New TV!
New TV!
Originally uploaded by Brock. I have finally got around to buying myself a new TV.
It is a lovely and gorgeous thing. It means I now have a clear and sharp picture, which is somewhat of a revelation. You have no idea how hard it was to play 'creeping around in the dark' games on the Playstation on a TV with poor picture, bad black definition and signal ghosting of BBC1 going across it while trying not to get shot.
Another little foible that has been an intrinsic part of my TV viewing for the last 3 years, that I will not miss, is the need to bash the crap out of the top of the box every 12 minutes as it drops out of tune. You either got a face full of white noise, or that cycling white band that you get when you see a TV on the TV (if you know what I mean).
Ahhhh. Bliss. I may even want to watch some of my DVD's now that I can see the damn things.
Aren't government agencies great?
I have been trying to finalise the specification of a fuel tank for our new test cells at work over the last few weeks, and it has been a complete nightmare. The factory site is over a river, and the company we share the site with has had to do (quite rightly) everything it should to ensure that the environment around it is affected as little as possible by the continuation of business. This is obviously expensive and surrounded by regulations from hell.
Because there are so many regulations for the storage and dispensing of fuel, We had eventually managed to nail down the standards that the tank was subject to, but there was some ambiguity as to the regulations of the pump to dispense the fuel. So what does one do in these circumstances? Ask the relevant authority, of course! But what is it about Government agencies that they have the power to close you down if you do something that they don't like, but they also prevaricate perpetually when you ask them what exact regulations they wish you to comply with? It's amazing. They would not, no matter how much information we provided, tell us the regulations we needed to comply to, never mind putting them into writing. Even after site visits!
Involving such conversations such as: Government Agency: "You must ensure that the pump is suitable for purpose" Me: "Certainly, what regulations do I need to comply with?" G.A. : "All the appropriate ones for your application." Me: "Can I have, in writing, the regulations that you, the governing body, deem applicable to our application, please?" G.A. : (silence) "We can't comment on individual cases".
Me: "Ok, I will get a pump that complies with (lists regs) these regulations. Is that ok? Or do I need to comply with these (another number) as well."
G.A. "If it is appropriate to how you intend to site and use the pump".
AAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHH! It was a bloody merry go round! They didn't want to tell me what I had to do, so they had a rod to hit me with if they didn't like how I did it. So bloody frustrating. No wonder they get a bad name.
Results and all that
Enough people have asked me about all this that I may as well post what happened after
having my arm emptied.I was told today that all 7 tests came back "Normal, no further action".
Now I did wonder if that
actually means:
"Normally, despite the outcome of the tests, we generally take no further action. This is the NHS, for christ's sake, who the hell expects results/healing anyway?"
But it was 'normal' anyway. So does that mean normal for me? Or normal for other people? I was expecting a little print out with "Bit warped and slightly the wrong side of 'sick' for general social acceptability, but he'll survive".
But I'm 'normal'. How bone-crashingly, mind-meltingly fucking dull. Most people might be relieved by that, but I actually find it a bit depressing. I don't want to be 'normal'. That reeks of Arran sweaters and 'sensible' cars, and 'practical' beige clothing. They wouldn't even write me out a certificate saying "This blokes a bit weird, frankly"
Wankers. What do I pay my taxes for, if I can't expect a little pandering to my own self image?
Julio-isms
1:
Julio: "It's great, your flat, I really like it. If I had somewhere like this, I could put my office stuff there,
(starts pointing around the flat) the home cinema stuff there, the dining table here and stuff.....
(tails off)Me: "So..... exactly as it is then. Just with your stuff in it."
Julio: "Errrr.... Yeah!
(laughs)2:
Julio: "Apparently some cats have fur that is less likely to cause allergies, I think they are the Siamese-looking ones, but I'm not sure. I don't know what they're called."
Me: "They're called Siamese cats, you fuckwit."
Julio: "Oh, are they? That
might explain why I thought they looked Siamesey"
3:
Julio: "I think I might stay off the Spirits tonight and go a bit easy with the drinking. I think it's bad for me."
