hello, is there anybody in there?

my minesweeper times:

beginner: 5
intermediate: 41
expert: 150

world class minesweeping is under 6 for beginner, under 35 for intermediate and under 99 for expert. and to get a world ranking, you need under 99 in total for all three modes. see here

i think i have a new long-term goal...

slow days at work so here's something slightly more interesting. well, interesting for me anyway.

on thursday i went to manchester with a group i volunteer with. i used to do some conservation work at university, which in practice involved chopping down trees and indeed anything that there was too many of so that native species could flourish. this was ace as it mostly didnt really seem like work which suits me, although on one occasion someone brought a stereo along and the only cd available was 'the best of meatloaf' which was a mixed blessing to say the least. the manchester trip seemed to be purely for the purpose for one of the staff to meet up with her sister and for us to have a nice meal for free. don't get me wrong, i'm not complaining. in fact i think we should do it more often.

first destination was the imperial war museum. this was to fufill the requirement that the trip had to be educational in some respect.

architecturally, its an interesting building. daniel liebskind who is designing the building for NY ground zero supposedly presented his concept by smashing a glass globe and picking out a few pieces and arranging them on a table. i asked my architecture student housemates about this and they both responded that:

"he's a twat and i hate pretentious cunts who hide behind 'concepts'... having said that it looks alright"

the actual museum is a lot less interesting. the 'interactive' elements are shit. one of them was advertised as a 'spin machine'. both me and anneka were sorely disappointed to find that it was just a wheel you could turn when we were expecting something that made you feel sick if you sat in it for too long. also, a lot of the exhibits were clearly items bought off e-bay and stuck in a cabinet such as a pack of cards they made for the iraq war.

my sole aim of the day was to not spend any money. this proved somewhat tricky when we were left to our own devices to wander manchester city centre for a while in the afternoon after the museum. initially i hung around in the main group but i wandered off on my own when it became clear that the plan was to go to ann summers and try stuff on. not that i have anything against ann summers, but i could do that stuff in nottingham if i wanted to and its hardly worth a 2hr journey. besides, they might try and make me buy something which would totally spoil my 'doing stuff for free' ethos of the day. additionally, the group was comprised of college age youths who although i got on with them fine, were making me feel my age as a grand old 21 year old.

i was looking for a modern art museum ideally. i don't really like modern art, but i find it interesting and i'll definitely look around a gallery or museum it was free or (in exceptional cases) cost less than a fiver. the closest i got in the time i was there was the craft centre. some of the stuff was extremely pretentious but there was some good jackson pollock-esque pieces there that i liked. what put me off was the way that some artists had priced their art - some had put gallery style explanatory notes next to their pieces and others had big stickers with obscene amounts of money quoted on them as if you were supposed to buy anything you appreciated on any level. i almost felt bad that i didn't buy any of it, but then i realised that i would have probably felt worse if i'd just spent 50 quid on some bent wire masquerading as a 'conceptual sculpture'.

more interesting was the URBIS which had a sex pistols and punk exhibition on. i quite like 70s punk, especially the ramones, the clash and blondie and to a lesser extent the sex pistols so i quite disappointed to find that the exhibition cost three pounds to get in which would again have forced me to rescind my non-spending policy. the gift shop further tempted me with a ramones calendar 2006, but that cost nine pounds and additionally was a 2006 calendar meaning that i would have to wait a good 5 months before i would be able to get some use out of it. i was not really prepared to make this investment and so i headed to the free exhibitions.

the free stuff was quite good. it was basically designed to make you think about how cities work. i felt i already had a good grasp on this being not only a nottingham resident but an former player of the sim city series of computer games. my cities tended to always have neglected areas and always seemed to attract criminals because i always legalised gambling. i used the computer there to make myself an ID card, which i might put up if i can get a scanner to work at work. i look a bit weird in the picture because i looked at the clicker button while it took the photo so it looks like i've been caught in the act of something.

finally, we had a meal in manchester's china town. it was quite nice although i ate far too much. peer pressure within the group dictated that all forks be removed and everyone be forced to use chopsticks (with hilarious consequences, i might add). i thought this was somewhat excessive but i encouraged it anyway, safe in the knowledge that i possess a reasonable chopstick handling capability and that several others probably hadn't used them before.

as far as the quality of the meal, i have to say that if it wasn't for my intervention then it could have been a fairly standard fare. i insisted on picking out a prawn dish - just to have something different from the myriad of chicken dishes. this turned out to a be a very good call as it was proper big king prawns being served and i like prawns.

