Dr. Who, dinner and Wintersmith

Once we got home after our epic journey with Indiana Jones, Toni made a fabulous beef curry and we watched Dr. Who camp it up in The Library! I screamed when I realised that it was a two parter! Much as I love the suspsense I also hate having to wait another week to see what happens next!

Crash out once again to the dulcet tomes of Stephen Briggs reading Terry Pratchet's "Wintersmith"

Indiana Jones

Toni, Sam, Aaron, Gemima and I went to Chelmsford this afternoon to watch Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skulls. Awesome film! Totally recommend it. The Indy magic is alive and well and as far fetched as ever.

Post office and meester Bourne

Up earlylish today so Toni could get her tax disc sorted out. We went into town with Gemima, did the Post Office and then hit Asda to pick up some goodies for lunch and some sweets for your afternoon trip. Once out mission was complete we shot off home, had lunch and settled down to wach the Bourne Ultimatum.

Travel, Asda and pizza

Rather than travel all the way back to SWF I arranged to meet Toni (with Aaron and Gemima) at North Greenwich and she drove us all back. Stopped of at Asda to get Pizza as Sam had Adam and Livvy staying over. Toni and Gemima made their own with gluten free pizza bases and had gluten free garlic bread too!

EIHL seminar, day 2

Seminar today was great, really informative with some really useful and practical stuff. Hopefully it will be possible to put it into practice. Just got to persuade Scott about a few things! LOL

Got a taxi back to the airport with Todd Kelman (of Belfast Giants) before heading back to Nottingham on the bus and then the train back to London. Spent the train journey typing up my notes (well half of them anyway)

Britain's NOT got talent!

Oh dear!
While partaking of some edible commestibles in my hotel room tonight I had the misfortune to watch some of the dire Ant & Dec in a live semi final of Britain's NOT Got Talent. What a pile of poo! I can't believe we have now stooped lower than Pop Idol, American Pop Idol and X Factor etc to another show with even less talented people!

EIHL seminar, the story so far!

Bus arrived 15 minutes late and then we got stuck in traffic in some obscure village as we had been redirected due to an accident. Thankfully I was only a few minutes late so didn't miss anything important.

Seminar today was very good! Learned loads of stuff that can now be applied in reality. Quite amusing sitting in the same room as Gary Moran and Dave Simms and for them not to be taking cheap shots at each other LOL. Plenty to think about for the future. Mr Neil drove back to Edinburgh after the session today so I'll be taking copious notes tomorrow to feed back to him over the weekend!

What not to wear!

Here we go again! Interesting one on the trains to Nottingham this morning.
This lady was wearing a grey velor track suit with diamonte detail! YUKKITY YUK:

Stupid o'clock

Got up at stupid o'clock and Toni drove me to North Greenwich and got me there for 05:35! Made my way to St Pancras to collect my tickets and catch the 06:35 to Nottingham. Oh the joys of being a completely unpaid employee of the Edinburgh Capitals! One day Scott reckons he will be able to emloy properly (I won't hold my breath though but at least he did pay my train fair and is covering the hotel). 2 hour train journey so thank god for my mp3 player (and laptops so I could write this)!

Manic day & early night

Manic day at work today with everything critical as usual. Seems our next relase has to be ready by next Friday (6th June). We haven't even finished unit testing yet, and some items are still to be developed but we are expecting to start 'regression' testing next week but it will just be retesting the unit stuff. We had hoped that this release would have a full regression test but alas not. Instead we,ll have too add in lots of caveats at release time to cover our butts so we don't get kicked if it all goes wrong!

Its crap and not the way to do things but once again a clients last minute notification of a critical date has bitten us! At least after this one we'll be going to quarterly releases (allegedly) so we'll have a chance to do some regression before that one.

Gloria text me today for a quick catch up. Am going to go and have a drink with her and Barry next week at some point.

Toni came over after work today as she left some important paperwork at the weekend. We conveniently arranged it to coincide with me going to Notingham for an Elite league seminar on sports marketing so she'll be dropping me of in London at stupid o'clock in the morning.

Was nice to see her again (the week gap is way too long). We had a lovdey pasta dinner and watched The Thomas Crown Affair before having an early night.

