New Chair
New Chair
Originally uploaded by Brock. I got fed up of my arse being uncomfortable after long hours at the computer.
So I treated myself. Then I posted the picture, and I am getting abuse for it, and talk of being anally retentive
Bloody northeners.
Dieting explained.
You can tell diets aren't designed by Engineers, you know. There is no lateral thought. Name the one thing that all diets have in common? That's right, small boy at the back, Food.
Think of the Human body as a machine for a second. When we look at a machine, an Engineer will see it as an input and output number or measurement. Highest efficiency in a machine is maximum output for minimum input. Think of the body the same way. It doesn't matter if you control the input if it is merely being stored and not produced as output. You need to make the machine work harder (the 'exercise' thingy I keep hearing about) or produce more output.
Now the analogy starts to be useful. The Human body is one of the few things that can control it's output so easily, so my dieting solution is this:
Shit more.
That's all you have to do, and it involves little extra effort. Well. A bit more grunting and pushing, obviously, but no running about or any of that bollocks. When you next go to the toilet and you feel you are about finished, just sit a bit longer and try a
bit harder.
Easy, isn't it? Probably best to stop when you see blood or feel dizzy, but you should be able to see some results in a few weeks. It's as simple as that. Increase output for a given input, and you
have to get thinner, eh? No more need to worry about what you eat, just make sure that after Christmas dinners or other blow outs, you have a damn good crap. And then have another just to be sure. Much more enjoyable than throwing it all back up, as you don't destroy the taste, or have to look at it and you can read a good book at the same time. Brilliant!
Bloody genius, I am.
Linky Dink Panther
I have been amused.
Greatly.
By
these cartoons.
You should make some time in your day to listen to some of these rants, and particularly the "So I said to my doctor" one".
Brilliant.
Spitting fire at other motorists
Ok. Add this to the list of 235,986,097 things that gets
right on my tits:
Dithery fucking people at roundabouts.
I don't mean the largely harmless "not sure of that 40 foot gap is really big enough for my (poxy fucking Japanese tiny) car" sort. They are easily dispatched with a firm application of the horn about 12 femto-seconds (look it up) after they fail to pull out when I feel they have already missed two (alright, one) gap they could have safely pulled out in. I see it as a helpful learning curve, rather than road rage. They see a gap, and as they are obviously incapable of judging their cars acceleration and size themselves, they will instead start to associate big enough gaps in the traffic flow with jumping out their skin at the sound of a loud and languishing blast of a horn. And if they are aware of their surroundings enough to realise that the sound came from behind them (most won't be, the useless fuckers) then they will get some precisely mouthed colloquialisms and hand signals to waft them on their way.
See? I've
helped them. Very selfless of me.
No, the ones that make me fume and spit bile on the inside of my windscreen, which they then fail to clean up for me, are even worse. These are the incompetent and illogical tossers that approach roundabouts in the left hand lane (of two or more) and refuse to pull out when they have a truck or suitably large vehicle alongside them even when
said vehicle is already pulling out!!!1111one.
I mean, for fucks sake! What do they think is going to happen to them? I appreciate that if they can't see, they shouldn't go. That's not exactly rocket salad, is it? But get this, you stupid FUCKS! When the Van/Lorry goes... SO CAN YOU, YOU TWAT! It DOESN'T MATTER that you can't see! NOTHING will get through the Lorry to hit you! It is nigh on impossible, so you effectively have a force field to your right. You don't need to fucking wait until they have gone to look for yourself.
Just
imagine how much force would be required to move a 38 Tonne lorry sideways at all, never mind far and hard enough to hit your bloody car.
Just pull out, you spineless fucking worms. Only if, and I do mean only, the lorry suddenly slams it's brakes on do I allow you to panic. Then all hell is going to break loose, and you're on your own, pal.
Grumpy
Much as it galls me to even think about work at night, never mind post about it, selected highlights of the conversation I had with the Technical Director today:
Background: TD is a skinflint. Of the
worst kind. He saves cardboard boxes from the deliveries we get. He even took them home and stored them in his garage when I got so fed up at not being able to move at work that I threw them all out. He also thinks that Tool Fairs in village halls are good places to buy tools (spanners, ratchets and stuff) for people that work all day to use to build £12K engines...