i was at a curious crossroads at today's trip. at 21, i am by no means old, yet having finished education (for now) i really felt a lot older than everyone else apart from the staff. one of the staff was only about 3 or 4 years older than me though, and it was easier to talk to her than the yoofs. its strange because i have few friends that i can talk to about what to do after uni as most of them are still studying - i am the youngest in my house but i am also the only one to have graduated.

strange days indeed.

i had to work today as well. a large part of my job involves taking calls.

today, i have had one call. it was from a director asking how many calls we'd had.

there's something ironic that i should tell alanis morrissette but i'm not sure what.

today i had to go to work. annoying because its saturday, but still, my job is not bad at all so i don't really mind. i get to update my blog amongst other things. i figure that i might as well go to work and get paid to do very little rather than sit at home and do very little.

on my lunch break, i went into town and bought some replacement toothbrush heads for my electric toothbrush. i was putting this off to see if i could cope with my electric toothbrush with a broken head, but alas i had to take the plunge as brushing my teeth was significantly less efficient and also felt less fun than with full head capabilities. i also bought this week's NME today. it had an oasis compiled cd on the front. it looks alright, basically i just wanted the cd and its only 1.90 so not that much. i don't usually buy the NME - the last time i bought it was because my band metro joe were in it. ok, we were only in the gigs listing, but still worth buying. i don't think anyone came to that gig did so because they saw it in the NME though,

i got a lot of calls from a warden reporting graffiti in nottingham. nothing out of the ordinary, except that she seemed to insist on reading all the offensive messages out to me and also insisted on telling me exactly how many crudely drawn penises were on the wall and what colour they were and whether they had pubes or not. i have to admit i found this quite funny, although it seemed strange as all i have to note is whether it is offensive or racist rather than the content of the graffiti which she seemed to find rather entertaining.

this isn't from nottingham. if it was from nottingham it would have said something about pakistani women and that their genitals were known to be smelly. except it would used words like 'cunt', 'go home', maybe something about white supremacy and also probably have a diagram demostrating aforementioned genitals.

i've been comparing biscuit quality at work. here's my quick review of all i've eaten in the past week or so, and how they score:

sainsbury's chocolate chip cookies: classic. i love chocolate chip cookies. i used to prefer marks and spencer's when i was younger but over the past few years, saino's brand have made up the difference in quality. i would pick these over maryland ones too, but only because of the cheaper price. 8/10
fox's golden crunch: took a chance on these, saw them at a pound shop and i just couldn't resist. they are basically custard-cream type biscuits packed with sugar with a slight gingerbread type hint. they are extremely nice when dunked in tea and unlike other biscuits can take a good two or three dunks without breaking up. 9/10
sainsbury's basics custard creams: poor show. i know they are supposed to be cheap but they fall apart too easily - without dunking - and with dunking, you have to be extremely quick with the dunk to keep it together. don't even THINK about going back for a second dunk. basics just don't cut it for me. 3/10
sainsbury's basics shortcake: i liked these. they are robust, tasty and cheap. while they lack any frills such as chocolate chips or a creamy centre, as far as your basic shortcake biscuit goes, you can't go wrong with these. solid. 6/10

my favourite of the week: fox's golden crunch. american's can buy them here for a mere 4 dollars 10 cents. mine cost me 50p.

last night i watched the extras, which had a theme of how some people deal with their perception of racism and today a woman called stressing that she wasn't a racist despite complaining about the blacks next door and the foreigners that visit them. the episode was quite good, although i couldn't help but feel that the idea was very similar to the father ted where all the chinese people move into craggy island (with hilarious consequences). the phone call could have been quite funny but the woman was clearly very distressed so i let her off being a potential racist and tried to empathise.

when i used to live in beeston, i would sometimes go to the market purely to look at how terrible the grammar and punctuation was. i realise that my blog has few if any capital letters in it but fuck it i can be hypocritical if i want. anyway, aside from the usual "carrot's 50p" (how can a carrot have 50p? surely a vegetable has no concept of money? etc) there was one particularly amusing sign that said "chinese leave" above the chinese loose leaf cabbage. which you might think was an innocent mistake, 'leave' is fairly similar to 'leaf' after all. but bearing in mind that beeston is full of chinese students and indeed chinese students who have decided to stay in nottingham and suddenly the sign takes on a new right-wing twist...