Acoustic radio

Kat got in touch with me over the weekend. She has been asked to do some singing sessions for Link FM. I have volunteered to play acoustic guitar for her. Lots of details still to be finalised but should be fun if everything actually happens (I am far too cynical of stuff like this until I am actually there and doing it, especially after the farce that was the Adler's Appetite tour last year).

The songs we are going to do so far are:
Valerie - The Zutons
You Give Me Something - James Morrison
Stay - Lisa Loeb
Make You Feel My Love - Adele (Bob Dylan song)

Fingers crossed folks but I am going to start practising like mad!

LastFM listening post

Here's last week's top picks music lovers!

Top weekly tracks:


Top weekly artists:


Overall top artists:

*sigh*

As is always the way that horrible moment came when Toni and Aaron had to leave. Aaron never wants to go and always comes up with some imaginative thing that could happen that would prevent them having to go home! I think as he was on half term like Sam he would have loved to have stayed.

The weekend seemed to fly by and here I am all alone again :o(

*sigh*

Rock N Roll High School and more bionic stuff

Woke up and watched the Eddie Izzard DVD that we fell asleep to last night. Nothing like a bit of Izzard to get you going first thing in the morning *whistles*

Sophie started her first day at the Town Crier today so we dropped her off as it was raining.

Had a lovely brucnch of dips, cheeses and smoked meats and watched the terribly cheesy Rock N Roll High School.

After brunch I had some Edinburgh Capitals stuff to do and Toni took some time out to do some revision for some training she had to do this week.

We then watch a few more episodes of Bionic Woman. It's shame they cancelled the series as it is really good and I'd have liked to see where it might have gone next. Just have to hope that somebody reconsiders and puts it back on the schedule list again.

I had a bit of a tidy frenzy and although there is still loads to do, did at least manage to starting sorting out the living room and made it look a bit tidier. Nearly had a strop at Sophie for not doing as she was asked but took solace in the bedroom instead rather have a falling out.

Lovely pasta dinner and then sitting and chilling. Sophie had a good day at work so hopefully she'll get on really well there and settle in.

Early starts and lazy days

Got an early morning text from Sophie (at 08:15) asking us to take her nebuliser over to Shane's sisters house as she was having trouble breathing. Not the best way to start the day but it had to be done. On the way back we popped into Asda to get some breakfast stuff.

Despite having tons of housework to do I decided that Sunday would be a lazy (just as it should be).

A lovely cooked breakfast was enjoyed whilst watch the The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy.

Sam was off to Sam Croot's birthday party but he had to get Toni to take him to the shop to buy condoms (Sam decided that this would be a hilarious present for Sam, thankfully he did find it funny). Sam had attempted to buy some from the condom machine in the Asda toilets on Saturday but it ate his £3 and he was just too embarrassed to actually go and tell someone to either get his money back (or the condoms) LMFAO!

Once Toni was back we had cups of tea and gluten free Oreos and watched The Notorious Bettie Page. It was a good film and had a wonderful line referring to S&M pictures as "indisious filth"! You can't beat a bit of insidious filth in my book!

Prawn curry was for dinner followed by lots of episodes of the old comedy series Three Of A Kind starring a very young Lenny Henry, Tracey Ullman and David Copperfield. Some of the jokes were dated (due to subject matter but it was still funny).

Another early night ensued and watched the Marvel film Elektra before crashing out to Eddie Izzard.

Audition OMG!

Wow, the audition was an experience!
We turned up 20 minutes late only to be told we were early!
Pete the singer was just settling down to his dinner so we had a cup of tea and chatted for a bit. The drummer Keith turned up about 40 minutes late. We sat through an episode of The Simpsons and were about half way through Futurama when I suggested we should probably do something musical. Despite turning up in a huge van Keith hadn't thought to bring his kit with him so disappeared for another 30 minutes to go home and get it. It also transpired that there were no guitarists in the band and that a couple of people had been approached but hadn't yet shown they were interested.

