Radeon HD4870X2 and that costs between £330 and £400! Expensive. Even more so as you can add two together in what is known as Crossfire setup. In reference to most other jobs a PC does that is driven by the CPU (the brains of the PC as it were). My old setup reached its limits when tasked to decode h.264 encoded 1080p material; at times it stuttered and lagged. So I upgraded my PC (actually almost built a new machine) and this is the one that has been giving me hassles. Anyhow going back to the article I mentioned, it's about the upcoming CPUs being released by Intel at the end of this year. Take a look at the article for yourself here, http://www.hexus.net/trk/rt.php?item=15015&company=198. I cannot for the life of me fathom why I would need a CPU THAT powerful. I barely make use of the potential sitting in the Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 I have in my current machine. Technology is moving at a rate of knots far greater than what is needed by the general consumer, or at least that is how I feel. This is why the article baffles me. Unless I am going to run benchmarks all day to brag about how great and fast my pc is there is little other reason why I need something with that much computational power. Remember I said games are reliant on the GPU which leaves your run of the mill jobs to the CPU. You certainly need something powerful if you are into video editing, audio sampling/mixing etc. but those are all specialist stuff that you can buy external parts to do those specific jobs (and do the job better to boot). I'm sitting here thinking, "Why Intel, why?". Simple answer I suppose is that there is a market for it and it just stamps down their authority on the ailing AMD offerings.

Rolling back on to the subject of my PC...it'll be a lottery to see how long it lasts in a stable condition.

I am thankful that Paul decided to visit the weekend just gone after flying back from Bahrain. His company has been most welcome and appreciated by me. Gaming, chatting, hanging out; the weekend flew by and reminds me how well we get on ever since university. It's a shame his job takes him all over the world but probably a good thing as we can then spend hours chatting about events. Hoping I can persuade him to goto Japan with myself and Tee; it'll be a fantastic trip. \\(^_^)// We should plan to do stuff for this coming weekend; after all he will be flying off to his next job soon after that.

Time to sign off for now, enough of wasting company time by writing on here (well in notepad in preparation for upload at lunchtime).

From Here to Eternity (of troubleshooting)

2008-08-13T12:40:00.002Z

I got the news back from vendor. The CPU, RAM and Motherboard all passed memory test together, running overnight for over 103 passes. 103!!! So that leaves me with a "no fault found" testing fee and shpping fee to get the parts back; which I've done. The only component left in the system happens to be the heaviest, the PSU or Power Supply Unit. It would cost me far too much to ship that to vendor on the slim chance it is causing the memory issues I have with the build, especially if that is found as "no fault found" as then the total expenditure would total the cost of a replacement PSU!!!
The parts are planned for return to me by Thursday 14th so it'll be a busy night for me building a ghetto PC. Cardboard box, minimalistic peripherals installed (CPU, RAM, GFX, Mobo and an optical drive) and start to locate where I, at home, am going wrong.

Oh good news! The laptop I ordered is STILL in Pre-Production stage. Yay. Not.

So I have absolutely NOTHING to show for at home which is REALLY depressing.

Work has been grinding me down lately too. We got a boss who seems determined to bring the place to a grinding halt or bring the company to failure. Our QAEs are interested in finding as many problems (no matter how small) as possible and not addressing the larger issues. At least that is how I see things. So now disillusioned and un-motivated, I spend my days surfing the net in between pushing buttons into our IT system which at the end of the day won't help us one bit as there are people in commanding position who always circumnavigate their way around it which leaves the department I work in exposed and...amazingly enough...it's OUR fault.

On a much brighter note, with so much spare time I bought an external HDD enclosure for my internal HDDs to sit in so I can use them as external HDDs. This means I could rescue the fictional stories I started and continue while I am bored at work. I'll start a new blog either one for each story or just one as the author and add hyperlinks to where the fictional writings can be downloaded and read.

Also my mate Paul is visiting the UK for two weeks! \(^^)/ Banzai! \(^^)/ It's a shame his wife isn't arriving too (she's going to Singapore). His two week visit isn't a holiday though, it's a transition period for him to sort his stuff in the UK before contracting elsewhere in the world so no idea how much spare time he'll have for farting around.

For those of you who been patient enough to stick around the months of zero entries and reading, Arigatou Gozaimasu.

m(-_-)m

Never Ending Weekends (in the bad sense)

2008-08-11T15:49:00.000Z

I have been having problems with my home PC lately. Infact the problems have been there since the day of the build (November 2007); I attributed that to software configuration as past history with me has always shown Windows can be fussy over certain drivers (or rather the 3rd party drivers are fussy with being incorporated into Windows). So roll on the start of July 2008 and after months of head scratching I asked for some help and someone suggested to start hardware fault diagnostic. sure enough, the first tests showed I have bad RAM. As the parts are still under purchase warranty from the vendor, I routed it back. Initially it tested "No Fault Found"; the vendor could get the parts to install Vista 64 Ultimate Edition, run Prime95 for a few hours successfully and had no problems along the way. Being the very nice vendor they are, I asked them to perform a specific RAM testing utility called "Memtest86+". They tested and found the motherboard to be faulty and they replaced it free of charge. I recieved it back and slaved the parts together. I ran the RAM testing utility and low and behold...it failed. Once more I routed the parts back to the vendor, this time only the motherboard and RAM. The vendor ran the same memory testing utlity and it passed.

Again, being the nice vendor they are they extended the returns/testing to now include the CPU, which I shipped on the 8th August. I hope they recieve it today and test sometime soon. If this passes with No Fault Found then I have no idea WHAT is causing the memory errors at home.

For someone like me who "lives" on the internet, 6 weekends WITHOUT a PC is driving me crazy. Each weekend seems to be a never ending story of boredom. I have occupied myself with a few DVDs, Mangas and figurines but it only goes so far. I miss playing my games, miss chatting to people online (it doesn't cost a penny (with exception to the ISP monthly charges) to talk to friends versus calling them) and I miss being able to fiddle with the PC.

Time without a PC has made me dig through some old boxes and found a few DVDs. This was after I spent hours watching Transformers Season 3 and Season 4 and Transformers Godmasters series. In the old box I found The Hole, Donnie Darko and Irresponsible Captain Tylor. I've not re-watched the two movies yet but I have started watching Tylor again. I love that series; probably because the Captain is a fair representation of me, ie I want the easy life. The centre of why I really like Irresponsible Captain Tylor is that you initially wonder if he is a complete idiot or military genious and if the former...what amazing dumb luck he has! As I re-watch the series, you can also take it that what Tylor does and gets in return is almost Karma like. He treats people (even the human's AI systems and the enemy Raalgon commanders/assassins etc.) the same nice way, even if it is not protocol or following regulations.Best of all, he is true to himself, so yes, he can be quite lecherous which adds to the comedy factor; after all he is a Captain of a Destroyer class ship, the Soyokaze.