today i found out that i may be being made permanent albeit on a temporary basis if that makes any sense at all. basically i get someone new in from the temp agency to run the line with me. i jokingly requested a 20-yr old blonde female (and 'no fat ones') when my boss asked me who she should get in. part of me wasn't joking though. i just hope that whoever it is they don't smell coz its a 10hr day and if they smelt that would suck, as an american might say. now that i've said all that i've probably jinxed it and i'm going to get a fat one.

on reflection, i guess everyone thinks their hometown stinks. the main reason i dislike epsom is the lack of things for me to do - and for some reason this is more important to me than being safe. well it wasn't so much there was nothing to do, but nothing within walking distance and the buses and trains were and still are shit. this has changed now i have a car so i guess epsom is alright for me now. but i have more stuff to do in nottingham such as my band(s), so i guess thats why i'm here.

still i am yet to see anything in nottingham that comes close to encountering a very drunk jimmy white stumble out of 'spoons at a relatively early 10pm. that was quite sad but at same time extremely funny. i also once saw john terry get out of a range rover with tinted windows. he doesn't look as tall as he does on match of the day. speaking of which, the new format is good but my mind is still used to the informal chat and banter rather than the streamlined analysis that goes on these days.

today i got my car repaired. i was expecting to have my wallet rinsed for no noticeable difference, but to my surprise, the garage did a good job (but they still rinsed me) as my car drives so much better than before. the handbrake actually feels like it could stop the car, the steering is way smoother, i think it even has a hint of new car smell about it too.

i still don't know how to work the cd player though. i was too embarassed to ask too. all i know is that if you put a cd in, it sometimes plays. none of the buttons have useful words such as 'volume' or 'play' written on them, except the 'off' button, which is handy but as i struggle to turn it on, seems like we're running before we can walk.

i had a greggs' ham and salad baguette for lunch.

i didn't quite beat a sub-60s minesweeper intermediate time. a rather poor 64 is all i have to show for today.

its not often that tv makes me think, but recently there was a show listing the 10 best and 10 worst places to live in the UK.

as it happens, this year i traded the best (my hometown of epsom)

for the 2nd worst (nottingham, second to hull)

i admit that some of the criteria doesn't apply to me. such as quality of education, as i have finished uni. and i didn't go to school in epsom, but neighbouring ashtead so i'm not really in a position to comment on epsom's schools.

crime is noticeably worse in notts, but that doesn't mean epsom is scum free. the presence of a 2nd mcdonalds has significantly increased the levels of scum in epsom. however to be fair, they are still a fraction of those present in notts which has to cope not only with shitty pikey kids and delinquents but also a double dosage of 'fookin students'. i don't really feel safe in nottingham at all and that is a pretty major factor. however, i am pretty sure there is more than 1 place in the UK that is worse to live in than nottingham.

here are both towns pro's and con's:
epsom
pros: quiet, near london, nice parks, low crime, norman wisdom lives there
cons: 2x maccy d's, the SAME AS EVERY OTHER BLOODY SUBURBAN SURREY TOWN and hence just as dull, slightly too far from london to be convenient to commute

notts
pros: its a city, has proper pubs and venues, has lots of stuff to do
cons: full of scum

i am off to manchester soon, i think that came in the middle somewhere. hopefully my trip will confirm my suspicions that that show was full of shit. being a fan of the smiths i'd like to see salford lads club, morrissey's house etc but i don't think thats on the agenda and i wouldnt know what do to do if i got there. anyway, gotta have respect for the city where this guy grew up:

back at work. been on a trip to whitby since then. here are my observations of the trip:

-free food tastes good and people who don't finish theirs/go back for more are insane
-i don't like wet feet, not least my own
-fiendish sudoku takes me too long and hurts my head
-on several occasions i fell asleep on the bus with my mouth wide open. i hope nothing disgusting got in there.
-for the first time since primary school i encountered a toilet that had actual tracing paper for bog roll. poor show.
-they still have gollywog dolls in whitby. make of that what you will.

at work, we got some free food. tuna sandwiches and some crisps. i will wander upstairs to see if there's any more in the fridge. me and dan are the only people in tomorrow so i will have to save some for then.

not very interesting today, this is really just a token update.

last day of the week for me. last day ever for john so we're off early. no time for a full entry so just a quick update plus a guest entry courtesy of the apathetic online journal generator

quick update:
- i had some chicken flavour bachelors' microwaveable rice for lunch. it smells divine but tastes like slightly salted rice.
- an office game of 'catch' broke out with a handy apple. the game peaked after i attempted a double-handed throw which spiralled out of control (with hilarious consequences) the apple is now quite bruised.
- secretaries fridge had some tunnock's caramel bars. i enjoyed one and marvelled at how over 4,000,000 are made and sold every day.
- no pinball today
- i set a minesweeper intermediate time of 76. i feel i have a sub-60 in me but i don't want to rush it.

guest entry:
I've just been letting everything pass me by lately, but maybe tomorrow. My life's been generally unremarkable these days. Pfft. Basically not much noteworthy going on. Not that it matters. I feel like an empty room.

