T'eyla Minh

We had something of a blitz on the flat yesterday. I cleaned the kitchen on Wednesday night (or it might have been Friday, I can't remember now) and yesterday Paul did the floors and I did the bathroom - which included, I should add, mopping the walls.

Yes, you did read that right...

We needed a new mop, as the one we bought when we moved in was one of those bits-of-rope-tied-to-a-stick types and has gone all stiff and horrible. So we got a slightly better one, and a squeegy type one for the express purpose of cleaning the bathroom tiles. It's too small a room to get the step-ladder out, but the ceilings are too high to reach on my own.

The amount of dust up there was terrifying... After mopping they were literally 2-3 shades cleaner, and the colour of the water afterwards was horrifying.

Still - cleeeean now! I need to dust the shelves in the kitchen tonight and possible have a little rearrangement in there, as I am questioning the sanity of keeping the stereo on top of the microwave... :|

Shepherd's pie for tea yesterday (and lunch today), using frozen mash from Iceland for £1 a bag, which turned out to be much better value than Aunt Bessie's and just as tasty. We stocked up on some frozen stuff while we were in there to avoid having to go to Asda for another couple of months.

Oh, I thought I'd broken the fridge yesterday, too... I was cleaning the wall behind the bin because it tends to get covered in a fine layer of crud (to put it bluntly), and I unplugged the fridge in order to wipe down the top of the plug, and when I plugged it back in it made no sound... Seemed to be fine a few minutes later, though. It doesn't help that for some reason, there's no light in there...

In other news, still no sign of my bus pass. On checking the details of my account on the website it quite clearly states three important things:

1. The transaction / process is "Completed", which means...

2. ...the pass will be sent "2-3 days prior" to the start date

3. The pass should be from "05/09/2008 to 02/10/2008"

All of which mean they should bloody well have sent it by now. I will give them one more day (i.e. today) before phoning them up to shout at them.

Y'know, I cancelled my Centrocard for this exact same reason. TWM have usually been quite good about sending the pass out. Clearly my address is jinxed.

( A little extra thing I meant to post about... )

Aaaand finally, I conceded defeat and put the heating on Friday night. Which is vaguely ridiculous, really, because it's only the beginning of September, even though the wind and rain would have you believe otherwise. *shakey fist* Stupid weather.

Hrm. Compared to last week, which was absolutely frelling insane in terms of work to do, and generally annoying in terms of everything else because I was knackered for most of it, this week is the exacty opposite. There is now nothing to do.

On the plus side, I've managed to scrape my flex up to a full day at last, so with any luck I'll be able to have a random day off at some point. And choir starts again tomorrow, so the flex-building will be quicker.

I feel sort of restless today. I blame the weather. August has been rubbish and it's like I've been waiting for the weather to improve without it ever happening, which makes me... not want to do anything. It's odd. I'm lagging behind on household stuff like cleaning the kitchen and doing the washing because a) I've been too tired and b) if the weather is poo I can't put said washing outside and it takes a week to dry in the attic, so I end up falling behind with it.

The sense of restlessness manifested at the weekend, really. We had a quiet one for the most part. Paul was out on Friday night to celebrate his last evening of cigarette freedom, and then out again Saturday afternoon to play pool. I started various things whilst he was out and didn't finish them: reading fics, planned to update some of my own, started watching series 1 of Most Haunted and gave up after two episodes... And yesterday was the same. I sat through the 'Stenders omnibus and spent the next couple of hours trying to subdue the boredom until I could cook tea.

( Ramble )

In other fandom-related news, Channel Four have finally pulled their fingers out to bring us the rest of season 2 of Ugly Betty. For some reason the DVDs haven't been released yet, so my plan of spiting them went out of the window. Never mind the fact that season three starts in about four weeks in the US. Ah, well, it was nice being up to speed for a while.

Also, someone has brought in some Herschey's mini bars from their holiday and yeah. America cannot do chocolate. Herscheys with fillings is okay (their "Crunch" equivalent was edible), but their bog-standard no-frills chocolate absolutely mings. It has this really awful aftertaste. They may excel at cookies, but they should leave the cocoa-based confectionary to the experts. Chocolate is the one thing that makes me glad to be British, and also a Brummie. *hugs the Cadbury factory*

(Note to self: send doec some Real Chocolate. :P)

That's about it...

