UK Watercooler Conversation 3: The Revenge of the Cookie

Morning kiddies. How was your weekend?

I finally slept. It was glorious. I think I slept for 10 hours on Friday night and 12 hours on Saturday. I took a pill last night to help me sleep through my cough, and ended up sleeping through my alarm clock as well.

Saturday I lay in bed reading the papers and Country Life. Sunday I did some work on NaSoAlMo (new song!) and then went to see Architecture in Helsinki. Discovered that a former crush's band was supporting. (Thanks for warning me, Chuck No.4) That was bizarre. Watching him, I felt nothing. Kind of like an empty vessel that passion had once passed through. AiH was entertaining. Managed to avoid getting in a fite with my friend over pop music, which was a bit of a relief.

I still don't feel entirely well (physically or mentally). But less mental and stressed than I did.

I still think Gentoo is better, TISSP

My God man, I don't have eight years spare ;)

In other news my Powerbook IS HERE!*

*if by here, we mean, "at the factory"

I learned how to make parsley sauce yesterday as well, which I'm super excited about - no longer will my potatoes be dry!

Glad you had a HQ weekend Kate, that the band was good, and you're feeling a little more recharged after the weekend!

Poor FP - are you still poorly today?

You and your powerbook - it puts me off buying an apple EVER - at least I know how to fix a PC if it breaks.

*runs away*

saturday morning spent reading 'pattern recognition'. spent a couple of hours in the afternoon ripping and typing up tracklistings for this years cds and recent ebay purchases.

sunday morning spent watching tv, including cenotaph marchpast. afternoon spent rendering snowflakes (little php script to generate povray script for snowflakes, results here: http://home.clara.net/koogy/snow.png - idea is to use them as covers for this year's christmas cds). lord of the rings part ii. woken at 1 by mouse...

My God man, I don't have eight years spare ;)

Pah! It doesn't take as long as people think, you know

I like your snowflakes, Koogs, and the geeky way in which they're made. I rather like Povray.

We couldn't put him down at his usual time as we're in a studio apt (no bedroom). I suggested putting him to bed and switching off the lights, tv etc until he fell asleep, then once he was out, resuming our friday night. (Once he's asleep, we're ensured, he'll sleep through anything)

So, nine of the clock, we put him down, tuck him in, say night night and sit there in the dark waiting for him to conk out. 30 minutes later I switched on the lamp. The little man was lying wide awake looking at me and Mr Pumpkin was snoring gently.

Sat up with my charge until 12.30 watching The Scooby Doo movie which is not enhanced at all by a child asking five times a minute "What's Scooby doing?" followed by Pete's Dragon and Madagascar.

Up at seven thirty. I'm still recovering.

Glad yer gig went well, sounds like fun, TISSP. Do we get to see these photos when you get them back, huh, huh? Man, I hope yer powerbook turns up soon. But it will be worth it when you finally get it.

Oh dear, JB, you don't need any more crushes. Though a crush must be strong if it can survive seeing the becrushed vomiting up white russians. ::shudders::

Oh yes, I learned how to cook oyster mushrooms at the weekend. It's mushroom season, mmmm, and they had a mixed pack all pink and yellow and white. The first lot I think I kind of overpowered with too spicey a sauce, but the second I made a much more subtle honey and mustard sauce and added steamed bok choi and they were DEEEEEEVINE!!!

Also, how glad am I that mulled wine season has begun?

x-x-x-post hello everyone!

Scooby Doo, tee hee. Awwww, the little anklebiter was probably excited. :-)

i think there are 256 snowflakes in that picture. each one has 6 radial lines and 24 other lines, all chosen at random (php does the randomising and scripts 5 of the lines, povray script does the rotational symmetries of each flake). look closely and you'll see some that aren't joined up. takes about a minute to render on my P3 1000MHz at 640x640, nothing really. the bigger plan is to do the same thing in opengl and get them animating in realtime as some kind of screensaver.

Oooh, mulled wine, I didn't think of that! I'll make some of that.

My spanish co-worker has just told me about leek cake, which sounded horrible, until he googled the recipe and it turns out it's a subspecies of quiche, and looks v. tasty. I've told him to translate the recipe for me, cos it looks scrummy.

Should I become a mushroom freak? I quite like the idea of tramping through autumnal forests to find yummy mushrooms. So long as I don't get killed by malevolent fungus.

Aaawwww, I need to go do some new second hand bookshop browsing. But only after I move. I don't want to have to carry even *more* books than I've got.

I think this one was genuinely just dropped. Though usually my best book finds have been when people are moving and just can't be bothered to take all their books with them. Several times I've found a big box full of books by an empty house with "free books" or the like written on them.

The best lot I ever found were in LIC, great art books and things - big book of brightly coloured bugs, Einstein's Dreams and science books and things like that. Pretty good find in Islington as well. Rubbish finds in Swiss Cottage - usually Grisham novels and crap like that.

I've got a couple of the photos back--I really wish I'd cut my hair before the photoshoot now. It looks terrible. D'oh.

http://static.flickr.com/26/63191090_5bdb7d9a02_o_d.jpg

Errrmmm... PHWOAR! But I am probably just saying that because I totally have a *thing* for boys in shopping carts.

Is that you on the right? In which case, your hair is just right. Don't change a thing.

Here's another one:

http://static.flickr.com/30/63191087_28936ae218_o.jpg

I love when pop star boys get in shopping carts. Usually cause it's hott boys like Thom Yorke (which is the video? Fake Plastic Trees? Ohmigod, that gives me the horn) and Alex James and James Busted Son of Dork.

Blimey. You and Chris need to be locked away for your own protection.

Mulled wine season is k-great. As is mince pie season. I actually fixed out boiler yesterday - we put the heating on for the first time this winter and, naturally, it didn't work. So after trying to fix it the proper way, and having no luck, I decided to just hit it with a hammer AND IT WORKED. Result!

http://static.flickr.com/30/63191095_0b3c0001f3_o.jpg

Mmm, mince pies. Mark, that reminds me I should re-release the last book crossing book I got. But it was rubbish and I couldn't finish it. Then again, maybe that means someone else will like it.

STOP THIS SHAMELESS FLIRTING. Anyway. Ha HEM.

http://static.flickr.com/32/63211064_41d5a7fe64_o.jpg

tissps webcam service - www.dirrrrtyhair.com - subscription only $4.99

I think I'm going to go and get lunch now. If anyone needs me I'll have dragged my laptop in the ladies' room. ;-)

Kate, I forgot to tell you - I bought a copy of To The Ends Of The Earth last week!

(haven't got round to reading it yet, though - I'm in the middle of the last part of the Baroque Cycle at the moment, and I want to make sure I get that finished first)

(sorry, I should stop being such a train-geek. I've already started hinting to the parents that I wouldn't mind this for christmas)

Hurrah for To The Ends Of The Earth. So finally you will know Captain Anderson's deep dark secret. (It's pure Richardson.) And that's nice, about the Xmas shopping.

http://www.rusmilitary.com/images/shinel_coat.jpg

Anyone seen these about? I don't want it to be covered in russian army bollox either, I just really like the style. Or maybe I shouldn't get my fashion tips from a digitised 1940s russian army commander.