We then stuck on a CD with the five tracks that I had been asked to learn on it to play along and see how things went. Pete didn't seem to know the lyrics properly to any of the songs other than Little Wing and was very nervous so it took him a while to really get into it although he did seem to have a pretty good voice once he had relaxed. Keith was more nervous than Pete and had never been in a band before. I figured that playing along to the CD would help things. Keith confessed that he didn't really practice and had only been playing for 18 months. Unfortunately he struggled to even keep a simple rhythm going playing along to the CD. If anything is to happen in the future then he MUST practice.

When we left I said that they needed to get themselves a guitarist lined up and then maybe we could have another shot at things. If Keith doesn't practice a lot more though I can't really see it going anywhere. So the search for a band is going to continue.

On the plus side, having now practised and played a bit I am now more than ever determined to kick start my involvement in music again.

Dips, drag queens, bionic women and curry!

Lunch consisted of veg, chips and dips and watching the wonderful To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar with Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes playing drag queens. Such a wonderfully colourful and amusing film.

We spent the afternoon chilling to Michelle Ryan as the Bionic Woman. pleasantly surprised with the start of the series.

I then continued to practice my audition songs for later in the evening while Toni made a gorgeous curry. Here's the best carrot in the world ever just before it became part of our gorgeous dinner:

Important things to do

Morning started quite early as Toni and I both had important things to do. We headed off to Essex Properties so that I could register my intent to continue renting for another year. Next stop was the post office so that Toni could sort out her car tax (which ended up not being sorted!). As seems usual these days a jaunt to Asda followed to pick up some extra bits

Bangers, practice, more bangers & massage

Tristan came over after school to spend the evening so Sam and he were consoling away in his bedroom when I got home.

Started particing some of the songs that Pete had asked me to learn for the audition on Saturday:
Boulevard Of Broken Dreams (Green Day)
The Reason (Hoobastank)
Little Wing (Jimi Hendrix - YUK)
Stone Cold Crazy (Queen)
Numb (Linkin Park)

Next I prepared dinner (bangers and mash) after a trip to Asda to get some vital ingrediants (like potatoes). Toni hadn't had it for ages so it was a nice change for her (as was me cooking!).

We then watched How To Look Good Naked (as is our weekend tradition now - more bangers!).

Toni's back had been hurting so I gave her a good massage to attempt to remove some of the many large stress induced knots that her back muscles had tied themselves into.)

Earlyish night ended with us falling asleep listening to Terry Pratchett's "Wintersmith" audio book.

Another interview for Sophie

Sophie sent me a text today to say that she has an interview with Costa Coffee on Thursday. If she does well at the Town Crier and also gets a job at Costa she should be working almost full time which will be great news.

Best wishes to Karen

Toni and I were supposed to be going to a cocktail party on Saturday but unfortunately here dad has fallen very ill. He has just had an operation and is currently in the cardiac unit at hospital. Operation was successful and he is looking well according to Karen.

Thinking of you all, Keith

Bands are like buses!

OMFG, incredible!
Bands are like buses. You wait ages and ages and then two come along at the same time! Got a call from a guy called Pete today who have been given my details by the kind folk at Evolution (home of Vendetta Club). Am meeting him on Saturday to discuss music and whether or not we can work together doing blues rock. Also got contacted by a guy called Justin who is looking to put together an 80s rock cover band (only downside of this little project is that they are based in Norwich whereas Pete is near Basildon).

Watch this space, I could soon be rocking and a rolling once again!

Bad night and morning!

Thankfully not in an emotional way!
Couldn't get to sleep quickly last night and was tossing and turning a lot. When I did finally wake up I felt like crap and felt like closing my eyes and going back to sleep again. Was a mad rush to leave on time although I did manage to grab a coffee as I left. Kind of bouncing off the ceiling a little now as I've been doing strong coffee all day just to get through the rigour mortis of grid testing! Oh, and I've been bad too, had a cigarette! Don't panic, I'm not taking up smoking again but I just felt the need to have one (this has now passed and I don't feel any compulsion to do it again). Not just that but I now have a headache caused by the cigarette so its a definitely a no go from now!)

They Live!

Sam and I watched the 1988 cult classic They Live while eating dinner last night.

