Friday 29 August 2008

Barcelona

I'm off to Barcelona on a stag do this afternoon. It's a great place so i'm sure we'll get up to loads of site seeing and embrace ourselves in the Spanish culture.

It's also my birthday on Sunday so even more reason to celebrate! Yee haa!

Back on Monday afternoon.

Thursday 28 August 2008

Stuart is a cooking god

Sea bass wrapped in streaky bacon with peppers, red onion and Stuart garden tomatoes.

Season then oven cook the lot with olive oil for around 40 minutes (200C) , serve with new potatoes.

As an added side I filled two large chillies with cottage cheese and cooked them too.

SC Rating: 8.4 / 10
AP Rating: 9.0 / 10 (Only missed out on the 10 because the chilli was too hot)

Babylon 5

The last couple of Babylon 5 (series 3) episodes are very odd. Full of time travel nonsense.

I'm off ill today

I've not been 100% since Saturday afternoon. I hope i'm better by tomorrow when I fly off to Barcelona.

Tuesday 26 August 2008

Cough please...

In my current job I am down in the dungeon for 1 day a week, or as some people call it the IT department. The IT guys like to call it 'lower ground' but in reality it't the basement with no daylight.

You might have guessed that being below ground we get very little mobile phone reception, but sometimes we get glimmer reception. I've just had enough to inform me that I have voicemail.

The voicemail was from some guy at The Diagnostic Centre, and he asked me to give him a call. Yikes!

What could it be for?

Had I contracted some sort of disease from the Reading festival? Surely not, the test results won't be back for at least another couple of weeks...

Then I thought it could be from the National Blood Service, they've found something wrong with my blood and I need to contact them immediately. Argh!

Then I thought, i'd give the guy a call to find out what they really wanted. He was from a company that provides medicals for new starters at my new company. Phew!

After I arranged a date and a suitable time for my appointment I made sure to inform him that his standard voicemail message could be improved somewhat.

Stinking cold

I felt the start of a cold coming on on Saturday, Sunday night it began getting worse. Now I have a stinking cold.

The plan (as usual) is to OD on lemsip.

Monday 25 August 2008

Getting old

Another long weekend for Stuart and i'm very tired because of it. Thank Jebus it's a short three day week. Unfortunately the reason it's short is that i'm off to Barcelona for a stag do on Friday.

Urgh!

It's also my birthday weekend so expect another urgh next week.

Friday 22 August 2008

Excited about Reading

I'm in a really good mood this morning. I'm off from work for 4 days, the weather looks like it's going to hold and i'm off to Reading to see some of my favorite bands.

He, he!

Thursday 21 August 2008

I'm off to Reading tomorrow

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. Reading has a great line up this year and there are at least 10 bands that I want to see.

In no particular order.

RAGE AGAISNST THE MACHINE
METALLICA
The Wombats
Pennywise
Queens of the Stone Age
We are Scientists
Tenacious D
Biffy Clyro
The Killers
Bristish Sea Power
The Cribs

I'm going to have to make some decisions as some of them conflict, but hey, i'll be pretty drunk and happy so who gives a shit?

The only downside I can think of at this moment in time is the fact that one of my best mates (Ross) won't be there. It won't be the same without him and I will miss him. Even if he is a goofy bastard!

I have resigned!

I feel relived. My boss was great about it, and it looks as though I won't have to work all of my notice period.

Phew!

It took four interviews, which I have been told is pretty much unheard of and ended with a 1-2-1 with thier CEO. Although nerve racking and he asked a few awkward questions I did well and they formally offered me the job on Monday!

Tuesday 19 August 2008

Office prankster

We’ve been winding up my office helper (university sandwich year placement) about Portugal’s performance (or lack of) at this years Olympics (he’s originally from Portugal), this lead to a £1 cheeky bet being laid that they would not win a single medal.

Looking at the medal table this morning they’ve picked up a silver in women’s triathlon. Doh! £1 down.

