Mellow?

This week I have been cross at BT, I've been irritated by work and I've been tired the whole time. And still, it reaches Friday and I feel mellow.

So mellow in fact that I'm not even going to publish a rebuttal to Dom's Star Wars Trilogy Box Set complaints. I see his point of view. I don't agree in all counts.

I think I'm mellowing in my old age...

Mellow? Me? I think not. I'm just dissapointed that I can't find the Star Wars theme as a ringtone for my phone! Raa!

Oh, and some total [expletives deleted] keeps sending me messages on my phone. I don't even know this dick and he calls me gay! What a t1t!

The Force is with you, Young Skywalker, But you are not a Jedi yet...

On a big, happy, smiley, rant-free note:
Dom bought me the Star Wars Trilogy Box Set on DVD on Monday. Well, he bought it before that, but I got it then coz it hadn't been released before that.
I'm VERY happily enjoying it now.

And I am a Jedi, my badge says so.

Standards are Slipping

This morning on the way to work I had the bad luck to be walking behind an illiterate mother and her child. She was explaining to her child that he was going to chess club. Fair enough, you may say. She declared, "Someone's got to go because I want somebody to win that child!" WOW! I thought to myself, the prize for winning is a child - excellent. I realised, however, that the woman meant that she wanted to see somone beat that child at chess. Stupid people! I really get cross when people don't understand the difference between words like "win" and "beat"

One can win a race (by coming first) or win a prize (like in a tombola) but one cannot win ones opponent, one must beat ones opponent in order to win.

Other such things annoy me though, such as the general inability to differentiate between borrow and lend. eg. May I lend your scissors? If someone asks me this I generally reply, "OK, who would you like to lend them to?" which tends to result in blank looks and confusion on the part of the person whom I assume would like to borrow my scissors.

Of course then there's "can" and "may" which everyone has been told in English class. You say "Can I go to the toilet" and the teacher says "I'm sure you can" so you get up to go but then the teacher says "Where are you going?" leading to confusion, and finally realisation that you should have said "May I go to the toilet" since you were asking permission, not asking whether it is possible. Irritating when you're busting for the loo, but still a fair point.

Ok, I may sound like a pedant, but really it's annoying. Which reminds me...

The shop at the bottom of my street does excellent breakfasts. However, the sign in their windows says:
"Now open Sunday's"
I'm sure you can see the problem here. What thing belonging to Sunday must I open immediately? I thought, before realising that they meant that their fine establishment would now be serving food on a Sunday. There are many many applications for the apostrophe, but that is NOT one of them. Further examples of this ineptitude can be found on the intranet for this company. "CD's for sale" proclaims the sales page. Just one CD is for sale? No, there is a collection. NO NO NO NO NO! It's distressing to see. I can't allow myself to buy something from such an illiterate!

THEN...
I came across the following on our news-feed:
Shortly after the state-of-the-art Virgin Pendolino train hurtled along the track to reach Manchester from London in just one hour and 53 minutes, overhead power cables snapped, causing chaos on the West Coast main line. One of the worst groups affected were around 60 Manchester United fans who boarded the First North Western 18.51 service from Hazel Grove, which was scheduled to arrive at Old Trafford stadium at 19.35. But just minutes after the service departed Stockport station it ground to an all-too familiar halt. Passengers ended up trapped on the train for three-and-a-half hours until they were escorted off and marched down the track in the dark by British Transport Police.

While I know that football fans can be annoying, I think that they meant to say: "...One of the groups worst affected were around 60 Manchester United fans..."

...

Foot Update

For anyone who ever hurts themselves by falling down the stairs:

Avoid falling down the stairs - it hurts.

If you do, do go to A&E (or ER in US)

When it feels healed, IT ISN'T!

Don't walk on it without a support for the first time when you go on a shopping trip

Do keep it raised

Do the excercises in the booklet
So yes, I made the mistake of going into town without strapping on my foot and it has been very painful all day. It will get better as time goes on but I am bored of waiting for it to be ok! I want to wear my heels again! This is as bad as the time I sprained my ankle falling off my heels (which didn't need a trip to A&E as I was at a first aid training class!)

Sundays

Today we had an amusing moment when Dom broke the toilet seat. Well, I was amused. Then we were both surprised at how little one can buy a nice new wooden toilet seat from, and actually all wood, not plyboard nastiness like our chest of drawers...

So, thanks are again owed to Chip who turned up in town at the drop of a hat (metaphorically of course) to gather me and my bad foot, Dom, a loo-seat, some lamps which I was going to assemble this evening and now haven't coz I got lazy and watched telly, and a 5 drawer chest.

Alas, I'm all alone in the house again. I'm okay, until I go upstairs, then I get totally paranoid about every little sound I hear. At the current moment I am armed with my sewing scissors and have access to no less than 3 phones in case of an emergency! That said, I know that both the front and back door are locked, and that the house is almost burgle-proof as Dom, myself and my family had to discover previously.