Sigh. I have to stop looking at the picture of Boris J and his bike. Is it morally wrong to fancy Tories? I don't care. He's lovely.

How's youse this morning?

Anyone see the Fakespeare last night? Phwoar, leatherclad skanky Scots boys rolling around on the floor. Do we not like that?

Anyone know what happened round these parts last night? All carnage seems to have broken loose. I'm scared of clicking on any more thread sthat might explain it cos I keep getting huge Cl@re D@n35 photos plonking themselves in front of me.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v31/hugoagogo/borris2.jpg

(I promise I wont' splooge here.)

I've turned on Hide Images, but I really shouldn't have to. Aren't there mods for this kinda thing?

When Kate finally does snap we'll have 1600x2500 images of Boris Johnson on our screens, you mark my words.

I know, I know. I should listen to Radio 4, it is my genetic heritage. But I can't persuade my radio to pick it up, free of Brixton Pirates (arrrrrrrr) - how can you listen to Boris Johnson hemming and hawwwing about his Desert Island Discs with that infernal OOM-tish-OOM-tish-OOOM-tish in the background? And a digital radio isn't exactly first on my life of things I need to get for my new house.

I should just tell people I'm getting married and set up a registry in the hopes that people will buy me toasters and digital radios and things.

I sent her an email last week but I don't know if it got through what with all our network troubles, and I hate bombarding my friends with emails at work.

PinX0r? Are you out there? Please check in.

I do love radio 4. So what's all this about image splurging? I turned images to links years ago during the worst excesses of dada, and never looked back.

I started a thread about the Fakespeare. I bet it will languish on Nu ILX. Want to take bets about how few responses it will get? I'll be optimistic and predict 5.

Then we can respond with Shakespearian insults and quotes! Yay!

nu-ILX = I dunno, really. Post halfway through 2003, maybe? Post the LUSENET move? It's not an argument I like getting into. I remember once I started an ILE Trivia Quiz thread, all I did was ask the first questions which came to mind, but I got a couple of sniffy replies from people thinking I was being unfair on more recent arrivals, which wasn't really my intention.

I was going to work with this guy. Now I'm just not interested any more. Why would I want to work with someone who so fundamentally disrespects my taste and my opinion?

http://shimuracurves.blogspot.com/2005/11/taste.html

If anyone wants to follow along at home.

God, having a conversation with this guy is like all the bits of ILX that I don't read because they annoy me. Rockism, hipsters, trucker hats, indie. Sigh.

Sometimes it's good to work with people who have a completely different approach to music than you do. But I suspect that he would only encourage the worse aspects of indie snobbery that I've tried to bannish from my music over the past 15 years.

I don't know. I make music because it's fun. It's a hobby, something enjoyable to do on my days off, or with my friends.

I don't think this is going to be fun. I can't even seem to have a conversation about music with him without getting irritated. So what's it going to be like, trying to write music with him? Is every session going to be like reading the bits of ILX that I try to ignore?

I know from experience that I can't make music with someone if I don't respect them - and if they don't respect me, or at least my opinions and my tastes.

It's one thing to have different tastes from someone, to just say "you like that, but I don't, but that's fine, I'm sure you have your reasons for like it" but it's quite another to say to someone "the entire reasons behind the genre of music you like are totally illegitimate".

Wow, I got so wound up about this that I neglected to notice the Boris J lookylike from upstairs standing behind me. (Well, a few desks away.)

Update: now he has gone, and he went so quickly that I was actually turned around, with a mouthful of yoghurt and didn't catch anything except a flash of yellow hair. Sigh.

I wonder how long until another tantrum gets thrown and it happens again.

Just suggesting it, we don't have to do it or anything.

Poor Johnney B, I bet the thread will take forever to load when he gets on it. But perhaps we can all set our recent views to 50 and it will soon disappear. (BTW, did you remember to click "registered users only" when you made this thread? That is why this thread is normally so troll free.)

Anyway, how's youse this morning?

I went to ACB's last night to do a bit of music making. It was OK, we didn't fight about pop, which was good. And I ended up with a really interesting discussion with an older lady on the bus home, about Streatham Hill and the old Mr. Toad motor cars that were all up it last weekend.

Glad to hear that no pop-fighting was had.

On the other hand, Jared Harris naked free food!

Also, free food!

I am corresponding with a real, live CARTOGRAPHER on my dating site. I'm sorry but that is just, like the sexiest occupation I've ever heard of.

Where's that thread that N started about sexy occupations?
-Cartographer
-Librarian
-Typologist/Print Designer
-Architect

I'm trying to think of others. But my goodness, a guy who makes maps. Even if I turn out not to fancy him, I just want to go on a date with him so he can tell me all about maps.

I'm not feeling very Xmasy, but I've been hitting the mulled wine already. It is somewhat relaxing after a long day on the interweb at work.

I'm having a hard time getting started today. I know it's too early to hit the coffee yet. I had a hard time getting to sleep last night.

Oh yes, I neglected to mention: RANDOM BOY ON THE FARRINGDON ROAD DOING BIKE SURVEYS FOR CAMDEN COUNCIL - I LOVE YOU!!! God, he was beautiful. I almost wanted to pretend I was a bicyclist to go and talk to him. Or ring Ed or Emsk to come and talk to him for me.

Pash - I was expecting to do the same this morning, but it was totally clear!

Actually, you do have a point... I cracked a fairly major problem while the board was down yesterday. Which was nice.

And your repeated little tantrum about (mainly) Kate has propelled you right into this category, Matt. Enough already.

Lucy Kellaway: On the merits of trifling distractions
By Lucy Kellaway
Published: November 13 2005 17:07 | Last updated: November 13 2005 17:07

Here is how I write this column. First, I check both my e-mail accounts. I flick through the newspaper. Then I listen to my voicemail messages, and check my e-mail again. I go upstairs to get a banana from the staff canteen. On the way back down I meet a colleague and we do what everyone at the Financial Times has been doing for the past 10 days or so: we debate and dissect our new editor.

Back at my computer I open a fresh document, and look at the empty screen. A window at the bottom starts flashing. An e-mail from the anti-spam service, telling me someone has sent me something with a virus in it.

A second e-mail. This time from a reader sending a long, meandering response to an earlier column. Type a brisk reply. Get myself a cup of tea.

I sit down again and wonder: what was I meant to be doing? Ah yes: writing a column about interruptions.

Look up “interruptions” on Google and find 10,100,000 matches. Start sifting through advice on how to stop people disturbing you in an open plan office. Some of this is good: if someone comes to see you when you don’t want to talk, you should stand up at once. This is a neat way of sending visitors scarpering, though is of little help to me as most of the interruptions to my working day are self-inflicted, as you can see from the above.