Not wanting to let this lie, I spent 10 mins putting together a little prank. He, he, he!

I pdf’d BBC’s front news story and replaced the headline text and picture of my own.

The funny thing is he actually believed it and offered to give my pound back.

SC Movie Review 21

St Trinians

What a load of bollocks!

IMdb Rating 5.6 (3,115 votes)
SC Rating 3.0 / 10 (1 vote)

Monday 18 August 2008

Champagne tonight!

More news to follow!

It's tough up North...

... or more precisely, the West Midlands.

West Midlands Police said the 25-year-old was stabbed in the chest, stomach and face after being involved in an altercation in Wolverhampton.

A man is in hospital in a "poorly" condition after being stabbed several times.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7567688.stm

I don't know about you but if I was stabbed in the chest, stomach and face I would be in 'f'ing agony'!

My interpretation of the word poorly is if you have a stubbed toe, a headache or at the very most a mild cold.

The other odd thing about this story is the fact that a passer by picked him up and dropped him off at a news agents. Why? Was he out of fags? Had he forgotten to put his numbers on the lottery?

Another week another busy weekend

I booked Friday afternoon off from work to go to Soho with a few friends from Lloyd's.

James, Peter, their respective other halves and April. Nothing major was planned, other than a few beers, glasses of wine and a bite or two to eat. The rest got there early and went for a pie, I was running late so missed out (doh!). We were standing outside the second pub when no other than Jarvis Cocker got dropped off at a music show to buy a couple of tambourines.

We had a handful more at various other pubs then went for a Chinese. Not a bad night out really. Although if you add everything up it probably cost a fair penny (or with inflation a fair pound).

Saturday, I didn't do a tremendous lot. Football Manager, food shopping, and attempting to put up mirrors. The mirrors are still not up. A grumpy Steve came round in the evening so we had a few beers in Tonbridge and then had another Chinese, although this one was a take away.

Steve was grumpy because he had to fork out a £340 to stop his car getting towed away when he helped a stranded Australian girl. She had locked herself out near his house and was in her bare feet. They tried to use a ladder to get into her house but couldn't so he drove her to her letting agent to get a spare key. He was out of his car for 3 minutes before his car was getting towed say. Doh! That'll teach him for being a good Samaritan.

Sunday, we had guests over, my old flat mate Harriet and her fiance Dan for a Sunday lunch, panic struck when I noticed that the oven was on grill rather than fan but luckily I spotted the mistake before anything was set on fire. Being a master chef, I rescued the situation and everybody was none the wiser. April made some delicious cookies too (I may get her to make some for Reading).

Tired now but good weekend. Weekends coming up.

Reading
Barcelona stag + birthday
Free, but probably attempting to write best man speech
Wedding

Friday 15 August 2008

One of my favourite posts

30 mins to go before I have the half day off so am looking through some old posts. This was a favourite of mine!

http://watdefu.blogspot.com/2006/11/you-are-idiot.html

Last weekend

Last weekend was pretty big, I was still tired on Wednesday.

The voodoo Glow Skulls were surprisingly good. I had a good handful of cider that night and consequently felt rough as on Friday morning, Friday afternoon and Friday evening.

It was April's Mum's wedding so it probably wasn't the greatest preparation. I ended up driving to and from the event so at least I could pass that off as my excuse for not drinking. Other than feeling terrible the event was actually not bad.

Despite both of us only really knowing one person (April's Mum, her friends and family are in Oz), we had a good time. During the reception there was impromptu juggling, balloon flower making, saxophone playing and Elvis impersonating. Very odd, but it kind of worked...

After the reception we went to our delightful room in a guest house in a Welsh sea side town just outside of Bridgend. It cost us £40 through Laterooms.com and was terrible. There was damp on the ceiling, the carpet was disgusting (we didn't dare take our shoes off) and ended up sleeping in our clothes.