And yet another update of yet another weekend, because I know how much you all love and appreciate them.

This weekend has mostly been spent watching Farscape and random films... or bits of them. Friday night involved Dark Star and an epically long dream that I will attempt to write up later, because I need to remember it in reverse, probably. I should've written it down on saturday morning as I think most of it has now fallen out of my brain.

Saturday we watched about 6 hours of Farscape up to "Through the Looking Glass", plus... something. Some of the 100 Greatest repeated thing on E4, number ones, I think, and then Rumblefish, most of which I don't remember due to being half-asleep.

Sunday, more Farscape, to the end of season 1 (I have about two episodes missing, it transpires) and halfway through "Mind the Baby", plus the final half-hour of Calamity Jane, most of Maverick and then the 100 Greatest Funny Moments on C4. Quite impressed that Most Haunted got a mention, although less impressed by Yvette being mean about Derek. She's never accused him of being 'schizophrenic' before. :(

Anyway, that was about it, really.

I'm dog tired this morning as a result of staying up until 1.00am, for which I blame Channel 4 entirely. Luckily I have to leave at 4.00 today to get to a doctor's appointment, though I probably won't get to see her until about half an hour after the actual time. She's thorough enough that she's always late, and also nigh on impossible to get a hold of for an appointment... but considering she's one of about three decent GPs in that surgery, it's hardly surprising. I frelling hate my surgery, as you may have realised. Especially the annoying receptionists.

Tonight I have to make posters telling everyone about Liz H's leaving lunch on 9th March, so that'll be fun.

I should probably sign off and have some lunch now...

...you look so much better when I'm pissed.  Or, in this case, I look so much better ( when I'm blurred... )

Today was tedious except for randomness.  Cynthia lost her phone over the weekend at the carnival and it's being held hostage by a random bloke.  She phoned her phone this morning to ask him to give it back and he was meant to be meeting her at 5.00pm today outside JJB Sports in the Bull Ring.  He'd also phoned her landline (which she gave him, let it be noted) and spoken to her foster daughter, informing her his name was Jamal.  So cue lots of shrieking and giggling from Sandra and Amanda.  Sandra has a shriek that can break glass, I swear.  And then she started singing along to the ice-cream van.  Badly.

Lunchtime was spent booking a couple of nights at the Rose & Thistle Bed-and-Breakfast in Derby (5th-7th September) so that's my holiday booked. :P

Liz Hawthorne returned quite randomly and a few days earlier than we were anticipating to regale us with stories of her trip to Florida.  I hate her.  I am insanely jealous.  I want to move to America now.  Does anyone want a roomie?  I'm quiet and mostly tidy and I don't eat very much...

Meh, I don't think I can actually be bothered to watch Most  Haunted tonight. I spent the afternoon trundling around town trying to find a birthday present, did all the washing up when I got in, and have only just sat down.  Yeah, I think I'll tape it and watch it tomorrow.  It's just not the same these days, anyway...

That's it. Over and out.

Write-up (of sorts) is over on the community, here.  No photos, but some general amusement.  The only stuff not mentioned is the journey down, which was decided uneventful other than the random thunder over Oxford Street...

Incidentally, yoshithedragon might be interested to know that the rose he bought me on Friday (if he remembers...) has opened up overnight and now looks like this:



And it smells lovely, too.  Thaaank you. :D

At least for a while...



It's. Finally. Arrived.  Apparently must've just gotten caught in traffic as it's between two read emails from Friday...

Considering we've been moving furniture/books/miscellaneous junk all day, it would've taken a frelling miracle to get me out of this chair again... but that just managed it.  I've never moved so fast in my life.

YAY!!!

Today, as days go, wasn't too bad.  The battery ran out on my MP3-er and practically deafened me in the process, but I knew that was going to happen sooner or later this week.  Inline wasn't too snarky, I had some email tennises with some people, and supervision with Tina was fine, and she's going to get me access to CareFirst because she hadn't realised I'd not got it.  I got through to the IT Helpdesk relatively quickly and they sorted out why my email wasn't working.