Check my Hotmail messages. An e-mail from a friend about her divorce. Write a reply. Return to my blank document. What to say about interruptions – apart from the troubling fact that they seem to take up the lion’s share of the typical working day?

According to a recent article in the New York Times magazine, average cubicle dwellers work at one thing for just 11 minutes at a stretch, and this is divided into three-minute chunks. Once they are interrupted from the task in hand it takes them 25 minutes to get back to it.

These alarming numbers come from a new field of academic study called human-computer interaction. I’ve just looked it up on Google (doing something productive for a change) and found an obscure world of HCI conferences at which experts give papers called “Arbitrating multimodal outputs: Using ambient displays as interruptions” and “Task interruption: Resumption lag and the role of cues”.

What makes interruptions a tricky subject is that they are not just a terrific waste of time – they are also essential. Interruptions can make us feel wanted. They help one come up with ideas by diverting one’s mind from the hamster wheel it was otherwise running on. They give variety to work and stop us getting too bored. Interruptions also direct us to stop one task when another has suddenly become more urgent.

The problem is that there are too many in number and most are too piffling. Indeed if I had continued faithfully to catalogue every single interruption today, this would be the longest (and most tedious) column ever written.

Help may shortly be at hand. At Microsoft some geeks are working on systems that would allow the interruptions to come at better moments. The computer would be able to sense when was a good time and give you a stack of new e-mails when it sensed that you weren’t frantically busy.

Until they come up with that, workers are relying on low-tech ways of solving the distraction problem. The world’s most productive software engineers are, according to the NYT, sticking Post-It notes around their screens to remind them what they are meant to be doing. They make old-fashioned lists, and have three separate monitors on their desk to save them from the distracting business of opening and closing different windows.

All of which suggests that computers are not helping us work better. They have destroyed our ability to concentrate, to get things done and have fried our brains through so much multi-tasking that we can’t stick to anything for more than a couple of minutes at a time.

I am trying to think back to my work habits in the pre-computer era, and I seem to remember sitting in the library at university for four hours at a stretch, head down, reading the Philosophical Quarterly and David Hume. I doubt if I could do that now. Ten minutes of concentration seems to be the limit.

Yet as I write this I suspect I am reinventing the past. Was I really working so efficiently in that library? Or was I eyeing up other students, getting up to find books, doodling and staring out of the window?

Interruptions may have changed how I work, but I doubt if the quantity or quality of output has changed as a result. Far from finding interruptions distracting, I find them essential: they give me a sort of structure, a framework that I use to slot real work in between the gaps. In those interruption-free zones I work ferociously. If my e-mail starts flashing, I simply don’t look.

Until the geeks at Microsoft or elsewhere come up with something good I will persist with my fragmented multi-tasking ways, which actually I rather enjoy. A lot of the time is wasted. But if I wasn’t wasting it on the congenial computer, I’m sure I would find some other way of frittering it away. If I was back in a dark age without e-mail and Google (not to mention Freecell and eBay), I very much doubt if I would be sitting in silent contemplation of life’s important problems. I would be staring out of the window wondering what to have for supper.

(heh I always read "FT" as Freaky Trigger, and get confused.)

it's not just me then! whenever i'm going south over southwark bridge i give the freaky trigger building a wave and a smile.

My Powerbook is sat next to me on the desk! Hurrah! Shame I can't properly use it yet as there's no wireless signal in this office :(

Also, all my actual work is on UNIX servers, rather than my desktop machine, so I need the connection to do real work too.

Heh heh, I never mistake FT for Freaky Trigger. I have a friend who works for the former, so it's always the other way around. (especially as it's usually her emails in my inbox with ft.com on them)

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2004/11/14/johnson_1511_ent-lead__200x272.jpg

yeh i know i know. i'm not gonna get a car or anything (what sort of div would choose to drive around london over any other form of transport)), but if i want to do tour managing i'm gonna need to drive.

Emsk you won't have a hope of hiring a car to learn to drive in - I'm sure the hire company expressly forbids it. As for cheap schools, try local small companies in the yellow pages - and find out what standards etc. they have to conform to and mke sure they do.

thanks mark. p will have to hire the car then! (yes yes no insurance but this is why we're going into fields where there's no danger of walls, other road-users etc.) also i might go home and get my bro to show me some moves in his car, mess around in fields there too.

aw kate. um, ships and pointy nosed gingers and um beer and mead and your NEW VERY OWN HOUSE (what is going on with that now btw? is it all on?) and um cliffs and seagulls and quaint country pubbes and villages and pretty dronepop noises and um oh maybe some more pointy nosed gingers...

Mmmm, look how pointed Boris' nose is.

Sigh. Just back from meeting with my mortgage advisor. All forms filled out and on my way. Phew!

Unfortunately, the hott advisor who looks like Boris J was not up there. Sigh.

Classic because it's nice and warm to have in the bed. Dud because you might roll over and knock its power supply out.

I had a huge amount of pasta for lunch and of course I felt really sleepy, so I had a cup of tea. Now I feel just as sleepy but even more full.

(Powerbook wins, btw)

More with the crush talk! How are you supposed to get in a decent email in under 500 characters? 500 words is hard enough. It's like writing 50 word album reviews. Bah.

I'm unsure whether g-kit is trying to be nasty or jokey to me. I'm only being jokey, fwiw.

(xposts)

you clearly have a table with a short leg

::crosses fingers::

Please let there not be anything horribly wrong with the house, please please please.

Congratulations Kate! Another step closer!

Home laptop (which I never bash my head against - unless I'm bashing the MIDI plugin keyboard to get interesting noises) is a Powerbook. Rah.

By the way - decent email in under 500 characters could go a little something like this: 'Fancy a drink some time?'

My powerbook did something weird last night – any ideas? The menu under the apple icon got reduced to just 2 or 3 items like log out, sleep and force quit. Some setting I cocked up in Butler i think, but can't work out how to change it. There was an option to have the expanded menu but it didn't do anything. Better uninstall butler I suppose.

Damn, Beanz, that would have been too sensible a thing for me to have said. Oh well. If he replies to this one, I'll give it a go. Would it be antisocial to link to his profile?

x-post

Also I have just hand-coded 21 conditional formatting functions. Why can't I just copy them and paste them? or better yet format paint? I should have numbered them instead of coding because they're all called confusing things like ConFeeAmnt and TeamFeeAmnt and TeamProcAmnt.

Just shelled out £250 for my solicitor. Bah. Though I kind of like the idea of having a solicitor. :-) Any problems? SPEAK TO MY SOLICITOR!

