Current Mood: Weak and tired
Ever since I moved to a new department at work in April 2007 things in my life have been so hectic that I can’t even find time to relax now. Three weeks ago I made possibly the biggest mistake when I offered to help out on a very important project for the company I work for. It is an ‘Innovation’ product as we call it and it’s something that no company not even BAE Systems have. It’s a ultra high quality showcase of workmanship, so every component must be built to a high standard. Anyway, the engineers in charge of the project needed help, and like an idiot I accepted. I now feel I have bitten off more than I can chew because the project has to be completed by the end of August and I have so much to learn.
Currently life feels like I’m balancing plate’s simultaneously and failing horribly. At work I am struggling to meet a few deadlines as I am focusing 100% of my efforts on the new project. As a result I end up doing about 3-4 hours overtime. Getting home is a pain in the rear end because there’s so much traffic when I leave late at night. It’s just a pain in the arse. Hell I can’t even find time to write reviews now even though I have a partially completed one of The Darkness ready to go out this weekend. It’s irritating to say the least, especially since I have little time to update my blog. Hopefully things will be better once this damn project is out of the way 
Keep em in business!
Amongst all the chaos over the past week with the two attempted terrorist attacks on a London nightclub, as well as Glasgow Airport, and the mass floods around various parts of the UK, something did manage to make me smile over the weekend. I was already in a mood as my planned Paintballing session had to be cancelled due to my assumptions that it would pee down with rain, and it did on Saturday morning. I love getting predictions right!
I had a relaxing weekend on the whole, beginning with me clearing out my room filled with ever increasing amounts of cardboard packaging from all the junk that I tend to purchase. Cardboard packaging annoys the hell out of me too. I order a tiny weeny minute 40mm fan, and it comes in a box that resembles your average shoe box! By the end of the week I get so much packaging material accumulating in my room that it takes an entire day just to sort through it all and bin it.
So on Sunday evening I’m chatting to some of the kids who are playing football on the road…being the UK, every single last remaining park has vanished and is now filled with sodding houses, so kiddies have no-where to play in but on the roads. I’m outside emptying the rubbish, whilst trying to understand these nosy little brats who are chatting away (in a language that only Cypher from the Matrix could understand), whilst kicking a ball, listening to their mp3 players and sucking on some sweets. Multitasking little twerps.
Suddenly in the distance I hear a familiar little musical jingle I haven’t heard in ages. "It’s the Ice Cream Van Man!" I cried out. The kids looked at me startled as the van pulls up nearby. Three of the girls ran inside screaming while the young boys grabbed sticks and rocks to defend themselves. Apparently this lot haven’t even seen an ice cream van man before! It’s shocking when you think about it. These guys were so common back in the 70’s and 80’s and loved by children. Sadly they began going out of business towards the 90’s, and are a rarity around my area of Harrow. Indeed I haven’t seen one around for ages anyway. So after persuading the children that he wasn’t a kidnapper, I bought them all ice cream cones. Awwww!
Now I’m a fiver less then I started with, and I’ll never see that it again.
Time to brush up on my camping skillz
Update: Well the weather has put a dampener on things. Due to the unpredictable rain storms the UK has been having for the past 2 weeks, this trip will be cancelled until further notice. Buggered if I’m going paint balling in the mud should it begin lashing it down with rain.
I spent this weekend mostly with a raging hangover as I spent Saturday at my mates RC and Renata’s place since they were having a BBQ for their gorgeous daughter Ariana, whose 1st birthday is tomorrow! Awww! Now I would put up pics from the night, but I don’t actually have permission so nooo. Sadly the BBQ took place on the same day Glastonbury 2007 was on, so it was an invitation for the bad weather to hit us - and it did. Things started out fine as we all chatted away in the garden, but then came the rain to put a dampener on things. It began pee’ing down like there was no tomorrow. Having moved indoors, I got completely drunk on the copious amounts of beer that was available until I began seeing double everytime I looked at the TV. The night ended with Mark passing out drunk and being doodled on, with makeup by various people! I’ve never sniggered so hard without actually laughing (can’t wake him can we?). I had a lovely time, so RC/Ren & Neal if you’re reading this - cheers peeps! It was so good to see some old faces I hadn’t seen in ages too.
This upcoming weekend I’m off Paint balling! It’s been about 8yrs since I last went, and this time it’s a team building excercise event at Bullswood, Surrey. Given that the QA (Quality Assurance) department are coming along so they’re Numero Uno on everyone’s hitlist it seems. I’ve got myself the Big Bad Boy package with 1 Smoke grenade! I’ll have to utilise all my ancient Counterstrike techniques to outwit the competition who aren’t all oldies either. The famous Antycamp technique could prove handy in situations where I am trapped. My only worry is that we will end up looking like we’ve battled the forces of nature herself. Last time I went paint balling we all returned home with cuts, bruises, leaves and twigs all over us, and I don’t have to mention how paintful (hurhur) it can be to be shot in the arm, let alone the face! Hopefully the weather won’t put a downer on things either.
Down but not out!
Arf! For the past week I’ve been suffering from a nasty back injury, the result of pushing myself too hard in the gym I would guess. Thankfully the pain is beginning to show signs of subsiding. It’s so surprising when something like this hits you out of the blue, especially when you very rarely have injuries or sicknesses of any kind. Me? Suffice to say that I haven’t seen my doctor in 15yrs, since I was 16yrs old to be precise. I am the type who hates medicine of any kind, preferring to let any pain subside naturally, and having said that I was almost persuaded by friends to visit my local doctor this morning. Yet this morning upon waking up, it had almost vanished!