There was a bizarre piece of bizarreness when I phoned the MHLive ticket people to check if they'd got my email address right, at the exact second the bloke who answered the phone happened to be sending the e-ticket... which was incredibly impressive, to say the least.

One of our clients got arrested in the corridor at about 2.00pm, with much swearing and shouting.  The two officers eventually called for backup because he was resisting arrest, and another four cars turned up - for one fourteen year old boy.  Of course, that set Cynthia off being upset because her son's fourteen, but aside from that it was quite exciting.

I left at 5.00 to go and pick up my prescription.  My surgery has recently opened a pharmacist in the same building to make getting your prescription easier... but I absolutely hate it.  The staff are slow, even though there's always a Head Pharmacist in there, there's about three of them, but only one of them ever wants to serve you.  Grudgingly.  And it's tiny, so it was full of people.

Nevertheless, prescription having been obtained (the NHS are now charging £6.50 per item...), I wasn't in such a bad mood... until I started waiting for the bus. It was only about 5.45 by this point.  Twenty minutes later, I was still waiting for sign of any bus, let alone one I could catch...  Then I got a call off mum saying that she and David were at the The Dog, and if I walked down I could get a lift home... unfortunately, she thought I was at the Bearwood bit of Hagley Road, not the Sandon Road bit of Hagley Road (it's about an extra quarter-mile to walk), so I was decidedly aggravated by the time I got there...

And now I'm just frelled off with the entire world, for no feasible reason.  I'm also very tired, which might have something to do with it, but being frelled off for no reason makes me frustrated, and I'm hungry, and I want everything to bugger off an leave me alone now, please.

None of this being helped, of course, by the fact that there is still no e-ticket in my inbox, nor my Junk folder.  I'll give it until tomorrow and then call again Thursday, which I'm sure will piss them off, but I can't help being paranoid when the damn thing's in two weeks and I don't even have tickets yet.

Which reminds me: two of my people may not be able to go, so there's two Most Haunted Live tickets up for grabs (well, I presume, if I ever get them) if anyone wants them.  If you live in London, that would also be a bonus... though quite frankly, by this point, I couldn't care less.

I was having two conversations at once last night, one with bizarre_imagery and one with thefleshfailure, and some of the bits of conversation just need to be chronicled...

( Fliss!Randomness. )

( Eni!Randomness - lots of it. )

Bravo to anyone who survived all of that.  It was hilarious at the time...  I swear, one day we will destroy the world.

So, today I have been in an insanely good mood.  The office has been nice and quiet and, aside from having the Distribution of Ultimate Death (6 kids...), I've even had very little work to do so spent the majority of my time mucking around on Inline...  There was surprisingly little mickey-taking on there, even though Jonathan/unprouncable-name-guy outright outed us in his MGM post... still confused a couple of people though, which is always fun.  Of course, the good mood was only elevated by my extreme nervousness about phoning Tor about the MHLive tickets... I went outside in my lunch break to do so and she was lovely...

Actually, the entire thing was disastrous, amusingly so.  I phoned up and said I'd have the four tickets (Steve and Kate can go so I've only got to sort out the other one) and she'd give my name and details to the ticket company and effectively bump me to the front of the queue.  So, five minutes after this call I remembered I hadn't given her my phone number, and had to call again.  An hour or so after that, there was a voicemail message from Tor on my mobile saying she'd lost my address and could I phone up to give it to her - I phoned up and she'd popped out, so I had to phone again, so now, hopefully, it'll all get sorted.

And then later I managed to cut Paul off on my mobile. Oops.

So, yes.  Randomness last night also helped with the good mood, though at the time I was in "I love eeeeveryone!" mode, as the Eni!snippet demonstrates...  However, I was in such a good mood I've gone the entire day with no caffeine, so by home time I was half-dead.  Ah, well.

Hee.  It didn't hit me til at least 12.30 that OMG I'M GOING TO MOST HAUNTED LIVE!!!  :D :D  Juuuust a tad excitable about that.  I've warned the office that I will be utterly unbearable for the next two weeks... possibly, this is not warning enough.  Seriously.  I was practically bouncing off the walls today.

In which case, I should probably stop typing... :)

Certainly not randomness on a par with teH uber-weekend of Random, but certainly close enough...