Me: "Oh, why's that?"
Julio: "Well, when I drink Spirits, I tend to go into super-alcoholic mode and the last few times I've done that I've ended up coughing up blood"
Me (laughing): "So you reckon that just
might be a bad thing, then?"
Julio: "Well, I'm no Doctor, but I reckon it's probably best avoided as part of your regular drinking activities"
Fuck, that boy is entertaining. We do give him a lot of abuse, but he manages to make the most banal sentence hysterically funny, he has the most excellent descriptive terms. He also does an excellent line in abusive rants when he gets on a topic that he is passionate about. Brilliant. My sides were hurting when we all finally fell asleep last night.
Debauchery
Quite by surprise, a social life fell into my lap for the weekend. Keith rang out of the blue on Thursday and decided to come down Friday afternoon. The endlessly entertaining Julio Clarkio (the Spanish/Geordie Super-hero) also managed to get here for Saturday night from the opposite side of the country at very short notice.
Keith even decided to cook a chilli for the three of us on Saturday night, much to our mutual surprise, although he actually cooked enough for about 10 people. He even cooked a less hot version for me, I am not a fan of spicy foods, or as they preferred to call it "Some namby-pamby, soft bloody Southerner, gay boy stuff". We watched the football (well, they did, I just took the piss) in the pub while it was cooking, and we battered a couple of bottles of wine whilst we watched Julio have 4 full servings until he stopped being hungry. Christ, that boy can put the food away.
We then retired to the pub, where we met up with Siobhan toward the end of the evening. Who is, incidentally, a long way toward being a lightweight. We had been drinking since 5 that evening, Siobhan only joined us for the last hour in the pub and a G&T when we got back to mine and was more pissed than all of us,
and had a worst hangover. She was suitably ashamed, although I think she has suffered enough for her crime, frankly. She was way too pissed to walk home, so she had to crash in the (not all that large, and open plan) flat with three great big drunk blokes farting their chilli arsed way through the night. Keith woke me up in the middle of the night with his snoring (fuck, it's bad!) and I was
highly amused that he actually paused in his snoring for a languishing and sonorous fart of a good 3 seconds duration. I was sniggering for about 5 minutes after that.
Eeeeeh, but farts are funny.
They've both just gone home now, so the windows are wide open to try and revert to normal air quality. At least this weekend (amid the other stupidity, giggling and general silliness) I have finally nailed down my worries about how drunk and consequently ill I was at New Year. I seem to have aquired a reactio to Lager. I drank bitter/Guinness and the like this weekend, in no small quantities, and was pretty much back to normal. Slight hangovers the next day, but with still some degree and awareness of how drunk I am getting, allowing me to moderate and control it. At New Year, I felt fine one minute then super-pissed the next, despite only drinking about 2/3 of a normal 'heavy night' quantity, and had the 12 hour hangover from hell the next day. Weird. Still, it appears to be the lager.
Anyway, after a massive fry up for breakfast and a late lunch of the remains of the Chilli (yes, Julio had double helpings!) the boys have gone home. I am so knackered, but had a great time. Keith's snoring kept me awake for most of the last two nights, so I am going to bed early tonight. That is the one main disadvantage of the open plan flat. I like it in every other way, but I would have liked to have shut the grunting hippo impression behind a few inches of solid wood by 4 o'clock this morning, I can tell you.
Ears and old people.
I've just been watching a news section on Dresden and the Second World War, and I've noticed an interesting point about getting older. Look at an old man's ears. They are
enormous! Massive! Huge! The guy on the TV just now had lobes half the size of his head!
And yet, when we get old we can't hear as well. Has anyone told Mother Nature that lobes aren't the bit we hear with? No matter how long they grow, we can't hear any better. This is the most compelling evidence that I have seen that Nature is indeed 'mother', and hence a woman.
Only a woman would try so hard to help without any awareness or consideration of logic or factual information.