Nada, a down-on-his-luck construction worker, discovers a pair of special sunglasses. Wearing them, he is able to see the world as it really is: people being bombarded by media and government with messages like "Stay Asleep", "No Imagination", "Submit to Authority". Even scarier is that he is able to see that some usually normal-looking people are in fact ugly aliens in charge of the massive campaign to keep humans subdued.

It's a fantastically cheesy film but brilliantly executed and carried the immortal line delivered by Roddy Pipper,

"I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum."


You must watch this film!
OBEY
CONFORM
CONSUME
WATCH TELEVISION
SLEEP

Animation by Leumas

Here's something my disturbed son knocked together!

BASS PLAYER AVAILABLE: Where have all the good girls & boys gone?

Hey dudes and dudettes!
Itchy bass guitar fingers here!
Where have all the good girls & boys gone?
I seriously need to start knocking out some great grooves and am desperately failing to find a band or like minded musicians to work with.
I've been playing for 23 years and have put my hand to loads of different styles.

So what am I looking for?
Anything really: rock, glam, metal, goth, industrial, punk
I want to play great tunes and have a great time

There must be someone out there who is (or knows) a band or musicians that need a bass player.

Get in touch people, I am waiting!

Love and Lipstick
K.T.Glitz
Trash Queen Lollipop Shock!

Very nice surprise

Had a lovely surprise tonight.
Toni had been talking about coming over but as she hadn't confirmed it I assumed that she wasn't. Even looked out the front a few times in the vain hope that she might be there but she wasn't.
We were sending here a few texts and talking about having a cuddle and she text to say open the front door and I can have one. Lo and behold there she was!
Very nice surprise (even if I didn't show it too well, sorry about that!)
It was lovely to see her again (and sorry I got caught up doing some ice hockey stuff)
It was good to see her though :o)

Useless fucking tech support!

Grrrrrrrrr, arrrrrgggghhhhhhhh, WHACK!
One of my online database driven websites went down tonight. From the error messages it was clear that there was a problem with the database server. I rang tech support to get them to sort it out. It was late so I was routed through to India. Seemed to take ages to get anywhere and then I was put on hold with some dire music. He then came back on the phone to inform that there was, guess what? A problem with the database server! No shit sherlock, I told you that when I first called. My problem is now being forwarded to an administrator with no timescale for a resolution.

I have a case number and will call back in 30 minutes once I am wired with rocket fuel!

I think I am going to go all Foamy on them:

Sophie has a new job!

Forgot to blog this at the weekend.
Sophie had interview with the Town Crier pub and restaurant in South Woodham Ferrers on Saturday and she has been offered a trial period starting next Sunday!

Well done Sophie!

LastFM listening post

Not 'arf, pop pickers!

Top weekly tracks:


Top weekly artists:


Overall top artists:

Look at the bruise!

Here's the latest picture from my assault the other day. It's come up a treat now all around the impact zone!

Little by Lidl we have a BBQ (and a dirty stop out)

Headed off to Lidl this morning to get in a week's worth of shopping for bugger all money. God I love Lidl, think I'll be stopping the Tesco deliveries and just be using Lidl from now on. Fridge and freezer are now well stocked.

When we got back Sam was waiting on the doorstep and had been there for an hour. Seems he had forgotten to take his key with him when he headed off to the party yesterday. He drank loads, snogged three girls and was a little hung over first thing this morning (although he was fine when he got home)

Decided to have a BBQ as the weather was OK but cheated this time and just used the instant ones as I couldn't be bother to faff about with coals.

Toni and I did some work on a media announcement for the Edinburgh Capitals before going and making lasagne.

Sam fell asleep (his night of debauchery had obviously caught up with him) and Toni, Gemima and I drove Sophie round to Shane's (as she is staying there for a week).

We then watched some God & Devil while we ate and then all too quickly it was time for Toni to go. Seems to come quicker and quicker every weekend and is getting harder to deal with each time. I hate that we live so far apart!

Dr Who, I'd Do Anything and coffee

When we got home Sophie had cups of coffee waiting for us which was very much appreciated. We watched Dr Who, a bit of I'd Do Anything and then headed off to bed as we were all tired. Gemima slept in with Sophie and Aaron had Sam's room to himself as Sam was off at Aimee's party getting up to all sorts! Aaron had a bit of a monk on as he thought he'd be allowed to stay up, how wrong he was LOL

Sleep, dinner and time to head home

When we got back Gail was fast asleep so I couldn't resist sneaking a crafty photo.