-Nature
--Wildlife
--Plants
-Pursuits
--Equestrian
--Gardening
--Hunting
--Shooting
--Travel
-Property
--Country Houses
--Castles
--Etc.
-Rural Concerns
--Country Diary
--Windfarms
--Environment
-::name of site::
--art
--architecture
--book reviews
--food and drink
--interior design
--antiques

If only they had a messageboard...

If only they had a section on TWEED life would be good.

:0((((

Yeah, it is a bit cold, but conversely our heating was in full effect this morning so my core temperature was up to normal by the time I left the house, so the walk over the Thames and up through W1 was actually pretty pleasant. I also got to wear my new scarf!

Oooh, I like your new scarf, Barry! It looks quite Brideshead Revisted (yes, I know Oxford oldschool, my mum had one).

I like the cold and the frosty! Though blimey, yes, I was glad of the powershower this morning. I don't have a car, but I object to seeing my breath IN THE BATHROOM.

I had to turn up the heat last night for rehearsal. Amazing how short the cigarette breaks are in this weather, tee hee. But plenty of scope for mulled wine. Oh god yes, mulled wine season, mmmmmm.

Marianna and came up with the BEST CAKE IDEA EVAH!!! after discovering the super-yum of dipping our chocolate chip cookies in our mulled wine. Sticky and brown indeed.

I need to do some clothes shopping soon, I'm certainly lacking in any decent thick jumpers or indeed a decent comfy coat.

And thick socks, sometimes two pair.

Don't tell me they've joined the mass ILX migration to LiveJournal... :-(

There's a mass migration to LiveJournal? Nobody told me about it!

(In fact I think I did actually once join, but it was only cause I couldn't read the slashpr0n without joining.)

But you know, with the way things have been going recently, I'm not so convinced that isn't such a bad idea. (Too many negatives? Don't know.)

the prince of wales is visiting our humble town tomorrow, to award military medals or something at the town hall. (my mate will be serving him drinks)

groo. went out for h's birthday last night to teh PUB an it was ace, ended up crashing at hers and have just got home an hour ago.

How was H's bday party? Sounds like it was fun! I wanted to go but rehearsal and all. Make her start posting on ILX. I know she reads it because she sent me unsalubrious gossip about hott hott James MacAvoy and his leather trews.

The Cartographer wrote back. He sounds really cool and funny.

hm, i was thinking of doing one, just to make myself write regularly really.

How was H's bday party? Sounds like it was fun! I wanted to go but rehearsal and all.

it was good fun - smallish - her and me and the russian and the belgian and the german and the scot and her whippersnapper housemate barman - who gave us free cocktails, yeeha! bloody good thing too as it is VERY EXPENSIVE there - 2 glasses of wine cost nearly nine quid. then we went home and drank some more and ranted and giggled.

Make her start posting on ILX. I know she reads it because she sent me unsalubrious gossip about hott hott James MacAvoy and his leather trews.

heheh, i bain't making her do anything! she does read from time to time i think but she only has dialup. who is james mcavoy? i am rubbish at knowing who anyone is.

The Cartographer wrote back. He sounds really cool and funny.

ooh! aces. where does he live?

i am going to brighton tonight but cute boy cannot come out to play because he's babysitting his niece, bah.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/shakespeare/macbeth/images/450x187/backstage.jpg

Apparently one of her friends (housemates?) went to drama school with him.

Get a blog, Emsk! But get it on Blogspot so I can leave you funny messages.

Bah, Cute Brighton Boy sounds rubbish, he never seems to be around. Will find out where Cartographer lives - I think London.

(And don't you dare say "what do you mean, becoming?")

I like blogs, but only when they belong to people I know, who I wouldn't really mind listening to whinge in real life over a bottle of wine.

Heh heh. I have been saving this piece of pie for hours now, since lunch - despite the fact that it has been CALLING to me, and everyone else in my office the whole time. So I started singing Pi as I walked back from the kitchen. Colleagues just shake their heads and grin tolerantly.

But I'm a member of another group blog which is just about Things We Hate. It's good fun, and just a really good cathartic way of blowing off steam in a way which is sometimes really, really funny. I think keeping it lighthearted like that is a good idea. It's when it's just endless whinging with no humour at all that it gets depressing.

lady em was there too last night, how did i forget that? i am rubbish.

How's everyone else feeling? Apart from the Friday Feeling?

i saw the customers last night in brighton, they were totally fantastic, they always are when they're not nervous about stuff. and they did song for... which i've not seen them do for ages. and your old flatmate came as well and i've not seen him since july so that was cool too.

Actually, Emsk, yes, they are all hott. But the one I fancy is the hottest cause he has the same guitar amp as me, which automatically makes him about 10x hotter.

Yay, the Cartographer wrote back, all about architecture and canalboats and the Beam Engine (he's been to the Beam Engine!) I'm just flabbergasted about how intelligent he is, and how he knows all about the kind of things I'm interested in. He's talking about the Booth Map and going "I can't believe you let me ramble about this stuff" and I'm all "Ohmigod, I can't believe you also know about this stuff!"

Sigh. Though there was a super cute pointy nosed ginger boy at O'Neill's last night (yes, that's where we ended up, don't laugh) but I was too shy to talk to him, even though he was kind of giving me the eye. My colleague offered to go up and talk to him, man to man, but I got scared, and besides, I was trying to babysit the Finn at that point.

god, i have been getting chronic deja vu all morning.

http://www.thechap.net/manifesto2.html

Right I'm off to meet my boy for lunch! See you all this afternoon!

Emsk, did you ever find out for us how to say f*ck off in Welsh?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/97388357@N00/64466050/

argh i can't remember how to say fuck off in welsh! bro suggests something like "cacha bant" but that doesn't look right although it sounds familiar.

cnychu = fuck

Blimey, half my department has now left and gone home at lunchtime. Do you think that either me or the Finn will get anything done?

Just back from Hummus Bros on Wardour St. Hadn't been before and it wasn't bad

Ha ha, just got that f*ck yer ma thing, tee hee. I am so easily amused today.

So of course I was expecting some hideous super-strength eating-the-sun kind of chilli and it was a bit anti-climactic.

Cauliflower, eh? Was this the "topping of the day" or whatever?

They're very friendly in there - almost too much so. I find it a bit odd that it's only been open a month or so and yet the beardy bloke who makes up your order asumes what I'm going to have before I actually tell them.

Too much food = sleepy afternoon again

Yay, the valuation came back on my house and it is mortgagable so they are going to go ahead now! Hurrah!

Welsh has a real problem with swearing - now the chapel culture is more or less dead the old blasphemies no longer have the force they used to, with the result there is a sad lack of profanities available to the modern Welsh speaker. Hence the need to borrow words like this.

Anyway, I'm just going to enjoy the "wow" feeling right now, while it lasts. Remembering not to get too excited, recalling what happened last time I got all excited about someone based on email correspondance alone.

Sigh. BJ lookylike came downstairs but left by the other stairwell that doesn't go past my desk. I think he's on to me. :-/

ssssshhhh, I've got a secret:

I've got a date tonight

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

This is clearly a Good Thing.