So I spent a solid two hours at the gym this morning literally burning up because I hadn’t been in so long and for the next few days I will feel like an 80yr old OAP as a result. To make things worse, today here in London has been blisteringly hot. I rarely feel the summer heat but today has been FARKING HOT! I arrived home an hour ago and my normally cool room is a sweltering 29.4c! Summer is here baby!
Just a quick mention that I have just added a review of my latest toy in the Reviews section. I replaced my old keyboard with a spiffy new one! Oh, and to those who have emailed asking as to why I am slow with 360 reviews, I am still working on three reviews at the moment. The fact that the weather is gorgeous over here in the UK, combined with my new position at work, and a nagging girlfriend gives me little free time to really write stuff. Take care!
Shrleley not!
I trust everyone had a lovely Easter break? Over here in good old UK, London the weather was top dogs, and it was quite hot! Needless to say it was the perfect weather for….drinking lotsa booze! Now my girlfriend spent the weekend with me, as she was avoiding relatives who came to stay round hers. She then had the gall to say that I am becoming a fat (I’m 10.5 stones woman!), drunken alcoholic. Now this rather cruel outburst came when I was smashed out of my head trying to hold an MSN conversation with three people at once.
My amazingly nippy typing skills that would put any secretary to shame became a shambolic mess after gulping down 2x 1ltr bottles of Baileys (Caramel + Mint yum!), and 8x bottles of Kronenberg 1664 - My favourite beer. Now according to her, I am a fat, beer swigging bar-steward! Charming! I even had to take an Alchy Test…which I never did because I could not focus on the words yay! 
I am not allowed to go near alcohol for a week now…
Oh by the way, the day before Good Friday (6th April for you non UK’ers) I got a lovely Easter egg from me boss - A tiny Cadburys Creme Egg! Cheeky goit dropped them onto our office desks at lunchtime, while everyone was out for lunch and then legged it home on a half day holiday! I wasn’t happy one bit. I wanted more! So today after returning from the Easter break, I whinged in a way that would make PR proud! After lunchtime, I found a lovely Easter egg (see inset pic) sitting on my desk! 
Off to France & Italy for a bit
Wow, it has been a busy week for me. I’m off on holiday from tomorrow night visiting France for a day, which happens to be a trip from work to shop for lotsa booze! The stuff is dirt cheap in Calais, so we go there around three times a year to stock up on the stuff. Then on Sunday night, my girlfriend and I head off to Italy, Venice for a week. I am really looking forward to it now, except as I write this I have realised that I don’t really fare well on ferries - I hate bumpy rides! Venice has been one of my dream destinations for years now.
Yesterday I had a major shock at work when I was called to the director’s office. I thought I was going to get in trouble for taking too much time off from work lately, but instead he had called me in to give me advance notice of a promotion beginning on April 2nd…not the best of dates mind you…
I was totally bricking myself and then knocked sideways as I heard the news that they had planned this for months. I am not entirely sure what my new position entails just yet but it is basically design work for military hardware as I have become increasingly versed in this area over the years. I am excited and nervous, well mainly nervous because I am afraid of failure from doing a job I’ve never done. Thankfully, the people who I will be working alongside have been very welcoming towards me joining their ranks so it’s not all bad. I’ll be buggered if I am wearing a suit to work though - I’m not that type!
I have had the most chaotic messed up weekend ever. I ended up spending Saturday writing up a whole batch of reports and articles for work, and then managed to accidentally shred a couple by mistak! With no backup copies, I am royally screwed tomorrow when I head back to work.
I spent most of today writing and re-writing a single review (Most Wanted) because I ended up losing a massive portion of the code because it was stored in the windows clipboard buffer, which was then overwritten. Great! I also forgot to mention that last week I added a new review into the reviews section, and just today added a second. So Project Gotham Racing 3 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted are the newest additions. I’ve also tidied up that reviews page to make it look a bit more organised.
Right, that leaves me with Test Drive Unlimited, Top Spin 2, Oblivion, Fight Night 3 and Pro Evo 6 to review so…no pressure!
I predict a riot!
Woo, on the 23rd of March, myself, Ayesha and Deena hop off to France to join my company on the first of our yearly trips to France, organised for the first time by yours truly. This will be rather comical, as I’ve booked two coaches instead of the usual one due to high demand. I’ve been stressing out a lot over this trip mainly because at one point we had more people coming then the coaches could handle! Luckily, some families dropped out so it’s all cool.
I am really looking forward to this trip now, as events on the last trip were hilarious as the coach broke down on the way back to London, and everyone ended up drunk as we all got bored and began to consume the booze that we had only just purchased. Ayesha managed to cause chaos by dropping her handbag that had mini bottles of some sort of booze. Cue utter madness as everyone ended up hopping around the coach trying not to step on them as she ran riot trying to grab as many as possible! 
This time round we seem to have a coach load of raving mad teens and their parents so things should be quite amusing! Hey Ayesha, you might pull! 
I hope that the weather will be decent for once as this isn’t the best time to really visit, but we need ze booze for ze summer!
We return home (hopefully!) just after midnight, and then on the next day Deena and me are off to Venice, Italy! Never been there, always wanted to go there and I’ve developed a serious affection for Italian food lately! We will take a flight directly to the International "Marco Polo" Airport, and then stay at the 4 star Hotel Alexander just outside Venice for a few days before heading back! Ahh the luxury of abusing my position at work continues