Although I've noticed that old women don't have huge ears. Hmmmm. Maybe it's not helping. Maybe it's revenge for all those years of not listening...
Hell of a race for a sheep
Hell of a race for a sheep
Originally uploaded by Brock. I reckon it would take longer than 10 miles to catch that deer up.
Especially if the damn thing just stands there. I mean, it's just watching it run away!
Wake up, the sheep, wake!
Hardly...
Hardly...
Originally uploaded by Brock. I passed this road sign yesterday. Made me laugh so much, I had to stop and take a picture on the way back.
I expected to go around the corner and find a sign saying "Here be bears". But there was only this
Wilderness indeed.
Hole in my Frikkin Arm!!!!!1111
Hole in my Frikkin Arm!!!!!1111
Originally uploaded by Brock. (With apologies to Uncle Moc for the title steal)
I went to get a blood test today, to find out if I am getting some sort of lurgy that makes me tired and stuff the whole time.
I arrived, a little late admittedly, but that was no excuse for the Nurse to be all flapping and overly rushing everything. I was at the point of holding my arm above my head away from her (she was ickle tiny person) and shouting:
"CALM DOWN, WOMAN! You shall NOT touch me with sharp pointy things until you have stood in one spot and counted to twenty, you bouncy jumpy twitching FREAK!"
So, she stops shaking and the like and jams a needle into my arm. This appeared to be attached to a clear plastic bucket about as big as my head. Sense of foreboding prevails. It was at this point that I noticed all the ampules on the side and glanced over at the notes. There was a hefty list of acronyms in the box marked 'to be tested for'.
Hint for the masses: When you tire of the Doc telling you that "every one feels tired", and that "maybe it's your stressful job" that you are knackered the whole time and don't feel refreshed even after 12 hours sleep. Do NOT lose your temper and point out to him that you know damn well what it feels like to have a more stressful job than the one you have at the moment. And go on to point out, in no uncertain terms, that you are absolutely sure that something is amiss, and that he is "supposed to be the bloody Doctor" and why doesn't he "just find out what it is" and fix it?
He appears to have got his own back by getting Nurse 'Parkinsons' to take enough blood from me to test for everything he could think of. No wonder she was twitchy. She was probably trying to get done and get out of the room before I entirely dessicated and collapsed into a pile of dust.
I'm sure I saw "YMCA", "GSOH", "WLTM" and "LOL" on those bloody notes.
Bastards.
Recovery - *ADVISORY* - dull as fuck introspective post alert!!!11111one
Being as some of you asked how I was, I decided to tell you all. (Ok. One of you asked/expressed interest/care/lack of apathy/Jesse. You take what you get in this world, I can tell you.)
Whilst I am amazed that I twisting my back so severely, despite doing it in such an utterly innocuous manner, I am also quite surprised at the level of recovery. As of Sunday, despite the problems associated with being a bit stiff when bending (it was poking me in the eye... hur hur hur) the effects of a massively painful experience that genuinely left me as good as crippled for 2 1/2 days, and not much cop for a further day, I feel fine.
I have decided that I need to do something about all this. I know that if I was fitter, not only would I have been less likely to have hurt myself but also that I would have recovered faster with the additional muscle support. With more sport/exercise I would probably have been a bit more agile and not slipped in the first place anyway. I am obviously feeling the effects of having what is a much more desk orientated job than I have had for the last 8 years.
It has rather highlighted my constant tiredness as well. Even given that I was knackered all the time before last week, 5 days of a near bloody catatonic, forcibly immobile, state appears to have completely floored me. After a day at work and shopping on the way home, I was absolutely spent and only wanted to go to bed. I even signed off an email at 10 on the basis that I was going to crash out straight after, and I fully intended to. However, I then spent the next few hours getting side tracked by
flickr forums. I appear to have cultivated the attention span of a 3 year old and didn't get to bed until 1230. I was, of course , wide awake by this point also. Marvelous. Why do I keep doing this?