My weekend was interesting, I was reluctantly dragged to visit the g/f's folks. She'd told them I'd cook sunday lunch (for ten, thanks), she'd also told them that I'm fairly handy in the kitchen, so expectations were running high. What she neglected to tell them is that I'm also a bit of a control freak in the kitchen, and get very aggravated if people start offering advice. Or if people's mum's stand around saying "oh, I wouldn't do that", or "I never add salt until after" or "not that temperature." G/f could see I was getting wound up and kept trying to usher her mother out of the kitchen, whilst calm me down. I could see I was upsetting her, which in turn wound me up further. Dinner was a big success, everyone loved it and I then had to suffer the smouldering resentment of mum who, I suspect, wanted me very much to fail. It didn't help when the g/f's brother blithely asked if I'd come round to cook Christmas lunch too. Gaaah, social tension.

At least the dinner was a success, even if the family tension was a bit of a mare!

bloody hell matt :( damned if you do, etc.

am working today so not pissing around on here all day. we went to shinky shonky on fri night and it was SO MUCH FUN.

I set him a test, saying I would meet him for drinks in the pub in the one bit of London which is really in Cambridgeshire AND HE KNEW EXACTLY WHERE I WAS TALKING ABOUT!!! Hurrah! Even if we do not fancy each other at all, I think it will be very very fun.

Yay for working but boo for not pissing around with us. Did you go to Johnney's party on Saturday? Did he even *have* a party on Saturday? JB, where ARE you? I had it written down in my diary but never got any email telling me where it was so I stayed home and read the Guardian and Country Life and Period Home and planned the interior decoration of my new house.

Which I may not get now because the survey came back about the awful DAMP!!! which wants £1000 of work on it. Bah.

Yay Kate - how exciting!
Matt - that sounds pretty awful!
G-kit - ignore the c*nts of ILE! I know it's tough though, because there are a lot of them!

Everyone's worst nightmare Matt, but at least everyone liked the food. So you only pissed off one person... Do you cook better when harassed?

Exciting Kate!

I went to the Tate yesterday for the Turner prize stuff and the Degas/Sickert/Toulouse-Lautrec. Turner stuff was interesting but not spectacular. Degas etc were spectacular but boring somehow. Too big maybe, if that's possible. Degas pervy, Sickert cold. Toulouse-Lautrec pwns.

xpost

i want to see the man/horse in country life please! that sucks about the damp though... is it possible to make the current owners sort it out?

and work is good, i am v up for it. they liked my press release too hurrah! (i was a bit nervous about it)

x-post - he's lovely, as is the horse. I am glad that he is real, because he just looked like something out of a fairy tale when I saw him. The horse had really really long hair, and he had sort of golden dreadlocks. They looked so dreamlike, but they are v. cute in Country Life.

I have to ring the estate agents as I have been trying to make the vendor sort it out for weeks now. :-(

Yay to Kate and her date! :)

Boo to people being nasty to g-kit! :(

Yay to Matt being l33t cook! :)

Boo to people being jealous of Matt's cooking skilz0rs :(

Yay to emsk and her friday night bounciness! :)

And yay to my random party - sorry I didn't get back to you about it guys, I only realised I invited you when I read back the thread today! You wouldn't have enjoyed it anyway - too much work people for my liking. I got beaten up by White Russians and was sparked out by 1 - how rubbish is that!

Do you cook better when harassed?

Only when I'm doing it for money.

Kate that is v. v. annoying about the damp. It's sortable but extremely irritating. How widespread is it?

It's only in one corner of one room. It's so easily sortable, but honestly - when I put in the offer on the flat, I said that it was conditional on the vendor sorting it out. Thing is, it's not a big job. All you'd have to do is take out the covering on the wall, spray it with the same kind of sealant you use on the interior of swimming pools, then cover it back up.

But the vendor is a developer - I bet he knows loads of builders and the like, or else he might even be able to do it himself if he's a self developer type. If I do it, it's going to take twice as much time or twice as much money because I don't know what I'm doing and would have to ring a builder from the phone book. :-(

Sigh, alas, if it were that simple, don't you think I would have done it? I was hoping that was what the surveyors would say but no. It isn't damp, it's Damp.

Could be worse, apparently in Wales, it Rises.

Apart from "relax" and "be yourself". I'm wearing my new jumper and my new bra.

I suppose my nervousness will increase as the day goes by.

No, wait... argh!

I don't like taking guys to mine own local pub on a first date, because if things go HORRIBLY WRONG then they will know where you hang out all the time.

I know that sounds paranoid, but I'm nothing if not paranoid. (If I don't turn up tomorrow, then ring the Cartographical Association and tell them that T0ph3r has absconded with your friend.)

However, it's a Monday night and I don't think the place is open. :-(

I so don't want to have this conversation. I just have to think what I want out of it.

1) The vendor to get a damp and timber specialist to examine and repair the property.

2) Failing that, if I have to pay for it, I will change my offer on the house to what the Valuation said.

3) If neither of those are agreed to, I am going to have to give up the flat. Obviously, this is a last resort, and I don't want to have to do it, as I've got so far. But I do not have £1000 floating around spare for unneccessary repairs. I know that in a worst case scenario, the vendor/agent is probably counting on me just backing down, as I've already got this far in the deal and spent money on it.

Argh, this is the hardest thing yet. Every single thing about buying a house is just nerve wracking, and each time I think "that has to be the hardest thing" something else awful comes up. Argh.

Write an email telling him he's being ripped off.

::ducks::

I'm feeling in a very good mood after a nice long lunch (which included getting about half the answers right on Brain of Britain - smugness ahoy!). I'm now toying between resuming combat with the guardian crossword, buggering about on ILE or doing some actual work.

I'm toying with doing some work as well - curse you God for making ILE this way . . .

And I'm sorry but I still prefer Time Team to Blackadder but that could just be because I've not got a sense of humour.

(I had a big row with my g/f after the mastermind final when I was insisting that the winner's general knowledge questions were way easier than the others, and she kept replying with infuriating reasonableness that they're only easy if you know the answers, to which I was raging but they were just EASIER DO YOU NOT SEE? and so forth)

And now I wait...

http://www.screenselect.co.uk/images/products/5/3055-large.jpg

DO NOT EVER PUT YOUR FINGERS DIRECTLY ON MY POWERBOOK'S SCREEN--HARD ENOUGH TO DISTURB THE LIQUID CRYSTAL--EVER AGAIN OR I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU IN COLD BLOOD

Cheers,
tissp!

Right. 2 minutes till I get out of work, and half an hour till this date. Gah, I'm hungry now - should I have a snack before going? But what of my breath, then? Argh, I already have coffee breath. Ugh.

Oh no. Here I go... will report back tomorrow.

Good luck Kate! See you tomorrow.