The day started ordinarily enough.  Having had a shower for the first time in nearly a year (shooooower!) I was feeling a lot less arghish, and had consciously decided that the team manager wasn't going to annoy me, and nor was the stationery... so when said team manager continued to bring up problems, I just smiled sweetly and let him grumble and said I'd help and then conveniently ignored it, as it turned out Natasha was chairing it anyway (not Shafiq), so she wouldn't care either way.

So, then, of course, when Shafiq came upstairs to show us a report from a social worker that actually used the phrase "spaced out on waccy baccy", it kept all four of us in the office amused until at least lunchtime... and, apparently, most of Inline, though it then devolved into a random conversation complaining about the fact that managers have no basic grasp of the English language.

Left at 2.45 and headed down to get my hair cut and straightened properly (layers re-defined, front shortened so I no longer resemble Snape...) then back home to change pre-MGM.  You know about ye faga of ye fangirling, which I'm still grinning over.  Definitely proof undeniable that fangirling works. :D  Will organise that properly on Monday once I've emailed Steve King to see if he can come.  If not, I'll phone up and say a definite yes for the tickets, but due to lack of contactable people, would it be okay to take someone else?  And if so, I'll be inviting people nearer the time, so keep an eye open.  I have to go now; I've got three Inline people keeping an eye open for me, and, well, with a personal invite from Yvette Fielding, I can hardly refuse.  (The full letter is posted over on mosthauntedgeek, incidentally.

Anyway, off to the Flapper after that for the MGM, which was... incredibly sporadic.  I was going to eat there but forgot they stopped serving food at ridiculous times and ended up only eating a bag of crisps all night, which could account for light-weight drunkenness.  Chatted amiably with people from last time and some new people I'd not met before (evildead, very briefly, Dave/LFNY's housemate when he was very drunk, and Jonathan/unpronouncable-name-guy who I gave a CD to...) and a good time was had by all.

I somehow ended up in two separate doubles games of pool; first me and Steve J (who at first refused to play with me when I told him about the MHLive thing...) against Paul (yoshithedragon) and Jeanette/Scooter, and then me and Paul vs Steve J and Mikey (metalmikey666), though I forget now who won.  This was highly entertaining and involved one incident of poking a random person at the bar in the back with a pool cue, one incident of bouncing a red ball off the table entirely, and Mikey coming up to me and saying "Now, pool is one of those things you can blag.  I've never played pool before in my life...", as well as Paul trying on mine and Kiwi's glasses and forcing me to hug him whenever we walked past each other...

Ended up also having a conversation with Laura (spikelover69) about Buffy, amongst other things, and with Gautam/G-Dogg about Most Haunted... quite amusing.

After that we all went to Scruffy Murphy's to watch the Capones and debated whether or not to go to Snobs, and I left just in time to get my last midnight bus.  All in all, quite a strange evening, leading at some point during the proceedings to my agreeing to go on a date tonight... so, er, more on that later.  Still quite shell-shocked by both that and the tickets-offer. :D

So, yes.  Which reminds me, I must text my father and say I'm not going tomorrow, as I don't know how drunk I might get and I'm thinking hangover+family=badness.

Mum and David are ripping the kitchen to pieces... so I'm hiding up here and getting ready to tape Most Haunted... or something that once was Most Haunted and is becoming... I don't know.  Different.  Anyway.

It turns out our main cupboard was built into the floor.  Not onto it, into it.  There's a big gaping cupboard-shaped hole in the ground.

As for yesterday - I can't be bothered to explain the disgruntledness, but suffice it to say it was to do with the fangirling and general aggravation.

There'll be photos coming at some point of the chaos my life random descended into yesterday and the... slightly less chaos it is now.

I got a 19p/hour pay rise to keep up with the general council pay rise.  I'm now on £6.49/hour.  Woo!

I'm sure I was going to say something else...  I'll update properly tomorrow, I promise...

Oh, thanks once more to Eni for letting me complain at her in the midst of the chaos last night and keeping me vaguely entertained at the same time.  'Twas very much appreciated, and she is wondrous. :)  (I shall similarly reply to both comment threads tomorrow...)

Anyway.  Yes.  *falls asleep*