My theory is that I am not as tired as I feel. I think I am not physically or mentally tired (or at least not as much as I feel), but drained in some other way. A dietary deficiency, maybe? I went to the Doc's on Friday to check my lower half wasn't going to fall off (you have to ask these things) and made my case, rather strongly given the "Everyone says they are always tired" reaction of my previous doctor last year, that I wanted checking out. I now have a blood test on Friday morning.
Now we'll see, I guess. If that comes back clear, I may have to face the unthinkable: That I'm becoming a couch potato, my tiredness is a function of my lack of exercise and that I am a lazy fuck.
Hmmmm. That wouldn't probably count as the biggest shock of my life...
stupidstupistupid
What do you get if you cross a back that hurts constantly, Ibuprofen, A hot water bottle, an idiot, a kettle and all day?
I'll tell you. You get painkillers that not only dull your back pain to a steady throb allowing you to walk between your chair and the kitchen in a style much less reminiscent of Cromagnon Man, but that also dull the warning signs that tell you your hot water bottle is too hot...
It felt lovely, and seemed to be helping. Sadly it appears to have also (through my fleece and a t-shirt!) raised a blister on my back.
Bugger.
What an idiot. Now not only does my back hurt whenever I move, but also when my T-shirt rubs against it. Bloody marvellous.
Still, at least the link from my computer to work set up ok so that I can get some work done while I'm stuck at home. Could have been worse, I could only have had a DVD player and a playstation to keep me occupied.
:(
Still here
Yup.
Still
stuck. Still hurts (a lot) when I try to get up. I am
so glad I didn't start to run the bath before I sat down, my feet would be getting wet now as it ran gently from the bathroom.
I even had to answer the intercom buzzer, by rolling my (shiny new!) chair to the door, because the twat next door had locked himself out. I suppose I might have made the bathroom to turn the taps off, actually.
Maybe it's not as bad as I thought. Although I am a bit bored now. I mean. I can't stay in this bloody chair for ever.
Nice though it is.
[edit: And now bloody
flickr has gone down. Bloody marvellous. NOW what am I supposed to do?]
Hehehe
"The other day a woman came up to me and said, "Didn't I see you on television?" I said, "I don't know. You can't see out the other way."
- Emo Philips
(from
funjunkie)
That really made me giggle, despite the fact that I have royally screwed my back at work today, and am now stuck in this damn chair. Seriously. I sat here to check my emails, and I can't get out of the chair without screaming and shouting loud sweary words. Including such favourites as "Ah! Mother
FUCKER! and "BUGGERFUCKTWAT!".
Among others, of course.
I was walking through the factory today, in search of a pallet truck of 'typical dimensions' to prove a mounting concept for our Dyno cells (yawn), when I slipped on a badly cleared up oil spill. I did that slip/stop/jar-the-fuck-out-of-your-back thing. Know the one? Where it would have actually been less painful to have just fallen over and smacked the fuck out of my head on the concrete. Maybe even on a sharp pointy object, with a rusty and poison encrusted edge. Covered in vinegar. And salt. And cat piss.
It was ok straight after but worse after about half an hour, and by the time I gave up and came home I couldn't walk at more than a mellow shuffle withough grimacing and not lift my right leg without shouting. I also shouted a particular 'c' word at my lustiest and violent top volume across the car park as I tried to lift my right leg into the car to drive home (rather dangerously as it turned out). It really, and I don't say this lightly, FUCKING hurts.
I also, for your added amusement, went to change into my tracksuit and fleece so that I would be more comfortable after I got home and had started cooking dinner. I then spent 10 minutes on my back shouting and gasping because I toppled onto my back while trying to get my trousers off and couldn't move or raise myself up. Seriously. It hurt so bad that if I wasn't such a rock hard mo-fo I'd have cried. I literally couldn't sit up. All this with the sound of my pasta boiling over in the background as if to taunt me...
I just want to get up so that I can have a hot bath, finish off my medicinal bottle of wine (as a relaxant, you understand) and go to bed to see if it is ok in the morning. I am, in all seriousness, partially crippled.
Not. Having. Fun.