Tylor won't suit to everyone's taste, it is light hearted and cheesey and those looking for some scf-fi drama won't find it here (aka Macross / Gundam).

Anyhow, that won't resolve the issue of no internet at home.

I've managed to finish the 8 volumes I purchased of School Rumble. That has only spurred me to want to re-watch the series (but I can't without the PC!!!;_;). What I am disappointed in is that Amazon sold me a couple of American books and not the official UK books. I'll have to dig around to see if I can find the officual UK books. I'm not too fussed about keeping the US books, I can use them for travel/lending and can get beat up. The other Manga I have been reading is "Negima!". Not fantastic reading but I enjoy it although the huge character list can get confusing when trying to discern who is who (30+ main characters...a few who look similar!). That and with a few large story arcs, it's not quite something you can drop and pick up unless you have quite a good memory. I still got another 4 volumes of that to go (books 11 to 14 I think) so that'll entertain me for one solid night or several if I space it out.

Where does that leave me now? At current rate, the laptop I purchased won't be delivered for upto 2 weeks, so that is another 2 weekends of boredom. What will happen with my parts at vendor under returns testing, I hope they can emulate the problem I have. If not...I'll keep the discussion open however I may have to resign to the fact I am doing something wrong at home.

More boring weekends, here we come.

;_; Boo Hoo ;_;

Introducing the new Combatants...

2008-08-05T12:19:00.005Z

...hailing from the land of Lucky Star!

It's arrived...it's all arrived!!!!!! Well it arrived yesterday and only getting round to blogging it now.

In total we have 11 Nendoroids from Lucky Star (the 11th being the secret Minoru)as well as 2 limited edition multimedia packs of Konata and Kagami WITH a bonus item in the parcel. Yes, the guys at www.neonmartian.com gave me a freebie as well as arranging a bulk buy of all the above parts. Top notch service from query, to purchase to delivery!

Let the pictures commence!

First off here are some pictures of the as of yet unopened multimedia packs (I am still debating if I ever open these limited edition boxes).

Front:

Right side (or left if looking at the above picture):

Back:

Left side (or right side, relative to the front picture):

Next is the Lucky Star Petite Nendoroids!

The box they all came in:

The box in display mode:

Ten of the eleven figurines out of the box (I was so excited I build Minoru before taking the picture):

All eleven assembled and sat on top of my (empty) PC case:
Part A:

Part B:

Also in the parcel was a bonus item...

What is this I wonder...?

Inside was this:

An A5 cel portrait from Haruhi Suzumiya. Fantastic bonus.

Stay tuned for Battle Royale as Ichigo and friends (from bleach), take on the YF21 (Macross Plus), Haruhi Suzumiya and Lucky Star! Who will win??!

Introducing...The Army...

OMG - What have I done???!!

2008-07-31T18:43:00.003Z

I just odered a bunch of Lucky Star items...totalling £105 with P&P...I have lost it....

DAMN YOU LONDON FILM AND COMIC CONVENTION!!!! I AM NOW ADDICTED BECAUSE OF YOU!!!!

Still, more toys to play with and perhaps a very weird and funny (I hope) story involving Macross Plus, Haruhi, Lucky Star, Bleach AND Jezza the rockplant!

I will update as soon as they arrive...

:dribble: :drool:

It's Playtime!!!!

2008-07-23T09:11:00.006Z

:dribble: :drool:

New stuff to play with...!!! I was tempted to leave the YF21 in it's box FOREVER but the urge to play was too great :( I will have to look and buy another one for keeps.

This is the first pose I attempted with the YF21 with the added armour...it's suppose to look like he is bracing himself for impact after trying to slow down very quickly.

This pose of the YF21 follows on from above and is of the YF21 after stopping, floating in the air assessing his surroundings.

Then I decided to play with Haruhi...I had to stick her in the fridge to get all the temps down so her outfit is all black. My room wasn't below 16 degC so she was always going to be that mish-mash of colours when I first assembled her. So here she is in all her glory.

With Haruhi photgraphed in "cold" mode, I went back to my YF21, stripped him of his additional armour and started to try and make an action pose!!! Here he is diving to his right, using the shield on his left arm as protection while attempting to shoot his enemy!!! (Probably the YF19 or Ghost X-9)

And just to show you guys what Haruhi looks like with her temperature colour changing outfit...remember she starts off all black, well it is now spot the difference time! I couldn't be bothered to try and do all the segments, really difficult as my room is not above 30 degC!!! Her legs do change from stocking colour to skin colour but again, too lazy to keep that part warm (plus I looked like a weirdo rubbing my hands on her body).

Notice how the YF21 was curious and was taking a peek? LoL! (Actually forgot to move him out of the shot.)

Last but not least a few fun shots :) More will follow and maybe even a little story...!

That's all for now folks!

Oh! So this is what a convention is like...! LFCC 2008

2008-07-21T12:25:00.009Z

On the 19th July 2008 I attended my very first convention, the London Film and Comic Convention. OK, so not quite hardcore anime style BUT it was awesome! The cosplay, the stars, the collectables...if I won the lottery, a few thousand pounds would have EASILY been consumed there.

There are photos from the day none of which feature me but I need to grab those off the Gray Spawn.

So I hear you crying out, what did I buy with my butt load (read pitiful) amount of money?

Well I could write some fancy stuff but screw that! I am quite pants at this blog stuff so the pictures will all be links :P Sorry for no preview!!!

Temp colour changing Haruhi Suzumiya

Macross Plus YF21 poseable figure

The Hunter graphic novel

Back of the Hunter graphic novels with signatures by the script writer and artists

A free signed drawing by the artist who did Hunter AND a limited edition graphic novel of Spike (from Buffy)

Transformers graphic novels, one of which has been signed by the artist (along with an additional comment)

A limited edition printed copy (number 25 out of 100) of Jay and Silent Bob WITH an autograph by Jason Mews, added when I met Jason Mews.

A signed photo of Claudia Black

I also met her and had a photo taken with her.

I also got a photo with Jason Mews

David Anders signature and comment after I met him post his Heroes talk. The quote is actually what he said during his Heroes talk answering the question, "Why is Adam a tw*t?"

That is all for now...regrettably I could not find all the Lucky Star characters to buy in one set.

Oh I also got a FMA T-shirt too but no real point posting that up as I'll be wearing that alot!!! ;)

BANKAI!!!!!

2008-01-22T18:28:00.000Z

You've all been waiting for this moment...