Luckily we were only there for one night and had booked us in to a special treat at the Hotel Du Vin in Bristol on the Saturday. We met up with John so that I could get fitted for a suit for his wedding. I have to wear a bloody cravat! Nobody told me about this. I just thought I had to stutter through a best mans speech.

Other than that we had a really good Moroccan chicken tureen with cous cous, and wandered round the markets and shops in the Bristol rain. We checked in at 3.

http://www.hotelduvin.com/HotelLanding.aspx?HotelId=5

And after the night befores horrible experience jumped straight into the 'Monsoon' shower, basically. It's a way of drowning whilst standing up on solid ground.

In the evening we went downstairs to the restaurant, and had a lovely meal. I had a steak (with fries that came in an odd cone shaped device), April had wood pigeon. To my surprise, I spotted Bob Hoskins on table a couple of rows away from us. Wow! I can only assume he's filming something down in Bristol, or perhaps staring in a play.

Sunday we had another wedding, Sophie my old flat mate in Deptford. It was over in the Cotswolds, Tetbury. Lovely small town, full of antique shops and Prince Charles' Highgrove shop. The ceremony was lovely, and the reception was great, a big barn in the middle of nowhere. Think Grand Designs and you'll get the picture. There are hundreds of photos of me 'dancing' on facebook if you care to look.

The roads back to Tonbridge were quiet and I beat Tom Tom by nearly 20 mins on a 2.5 hour journey so quite impressed.

All in a all a good weekend. But it was very tiring and very expensive.

Thursday 14 August 2008

Local council idiots

Birmingham City Council has admitted sending out leaflets which showed its US namesake's skyline instead.

About 720,000 pamphlets praising Brummies for their recycling were sent around the city at a cost of £15,000.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/7560392.stm

I think that's pretty stupid, but the most annoying thing about the story is that they printed out 720,000 pointless bits of paper. What a waste of time, money and resources.

Idiots!

Dentist appointment

I have another dentist appointment today and this time he's probably going to take a tooth out.
I have one filling, and it's practically supporting the whole tooth, he can either replace the filling or remove the tooth, so i'm just going to get him to do that. I imagine both require a big scary needle so it's a loose-loose situation.

I'm out for beers with him and my brother afterwards so it's in his best interests not to hurt me too much.

Wednesday 13 August 2008

What's the message here...?

... Is bullying good for you???

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wear/7557258.stm

A Wearside teenager who was bullied at school because he was fat, has been named Slimming World's Young Slimmer of the Year.

Intranet quotes

Our work intranet has a quote of the day section.

Today's gem is from no other than George Best...

"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered."

Quite apt for a company full of brokers.

...now there's a fourth stage!!!

I now have a fourth on Friday afternoon.

Great! That'll be fun. Watch this space for more exciting stage news.

Google Analytics

I've been using Google analytics for just over a month now, for those not in the know it's a website traffic counter / analyser. I decided to add the code to my blog to see how popular (or unpopular) it is. Here are the results for the first month.
754 page views, 419 total visits, and 115 unique visitors.
I'm not sure how accurate the location is (e.g. there are no Tonbridge hits despite April and I both going to it) but I find it quite interesting all the same.









Tuesday 12 August 2008

At least I tried

I tried to go swimming today but when I got to the gym, there was a notice saying there was a flood... No joke.

There was a flood in the showers which meant they were shut, and the male entrance way through to the pool is via the showers.

The girl told me that it may be fixed by this evening so i'll try and go again after work.

---------------------------------------

Since joining the gym back in May 07 my target was to do some form of exercise 33% of days.

Since then I am at 30.4%, this includes me being very lazy in July last year (where I went once) and April this year (Once, I was in Oz for a lot of it). However my current annual ratio is 33.7%, so if I keep that up i'll be back to being an adonis...

And yes, I do have a spreadsheet.

Monday 11 August 2008

First shandy

This weekend I had my first pint of shandy. Not bad for a nearly 29 year old.

Stage three of three completed

Stage three went well.

Should get the results over the next couple of days, watch this space.

