Cats are tired

A selection of games

Games weekend games.  Wins generally spread across the group.

Ebay purchases and trying to open them

Might need to send this one back. Not the cat cocktail sticks of course.

Some views from my office

The beast

Working closely with IT does have some benefits.   I've just managed to aquire The Beast as my new desktop.

Most of our work is done remotely on a bank of 10 servers but I still use a desktop for everyday stuff.  It's fairly old, but the fact that it's an i7 will make my life a lot easier.

A good man died so young

I've just found out that a good friend of mine died today.  He was only 51 but was suffering from brain cancer for a number of years.  He fought a good battle but survived longer than his doctors would have predicted.

I met John at Lloyd's and amongst other things we went to many gigs together in London but perhaps the highlight was our random trip to Hong Kong (10 years ago today).

We were on one of the maiden flights of the short lived airline Oasis Hong Kong and shared a hotel room together.  I think the flights and hotel cost a little more than £400.  Bargin!


This is a photo from the lifts of the Four Seasons hotel on the main land.  On the way to a bar of course.

 

A good friend, he will be missed.

Least satisfied rail users identified

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35599189

It's no surprise to me that South Eastern were top (bottom) of the list when it came to disgruntled rail users.  I think my train in the morning has got me into Cannon Street on time only twice so far this year.  That's 2 out of 31 attempts, or 6%.  Pretty poor.

However, i'm used to it so I kind of let it wash over me, if anything it's a benefit, afterall i'm on my way to work so the more time i'm on the train watching boxed sets on my tablet means less time in the office doing work.  Win, win.

I am more annoyed about the headline used to click on the BBC article.

Least satisfied rail users identified

I was hoping the article to actually be a top 10 of angry commuters, perhaps with clips of them venting their anger at rail company managers who get wheeled out occasionally to try and dissipate the open hostility of commuting life.

Who would have thought

I received an e-mail regarding my you tube account yesterday

Hello, My name is Sam

I'm a content aggregator from the TPN network

While browsing youtube I notice your channel and I think you have great content and an awesome personality.

because you are focused on great videos we'd like to invite you to apply for a partnership with our fast growing YouTube network TPN!

Shame it's basically only an advert for their product and they don't actually think I have an awesome personality.  I mean, what's not to like about funny cat videos?

Ankles are bad

I keep 'popping' my ankle when walking.  I feel intense pain for about 10 seconds and start to limp but after a little while the pain subsides and there's not much evidence of anything having happened.

It originally happened on a rugby pitch over 20 years ago (jeez...) when I was 15 and jogging backwards, both ankles gave way.  Everybody on the sidelines heard them both pop and made an audible "oooohhhhhh".  Within 5 minutes I was back and playing again.

It usually happens around once a year but it's happened a couple of times in quick succession so a bit annoyed about it.

A sad day

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35594271

Competition winners

We're off to see Frank Turner tonight after April won a competition to see him perform live here

http://www.monarchbar.com/

We last saw him at Sonisphere which was odd as his style of music doesn't really match the rest of the bands that were playing that weekend.  He was very good though and mentioned that he was a big metal fan.  Let's hope he does a metal set...

After a hard day

Nothing better than getting smothered by cats.

And the Darwin award for stupidity goes to...

We're trying to save a little money by doing some of the work we want to do to the house this year ourselves.

I should not be doing this.

I have very little self preservation so managed to fall off a step ladder not once but twice. By the end of it April refused to be in the same room as me for fear of watching me break my neck.

Finally...

After nine months the lifts on my side of the Lloyd's building have been renovated.

With only three sets of main lifts for the entire building means getting up to the 10th floor can take an absolute age.

Only one set left to do now so within another year we should be back up to a full compliment. I imagine it'll then be time to start on the first set again.

Holy shit

The most exciting thing that happened at the CTC was when the heating failed in the winter one year and we were nearly allowed home.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-35584909

It must be half term

No kids on the train equals loads of space,  no crumbs or feet on seats and less sports bags getting smacked on the back of your head as they get off at Sevenoaks.

Saw this advert earlier

https://youtu.be/UE-m9YMDa-E

Fraud

Some asshole tried to take money from my account this week, so now i'm getting pestered by my bank with calls.  I thought I managed to sort it all out yesterday but I've had another 3 calls from them since.  Not because of new transaction but because their system hadn't updated itself.

Blog posts

I've been fairly consistent over the past 12 years, certainly for the last 7.

* not full years

I'm not sure why May is so uninspiring, and other than my birthday what's going on in August?

Why?

Whenever people ask me where I live I clearly state Tonbridge.  There is no doubt in what I said.

So why when I say this they reply with a question?

Tunbridge Wells?

No, Tonbridge!

It's as if they think I got it wrong.  Twats.

I need to practice

Only 5/10 for me

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/articles/8eb5dcb6-10c6-4356-943b-659d3bb1ecef?intc_type=singletheme&intc_location=superbowl&intc_campaign=superbowl&intc_linkname=quiz_howmetal_contentcard3

Killer cat

Poppet was meowing like mad earlier so popped upstairs to see what the commotion was.  She'd caught a donkey.

Aftermath

Shattered today,  the game finished at around 3:45am bloody knackered.

Ian arrived early

So we squeezed in a couple of games.

April beat me at Splendour (just) and I won Ticket to Ride.

Prepping for the Super Bowl party

Saturday night's activity

We went to a charity comedy gig on Saturday at the Hackney Empire.  It was in aid of Shelter the homeless charity.

And very good it was too.  6 or 7 acts including Kettering's own James Acaster, Sofie Hagen and the headline Stewart Lee. It was compared by the brilliant Daniel Kitson, i'll definitely be on the look out for his next London gig.

Let's hope the charity made some good money to keep the homeless of the streets.

Sweaty cat

I may have to peel her off before I leave.

Prepping for Super Bowl

The first of 4 meaty delights for tomorrow's Super Bowl party.

40 times

I'm due to give blood for the 40th time today.

They let you give blood up to 4 times a year so in theory I could have given around 72 times.  I don't think you get an award at 40, maybe 50.  Find out in about 2 and a half years

No wonder there are so many delays

Photo taken just past London Bridge station.

Increase in readership...

99% of my blog posts are done using my mobile phone or tablet through an app called blogger (surprisingly enough), I do have a number of issues with it but for the most part it works.  I use it because generally if i'm attaching a picture it's usually stored on the device i'm using.

When I use the internet to post (my blog is no longer blocked at work), when I post it gives you the option to post to google+ at the same time.  As far as i'm aware not many of my friends use this so it's interesting to see that I get more views for these posts when compared to the app.

I'll do some experiments and get back to you...  Or more than likely i'll forget or even more likely I won't be bothered.

Samosa for breakfast?

Don't mind if I do.

One of the chaps in our team turned 30 over the weekend so brought in a large cardboard box of samosas. Quite spicy.

We've also got a couple of the team coming back from holidays so we have treats from France and Vietnam.

New brand

My company is having a brand relaunch today.

The whole building was shaking this morning from a Taiko soon display. There's Aikido later.  Plus there are company branded caps, mints, phone cases and sun cream (?).

More converts

We test drove a couple of American recipes for next week's super bowl night so invited a couple of friends round to eat,  drink and get beaten at board games. 

April one Ticket to Ride by a large margin
I won Splendor
I also think I saw going to win Clark Trumps before they had to leave.