The moment of seeing Ichigo and co in school outfits with bonus of Grimmjow, the Arrancar!

Here they are, all lined up waiting to be unpacked and assembled!

Ichigo and Rukia in both their school outfits and in Shinigami outfits, ready to take down some Hollows :D Bonus of (the rather ghEy) Kon.

Next up we have Captain Hitsugaya (and the cute Ririn), the HUUUUUUUGE boobied Vice (how very apt) Captain Mastumoto *drool* and Abarai Renji all in school outfits with Grimmjow Jaegerjaques (uber evil Espada no. 6) in tow. All adorning my 'desktop'.

This has all been courtesy of the LOVELY Agnes (we lubs j00 lots and lots) and her hubby (and mah bestest best friend) Paul.

Thank you and er...goodnight! Oyasumi na sai!

Bad Credit, Bad News Day

2008-01-22T17:51:00.000Z

Do people remember the "Sick Inducing Day" Post?

Well today is the day that the 80 odd people find out what is happening. So far 40 people have been made redundant with only a few (about 5 people) to go have their final interview to see if they stay or go. So far it is less than the original planned 53...

Was very interesting to see who came to say goodbye...hardly anyone which speaks volumes about the types of character they truely are.

On another note the credit card thing...well called up to confirm if the person who called last night really was from the credit card company...what is it with companies sticking call centres in the middle of another country whereby English is like a 2nd or 3rd language??!! THe toughest part was trying to get them to confirm IF the person who called was from the credit card company. Sheesh...the operator was asking if I wanted the card UNBLOCKED!!! I was like, "NO YOU IDIOT!!!!! It was blocked BECAUSE security HAS BEEN BREACHED!!!!". Nearly screamed that at the operator. Anyhow, turns out the card really is blocked and something SHOULD be happening in the background. Just means I am penniless for the rest of the month.

What a great start to the year...

2008-01-21T20:00:00.000Z

So here I am sitting here waiting for replacement tyres to arrive, playing NWN2 happily away and then "BOOM!" I get a phone call from the credit card company.

My card has been cloned.

Whoever they were, they were trying to max out the card, buying £1000+ worth of jewellry and other assorted goods.

Leave me the hell alone. I'm pi$$ poor as it is WITHOUT the need of the credit card being cloned.

So really glad the credit card company were on the ball and called me up else I would have been in deep sh!t when the next statement arrives.

Still leaves me feeling very vulnerable when I thought I was playing it pretty safe. Guess if people WANT to get the information about you, they can. Who knows HOW many scanners there are running out there at the moment. Why can't I just get paid in cash, I can shove it under my bed and spend it when I need it. Forget all this banking crap with credit cards.

Ahh but without credit history you can't get stuff like mortgages and loans...sometimes I hate money.

So...already this year...got accused of something I didn't do (seriously long story that is just truly pathetic) and now my card(s) get cloned.

Talk about being left feeling exposed.

On a happier note, Paul and Aggy sent me a set of Bleach toys to go with the other Bleach toy they got me the previous year. Paul and Aggy are just brilliant friends :)
Love them to bits. They toys that is!!!! (and also Paul and Aggy for being really thoughtful)

I'll slap some pictures up whenever I recover from being beaten up with a fraudelent credit card. :(

Should go make dinner but just not hungry right now...

Stuck in the middle...of work??!

2008-01-15T18:50:00.000Z

So here I am, it's nearly 7pm, 11 hours at work. I can't go home as I didn't drive in. I'm too stingy to pay for a taxi home and there is no public transport where I am.

AAARRGGHHHH!!!!!

So useless rant begins...

I can't believe how utterly crap my driving style is. I seem to have eaten through yet ANOTHER set of rear tyres!!! I would take a picture only I'm too bone idle lazy to do it.

I should learn to STOP DRIVING ON THE THROTTLE!!! Ack! No matter how much I tell myself, I always end up driving through corners on the throttle instead of letting the car *coast* along.

So with car having no tyre tread on the rears, I have ordered today new tyres. £140 for 2...plus fitting!

Hmm...I'm blogging here at work and er...I think my chauffeur has already gone home. Without me. How am I suppose to get home now? Hmm time to go bug the Finance guy I share a house with. That'll be fun...going home at like 10pm!

But I am NOT paying for a taxi...no way. Definitely not. I'm way too stingy for that.

But I'm missing out on all these hours playing NWN2:MotB.

What to do...??!!

Oh, if readers remember, I have a plant called Jezza. Jezza is growing to be a fine rock plant. He be SOOO cool. I need to make another section to the story...

Hmm spent time making story or play game...argh! Choices, choices...or I could go watch anime...just got Clannad ep 9 and 10 in semi hi-def...oh and there is Gundam 00 which is in 720p resolution...mmm...Gundam goodness!!!

Blah, gonna go look for a way to get home for free now...lets see if I get any luck...

*crud I need to poop*

Sick Inducing Day

2007-12-04T20:54:00.000Z

Have you ever gone to work and been told something that really makes your guts go crazy and you feel like you want to puke? Just had one of those days.

Let me paint the background: Where I work we have had a fairly good time as we had a partner supporting us in terms of work being shop loaded on a constant basis, constant cash flow coming in which meant we could expand. About 14 months ago our working partner company started to fall apart (not due to their fault, more of a political strangle) and eventually ceased trading a few months back.

In those 14 months our company has survived by scrapping together the available work loads here and there. Remember that during the good times we expanded...and expanded in a BIG way so when our 'partner' dropped off the face of the earth we were left with a big cash flow problem.

Recently there had been a few hush'hush meetings with the MD, HR and Managers (one at a time).

So roll forwards to today. Just like any other working day, people turned up, some did work, others sat there twiddling their thumbs.

At 12:30pm, we were all summoned to the main shop floor, an audience with the MD, Deupty MD and HR Director.

We all knew the company has been struggling for a long time now with the sudden decrease in cashflow.

It was announced there would be 52 redundancies and that the affected people would be called into a personal consultation to discuss about why they were chosen etc.

To put it in scale, 52 redundancies equates to 31% of the current work force that is employed right now. My heart sunk...was I out of a job? What would I do if I was affected? The gravity of it all hit me hard. For the next two hours I contemplated the chances of being fired.

By the end of the working day, all people affected had been seen and somehow our department survived this cull...at least for now. The feeling of dread from losing what could be a secure job to a very uncertain future was colossal. I couldn't even eat lunch.

So here I am now, a survivor of the first round of culling and feeling sympathy for all those who have been selected to go. Some choices I could understand, others baffled me. From Managers through to the lowest employee were not safe in the cull. Was so surprised at some of the people who had been called up.