TD "Hmmm. I've just been asked to sign this cheque for these tools"
Me
(Having spent all my Friday afternoon off sorting out tools for the Production area - of which I am in charge amongst other things, and knowing what's coming) "Yeah? You mean the ones that the MD blanket approved for me to get on Friday?"
TD "Mmmmm. Well. Um. I have a few questions..."
Me (tiredly)"I've been through this, I have already negotiated the discounts and been through all this. The reason I went down to the shop myself, in my time, was so that I could choose the best kit for the money".
TD "Well... I've been looking through this catalogue, and these..(points out 2 or 3 things that are about £2-£4 less each item. On a £515 order) are cheaper."
Me "But they're shit."
TD "Weeeelll, you always say that..."
Me "Yes, (TD). That's 'cos they're
shit and made of cheese. I'm not buying that stuff and expecting the boys to work with that all day."
Later, and having worked (slowly) through a 6 page list:
TD
(Still determined to convince me that I am being frivolous)" You're buying four of these hammers, they're really expensive. Do you
really need four?"
Me "If it makes you feel better, I'll have just the two. Although, being as we have spent £4,500 on engine build stands alone last week, I think that me spending any more of my time trying to justify spending £500, on all the tools we need for production, is pointless. Are you going to sign the cheque or not? They're delivering all of this tomorrow morning, and they've gone home for the day now. We can't change it even if we want to."
TD leaves looking crestfallen. Then perks up, incredibly, as he realises he has talked me out of something and so saved...
...wait for it...
£30. From a £515 order (pre vat).
Bloke opposite is hunched over his desk with shaking shoulders trying to hide his laughter as I sit back at mine and try
very hard not to type the keys through the fucking desk. I start to type an e-mail out to the bloke at the tool suppliers asking why he had quoted for four hammers when I had specified two...
Smug is NOT the word...
Cold Dog
Cold Dog
Originally uploaded by Brock. I'd been for a walk in the village up the road from me, and saw this poor dog stuck outside the pub. He was really friendly, and not at all happy about being outside. It was 2 degrees, so I'm not surprised.
I made a fuss of him by way of recompense, but thought it was a bit off to take him into the pub to his owners and shout "Wankers! How would you like it!" at them.
That'd probably be going a bit far.
Social calculations
I was chatting with Keith (the bloke I have known longest in the world, not including family) and he was moaning and bitching about being skint and not being able to afford to go away for a weekend. I was hurling abuse (lots) at him for not coming down to see me.
K - "But it's too much money! I spent SO much over Christmas, I really am fucked for money"
Me - "Fuck that! Stop being such a poof, and get down here. Everything is cheaper down here anyway."
K- "Not by much though, I'll bet. Guinness is £2.65 here, how much is it down there?"
Me - "No, honestly, it's £2.00 here. That means that, erm, it's 80 miles - so a 160 mile round trip at 30mpg is... £19 of fuel, yeah? You'd be saving 65p a pint, so that means you would only have to have to drink 29 pints of Guinness before you would have spent the same money. Never mind that meals are cheap - £5.75 for two at Wetherspoons, so we'll save there as well."
K - (starting to warm to the idea, but still not sure) "Christ, that's cheap, but fucking hell mate, 29 pints? That's asking a bit much, I'll have Guinn-arse from hell and be shitting my spine out for England even if I didn't kill myself from alcohol poisoning from that much in two nights. I can't drink like I used to, I must be getting old."
Me - (sensing victory) "Ok. As I consider you to be a top bloke, I am prepared to make the sacrifice thus - I will pay for half your fuel!"
K - "Oh, right! That makes it all a bit..."
Me - (interrupting) "So
that means that in order to do that, I need to drink half the beers, right? You're not trying to tell me that we won't get through 15 pints each over a weekend. No bother. After all, we'll probably be starting at lunchtime on Saturday, won't we?"
K - (Now hook line and sinker convinced) "Fucking ace! Of course we will! And with the saving on the food, it actually makes a fair bit of sense, doesn't it? " (pauses) "
Waaait a minute! I'll see if I can get the Friday off. If I come down on Thursday night we can make a fucking fortune here, cos that'd be a free night, wouldn't it? Quids in! We'll make a mint!"
Me - "Dude, don't lose it on me. You're not exactly going to start making a bloody living like this, are you?"