I have noticed, also, that I don't rant much on my blog at the moment. I believe that this is because I am exposed to less irritating things when I am not at work. I don't mean by this that Mr Black is irritating, but that more annoying (or plain stupid) things happen while I am in work.

Speaking of work I am looking forward to hearing about the entertainment that is a week without any of my team in there, except for the new-boy who will not be able to do anything. I'm sure that B will take over and do everything, although that's really not sensible. It will all be okay, and then I will return and K after that to pick up the mess. I expect to have to spend a short while deleting all the emails that people send me regardless of the fact I'm not there, it's an unwritten rule that if someone has an away message you should send them pointless cr@p.

holidays and pies

Firstly I should begin by saying "Bye bye Bertie" as he is off to Glasgi. Hope it's nice up there for you and that you like your job etc. :)

Now, holidays. I took 2 weeks off work with the intention of going away somewhere on holiday. Unfortunately it has not panned out this way, and we are looking at possibly 4 days BnB in Scarborough. Which although nice, isn't ideal for British Septembers. Oh well, we'll have fun regardless, which is the main thing really.

And more dissapointment today. I went with Dom and Lint to the "Pork Pie Festival" which it turned out was sold out last week. :( so I came home and ordered pizza. :)

Last note, tomorrow Dom and I are going to the Elvington/Yorkshire air museum to look at aeroplanes. And probably photograph them. And then maybe put one on a t-shirt for Dom. That or a car. Who knows?

Oh - One final thing...
You don't think of things like needing radiator hangars for drying clothes when you have a tumble dryer, but then whe you move somewhere without one you realise how valuable they could be.

Oh, and also...
Parents drop the finest info on you! They're getting Dom a really funky prezzie for Xmas, but are then using this fact to bribe me into inviting them over for Xmas dinner! EEEEK! Me cooking for actual people rather than just me and Dom!

Ouch!

So, the house-warming barbeque went well. Everyone seemed to have a good time, although I was concerned that some people didn't have enough to eat. Unfortunately, the evening went awry for myself when I threw myself down the stairs. It hurt. A lot. More than when I trapped my fingers in the 6th form door. $h17! I thought. Shouldn't hurt like that. So I screamed a bit, Leon brought me peas (frozen) for the ankle-foot area. Thought it'd be ok, but stopped drinking. Mistake. The pain got worse. By the time people were leaving I was unable to put any pressure on my foot and it hurt when I wasn't moving. So Chip, whom I am now greatly indebted, went home, fetched his car, came back and drove me to the A&E. They were wonderful there, I've never met such a pleasant nurse. She didn't hurt me while checking what was wrong and also gave me 1000mg of Cocodomol (codine and paracetomol) for the pain. Nice lady. The x-ray woman was a bit surly, but you would be if you were stuck in a dark room with broken people. Then the x-rays looked ok, the nurse told me that it wasn't broken (phew - that would have ruined our holiday plans!) and that it was just a severe sprain. Up to 3 months for full recovery. And must walk on it. Joy. So, I have more drugs at home now, as it throbs quite a bit. Mostly it goes really stiff when I don't use it, then it hurts when I walk. However, I seem to both be able to put some weight on it for a short while, or my full weight for a second or two. Good progress methinks. Still hurts when I'm doing nothing though. More drugs needed I think. At least it's not serious. :D So, yes. Thanks to Chip for the lift and to H for the alcoholic jelly and the calm head. Thanks to L for just not panicking, and being there. Thanks to Lint for his astute remarks at the time, and to J (haven't picked up who you are online yet :( sorry) for being so sweet.

furnishings

Also, despite the rant, I have a chair. Actually, ranting or no, I'd still have a chair. Ok, technically it's not for computing, it's for fishing... I don't fish. Hardly even for compliments! But yes, seating so that my knees don't die. My typing is still appalling though - I think I've deleted more than half of the letters I've typed, and opened severla menus - I should go to bed or something - I'm sooooooo tired... Tuesday the bed comes...

Mobile fun

I didn't realise how expensive my mobile phone was going to be. I currently have a £15 tariff. The cheapest new tariff I can sign up to is £20, and it's nowhere near as good as the one I currently use. I currently get 500 free off-peak landline/O2 minutes, and 25xnet minutes. The new one is only 300 off-peak minutes! It's pants! The prices are just going up and up! Even if I switch networks all I can get is pants stuff, or stuff that costs a darned fortune! I hate this sort of thing! At least with something like chocolate I know what I'm paying for - ok so the price of chocolate has gone up 5p in 3 years, but who cares, it's value for money!! OK, rant over.

New House

Yey! So on Friday we spent our first night in our new house! Woo!
So, now every room has boxes in it, there's dust almost everywhere, nothing has a home, and my bed may not be here for two more weeks! However, I'm liking it muchly! The only real thing I'm having to get used to is walking to work for 20mins instead of less than 5!
I also don't have a chair for my computer desk yet, or much other furniture. I do have a three piece though!
Argh! my leg is going dead - will add to my blog when I have a chair!