Today I now know how small the thread of employment is where I work. Financially unstable, over staffed and over sized, we were either bound to go bankrupt or drastically downsize. It turns out to be the latter.

It's been a harsh old day today. We will see what tomorrow brings.

PS I was sure I was one of the 52 as recently I was the root cause of costing the company approximately $100,000. Perhaps I should just go stack shelves at a supermarket. Easy life.

Why is goodbye the hardest thing to do?

2007-10-04T21:12:00.000Z

Watching Scrubs (season 6 episode 15) made me reflect on the past year floating between the moments my dad was there and when he was gone.

Deep down I had always hoped that he would pull through by some miracle. I never had the chance to actually say goodbye while his was still hanging in there. I could always chalk it up to the fact that the whole event, from healthy man to passing away, was quick; less than 3 weeks. However the truth is I was never ready to accept reality.

Oddly enough, it took a TV show to really drill home to me the stark truth about myself. I was never ready to let go of my dad.

This is the man, my father, about 3 and a half years ago holding his grandson (my sister's first born), Benjamin.

May he rest in peace.

Big Brother SUCKS!

2007-10-01T22:21:00.000Z

OK, so I got bored of the "Big Brother" style take on my new plant, so here is just a stupid story...enjoy!

The Jap Girls were out for a wonder, enjoying the cool September evening.

They spotted something strange in the distance...just what was it?

As they got closer, the started to investigate...

"Hmm it's large, round and a terracotta colour. Could there be something inside?" one of them questions. "Perhaps there is, we should climb in and look!" said another.

As they peeked over the edge, they saw something unbelievable strange...
"Is it a rock?" asked one of them. "No, it looks like a plant with the green colouring with grey speckles." replied the other. "It really looks like a living splitting rock, I think they are called, 'pleiospilos nelii' or 'split rock'" replied the third one. The other two gasped and shouted, "YOU'RE NOT ONE OF US!!!! YOU'RE TOO SMART!!!"

...and so ends the first chapter of "The life and times of Jezza, the Split Rock"

P.S Sorry for the crap quality pictures...my phone sucks major ballz. :(

Day 1 in the life of Pleiospilos Nelii

2007-09-26T20:58:00.000Z

*Start mancunian accent - Big Brother Styleeee*
Day One in the Sleepy residence. Today we have a new guest in the house.

It has no name as of yet, but goes by the temporary name of "Jezza", also known as pleiospilos nelii or in our native language, "Split Rock".

An interesting addition to the household, lets see how pleiospilos nelii adapts to life in the Sleepy house.

Schlow day...

2007-06-26T17:52:00.000Z

Today, not much to report on really.

Felt like a right twonk today after people were asking me "How did it go last night?".

Wish it would just all go away.

So what can I talk about tonight....hmmm.

Never let women run a forum. Talk about bitchin' and arguing!!!! In a tragic way it is funny. I get the impression because the girls are similar in attitudes (but differeing tastes) you get this butting of heads and then things start to trickle down into these fights. I vote they resolve their issues mud wrestling...nekkid. I'd pay to watch that, lol!

Anything to report from work? Not really.

Spent today trying to ignore someone and failed twice as I spoke to them in the kitchen. I need to be more resolute. There is always tomorrow to try...the idea is to ignore them for the rest of this week and then perhaps the whole of next week and see what happens. I think it's an interesting experiment.

Oh just quickly cleaned the house as I been told that the Deputy MD (my house mate) is inviting his daughter to work as a temp where we do and that she will be staying here...a bachelor pad, she'll go nuts...especially as my pc never goes off and makes a nice little hum...and speaking of hum....a few places in the house does hum some, if you get my meaning!!!! lol! Hopefully she'll clean the house up for us! Mwuahahahahaaa!!!

Ahh well, I'm hungry...think I'll make some bacon and er....whatever else I find in the fridge!

Crappy crappy crappy day...

2007-06-25T17:04:00.000Z

Ahh how depressing was today...

Work was filled with general pap that I really couldn't be arsed to deal with.

Spent the day with a stinking headache due to being in the rain all day yesterday.

To top it all off, I had spent a few days planning a little pub grub do for a work colleagues "un-birthday" (a way of celebrating their birthday as they were born on dec 25th).

So round 4pm rolls and suddenly EVERYONE backs out cancelling the whole thing....utterly CRAP!!! This is THE LAST TIME I EVER ARRANGE ANYTHING!!!! I swear people at work just don't like me. It's not paranoia, it's the truth. This is my 4th or 5th attempt now at a work related social gathering and just been blown out the water. Utterly crap. I am demoralised and p*ssed off.

Ahh the other thing doing my head in is trying to work out women but I think I'll give up and actually marry my car instead. I get more joy out of that then trying to win over a woman.

"Keep on Rollin' baby" as Limp Bizkit would say....

Wasted Day....

2007-06-21T17:13:00.000Z

Oh what a fantastic day at work I just had.

Walk in at 7:50am, 10 minutes before I officially start, so for once I'm not late!!! If you haven't guessed I turn up to work late 99.9% of the time. I'm such a lazy git. lol.

Anyhow, I walk in at 7:50am, turn on my PC, wait a good 10 minutes for it to boot up properly and open our email client (as each day passes my machine continually gets slower) and then I start reading through emails....a few of which are from one of the senior managers. One email really got my attention and as i read in depth, I knew the day was going to be bad.

It turns out we missed removing an item (that's used when checking/repairing the engine) and this item actually prevents proper function of the engine. Suffice to say it is our fault. Which then led onto the day being spend with various people doing various reports so our Quality team can do a root cause analysis and corrective actions to prevent this from happening again.

I can tell you EXACTLY why it happened. Carelessness and irresponsibility.

Of course part of the corrective action for QA will always be...more paper work.

More paper work achieves very little other than the ability to point the finger of blame when an item is missed but has been signed off as completed. What needs to be changed is the culture/behaviour of people. That'll never happen with paper work and never with training, most of the shop guys fall asleep with their eyes open during lessons, I know I've taught lessons.

I'm a megalomaniac so if i was in charge, I'd fire people just to sh*t them up.

Bleh, and this sordid saga won't end till the meeting on Monday and then probably a following meeting 2 weeks after that. Wasting my life away in dumb meetings...

Another prose...

2007-06-19T20:43:00.001Z

I've decided to try and write something more upbeat...I ended up with something that's tragically romantic I feel. So here it is, something trying to be happier. It's called "Third Sight".