Good morning, everyone. I feel a bit befuddled today from all the real ale last night. Twas a pretty good date. I had a good time, at least.

Morning all - I'm equally befuddled, but more due to strange dreams than anything else. I haven't woken up yet - I need more tea.

He was really nice, very smart, very brainy. Good conversation, we had very similar senses of humour to the point where both of us at one point or another went "hey, that's usually my joke!" Good nose, floppy hair (bit of a receding hairline, but OK, quite distinguished looking). But... (There's always a but, isn't there?) I don't know. A bit buttoned down and possibly uptight? It's always one way or the other with repressed public school boys. Either they're rumpled and crumpled and can't be bothered (like Boris Johnson, hot hot hott) or else they're tucked in and buttoned all the way to the top (like Hugh Grant, not not nott).

We had really, really good conversation, about maps and foxhunting and London postcodes and the English Civil War and it was a real intellectual *click*.

But on the other hand, in some ways, I get the feeling that he would be a bit of a fixer-upper. I'm sorry, is that a horrible thing to say? If someone said that about me, I'd be vaguely offended and take a bit of a "take it or leave it" attitude. I don't like it when a date or potential partner feels like they should change my appearance, be it my clothes or my hair (I really resented that about Joe). So I'm not sure that I have the right to do that to a potential partner.

But on the other hand, men are kind of known for having no dress sense and needing a woman to take them in hand and make them attractive to ladies - or to the particular lady in question.

Guys - what do you think? How would you react if a laaaaady said to you something along the lines of "look, you're great, you're fun, you're smart, but I'd like to make a few minor adjustments to your appearance and wardrobe to make you HOTT."

If someone I only knew a little but whom I fancied tried to suggest 'minor adjustments' overtly, then I'd find it weird and it might put me off. If, however, this person were to, say, ruffle my hair and say 'hey you look good with messy hair' or bought me a new t-shirt, or walked past a shoe shop with me and said, 'hey those trainers would suit you' – then I'd be flattered and ego-boosted.

I.e. be subtle and it'll totally work.

xpost beanz otm.

He's got Damp as well, right? ;)

I'm with beanz on this one - subtlty and being nice is the key. If you're rubbish at being subtle and/or nice, then don't bother, easy peasy.

And to be honest, not going with someone just cos they're wearing the wrong shirt is a little . . .. shallow? Picky? Something else I wouldn't expect from you?

am at WORK today again yeah yeah! leaving in 15.

The only big thing I would change is, well, sideburns.

I saw Paths of Glory last night and it was fucking good. You know how when you see a really good film in the cinema and you realise how rare it is to get something so well made and you get this wave of appreciation and enthusiasm and you have to stop yourself gushing and saying stupid stuff?

x-post - any sideburns would be good. He's rocking the Ned look. (as in Raggett, not council estates.)

It's funny, often when I go on internet dates, the conversations just feel like various threads off ILX. At least his conversations are like the threads that I read and love on ILX, rather than the truckerhat wearing hipster-baiting, rockism-accusing ones I avoid.

By the way, blokes don't bang on about girls like that - honest we don't.

Hold some truck is such a mangling on the language that I'm determined to use it more.

Oh, and how did your date go Kate? Am in a training course and can't spend too much time conspicuously reading the whole thread!

(Honestly it's less than a dozen posts ago!)

I suppose it also depends on the way that one goes about it.

I mean, Joe tried to be all "oh, that's a nice shirt" and compliment me every time I wore something he approved of. But I started noticing more and more that we just had very different tastes in clothes. It wasn't a minor adjustment, it was a "never ever wear anything brightly coloured or paisley or patterned ever!" which was a complete change in something that's very fundamental to who I am, to the point where I have a paisley tattoo on my shoulder, so that even when I'm naked, I'm still wearing paisley.

The haircolour thing was different, and badly handled. Because he didn't compliment my natural haircolour, he made a point of saying that he thought bleached hair was trashy. I like hairdye - if I dated a guy who said that he had a particular thing for redheads, I'd probably change to a strawberry tint if I thought it would really make him happy. But telling your girlfriend that the way she likes her hair is "trashy" is totally the wrong way to go about it. And my trashy highlights came back the moment he dumped me.

x-post ha ha.

ahem...

Yes, there are some men, maybe a lot of men, who take great care with regards to their clothes, and use them as an expression of their personality and taste and style.

And if it *is* your personal style, then I respect that, and I would never f*ck with a guy's look or clothes on that level.

But there are a lot of guys who are completely clueless when it comes to dressing themselves, let alone looking good, or dressing to attract women in general - or this woman in particular - and I think in that case, it's OK to make suggestions. So long as you're nice.

And extrapolating what a potential bf will be like from your dad's behaviours is decidedly Freudian and ewww.

Anyway, in a related topic, ARRRRGGGGHHH, I neglected to mention that my mum has found and started reading my blog. AAARRRGGHHHHHH!!!!

x-post

denial.

I'm colourblind so it took me years to be confident in the clothes I buy, and I always have to ask advice on colours. Styles I'm ok with. I hope. You'd tell me if not, right?

Stelf, I'd totally hit itfor your shoe collection!

Beanz - my boy is colourblind too, but I've never really seen him make a fashion faux pas. Sometimes he'll say do you like that grey jumper & I'll say, dude it's lilac, but apart from that, it's all good!

The Erithian Cartographer made a joke on his profile about being colourblind, but I hope it's not true, as that would mean potential genetic problems, argh.

My parents first realised I might be colourblind when they let me dress myself, they say. I'm not sure that can be right, though, cos I have a suspicion that the idea of colours 'going together' or 'clashing' might be a social construct. OTOH the colour wheel demonstrates complementariness etc. I dunno.

xpost hah thanks. I need a new one or two. Savile Row's a bit beyond my means though.

Of course she never came round again - I found it utterly pushy and off-putting. I think any "changes" you want to make to this chap should wait till after several dates, and follow the beanz course of action.

However, if I breed with a colourblind male, then my *daughters* also have a 50% chance of being colourblind, and a 100% chance of being at least a carrier of the defective can't-tell-red-from-green gene.

I also wonder how much colourblindness I've got - I tend to do badly with colours, fullstop, and have to look quite carefully at those chart test things before deciding what the number is.

x-post but why did she ask you to change your shampoo? Did it occur to you that she might be allergic to the perfume in it? ;-)

Xpost both my parents have allergies to things commonly found in soap and shampoo. Are you dissing my mum? :)

I've emailed my financial advisor to ask if I can keep the same mortgage, but pay £1k less on my deposit, and use the difference to pay for any inspection and repairs. Argh!

Bah, I had something else to say about my house/mortgage - oh yeah, now I remember. My case was officially written today! Which is an auspicious date as it's the 22nd! In fact, it's 22/11 which is International Conspiracy Day.

(And it's the day that Kennedy was shot, plus, I just like 22's. They follow me around.)

*Where* in Lincolnshire does TEC come from, though.