Revenge was had later though as some bugger took this of me!!


Seems that whilst I was zonked out and that photo was taken Toni also took the opportunity to snap a couple of pics of her, Gail and nan:
Toni's nan


Toni and her nan:


Toni and Gail (her mum):


We had a gorgeous roast pork dinner which left me very very full afterwards. Toni grabbed a quick nap while the kids were having pudding and then it was time to head home again. We'd only been driving a few minutes when suddenly the oil light flashed briefly. We pulled into a garage and checked the oil and I pointed out that the car had been driving on oil fumes for god knows how long. 500ml of oil later the sound had decreased and the car seemed to perform a lot better (FUNNY THAT)! Thank the stars that no damage was done and that we worked out what was wrong. Note to Toni, check your oil regularly!

We spotted this little gem on the way back. It didn't look like the car had a flat tire so his back axle must have been completely mullered!

Chips and records

After the gallery we went in search of food and stopped of in a small cafe for chips and a drink. After this we started heading back a until we came to a small record shop that was closing down. Nearly everything was £1 so I got a few CDs, Toni and I both bought some vinyl LPs that we want to hand on our walls and Gemima got a couple of DVDs. Really hope the place is still open if we go back as I'd like to get a few more LP covers to decorate the house with.

Here's the beach in daylight:

Unpopular Culture

When we were out strolling last night we saw a poster for Grayson Perry's Unpopular Culture exhibition which was being shown at the De La Warr Pavilion. I had wanted to go and see this when it was on at the South Bank centre in London but had missed so we decided to pop along and have a look. It was a good exhibition but I don't think Gemima and Aaron were overly impressed with it. Mental note: don't visit galleries with children LMFAO!

Would have been nice to spend a bit longer there but hungry children dictated that our stay was to be cut short LOL. As we left we noticed that The Puppini Sister were playing there in July so grabbed a leaflet.

More silly signs!

I wonder if this Oil geezer is related Cliff Edge?


This sign was obviously point the wrong way! Whilst it is very commendable that someone wants to keep the sea safe, I am not sure that a) it can read and b) if it really cares!

Rude boy, ice cream and a car crash

After the park we strolled back the other way down the sea front.

Having the very rude mind that I do I just couldn't resist taking a snap of this beach hut, I know it's childish and purile but it just had to be done!:


As we strolled we stopped off for ice cream after which I got run over by Gemima and Aaron in their car:

Strolling & the park

After breakfast Toni, Gemima, Aaron and I all went for a walk along the sea front in search of the park (even though it was a bit rainy).

I was very pleased to see that child safety is parament in Bexhill on Sea and that they had many warning about some dodgy bloke that obviously hangs around there:


Sorry, couldn't resist!

We did find a park and much fun was had on small rocking elephants!

Lean back!


Is she going to fall off?


Soaring on the wings of an elephant!


Thankfully I managed to avoid having a go on the heffalumps (bah humbug I hear you all cry)

Off to see Toni's nan, chilli and the beach

Left work at 17:00 today and headed off to North Greenwich to meet Toni before heading off to see Toni's nan in Bexhill on Sea. Aaron had already headed off with Toni's mum Gail and so Toni, Gemima and I whizzed off to the sound of Peppermint Creeps! En route, Toni's car started making a strange noise which sounded like a leaf or something was stuck against the fan but we got to her nan's without incident.

Once we arrived we had a few glasses of wine and some lovely chilli that Toni's nan had prepared. We then decided to pop out for a walk along the sea front once Aaron and Gemima had gone to bed.

Pebbles!


The see cometh!


Thee and me on the beach at night!

Funkadelic and winning at pool

Fun day at work today. Lot's to do but spent most of the day listening to Funkadelic which was a bit of a change for me (but great nonetheless).

On top of that I actually managed to win a game of pool (something that doesn't happen too often!)