Third Sight:
The first
Was when you walked in through those doors

The first
Filled me with joy

The first
Saddened me with reality

The second
Was when you started to open up to me

The second
Filled me with companionship

The second
Saddened me with the yearning for more

The third
Was when you finally revealed the difficult life you lead

The third
Filled me with awe

The third
Saddened me with loneliness as I pushed you away

You're more than I deserve
You're more than I ever desired
You're more than a person than I could ever be

I look inward to see where I went wrong
I look inward to see if I can truly be strong
I look inward to see the truth

The first sight
Has filled me with passion

The second sight
Has filled me with completeness

The third sight
Has filled me with deep respect for you

I could never measure up to you
I could never catch up to you
I could never gain your attention

I will always be standing by your side
I will always be there for you
I will always hold you close to my soul

Just for a moment
Let me share your life

Let me share my third sight with you

Work Place Bullying

2007-06-19T17:49:00.000Z

Recent events have led up to what could be one big "ka-boom" where I work.

There has been a case of bullying within our work place, to the extent that the woman involved can't even do her job properly. The attacks are indirect and personal. Infact, there have been instances of direct attacks too.

What drives people to do this? It's destroying one person's soul and making life so uncomfortable, where do people get the kicks from this?

You're all probably wondering how this has all started.

Simple.

The two instigators were building their own little empire within the company. This lady just commented about how her job scope does NOT cover what is being palmed off to her. Regardless, they continued to palm their work off onto her. Another occasion, she was ensuring the job she started (from her previous role) was completed properly and found that even though all the new bits are in place, no security was taken. She questioned why they were not locked, not in a patronising or derogatory way. You maybe thinking she's being nosey and being a trouble maker however one of these two is supposedly a manager. Now as a manager surely you should ensure stuff is locked away when required, there is sufficient staff to cover the jobs required, the jobs are prioritised and that there is plenty of work for everyone to get on with? Nope this manager loves just being best pals with everyone, so little in the way of work gets done. People have temporarily worked in this section and all left with the same comment of how little work is done. That and how any written/verbal disciplanary action taken is just laughed off and joked over.

The same two have also bullied another employee however this person has rode through the storm and has come out a stronger person for it.

No-one should be subjected to such behaviour.

Currently it is in the hands of senior management and is being taken VERY seriously however it maybe too little too late. I know if I was in her shoes, I'd already have another job prospect lined up.

Utter crud.

Lyricalist

2007-06-18T18:20:00.000Z

Well I been in a strange mood lately. Been writing just well...poetry...if you can call it that!!! LoL! Just helps me get things out in the open. :)

Paranoia was something written the same day as I blogged, same as this one now. Paranoia was something I needed to get out as it was playing on my mind during a recent road trip.

I'm not any good at writing stuff so you'll need to put up with it until my little phase is over.

Latest creation...

Lost:
I'm lost again
Waiting on edge

Anything is better than this eerie silence

I need to hear the echo
That I reached out far enough
Enough to reach your senses.

I'm lost again
Creeping closer to my limit

Anything is better than this feeling

Of destitute loneliness
Never reaching beyond
beyond your dark shadow

I'm lost again
Tearing myself apart

Anything is better than this self consuming pain

Being crushed beneath
The flow of tears
Shed from my sore eyes

I'm lost again
Always waiting

Anything is better than this moment in time that lasts an eternity

Waiting for the day
the day that I can finally hear
Hear your voice

I'm lost again
Waiting on edge

For an answer

Paranoia

2007-06-17T21:06:00.000Z

My fear is losing you,
Not ever knowing your touch
Your smell
Your kindness
Your laughter
Your companionship

My fear is pushing you away,
I'm over enthusiastic,
I'm impatient
I'm jealous
Of all the time I cannot spent with you

My fear is waiting too long,
watching as your love life blossoms
As I'm waiting in the dark

My fear is being alone

You're more than I deserve, but I still want you for myself

Oh the pictures..right!!!

2007-06-14T21:49:00.000Z

Yes well, finally got round to uploading the pictures from the small MX% meet...

We shared the car park with these nifty little things called "Tigers" :)

Here are some MX5s that turned up...

Myself and the car next to me are the only regulars so we mamanged to attract 3 new cars/6 people to this gathering :) Not bad considering the rest of the regulars are at a classic car show that day too!

Oh and in one of the cars, look what we found in the boot!!!

Roll on next month, I'm sure we will pack the car park out with the regulars! :) :) :)

Tis that time of the month again....

2007-06-12T22:22:00.001Z

...no not that ya dirty pervs!!!

It's the second tuesday of a new month which means...The Fenland Fives meet up at the pub for a good social! Actually most of them had gone off to some (gay) classic car show (I'm not one for amiring old wrecks! LoL!) so there was me and one other regular who welcomed in 3 new cars and 6 new people to the local social :) Considering that these newbies appeared from word of mouth, I think it's done quite well!

I could put up pictures only it's late and I'm too bone idle lazy (you should all know that by now).

Ahh my quest to conquer a new love has been going at an amazing speed of 0mph. lol. Still stuck where I was before and at that difficult crossroads of keeping it as friends or keep on slightly nudging, reminding her I'm still here waiting...My biggest fear is waiting in the background and some greasy monkey comes swooping in and stealing the prize right before my eyes. Guess if that ever happens, it wasn't meant to be. Maybe I'm suppose to grow old alone in the world. Who knows.

I been getting really bored of forums lately, I used to love them and post on a few quite regularly, but lately I been so sick and tired of them that I really can't be bothered to even view the forums anymore. It's no longer fun.

Ahh i found something utterly hilarious on youtube last night...

Awesomly funny shizzle!

Oh and here is the original...

Outsider

2007-06-11T07:56:00.000Z

Quick entry, while I'm at work (I believe the internet police are on vacation), I've come to the conclusion that I am an outsider at work. Following a recent charity event some of the other employees went on, I thought I'd be nice and ak how it went...in true outsider fashion, they kept the answer short and sweet...which I thought, "Fair enough, maybe there isn't much to say" but they are all having long conversations about it.

Outsider, yes I am. I shall just build my little cubicle in the open plan office and lurk. Socialise...? Well I won't even try.

It's been awhile

2007-06-10T21:39:00.000Z

I'm such a lazy git, couldn't be bothered to blog about the latest happenings.

1. The annoying git who fails to work has left and rejoined his old employment...protecting the country through one of the governmental...oh sod it, he's in the RAF now. I no longer care anymore about being non-descriptive about him.

2, The company I'm working for has been going through a tough period and even worse is that the Big Boss is introducing a new capability...oh and in the group of companies, loads of people are resigning. Some were idiots who really should never have been employed, others just got fed up and left. Don't blame the latter people though.

3. The house is not for sale, finally got confirmation and EVENTUALLY after the correct house was sold, did they move the sign. Bunch of tits.