Emsk, Emma P0ll0ck is great - or, at least, she was when she was in The D3lgad0s.

Johnny B has a point that we stop banging on about people we've started to know. I've hardly *mentioned* Colleague M on this thread since she invited me shopping (and invited me round to her mum's house afterwards - and the FULL STORY is even more Hollyoaks-plotlike)

Methinks this is all sounding very Hollyoaks-like. And perhaps there will be a big denouncement (yes, I know I spell that word wrong) at the office Xmas party where she gets drunk and confesses she's liked you all along... :-)

emsk, I won't be able to tell you--I am having to give my tickets away because I can no longer make it! :(

gah, suck. SOMEONE i know must be going to this gig!

Emsk, Emma P0ll0ck is great - or, at least, she was when she was in The D3lgad0s.

i know, they're one of my favourite bands ever! this is why i'm so torn about tomorrow night. bush hall is a lot further from home than the scala and the photoshoot are...

(plus, I can post all the stuff I don't dare post on the blog because after all, I did give her the address once, and it is plausible that she might read it)

But people are dumb, yeah.

ALEX JAMES SIGNED A BOOK DEAL WITH WARNER FOR HIS MEMOIRS.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!

http://alexjamesonline.tripod.com/alexbedlogo2.jpg

::goons::

http://alexjamesonline.tripod.com/alexbedlogo2.jpg

Click on the link. You won't regret it. I think I need a cup of tea and a lie-down. Oh, how convenient, there's a bed right here.

She wants an apology.

I want to say "No, I'm not sorry. If you don't want to know what my emotions are, don't read my blog. I am not sorry for the way I feel - those are my emotions, and I'm not apologising for them. And I am not sorry for talking about it on my blog - cause that's what blogs are for."

But, to be mercenary diplomatic, I'm not telling her that until after the money transfer has come through.

(Also, she's upset because I did a shout-out to my father on my blog. Never mind that I also had an "Argh! Dad, don't read it!" reaction to my father when he found it, as well. The shout-out was paranoia on my part. But my mum seems upset that I'm having some kind of private web contact with my father at all. For gods sake, YOU grow up, Mum. Am I not allowed to have a relationship with my father, now? Argh!)

::bashes head against desk::

But for the most part, my attitude about this is, if you don't want to know what someone thinks on an emotional level, don't read their diary/blog/whatever.

it's just like... I'm sorry, but ... gah, no, I'm NOT sorry. My mum was *very* controlling when I was growing up. And I do sometimes feel like many of the decisions I made were not really my own, so I am making bloody sure that this is *my* decision because it's a HELL of a financiall big decision. And the mere fact that she's trying to tell me now that I shouldn't be expressing my emotions makes me feel *more* controlled. You don't have a right to tell me what my emotions should be, or how to express them.

Argh. I should log off and go home.

I've got a banana tho, so it's not all bad news.

Why thank you! Cheerios for everyone!

Beanz, I really wanted a donut this morning, (these cravings will kill ya!) but not just a donut you can buy from the suprtmarket, OH NO! I wanted one of those hot ring donuts you get from the seaside! Mmmmmmmm, food of the gods!

(fortunately this is on a test box, not a live box)

Colleague M's mother has, apparently, asked if she will bring me with her again the next time she goes round to visit.

They liked my process maps! Yay! Another meeting at 11 to talk about reporting on another database I've written - will this deluge never end?

My doughnut has SPRINKLES

A month or so back, I asked M out for a drink. She said "I like you, as a friend, but I don't think I know you well enough to meet you outside work."

At the same time, I've been flirting a lot with someone called Colleague K. I've never met K, but we have to talk on the phone maybe two or three times a week, and there's always a lot of heavy flirting, mostly relating to kinky sex - she says I need to come over and spank her, that sort of thing. K wasn't single, but a couple of weeks ago she left her long-term boyfriend, and moved - with their kids - back into her mum's house.

M is very anti-relationship at the moment. She keeps telling me that she wants to stay single for at least a year, and until she's settled down in a better job with proper career prospects. She also will randomly start conversations about how there's no such thing as your perfect partner, and all relationships are doomed, etc, etc. On the other hand, she is constantly persuading me that I should ask K out:

"But she's only just come out of a long-term relationship the other day - I don't think it would be a good idea"

"You need to get in there quickly, though! Before she finds someone else!!"

M invited me out shopping last weekend, in the city she was working in until last summer, and which she hadn't visited since her last breakup, in September. Afterwards, she invited me round to meet her mum. While we were there, she told her mum all about how she thinks I should ask K out too.

To be honest, Pink, I have no idea. M is great as a friend, but I'm not sure we'd be too compatible in the bedroom - she's a bit too shy and vanilla. would probably be great in bed, but I don't think we'd get along too well apart from that.

This happened to me a while ago, she had a lovely voice & we used to chat nonsense to each other. i was very disappointed when i saw her, not what I pictured at all.

xxpost It's possible to have a relationship, sure, but it's a bit of an obstacle to an easygoing no-pressure first date maybe

Bah, what a change it is, back to being a computer programmer today when yesterday I was a GLAMOUROUS FASHION MODEL FOR AN EDGY STYLE MAGAZINE. bwah hah hah hah hah.

OK, now I know why Kate Moss takes so many drugs. It is bloody boring doing photo shoots. Especially when you have Dieter off Sprockets shouting at you to turn to the left, not to lean on the column and put the glass of wine down. Bah. How can you relax when you've got a bloody HUGE BLACK OBJECT being shoved in your face? (And I mean that literally, not in a "sticky and brown" way.)

Did ya miss me, huh?

Came fifth in the pub quiz :( Must Try Harder.

The thread missed you Kate - look it died before lunchtime

That Tuomas thread is depressing. Reminds me of school. Like walking in the classroom in the morning to find half the class ganging up on one kid with the other half ignoring it

x-post Yeah, I find that Tuomas thread depressing as fuck, but at least Ally is kind of heartening on it. My immediate reaction is "gah, that's horrible - if you really hate someone, why not just ignore them" (yeah, I know physicial heal thyself) but there's a high school part of me that thinks "if they're picking on someone else, they're not picking on me for a change". Which makes me feel even worse.

I'm suddenly realising that I have a hangover today. Ugh.

They made us fill out these silly surveys as well, asking us what we couldn't live without, and who our ideal man was and stuff like that. (Physics and Boris Johnson respectively.)

I hope it's going to be lots of big photos of the lovely ladies and not so much of my ugly mug. Though the big group shot of all the bands - we saw the polaroid of it, and it looked great. OK, it looked a bit like a school photo, but at least it looked like an ART SCHOOL photo. Like, yeah, all of us hang around in cool warehouse studios in Dalston all day long, making art and music and discussing poetry while wearing fabulous ballgowns, oh yes...

