hello, is there anybody in there?

... some things happened. I've left it too long to write some about them so here's a couple of the things that happened.

On Wednesday, Plinth had a band practice. It went quite well, we managed to get 3 new songs together quite well. One of them is really really good, the other two are good but in a sort of 'you've heard it all before' way. You have to hear them, I guess. The only thing different about this practice was that we had no drummer which, on reflection, is probably why we managed to have a good practice. I saw this as an opportunity to try out my drumming skills (my main instrument is guitar but I have picked up enough to play drums ok) which our rhythmically-challenged singer Nick did not agree with because he thought I was just pissing about. In a way, he was spot on because his annoyance at my drumming only served to make me want to drum more, but I actually did want to try and improve by playing along with a band and besides, it was tough to actually keep time because of a lack of drums and the creative timekeeping of other band members. It turned out that the drums could speak louder than Nick, so I got my way. See how you like that you Fascist!

Last night, the house next door had a 'crazy Ibiza beach party' - which I can only hope was a joke name since it was (a) Halloween, a time for costumes and pumpkins, and (b) because people that describe themselves as 'crazy' seem to get the word confused with 'loud and irritating'. I figure its always the quiet ones you need to look out for. Anyway, they invited us over which was somewhat awkward because of the previous history between our houses. Their house overlooks ours slightly and one day a bloke from their house was peeping at one of the girls in our house much to her shock and displeasure. Neither house has curtains and there have been plenty of moments when I've looked in their kitchen or waved while they saw me on the dancemat, as you do. I think this fella's mistake was to point and call his housemates over to watch - my female housemate in her room that is, not me on the dancemat although to be fair, I'd watch me on a dancemat if I saw me.

I was working that day, so the fun had started by the time I had got home and everyone was already too drunk. Fucking students. My housemates had gone out but not next door, I am not exactly sure where but wherever they went they were totally shitfaced by the time they got back. James decided to open a dialogue by swearing at the party next door who took it so badly it was really funny. They sounded quite angry so I stepped in briefly but being around so many drunk students was testing my patience so I made my excuses and left, but not before an awkward conversation between Ros and the peeping fella who as it turned out couldn't really justify himself as his entire reason for doing it was "because I could, and its easy".

I've tried to recreate a scene from last night (see above). This was how James (with middle finger aloft) decided to open the dialogue and this is what our neighbours took offence to for some reason.

I am at work again. It is dull. Today had a slight twist because the network was having something done to it meaning that the database we use didn't work and more importantly we had no internet. I find that doing nothing with internet access makes doing nothing a lot easier.

We have had a depressingly small amount of calls. Today, it was depressing in the sense that we were effectively being human answering machines (as we couldn't action anything because the database was down), except not as good as actual answering machines because we were taking notes rather than recording whole messages. Normally, I wouldn't mind few calls - in a way, it means less anti-social behaviour is being committed so in a way is a good thing for everyone - but on a day when there was no distractions such as www.dailykitten.com this were testing times. Then again, I am effectively getting paid to write my blog and discuss why I hate ginger* so its not all bad.

Once the internet was back on, I made a little picture of my day on imaginationcubed.com. The animation didnt work. I saved the picture here for posterity.

Today I tried some Taste the difference chocolate and hazelnut cookies. They are damn good.

*a rant for another day and subject of conversation recently

I got me a new guitar. Its very nice and appears to have been designed to make silly squealy widdly guitar noises sound good.

Sunday at work again. So far there has been one call in the three hours I've been in. I've done times sudoku online on fiendish and read a bit of 1984. I also swapped the off milk in the fridge for the secretaries' milk upstairs. I am bored. So from earlier this week...

On thursday, the director of the department ordered a lunch for a meeting of 25 people and then (in a stroke of genius) cancelled the meeting. This was fantastic news because it meant I got a free lunch. I've never understood the saying "there's no such thing as a free lunch" because there clearly is, and I've had several. I realise that its a saying and not a rule, and that its meant to be taken metaphorically or something but I think I have proved it wrong on enough occasions to make it look silly and make myself feel smug in the process. My housemate gets incredibly riled at the phrase "it takes one to know one" which is similarly poor: "I would know a member of the KKK when I see one. I didn't need to join; I could tell by the hat."

For lunch I had one of every type of sandwich, some danish pastries and a pork pie. Some stupid secretary, when looking at the danish pastries, said:
"Urrgh, what's that funny orange thing on top of that?"

"It's a piece of orange." I replied

"I'm not eating that! Look at it!"

I decided to try and subtly force her into picking an orange by grabbing the last chocolate danish but this was too subtle and she just left.

This week a lot of things have happened. Here are some of them.

- Plinth played a houseparty. We were well received according to some of those who attended but the only comment I can remember for definite was a girl shouting "are they done yet!?!" We were log

- M&S ran out of all-butter chocolate chunk cookies. This was a bad day. I really like biscuits and these are my favourite. They are a central part of my breakfast, which is basically tea and biscuits.

- The guy I work with went AWOL. I am not sure what to think about this because he was a nice chap and certainly not the type to leave without saying goodbye, so I am actually quite worried. This meant I had to spend two 10 hour days working with my boss, which was ok because she is nice and bought me crisps and but less ok because she found out first hand exactly how futile and boring the job is and how little work I do. It was incredibly funny watching my boss google stuff out of boredom though. Welcome to my world!

- M&S restocked their all-butter chocolate chunk cookies and they are now 50p cheaper. This was a good day.

- Me and my housemates drove approx 18 miles around nottingham to find somewhere to recycle our excess plastic and then came to the conclusion that we had probably polluted a shitload more than the recycling would get back thus rendering our journey futile.