Current Mood: distant

the aforementioned off milk is still in the council fridge. the worst thing is people have been drinking it, although that seems to have stopped this morning. its not been thrown away yet. i didn't mention this in my previous milk related entry, but when my colleague john made me a cup of coffee it tasted so foul i was almost suspecting disgusting shenanagans, mainly because i had just read the 'hey ho lets go' ramones biog which has numerous mentions of their 'party trick' of pissing in people's beer. thankfully inspection of the milk put those fears to rest but for about 30 minutes i was pretty disgusted.

work has been reasonably busy. i lost a best-of-3 paper/scissors/stone (2-0, was not happy with that performance) and had to be the bearer of bad news to a lady whose problem (not medical) had been passed to my department. this type of thing happens a lot at work. there was absolutely no need for us to deal with the lady's problem but since it involved being the bearer of bad news, the buck had been passed through a couple of departments down to us. i coped with it pretty well, although am slightly ashamed to say that i did indeed pass the buck once more by giving out another phone number to ring. i was nervous at the response i would get and was bracing myself for some alex ferguson style hairdryer treatment from the lady but my smooth talking and sympathetic ear ensured the hairdryer stayed in the drawer.

i almost created another awkward work relationship earlier. i was browsing spamusement.com and was caught
browsing by some bloke who seemed like he was a manager (i.e. he was fat and condescending). my tactic of insisting i was busy started an uneasy pattern of banter but i later discovered he has no authority over us so next time i see him i might call him a cunt. well, i'll be thinking it anyway.

we've had the radio on to listen to the ashes. i have no idea about anything to do with cricket, except that the guy that bowled out most of england's batsmen last time isn't in the aussie team today so england have a chance. still probably get spanked though.

lucy's pinball high score was finally topped after about 45 minutes of fierce competition. 2.8 million, a clear 100,000 above lucy. it has given the day a sense of achievement, particularly as its been an extremely slow day - even for council standards.

hahahaha - alanis morrissette's new version of 'hand in my pocket' just came on the radio. me and john looked at each other in complete shock. poor alanis really is scraping the bucket. yes i know, i just wrote scraping the bucket, she's probably sunk below barrels. the song is painfully slow and the new backing track while nice doesnt really fit the song too well. lots of complicated sounding chords when all you really need is 'C'.

back to the council. its been a slow day. hardly any calls by our standards, and we get hardly any calls full stop. some bloke came round to visit us. this guy usually makes some condescending chat about how we don't do anything even though we constantly say we're busy (while laughing). here is an excerpt of today's dialogue:

manager bloke:

well if you're so busy maybe i should pour some water over you so you don't get too hot

me:

i wouldn't do that, you might damage the computers, then the council would just descend into chaos.

he was most unimpressed by my (crap) witty retort. i sense an awkward work relationship on the horizon.

the secretaries restocked their fridge so i had a twix and some other miscellaneous chocolate.

an update on goings on.

-the secretaries fridge was absent of good food. i had a biscuit from the tin marked 'meetings only' but frankly that was a disappointment.
-the name game is now in full force and i am considering supplementing it with something else.
-lucy's pinball scores still stand. i set a new minesweeper time. beginner: 10 secs.

i am like so bored.

i had a really horrible coffee today at work. it had a really funny aftertaste and i do not mean 'ha-ha' funny. as it turned out, it was just the milk that was off. it was also nescafe instant coffee which tastes challenging on a good day, which did not help. it is free, so i can't complain that much, and later in the day i made a good cup of coffee with a fresh carton of milk to compensate. i might wander up to the secretaries' fridge on the 1st floor and swap the milk around later.

yesterday i went to see ddf at the old angel in nottingham. i enjoyed it even though it was not really a good performance in the classic sense. ok, it was pretty sketchy but listenable. they were playing to pretty much everyone in bandsoc in notts, hardly anyone for the headline band, so it was as good as a home crowd. the headline band 'two minute warning' were good but i really wasnt in the mood for the loud angsty type music so i didnt appreciate it as much as i might have.

i haven't had a go at the pinball yet. maybe later.