K- "Aaahhhh Fuck. Don't spoil it for me. I was
this close to convincing myself I could give up work and move down there and survive on just drinking full time."
Playtime
What do you get if you cross four Engineers, an Environmental Scientist, a large scalextric track, several cars and loads of digital cameras?
This, which resulted in
this and
this. In turn, of course, it ended in non damaging
tears.
Everything survived, cars and cameras all, despite the fiendish plan of my mates. This involved being unimpressed with my early attempts at lapping with the camera on board as being "too careful" so they took me to the pub to ply me with beer and we had another go when we got back. This resulted in much faster laps, surprisingly enough. So it's
not true what they say! It
does make you drive faster when you drink. Although I did keep crashing. Sometimes as infrequently as only three times a lap...
This was, as the footage shows, much funnier. And most of the pictures were taken at that point.
Scalextric rocks...
Footage will be available to the select few that catch my eye, pending approval from the lovely person doing the hosting...
Naked pictures of women will increase your case for receiving access to the footage, but probably only if you send them to me, rather than her...
:)
Blowing my own trumpet, or not
I was browsing pictures and found this one
on flickr.
I felt urged to add my two penn'orth and made myself laugh, so I am spreading the love.
It does smack somewhat of being incredibly self promoting, but it's no more than posting on here I guess.
Still, if it bothers you, fell free to fuck off...
:)
Thursday night
Right then. To get all of you up to speed with the way these things normally go, I went to Devon with 4 of my friends this weekend as has become traditional. We go to Dawlish (small coastal town) for the Winter, and to Great Yarmouth for it's tackiness and location of several more friends, for the Summer. Last year on the Yarmouth trip, all the plans turned to crap on the first night as the person who 'booked' the hotel had cocked up enormously and booked a month later than the trip. Still, at least it was 11 at night when we found this out, and we had plenty of time (Ha. Ha.) to get accommodation for 5 people at no notice... Anyway, we got away with it, as seems to be our run of luck and ingenuity.
This time, three of us were in one car and intending to meet up in Exeter at around last orders to sneak a beer in before heading the last 15 miles or so to the house. We just make it - for once my punctuality 'issues' having no bearing on our arrival time- and park in the grounds of the Cathedral. We had a rather pleasant couple of beers before closing, with time to admire the local lovelies, and retired to the cars.
Ah. Bugger.
Both of our cars had a
big, yellow shiny clamp on them... This is now at about 2320 or so. Admittedly, there were a
few signs around the place telling us that it was a private road, but who pays any attention to that at half ten at night? I mean, really?
So, we are back at the cars (4 qualified Engineers and an Environmental Scientist, for reference) and we are having a bit of a look at the clamps. We decide that we can get them off and start to jack the cars up and get on with it, but our Environmentalist is concerned as to the legality of all this. This bloody liberal or, as he prefers to be called, 'The Practical One' was suggesting more restraint than the rest of us were advocating when the bloke from the wheel clamp company came back in his poxy little van and parked it behind the car nearest the exit and blocked him in.
Hmmmm. We had a small huddle and thought about it all. The bloke in the van seemed to be completely confused. He had arrived to see 5 big lads taking wheel clamps off cars, yet we were calm, relaxed, completely ignoring him and not doing what I imagine he expected - running over and abusing him. He immediately called (or faked calling) for back-up from the Police, so I wandered off a bit and called them myself and asked a few questions that they tried not to answer
"If we take this clamp off and not damage it, are we in the clear?"
"Is it an offence to remove a non-police issued clamp?"
"Why would the clamping guy call you lot (the police), what offence would we be committing?"
It transpired, through my tying the woman up to stating her point more clearly than she wanted to, that the only reason that he could have called the Police was if there was a "Civil disturbance", i.e. if we started a fight with him trying to take the clamp off. That was, we decided, as good as saying - "Go for your life, boys. Take it off, he's got nothing on us". Basically, we had as much legal right to remove the clamp as the guy did to put it on - there's nothing he can do as long as nothing was damaged. This does NOT count for a police clamp, for reference. Tampering with one of those is a criminal offence.
So. We took them off.