4. I been sniffing around this very nice woman, only it's all one way traffic. Debating if I should bother continuing the pursuit or cutting my losses and move on.

My blog sucks as I have no idea how to put pictures up, well words that link to snapshots or pictures or videos like how you see on Wifey and Tachi-Diary.

I ordered a new rear bumper/spoiler for the car and a Blitz BOV! Mmm slowly transforming to something meaner, however really having second thoughts about the whole car. Would love to keep it but would also love to just get out of this country. I'm getting very disillusioned that it's sooooo depressing.

Ah and also been thinking of getting another car just to stick a massive sound system in. I've been influenced by Steve Meade and his Chevy Tahoe. If you got no idea who this guy is, just look for Steve Meade on Youtube, you can see his car and what it does on there.

Task in hand...what it's for sale??!

2007-04-25T20:40:00.000Z

Today was my day of revenge for the person mentioned in my previous entry....

I managed to get them to do a rather menial tedious task which kept them away from their desk and their pc for most of the day! LoL!!!

However it did mean that the times they were by the PC was once again occupied with...that's right..the web...! Still, I will have that word with our manager soon...just today was busy...

Speaking of work...man what a complete sh!tty day that was. It's never good when most of the day was filled with bad news and general f*ck ups. Everything was 'swings and roundabouts'...most of the day was spent wasting energy...

So work was crappy and stressed me out, even though I got the web obsessed person doing a tedious task. Ahh speaking of the job I tasked them with...they did half a job again and actually broke a procedure too. naughty naughty. Then they disappeared for a while...really should have kept an eye on them...but ahh well, I have my own work to do.

Anyway, work day ended, sorted a few things out...drive home...someone in another car waved at me as we passed (no idea who the hell it was but oh well)...park the car in the garage to find...a For Sale Sign nailed to the house.

No-one has told me that the landlady was selling the house and I come home to THAT!

Who the hell could have been in the house??!! How many people have viewed it without my knowledge??! Outrageous and utterly disgusting attitude from the landlady.

Really p!ssed off over that.

Be a few phone calls tomorrow (as estate agents are closed at 6pm!)!!

A well cheesed off, angry, mentallistic Sleepy! AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!

Observational tictacs

2007-04-24T17:31:00.000Z

Today I decided to watch what my fellow colleagues get up to during the day. Infact i was really watching just one particular person.

We've (our department) has been warned for the abuse of the internet while at work (yes I was also part of the guilty party) and susequently I've cleaned up my act.

However during my little observational day today, the amount of times I saw one particular person on the internet, using it for personal and not work was not very surprising. Their attitude has not changed.

It really got on my tits that this one bad apple could cause us to loose or have VERY restricted net access. At the moment I enjoy having almost complete freedom of the net during break and lunch.

It's almost as if they are addicted to the net and can't do without it.

It's so sad really, can they not concentrate for more than 5 minutes without having to read the latest bit of gossip on the net??!

I'm an internet addict but I know how thin this line we are treading right now.

Do they not REALISE that their pc IS being watched?!?! It's an open plan office so it doesn't take a genious to go, "oh that's a web browser open, oh...it seems to be a non-work related website" and the managers are not stupid (to things like this).

To top it off, they fecked off early today and only when I reminded them they needed to fill out a form, did they do so. They were gonna leave early and abuse our manager's trust??! Our manager is a really nice guy and you could very easily take advantage of him, but what's they point in that? You should treat people how you would like to be treated.

...oh and to top it off, there is an audit currently running and our manager asked this particular person (same person as above) to move the archive files from one room to the next. Today I was asked to find a particular folder...which i found out was in the old archive room...which is suppose to be "non-accessable" as it's not "safe". Talk about only doing HALF A JOB!!!

I'm contemplating talking to HR or our manager over this, but I don't want to be seen as doing my manager's job.

Oh and the audit...well it's not going too well...sod's f*cking law is hey find ONE HOLE in the sodding system. It's a shambles. AARRGGGHHHH!!!!!

One cheesed off Sleepy.

Two butt holes better than one?!

2007-04-20T19:42:00.000Z

Well today was a fun day!

Morning passed by uneventfully, the usual lurking on forums while at work technique to kill the pain of Tooling Index update/revision and setting up a KPI (Key performance Indicator) for our relatively new software system. So lunch comes, lunch goes...and then the afternoon hits with a bang.

The QA manager who thinks he is "Mr. Big Boots" comes upto me, a lowly peon in the scheme of things, and starts asking me questions...he is doing an audit of closed work packs. Auditing closed work packs is a normal routine thing to happen but it's usually discussed with my manager not a lowly scum bag like me!

***NOTE: A workpack is a package of documents that informs the grease monkies what to do and sign for the job they have done. ***

Anyhow, he drags me off to the archive room to "point out" some mistakes. I'm like, "WTF?! That work was over two years ago, and we've done the corrective measures to stop stuff like that happening again.". Anyhow, didn't actually say that, just nodded away. He says he isn't having a go but it sure is, I can see someone telling me off in a politically safe manner, and that was it. One of the things he points out is that not all the header details are filled in. I tell him that it is almost impossible to get all the information required for the header from the customer in time for when we need to produce the workpack for the shop so the grease monkies can start the job and we can all get paid. Suffice to say, that didn't go down too well and he still wrote that up as a failure.

To top it all off, he asks me if I'm authorised to close work packs!!! IT'S PART OF MY JOB DESCRIPTION YOU MORON!!!! It's like asking the buyer from the materials department if they have been trained and authorised to buy things or to put it even simpler, a waiter if he/she is allowed to pick up plates!!! This guy just goes into panic mode EVERYTIME there is an audit and it's always on the day before!!

***NOTE: We have an external audit starting monday next week.***

Suffice to say, at the end of the day he is only a stand-in as our own quality team decided to up sticks for an easier life elsewhere. This guy actually works for our sister company...who are a right royal pain in the a$$.

The idea and concept of the site is great but it's run by some morons.

It's friday for f*cks sake, don't come ripping me a new butt hole in the afternoon.

Anyhow at the end of the audit, he tells me to "sign here" which I duly did as I couldn't give a crap.

Oh and to really top it off, there are some utterly awkward grease monkies on the shop floor. They are moving an engine into a transportation stand. These engines weigh around 5 tonnes. All of a sudden, one of them goes, "ahh it's clocking off time, I'm gonna go home even though the engine is only held in place by three pins to the stand." Where is your sense of common sense and duty?? OK so you won't get paid overtime for it but do YOU want to be responsible if someone believes the engine is pinned properly into the stand, moves it and suddenly "BANG!" it falls? Hell no, I wouldn't want that on my shoulder. Potentially destroying $1.5million worth of assets in one go. What an utter awkward moron.