I really wanted to get my picture taken, looking like Hugh Hefner surrounded by my beautiful bandmates in prom dresses, but the photographer wasn't having it. :-(

x-post

GOBBLEGOBBLEGOBBLE.

That's what I'm saying Johnny, I can't find any tinned pumpkin!!

back on ilx. it might last, it might not.
how is everyone?

G-kit - have you been away because of mean people?

G, if anyone is being mean to you, let me at 'em and I'll kick their arse. I'm a pop star-stroke-model now so I can do what I want.

That Tuomas thread is kinda interesting, I thought (and not just cos Ally kinda sorta stuck up for me - though maybe I'd have been better off not to have been mentioned at all in the "easy targets" section of ILE), and apart from one trollish asshole, it seems to be quite a lot of people being positive and reasonable. On recent evidence I'd have thought this was near impossible a few days ago.

But what's much more insidious is the sort of endless random snarky and/or rude comments to the point where you start to wonder if the person posting them has some kind of internet tourettes or something. :-( But I don't want to open that can of worms again.

G-kit - Don't be silly, I did exactly the same & left ILE for a while because of a few arseholes. Now I just post on particular threads where it's more friendly & there's no oneupmanship. I sometimes forget though & post on other threads only to shouted down, so I scurry back. I know how much it can get you down though, so don't feel you're being oversensitive or anything.

why do you need pumpkin from a tin? what's wrong with a real pumpkin? (this is a serious question not a snobby swipe)
Because they only seem to sell tiny squash & you'd need loads of it. It just seems easier as it hasn't really qorked with the squash I used in the past.

Hope you feel better soon! If it's booze related, lunch might sort you out.

The key is to remember that you don't give a rat's ass about anyone elses feelings. Oh yes.

There will always be arseholes around. Easy enough to say just ignore it – I know it's not that simple – but there's a majority of people who aren't arseholes and apppreciate what you've got to say

Right now I feel a bit too vomitty to eat lunch and am craving disgusting fried food, not the healthy stuff I have in my bag. Wah.

HI DERE

(Pink, who were thes people? Any ILXors?)

Some days I have fantasies about marching off to the Noize Board and disrupting their threads with 5000 word extracts from Country Life, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm here to live and let live. Treat others as you wish to be treated.

Oh & btw, Kate - where is Colette?

please give me ideas for a costume party...both silly and serious suggestions welcome

Argh this is me today as well. (It feels like it may be slowly losing its grip now though.) Also, I had to stop reading the Artificial Intelligence thread because it gave me mad giggles.

(Sorry, G, really, the song is about chocolate, honest.)

1/push the online selling thing, and stop being so lazy w/r/t the website (ie it always gets pushed to the back of the queue when a reapir comes in)

2/get qualifications so I can do domestic/industrial electrician work as well.

Otherwise we're totally fucked. The thought of running down the business, watching the shelves get thinner & thinner, & serving the more vulture-like consumers, who only come in when yer selling stuff off is so horrible that I can hardly bear to think about it!

Also, I'm eating peanut m&ms, which are unbelievably disgusting, but I'm addicted to the fucking things.

I suspect a lot of the anon sniping is one person posting under different usernames. Didn't Teeny run an IP check on some anon sniper, and it turned up loads & loads of posts, all the same miserable pissy little attacks, and all under different names? wtf.

In our lunch break, me and Colleague M went back to her house - her to post a parcel, me to take her because she doesn't have a car. So now, of course, everyone in the office is being very annoying and saying things like "oooh, you went for lunch together? Did you go somewhere romantic???" As M said, "don't they understand that you can just be friends with someone?"

Oh, the jabs aren't even anonymous most of the time. I know exactly who they are, and they originate from the same 2 or 3 users every time. But whatever. The "just has tourettes" explanation makes it easier for me to ignore them.

And Peanut M&Ms are candy crack. I used to love them - the peanut butter ones are even better though.

Sorry, I've just been looking up pictures of Tiga on the interweb. Oh my, what a hottie.

::yawns::

Not that y'all aren't HOTT but I think your girlfriends would probably disapprove. ;-)

Congratulations Pashmina!

ANYTHING

i disagree!

(Great, now I'm going to have Kylie stuck in my head.)

Sorry I'm not very interesting today. I'm being all shallow coz I'm a model now. ;-)

Also, tomorrow I will be PAID but it will all go in the deposit on my house in a few days. Bah.

(Unless you want to meet me in the weird bit of Cambridgeshire, Pink!)

saturday i go shopping for winter clothes, more so for my christmas trip to new york which is looking more and more likely to be a solo holiday.

When I left the house this morning, it was cold, windy, but dry. After I got to within 5 minutes of the office, I started to see one or two snowflakes in my headlights, and by the time I pulled into the office carpark, it was practically a blizzard!

We just had frozen puddles this morning.

And then had horrible dreams about being naked in public and then having to be PHOTOGRAPHED but then I ended up snogging an ILX0r sna now I'm all disturbed by it.

I was in this lovely walled garden/courtyard and it was so beautiful and lovely, humid and warm to the point where the air was shimmering, so I went up on top of this little ledge thing, and there was an open air bathtub so I decided to take a shower and that was when I noticed that the courtyard was all RINGED AROUND WITH FLATS, argh.

But I woke up about half an hour before my alarm clock, which was nice.

it's only 9.30 and I'm bored already. :-/

Actually, when it's sunny like this, I *love* cold weather, but I know I'm in the minority.

I like cold clear days too

Bus in this am:

1/first bus doesn't turn up, next bus is 1/2hr later
2/next bus is suppsed to get to newcastle in 35 minutes. It takes 1hr 5 minutes to get there, partly b/c the driver is eastern european, and barely speaks english! Anything other than single or return & he doesn't understand! wtf? Not fair on the guy or the passengers.

Anyway, get into work 45m late. Am pissed off.

Tee hee, I went upstairs to take my last bit of info to the financial advisor and now we're good to go for the mortgage! Cross fingers it all happens quickly.

But the bad news is that the Boris Johnson lookylike has done something tragic to his hair and is not nearly as hott as he used to be. Bah.

(xpost)

Argh, trying to arrange recording for tomorrow.

2litre GTI? Blimey!

I'd chuck it away and buy a new one, if I were you

http://www.picturelane.com/cars/astonmartin/db6vantagevolante/aston-martin_db6-vantage-volante_1967_02.jpg

Other problems with idling can be caused by a leak in the breather pipe, which is why the AA man replaced it. However, because that didn't work, either you have another leak somewhere, the new pipe is now damaged again, or the idle speed is genuinely too low.

If you want to change the idle speed, start the car, and let it warm up to normal temperature (you might have to ride the accelerator in the cold to let it warm up properly if it keeps stalling). Turn off the engine.

Remove the air filter assembly to expose the carburetor. You'll have to then do a bit of searching to find the idle screw (a short cut is to have someone operate the accellerator pedal to find out which screw it is--it is connected to the throttle and you'll see it moving).