We jacked the car up, let the tyre down, and two of us pulled the clamp across while the third undid the wheel nuts one at a time, physically holding the car to stop it falling off the jack when we took the handbrake off to turn the wheel to access the next nut. After we got the technique on the first car, we got the second clamp off in about half the time - about 5 minutes. We then pushed the wheel through the clamp with our knees and put it on the pavement. Whilst we had done all the removal, the bloke in the van had retired to the end of the street to prevent our escape. HA! Right!
One of us went up to him, and explained that "We would be leaving soon, and did he want to pick up his clamps?" He was ok, actually. As long as we hadn't damaged them, he didn't care, really. Good job too. He was only bluffing about blocking us, although we had sneakily booked a taxi for one of the houses our side of where he had parked to make him move out of the way for it.. We were then going to stand either side of his van to prevent him moving back until we had got past. Genius, eh?
Although sadly unnecessary. He was really cool about it, I get the impression he wasn't expecting such a complete lack of drama and such effortless removal. All's well that ends well. We then drove off feeling pretty damn pleased with ourselves, and only had to pump up two tyres in the morning. A small price to pay for sticking two fingers up at "The Man". Not to forget saving ourselves £150 of fines...
Instant message windows
On no account, under any circumstances, never mind
how much better you think they will look another way around, re-arrange your IM windows halfway through a period of busy chat..
Particularly when you are chatting to 2 of your mates in one window, and flirting like mad in another with a flighty (and feisty) young chicky thing in another.
Because if you swap the windows (you may be ahead of me here) and you are reacting to the little flashy things in the windows bar at the bottom, you may flirt rather outrageously in the
wrong...
bloody...
window.
A little light hearted, tongue in cheek (although slightly filthy) flirt can
really be taken the wrong way when you are talking to 2 blokes you are about to go away for the weekend with...
Ah. My reputation could have been in tatters. Well, if my reputation for being a dirty flirt wasn't already well established, and they just assumed that I was talking to someone else, anyway.
Lucky escape, really. The rather long pause while they digested what I had put was, erm, interesting, though. With me staring at the screen saying:
"Ah. Fuck. Not THAT window, you twat!"
A learning experience for us all...
The trials of being me part 1
I get easily irritated by things. I also either understand how most things work, or I take them apart until I do. I may even, if I am feeling generous, put them back together. Particularly if they belong to someone else.
I took the fan in my bathroom apart last night, it's one of those that comes on with the light, as it was starting to make too much noise and vibrate and generally piss me off. I took the cover off, and started to take the motor apart. It occured to me as I did this, that the electrical connections were very close together and all bare and everything.
Then I went and turned the isolator switch off. I'm obviously getting good or less brave in my old age.
I cleaned all the dust off the fan (the source of the vibration - it sticks to the blades and un-balances the fan) and put the motor back together. I then trimmed some tape around the edge of the cover and put it back on (the source of the noise - the vibration makes the cover rattle against the wall).
All well and good. A job well done. Anally retentive and perfectionist, but well done. There is one problem, however. Twice this morning I have gone into the bathroom, and both times I have forgotten to turn the bloody light off in the bathroom afterwards as the row that the fan had been making must have reminded me to do it before. This is starting to get on my tits now, instead.
How fucking pathetic is that? I appear to require a certain amount of irritation in my life, and it's source just shifts until equilibrium is restored.
Maybe if I had loads of money, it would just piss me off having to count it.
Maybe I should get a bloody grip.
The computer age.
I noticed yesterday, whilst drafting out an advert for a new employee (scared one of them off after two and a half months... FEAR ME!) that there is a very serious side effect to the computer literacy that I have gained.
I can't bloody write anymore.
My handwriting has always been, to be perfectly honest, the wrong side of a bucket of steaming shite when it comes to legibility. I did, however always manage to spell things correctly. I have picked up some bad habits now where I have somehow imprinted a sequence of keys and allocated them to a word - I always type 'definitely' as 'defina...' before I stop myself, for one. Every time. It's not that I don't know how to spell the word, it's just my hands seem to run away from me. I think I am trying so hard to hit the keys, one at a time and in the right order, that I spend less time thinking about what's printed on the top of them. The mechanics of transcribing the word has become more brain-intensive. Writing is (or should be still) second nature.