Toni popped over, cup of soup and PC problems

Toni decided to pop over tonight as she wanted to collect the air bed for the weekend as we were heading off to her nan's and it would save her having to come here first on Friday (as it is quicker for me to meet her in North Greenwich. Things were a little tight so I had a cup of soup for tea (the kids had had sausage and chips earlier). Toni politely declined a cup a soup LOL.
Was nice to see her a day early though. Later in the night my mum rang in an excitably mood as she had been booking coach tickets for our trip to Swanage in the summer and she had accidentally ordered them online with the print rather than email option and she had no printer. I had to talk her through doing a "print to file" to allow her to email the confirmations so that I could print them off for her. Thankfully it all worked fine!

When the logo doesn't come out quite like you'd hoped...

OMG, bad night!

OMG! Crap day already!
Had a really bad night last night, couldn't sleep and it must have been gone 03:30 by the time I did finally crash. Was woken up this morning at 08:30 by the doorbell, sent Sophie to tell Mike that I'd be there in a sec and quickly threw all my clothes on. Phone was on my bed but I don't even remember getting it when my alarms went off!

We did make into work just after 9 (although we were delayed by a silly lorry doing bizarre maneuvers on a busy road!

Feel like shite now, LOTS of caffeine will be required if I am going to make it through the day!

Assaulted!

I am not a happy bunny. The QA team went to Ye Olde Pubbe at lunch time for a coke and then took a gentle stroll back to the office in the sunshine. We were about half way back to the office when I was suddenly wet and bent over double in agony.

Seems a car had driven passed and very quietly one of it's passenger had launched a water balloon at me. This would probably have been amusing if it had just been thrown. The pain that I was in from the impact suggested that it was fired at me using something with the power of a paintball gun as my right arm went numb for ages. I am still suffering some major discomfort at the impact point. These pics aren't great but give an idea of how hard I was hit.




Unfortunately it was all so quick and my Shelton and Stuart were more concerned about me than watching the offending car going off in the other direction. All we know is that it was a black car, possibly a BMW.

Sam the party animal!

Sam has been invited to a party on Saturday night (and sleeping over). Sounds like it's going to be a bit of a wild one. Parents away until the early hours and a house full of 15 year olds! I remember those days! *blinks*

I'll get some Alka Seltzer on standby for him when he comes back on Sunday! LOL

Big hugs to...........

.........all my friends that might be needing them right now. I know a few of you are going through all sorts of emotional stuff at the moment so I wanted to take a moment out of my time to say that I am thinking of you all. GREAT BIG HUGS to all of you. I know I say it a lot (and it drives you mad) but life can (and will) get better!

Love and Lipstick
K.T.Glitz
Trash Queen Lollipop Shock!
x

Up too early grrrrrrrrr

Bloody typical!
I am getting a lift to work for the rest of the week and won't have to leave until 08:30 every day and so I can get a nice bit of extra sleep so what do I go and do? I bloody well wake up at 06:00, 45 minutes earlier than when I normally do! What a complete and utter pain!
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

LastFM Listening Post

Here's this week's top picks music lovers!

Top weekly tracks:


Top weekly artists:


Overall top artists:

The God And Devil Show

OMFG, this is hilarious, who ever said that having a child off sick from school couldn't reap benefits. Sam was browsing the BT Vision box today and came across a wonderful cartoon called The God And Devil Show, it is absolutely hilarious. Check it out, here is a great sample to kick you all off (I especially enjoyed this as I loathe Kurt Cobain with a vengeance)

Bad night!

OMG, I feel like crap!
Had a really bad night, heartburn and wind and nausea, not good at all :o(
Woke up as Toni left and then crashed out again. Woke for my alarms but still felt rough and ending up falling asleep and not waking up until I was due to leave! Toyed with the idea of phoning in sick but as I was feeling slightly better (and knew I had a lot of work to do) I decided to trudge in to work anyway and see how things went.

Sam had started feeling ill yesterday and looked really rough this morning so I gave him the day off school. Probably healthier for me to be at work anyway!