I also found out today that some of the grease monkies came in over one weekend and did quite a few hours work expecting to be paid overtime for it all. They were told, "thanks for doing the work but we aren't paying you." They are up in arms now and looking for another job wanting to leave!!lol! Utter idiots. If no-one has given you authorisation to work the weekend on overtime then why come into work and try and force the company to pay??! That so made me laugh!

Ahh all of this in one action packed day!

Oh I also observed my colleague in the same department spend at least 50% of their time doing none work things. So I made him produce one document...which he still cocked up and...ahhh...to cut a long story short, we guided him to the answer. lol.
I know I'm not much better but at least I'm producing end results...

Sleepy

Knowing Me, Knowing Death

2007-04-11T19:14:00.000Z

I feel like I am carrying around an aura of misfortune. it all started off with the guy doing the repair on my car (small little drifting incident leading onto onto a dented rear quarter panel) and he had to cancel on me due to his grandmother passing away. Just recently the guy who I arranged to have my car polished/waxed had to cancel on me due to his best mate passing away in hospital. Now, a couple of days back, a guy who works in the sister company to where I work (and also lives two doors down) passed away.

Went to a local MX5 meet and bumped into someone I never wanted to see again. They are a little unhinged/insecure and wildly emotional...tis crazy and never wanted to see them again. Nutcase I'd call them. The meet at the pub was p*ss poor for me, utterly boring mindless chat. Scenary was excellent though, barmaid was gorgeous but my stupid brain went blank everytime I had an opportunity to strike up a conversation. *sigh* I'm such a loser! lol!

Anyhow, this meet got better right at the end of the night when 99% of the people f*cked off home. Me and two other blokes just talked about cars for the rest of the night...ahh petrol head talk is brilliant. To quote The New Guy, "Does that sound gay?". lol.

So in summary if you know me, then stop knowing me, I seem to have a Shinigami following me...is Death Note becoming reality!!??!???!!!

Sleepster the Shinigami

Slacking off

2007-04-09T15:13:00.000Z

yes that's right, I be slacking off on blogging...my brain is overloaded with two forums and this blog...I've had to abandon a third forum for now and the fourth, well I just stopped visiting! lol!

Anyhow this weekend went to the chavtastic show called Donny2007. Only went to watch the TA and EDC. Bladey didn't make the final 16 so he never was on track on Sunday :( Boo. Organisation of the day was just pants. Very badly organised. That and the whole dayjust had sound-offs going meant that no matter where you were you could hear bass. I quite like big bass noise but not when I want to watch some drifting action or seriously fast grip driving. The two just don't meld for me.

Best bit has to be the convoy up! Started off with Me and an EVO5 at one petrol station. Then we collected an R33 Skyline, r32 Skyline, MR2 (MK2), Civic (type R I think), and possibly another car (brain is on meltdown).

Stopped off at another petrol station and somehow collected another EVO!!

Then whilst on the Dual carriageway and all the way up the Motorway, load of scoobies and EVOs appeared out of nowhere and joined up with us (well sort of...lol).

That was the most mental convoy trip I've been in...soo much fun! None of it was planned bar the first petrol station stop which made it even more enjoyable!

Gray-boy came up for the weekend with his PS3...that thing is HUGe but really quite and the graphics even on a normal telly were superb! Anyhow, he couldn't be ar$ed to bring a camera along to Donny so we couldn't take any.

But back to the PS3, instead of playing with the new PS3 games we went back to play Tekken 3 (man it's been so long since we played that game!) and then onto Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. MGS3 is a brilliant game, just a shame we didn't get very far into it. I hope gray-boy doesn't progress any further with it...currently we need to go muller "The End", an MGS3 version of Sniperwolf from MGS..only much harder as he uses camouflage and supposedly he is hard to spot with the Thermal goggles...a challenge!

Disappointingly I have work tomorrow...I just got used to having 4 days with no worries regarding work..back to the grind stone!

Sleepy

Lazily addicted

2007-03-30T18:15:00.000Z

Hello my fellow reader (it can't be readers as I only know of wifey who views this!).

Nt much has really happened in between the last time I posted and now.

BUT much has been going on at work recently.

We've been living on abit of a shoestring since one of our biggest customers had a big tits up moment, therefore we had a HUGE tits up moment and I get the feeling we're just living day to day at the moment. Not encouraging.

What isn't also encouraging is one work colleague who a) turns up 10 minutes late b) turns his pc on and has a natter for the next 30 minutes to someone and then c) decides to do about 10 minutes worth of work. That got on my nerves!

Even worse today was when I was shown someone had access to view the payroll..of EVERYONE in the company when they shouldn't have access!!! I was like WTF?!?!? Pondering what to do, I am SOOO glad someone else in the office noticed and gave a nudge to HR about it.

Oh and best bit of news...I CAN'T GET MY FECKING VENTED BONNET EITHER FROM JAPAN!!!! ARRRGGGHHH!!!!!!

So yeah, I'm on a real bummer HOWEVER I just read an email about my oil analysis for the car and everything looks good :) w00t!

So from a completely screwed up Sleepy, I bid thee farewell for now.

Sleepster

I am one pssed off muthafcker!!!

2007-03-01T21:41:00.000Z

Someone at work has REALLY riled me today and am totally cheesed off with them.

It's a trivial matter of making drinks however it just really p*sses me off now. If I'm gonna make a drink I will offer other people HOWEVER I do NOT goto people and ask them to make ME a drink. If they offer to make me a drink, i'll either accept if I feel like a drink or decline. So what gives them the right to bug me about making a drink??!!

To top things off, they think it's harmless banter making fun of me and my car after the whole drinks debacle...really tried not to show how annoyed I was. Right now I think this person is an ar*ehole stuck so far up their ar*e that they see daylight again. C*cksucker.

Angry,

Sleepy

DOA Bounce-a-thon Bonnets!

2007-02-28T23:00:00.000Z

Mmm I have my eye on a new bonnet :D Lets just hope the price isn't scarey!!

Sexy isn't it?

Well I think so!

But moving on with the topic of sexy, just watched DOA movie and that is serious eye candy for any male or non-staight female!!! Story is pants, fighting scenes pants but those women make up for it! Jiggly-wiggly bouncing around, fantastic! I must thank Grayboy for buying DOA DVD! lol!

Forgot, I've seen Hot Fuzz twice now. Very funny film. Actually, first time I heard the title I thought it was going to be some hot lesbo porn flick! lol! Yarp! Highly recommend people going to see Hot Fuzz, it's a laugh and a half. Simon Pegg movie so if you've seen Shaun of the Dead you'll know the type of comedy it's going to be.