I have cultivated a completely different type of bad habits. When I wrote, I used to get bored in long words, and the height of the letters would reduce and merge together a bit. I used to be able to scribble things down quickly, still get them spelled right, but for them to be just badly written. I am assuming that as a result of the lessened consequences of typing over writing - immediate and invisible use of the backspace key - my mind and concentration on the job at hand wanders because it
just doesn't matter. No more do I write more slowly during the second half of the page, as the effort and time involved in having to re-write it neatly ramp up massively. I am starting to try and re-train my mind to reduce this appaling state of affairs.
As an example, I spelt the same word ('experience', rather amusingly) with too many letters in it twice in the space of 5 minutes, and only spotted it when I re-read it. I already hate and avoid relying on the spell checker, but maybe I need to steel mysepf for trying a bit harder? I think the time has come for me to kick myself up the arse.
Not easy when you are sat on a chair in front of the computer, I can tell you.
"How are you today?"
I got a text message today. It asked the above question, but as I was frantically running around work sorting stuff to allow me to go home at 1230 as is my current weekly luxury, I didn't reply until I had thought about it.
It transpires, after suitable ruminating, that I am mostly feeling bored and tired. I suppose that leaves me in somewhat of an interesting position. My most efficient action to dispel these two negative feelings is surely to go to bed and do something interesting, isn't it?
Now
that is what I call a bloody good idea. All I have to do now is snare a suitable victim...
/scours the horizon for nubile lovelies
New Year
Ooooh. It got messy.
I think the problems started when I forgot to eat after 10.30 in the
morning. I had Breakfast, and then drove to E's house to drop off my
stuff, conveniently missing lunch at the time. I then had a sudden
realisation at half 6 that I was hungry.
"Oh, it's ok, there's a buffet at the pub". My mind was at rest, but the
buffet didn't appear until 1030. Ah. That would be 12 hours after I last
ate then. And also, 4 hours after I started drinking Champagne and Beer...
Basically, it was a downhill slope of gently increasing gradient from
there. The band (one of the bar staff, and one of the locals from the
acoustic club that plays in the pub) were very good, the pub was ticket
only, and nicely busy rather than crowded. Very pleasant. There was
about 15 of us in our little bit, which included some regulars and
staff/ex-staff, so it attracted a fair through-flow of people to keep
the conversation kicking along nicely. Although of the people that
pretty much stayed at our table, a fair few of them were lovely ladies
nearly ten years younger than me, so this old pervert was happy.
Especially when 12 o'clock came around... Snogtastic. No-one was safe.
However, I did (along with everyone else, I should add) get rather
pissed, and when the party went back to E's house at 2.30 in the morning
after chucking out time, I was less than feisty. There was an incident
with 2 of the girls practically wetting themselves at me, because I
couldn't pronounce the word 'alcohol'; fortunately in the context of
"Non alcoholic drink" at this stage. Apparently I was 'being sweet' so
that isn't too bad. At least I didn't make an arse of myself, anyway.
The bad side was that I felt so awful on New Years Day, that I stayed in
bed at E's house until 10 that night. They actually locked me in the
house while they went out for lunch and to dinner and just left me
there, feeling crap. Bless 'em, they were really good to me. I wasn't
sick, just had a massive headache and it wouldn't go. I tried to get up
for lunch, but had to give up. What a lightweight old age has made me. A
fantastic night, but I paid the price. I eventually managed to get up to
watch TV for about 4 hours with the girls before going back up to my
room and hitting the sack again. Amazing how sleeping so much makes you
tired.
The upside of this was that while we were all getting up the next day, I
ended up sitting in bed on the morning of the 2nd between two lovely
ladies nearly 10 years my junior sipping tea and watching
Hollyoaks. Brilliant. Very easy on the eye but sadly, as everyone was pretty much dressed (and it couldn't actually have been more innocent) it wasn't
quite as much of a result as it could have been...
Ah well. Better luck next time.
Ooops.
I couldn't have been closer to putting my trousers (the ones I wore to the New Years Eve bash) into the wash just now without checking the pockets properly. Fortunately, the spare camera battery that was in them hit the laundry basket as I put them in.
That would have pleased me
no end when that had been destroyed in the washing machine, I can tell you.
A breaky thingy.
I really wanted to post the one below this, but it has put a downer on me posting anything else.
I needed to put a neutral post in before I go back to normality here. I've said what I want to and didn't want a stupid/decadent post straight above it to detract from it, or conversely make me look insensitive.
Carry on. Back to normal.