Back to hospital again :o(

Just as Toni and Aaron were getting ready to go Sophie started to have an asthma attack and she was out of inhalers and nebuliser capsules. Thankfully Toni drove us to the hospital and waited with us. Had to wait quite a while to be seen and managed to accelerate things as Sophie was getting worse. After a couple of nebs and some oxygen she was fine. We had to wait quite a long time before we were discharged but she was in good spirits. Was a bit weird for me as the place in the resuscitation room that she was put was where Sharon was taken the day she died but thankfully I didn't spazz too much about it and then we did get moved fairly quickly to another part as an emergency came in. Whole visit was just over 2 hours and then we were merrily on our way again with new inhaler and nebuliser capsules in hand just in case! Toni had decided that she would leave at silly o'clock in the morning rather than head back tonight which was just as well as the boys were both crashed out when we got home.

To make matters worse I had started to feel a little sick while at the hospital.....

Dips, Gok and Dr Who and BBQ!

Got up and had fresh coffee with dips and watched last nights Dr Who and also How To Look Good Naked (Gok is a god!)

It was a lovely day for just doing absolutely nothing and we did just that. When it came to lighting the BBQ we had a bit of a challenge as it just seemed to be a stubborn old goat. Had bags of charcoal rather than those pre-soaked lightable bags and everywhere was out of firelighters but we did finally get it going with the use of paper, cardboard, matches and Zippo lighter fluid!

I reluctantly decided to cut and strim the back garden (as no other bugger would volunteer to do it) as it was a bit overgrown but it looked great once I was done (although more work needs doing). Made a nice place for all of us to sit out on Toni's car rug and eat our yummy BBQ food and relax.

After that came a few bouts of Guitar Hero before Toni and Aaron were supposed to leave.

10/05/08 Vendetta Club

The time had arrived for our monthly pilgrimage to Westcliff-on-Sea to Vendetta Club, this time with Hazel in tow. As usual it was a good night but WAY too hot. The club was like a sauna and a lot of people spent more time outside with the smokers where it was infinitely cooler than in the bar or on the dance floor. Not that that stopped me from strutting my stuff of course! Hazel picked up a few admirers on the dancefloor!
One guy was trying to tempt people to try the "cockles in a bag" so I humoured him, not bad but could have been much colder! Toni then made me eat Choc N Dip she didn't think much of my new fishy breath LMFAO!

Tart!


Toni and the tart!



Toni and the tart again:


Toni and Hazel:


Pink N Stripey!


Boogie Nights!



All the photos can be seen on my Picasa Web album: 10052008VendettaClub

New specs and shopping

Sophie, Toni and I went into Chelmsford today. I popped into JBO to pic up my fab new glasses while Toni popped into Superdrug. Then we headed off to look for t-shirts for Toni and she got some fab ones in New Look.

Sophie wanted to have a BBQ so we went to Lidl to get some supplies but they were out of BBQ stuff so we then headed off to Asda. Bumped into Mark and Sam there and had a chinwag. Got a small kettle BBQ.

Sophie then decided that she was going off with Shane as she was babysitting with him so the BBQ got postponed until Sunday (which was fine as Toni and I were going to Vendetta in the evening anyway and we would have been pushed for time)

Stuff on a plate!

It was my turn to cook this weekend so I started make what was going to bolognaise. The plan had been to just chuck in a jar of pre-made sauce but I decided to experiment and make something without a pre-prepared jar. It actually turned out quite well. Mince, onion, garlic, shredded carrots and celery, herbs de provence, tomato puree and sun dried tomato pesto and loads of red wine served with brown rice. It was actually very yummy. Sam said thank you when he had eaten his and Aaron said that he should be thanking Toni and when we told Aaron that I had cooked the meal he looked shocked LMFAO!

Guess what's in the package

Had a package delivered to work today. Lots of jokes about it being some sort of rubber/PVC dress however I am far too modest to reveal what it was. Paul T however couldn't resist and came and squeezed it and exclaimed that there was no mistaking what was in there LOL!

Happy 18th Birthday Shane

Happy 18th Birthday Shane!
Hope you have a great day!

Happy Birthday Sarah Young

Happy Birthday Sarah!

Hope you have a great day and lots of prezzies.
Am sure you will enjoy yourself knowing you!

All our love,
Keith, Sophie and Sam
x

Sophie's employers are...........