Thursday 7 August 2008

New pub


I've 'found' a new bar in London.

The Old Dispensary

-It's about 2 minutes from work, so ideal for lunchtime outings
-It's cheap, less than £3.00 a pint
-Good food, although we haven't tried it, it certainly looks good
-The staff remember us... we (Me + James) went there yesterday and today lunchtime
-It has a great selection of real ales (I have now tried them all), good cider too
-We have managed to organise a raffle where someone in my company wins £100 worth of beer vouchers
Before yesterday, I had been there before, I went with old Lloyd's friends but for some reason I / We thought it was expensive so haven't been back. It looks as though it should be but I guess because of it's location (the arse end of the city) it's not.

Wednesday 6 August 2008

Safe and Secure

One way to destroy secure documents is to use a shredder.

Another way is to set the building on fire.

Fire crews from Northampton dealing with major blaze

The crews were alerted to the blaze just before 2.45am and were still in attendance at 6.30am

Two fire crews from Northampton were today helping at the scene of a major blaze in neighbouring Bedfordshire.

An aerial turntable ladder and a pump crew from Moulton were assisting at a fire at Reisswolf, a company which specialises in the secure destruction of documents, in Chartmoor Road, Leighton Buzzard.

The crews were alerted to the blaze just before 2.45am and were still in attendance at 6.30am.

http://www.northantset.co.uk/news/Fire-crews-from-Northampton-dealing.4361280.jp

Stage two out of three passed...

Fingers crossed for next week...

Argh!

Tuesday 5 August 2008

Musician's retirement home

You may remember a post on my old journal entitled 'Where actors go to die...'

http://wat-de-fu.livejournal.com/202177.html

I posed the question

Do other professions have their own exclusive retirement homes?

Well, it appears they do...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7543062.stm

I wonder if there's a retirement home purely for analysts. How about IT technicians?

Interesting...

When looking for the release date of the new Football Manager (FM09) I came across this.

Could be interesting. I also wouldn't mind playing the new Fallout but I have a sneaking suspicion that my ninja laptop won't be able to play it (same as with Mass Effect). Maybe i'll get myself a new lap top next year. It's about 15 months old now so maybe by next May.

Sadly i've not been able to find the release date for football manager yet. It's usually out at around Oct / Nov so that they get all the transfers in after the deadline on the 31st August (My birthday in case you want to buy me a present).

A part of me is worried that they've stopped making them and are concentrating on their Football Manager Live game (doesn't appeal to me) and I assume they charge monthly for it.

If they don't make it i'm sure some idiot more dweeby than me will update the database with all the necessary changes and allow people to download it.

Monday 4 August 2008

The week ahead

This week I will mostly be looking like this. After a quiet weekend the week ahead certainly seems daunting.

Monday: Nothing
Tuesday: Nothing
Wednesday: Jeff Lang, Half Moon, Putney
Thursday: Voodoo Glow Skulls, Underworld, Camden
Friday: April's Mum's wedding, Bridgend
Saturday: Visiting John, Bristol
Sunday: Sophie's wedding, Somerset
Monday: Drive home and sleep

Sunday 3 August 2008

A weekend of nothingness

So far this weekend I have done pretty much nothing other than improve the arse groove on my sofa. It's been my first weekend in ages where i've had nothing to do and I feel good because of it.

Friday 1 August 2008

For the geeks among us...

http://www.geekologie.com/2008/07/_first_we_saw_han.php
A fitting end.

To curry or not to curry

I was supposed to go to the cinema on Tuesday with April, but the quick bite we wanted before hand wasn't available (a more than half empty Frankie and Benny's told us we had to wait 20mins to get seated???), April was more hungry than wanting to see WALL.E so we headed back into Tonbridge for a curry. I have to say that it was most excellent. Not cheap but good all the same.

I've just got back from the Red Chilli near work after another curry, again very good. The question I ask you is should I go for another curry tomorrow night with my brother in Wimbledon? Will I turn into a curry if I do? Watch this space to find out...