Hot Fuzz go see it, even if it isn't a hot lesbo porno flick!

There was other stuff I want to spout out but brain is failing me this cold, dark, dank unclear, strike all before me with frost fingered fear..sorry wandered off into a quote from Visionaries.

Anyhow, before I start quoting Dungeons & Dragons I bid thee fellow reader(s) goodnight!

Brain Fart,

Sleepy

Swings and roundabouts

2007-02-27T23:03:00.000Z

First some bad news...

The whole point of me prepping the car has fallen foul of..well..bad luck really :( It's not going ahead and I'm totally gutted.

now for some good news...

Filled up the car yesterday for... 74.9p per litre for 98 RON fuel!! Bargain or what??!?! usual price is 94.9p per litre! Hell yeah that is a good deal in the UK...just don't tell the till keeper that they have made a mistake :P

Ahh my big power membership pack came through on friday (who knows if I already wrote this out) so looking forward to sticking the vinyls on! yeah!!!

Oh and been window shopping for a new bonnet and rear bumper. The rear bumper is on order now and as far as I know I'm the only one in the UK to have it. Same goes with the bonnet too but that isn't on order yet as I'm waiting on prices.

Absolutely bugger all else to report upto this date as I been killing brain cells watching 80s cartoons.

For now, I'll leave you all and dribble in peace.

Sleepy

Case of the 'mun-days'

2007-02-19T21:48:00.000Z

Well today was productive...

for 80s cartoons!

Ahh relived some memories yesterday and spent more of today thinking where I can buy Visionaries, Dungeons and Dragons, Ulysses 31...found that amazon have them quite cheap! So off to buy them in a minute. Love them 80's cartoons.

So subsequently at work, i couldn't wait to get home and do some 80's cartoon research! Yeah!

OK, so Grayboy has pumped his car up with some more bhp...I need to save up and get my engine re-built and get 18 psi of boost and around 35obhp just to stay ahead of the power curve...as to me being able to drive it...err....yeah..well..lol!

Just watched his video of him in a test in 4th gear and it's bang on as fast as mine now. Eep!

Laziness rulez in my case and can't be bothered to go shopping at Tescos so poor old Morrigan is sitting out in the cold tonight instead of the warmth of the garage :(

Ahh I borrowed Dead or Alive DVD from Grayboy...mm...jiggly boobies! Well I haven't watched it yet, but if the film is anything like the games...bring it on!!!

I've also been thinking of making another AMV following from my efforts 3 or so years ago.

I present to thee...Gunslinger Girl to Aphex Twin - Come to Daddy!!

Also for those who have not seen, this is my car around Brands Hatch Indy Circuit.

Ciao mofos!

Sleepy

Clean boost!

2007-02-18T23:14:00.000Z

Well today was cool, got round to cleaning the car with Gray-boy's assistance (along with all his car cleaning gear) and so Morrigan is all nice and clean now! Yay!

What was also cool and surprising was the little test between the lightly modified MCS of Grayboy versus my tubbied 5. I knew the S/C would give it more low end grunt but was really surprised when my tubbied car hit boost and left the MCS standing. Personally I always thought it was going to be a catchup game with the MCS.

Anyhow, tis late and I will require to be at work tomorrow.

Ahh no sodding breakfast tomorrow...maybe I'll have time to buy something at the petrol station...

Anyhow, goodnight fellow reader(s) [plural in there just in case there is more than Wifey reading this!!!]

Sleepy

The Unclean One

2007-02-14T18:03:00.000Z

Someone pointed out to me today that my car is filthy. Infact he came across as though I have just commited the worst crime. Ever. However plans are in the pipeworks to clean her up this coming weekend.

Anyhow, today I spent the afternoon manager-less...which meant...well...I'm a hard working guy...honest. lol!

Ahh 'Wifey' left a message for me on msn wishing me a happy valentines day. How sweet. ^_^

Oh also spent today eyeing up Sarah's chocolates...mmm...so did quite a few other people! All day was girl "pow-wow" meeting as its Valentine's Day....why isn't there a western equivilent of White Day that happens in Japan? Bah!

My ears are cold from driving home with the roof down, in the dark. Refreshing though. Shame I wasn't driving anywhere far.

ARGH!!! Forgot to buy cereal for breakfast tomorrow! Car is in the garage and can't be bothered to get it out...oh well.

C'est La Vie

Sleepy

Forgot to add...

2007-02-13T17:49:00.000Z

When returning from my shopping trip last night had a nice little "drift" action going around the roundabout...unintentionally. it was fun but not ideal with other traffic around.

Also forgot to add in that last night had a 10 minute power cut....which really made me happy (!) ... I was halfway through watching episode two of "Mamoru-kun ni Megami no Shukufuku wo!" when *poof!* went the power. So there I was in pitch black trying to eat my dinner and looking for a source of light. Luckily my mobile phone was next to me and it just happens to have a light that you can turn on and off (but annoyingly only when you have the camera mode on).

What a site, eating dinner by mobile phone light.

Finally got round to calling up the dents/stone chips repair people for a quote on my car, so they'll be round to assess it friday afternoon. Am guessing it's gonna be expensive....but it'll be worth it...publicity and all ;) Maybe I can persuade him to give me a discount ;) or even sponsorship! LOL!

Anyhow, dinner calls...

Sleepy

Does every post have to have a title..??

2007-02-12T18:58:00.000Z

Well it's Monday... which means it's my weekly shopping night for food.

i've learnt a valuable lesson today, never let Wifey in charge of maintaining the blog site...as judged by my wishlist...which was said in jest but has now appeared for real. Oh well.

Anyhow, not much to tell for today. Am I suppose to post every day or just when I feel like it?

Oh my surname appears in Mai Otome, that is soo cool :D

There isn't much to talk about as I was working today...yay (!) and my work colleague is job hunting while at work!

Still while I was at work, I calculated my average MPG and was surprised to find out my average MPG is 33!

Well that bored the crap out of you lot, now go read something interesting...like pr0n.

Sleepy

Er..blogs..where do I start..?!

2007-02-11T16:35:00.000Z

Big thanks goes out to Aggy (my 'wife' lol) for sorting me out with a blog site so I can post random crap.

Now as to what to do or how to use it, I have NO clue...so if you are reading this and actually know WHAT you are doing, please laugh mockingly. :)

Anyhow, I'll post some news stuff at some point in time.

Oh and if you just happened to come across this blog and wondering which one of the three dudes I am in the picture at the top, I'm the one humping the car (guy in the middle).

See ya

Sleepy