......... not to be trusted methinks!

I am doing a lot of research in to the company that Sophie works for "Maximum Dynamics". Something just isn't sitting right for me. Whenever she asks questions the answers always seem to be very vague.

The job she showed me was advertised as £16K - 28K OTE. This to me meant that the basic was £16K and that you could earn "up to" another £12K (ie £28K) if you met all your targets etc. Not long after starting she told me that they had to sort out their own tax which made me suspicious. Then she said that the work on commission only (this would mean that the salary was actually £0K - £28K rather than £16K - £28K).

This week I found out that the two weeks training that she is doing is actually unpaid! So she quits one job, has to borrow £100 from me to get a monthly bus pass, does two weeks plus "training" for nothing and then I guess she really starts "working".

This actually means that if she makes no sales when she does start "working" then she will earn NOTHING at all so in theory after two months she could have done two weeks training and six weeks work, spent £200 on bus fares and be paid FUCK ALL!

On top of all that, even if she does stick it out and start earning, she will soon get very cheesed off if the weather takes a turn for the worse or as the autumn and winter nights start coming in and it gets colder and darker. The hours are rubbish too as she has to work Monday to Saturday from 12:00 to 20:30 so she loses nearly all her "leisure" time and has no real weekend.

Needless to say I am not very happy about the whole concept and have suggested that she seriously starts looking for another job.

They think it's all over.............

...........it is now. For Sam and Megan anyway. After a two day whirlwind romance the poor boy has had to suffer being told that she only sees him as a friend. At least they are still friends but its such a shame as he was obviously enjoying it while it lasted.

Oh well son, chin up. I am sure the girl of your dreams will be along soon.

It's a scorcher

Wow, this weather is great. I am not normally a fan of the sun but leaving for work in the morning with no jacket and sunglasses on is wonderful (ditto coming home). It's probably about as hot as I can handle so I am dreading the "real" summer. Of course there are some drawbacks with the hot weather but I can't go into them here *whistles*

Get your free NIN album download here!

Nine Inch Nails are offering their latest album The Slip as a free download and you know what, it's not bad at all (can't believe I just said that LOL)

If you are interested then scoot off here: theslip.nin.com/

I am the lerr!

Ah bliss, Sophie is out all night babysitting with Shane so Sam and I ordered a curry (as I'd promised him a vindaloo). We ate dinner in curryfied bliss and watch the awesome Judge Dredd on DVD. Despite it's inconsistancies it is still a great film that I'll never tire of watching. Altogether now.............

I AM THE LAW!!!!!!!!!!

Alas poor Fiat..............

.......I knew him well (well actually I didn't!).

Was delighted to get home today and find that the Fiat had finally been removed form the driveway. Lucky for the hire company they turned up at 17:45 as Sam had literally walked through the door after spending his after school time with Megan. Any earlier and the damn thing would have been getting charged rent!

Need more sleep

OK, I have to face facts, I REALLY need to get more sleep. Staying up chatting until gone midnight every day and then watching a film before falling asleep really is starting to take it's toll. Time to get in a few early nights methinks, no later than 23:00 from the next couple of days.

If not then I'll start to look like this:

Oh Romeo oh Romeo....

Sam went to London after school on a theatre trip (not to see Romeo & Juliet) and came back in a very happy mood. Seems he was talking to a girl called Megan on the coach and he really liked her and plucked up the courage to ask her out so by the time he got in (after he had walked her home) he was beaming!

Sam has a girlfriend YAY!

The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 30 seconds............

.........re-enacted by bunnies.



Thanks for the email Mark, quality stuff!

Check out more bunny re-enactments here: www.angryalien.com

Fire sale, Fiat for sale

Despite Toni giving strict instructions for the pick up of the hire car I was most surprised to find it still sitting on my drive when I got home tonight. Seems some people just follow simple instructions. God knows when they are going to actually pick it up now (I just hope they don't try and charge her extra hire for it)

So, here we go then, "FIRE SALE, Fiat for sale, going cheap" LMFAO!

LastFM listening post

Here's this week's top picks music lovers!

Top weekly tracks:


Top weekly artists:


Overall top artists: