Yes, exactly as the title says. Coatesy passed his driving test this morning. Congrats to him. this meant that there was a slight change of plan with our evening activities as mentioned earlier, and commented on by a certain Mr. Bananas. We went out for a spin in his (borrowed) car, and we ended up at Wynyard Services….

Amusingly, there was a pub at a service station. We went in, and apparently, he’d been there before, as he knew some of the games on the gaming machine.

Now, considering this was a service station, the beer was reasonably priced, at £2.10 for a pint of Carling. I’ve paid more in normal pubs, so that was acceptable.

However, Coatesy admitted that he no longer reads this blog, so that was a disappointment. Booooooo. Despite the fact that he passed his test today, he was still a perfectly confident driver, which was a relief. I expected to be head-first in a ditch or a crash barrier by now.

Speaking of crashes, the BBC finally released the tapes of Richard Hammond’s crash, now that Top Gear’s back on the air. I think I commented on that on the last posting. Either way, it looked really nasty, and it’s good to see him alive and well. They’ve promised to never mention it on the show, yet there’s still 5 weeks of the series to go. I wonder how long it’ll take them to mention it again.

Anyway, today, other than the trip out with Coatesy, I’ve spent the whole day tidying. It was about time the front room got cleaned properly, including the sofa. We’ve got rid of the lion-motif rug that emblasened the centre of the floor. It’ll be rolled up and delivered to Lynne tomorrow, as me and Daddykins both decided that the room looked better without it there.

I also fixed the hoover. Well, when I say fixed, I actually mean “cleaned the filters” It was an unpleasant task, and one that was reminiscent of fitting the new stair carpet, for the amount of dust floating around. In fact, that’s probably where the majority of the filter-clogging dust came from.

Daddykins had to pick up a microphone for his beloved ham radios from South Bank, so naturally, it was a chance for me to take irrelevant pictures. Some of them didn’t turn out too bad

Technorati Tags: carling, coatesy, driving test, flickr, Photos, wynyard

Well, yes. My internet connection has gone south for no reason at all. I suspect NTL have pressed the magic button in order to do some “maintainence” of some sort.

So, it’s approaching the end of another 3 days off. There’s just over 12 hours to go before I force myself to endure 3 days of utter pain again.

Though, this should spare an entry in the “Work Stuff” category, as I plan for that to be the only mention of that place. Except for a little later on in the post.

So, the three days off. Monday was spent mostly sleeping. I went around the Marina on the night with Coatesy.

We walked from Coatesy’s flat,to the bar, all of 50 metres. 25 metres into the fucking journey, I bump into the guy who runs the offy down the road, who had obviously been out on the tiles. He questioned me on how I didn’t go to his shop any more. I said something, not that it was important, because by the time I’d finished, he was introducing me as *the* computer god to all of his friends.

Imagine my dismay when one of his mates, who I’d never seen before, ever, came up with the the most generic of all questions in the whole history of the world ever….

“I’ve got this Windows and it gives me fatal errors”… Despite the fact I’d known this person for all of 6 seconds, he expected me to give him a full diagnostic of his PC.

“Oh, I dunno…. viruses?” I said. “Do you have a virus checker”?

“Er… yes. McCaffrey”, he replied. I did my best to not burst out laughing. Instead, I just said something like “Make sure it’s up to date and do a full virus scan”.

At that point, I think it became clear I was out to enjoy a night out, and not fix complete strangers computer problems.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter”, he said as he caught up with his friends, and I switched my brain back into living mode.

For the rest of the night, Coatesy’s phone never stopped ringing. His social circle has expanded to the level where he’s on first name terms with Paul “Goffy from Century FM, but he’s quit now” Gough. I’ve dreamed about status like that. Gone are the days where we sit, getting pissed to Burnout 2, with Bruce Hornsby blaring out of the nearest music playing recepticle.

So, I returned home at approx. 11:47 (the taxi was late and don’t forget, Powlett Road is blocked off), and I signed in to messenger. I can’t remember if there was a reason or not, but within 37 seconds, I was invited to Lisa’s birthday bash at Lloyds on Church Street the following evening. Without hesitation, I said I’d be there, and you’d better believe I was.

My sleep pattern was all to fuck, so I fell asleep on the sofa at about 1AM, and woke up at something like 7AM. I put some CDs on ebay, and no sooner had I listed about 20, Daddykins informed me that Wednesday and Thursday were 10p listing days. Grrrr, fuckers. I watched some more episodes of “Robot Chicken”, a show I’ve only just became acquainted with over the last 6 days. It’s the Family Guy writers/actors, with animated footage of action dolls. Sounds shit? It isn’t. Anyway, I laid watching that until 4PM, eventually, I fell asleep, even though I didn’t actually intend to. I was meant to be at Lloyds by 7:30!! Would I manage it? Luckily, yes. I’d told Daddykins to get me up in case I fell asleep.

I donned a fine shirt (my favourite one, blue and white, short sleeved), and I headed off to the bus stop, where it absolutely pissed down. Luckily, the bus shelter has a roof, so I stayed dry until my transportation arrived.

Just as I was about to get off the bus, my mobile rang. It was Dan, getting money out of the cashpoint next door to Lloyds.

I started it off… “Look behind you”.
“Behind me”? Dan replied.

“Yes, you see that bus?”

“What bus?”

“The one I’m about to get off… waaaaaaaaay, see me?”

The “waaay” means I’m frantically waving, for no reason at all.

He frantically waves back, and after I negotiate the zebra crossings, I also get money out of the cashpoint, and we enter Lloyds. There were already a few people out. Within minutes, I was already taking the role of the absolute fucking twat who owns the camera.

For taste and decency reasons, I won’t discuss the rest of the night, though I returned home at about 3AM.

I awoke at 9, the sound of my own breathing woke me up. How strange. I made use of the ebay cheap day and listed a load of CDs again. Usual URL.

I also spent the morning watching the athletics. I’m absolutely loving the theme music The Beeb have used for the European Chamionships coverage. I’m going to see if they still have that “ask the theme tune” thing for their sports shows.

Technorati Tags: coatesy, dan, Ebay, lisa, night out, robot chicken

Well, I’ve just finished 3 days off. They weren’t really the most exciting days in living memory.

I got up after 4PM on Tuesday and Wednesday. For whatever reason, since starting this shift, my brain decides that it needs a sleep in, so seeing as I get up at around 1PM on work days, I got up at about 4PM. So, half the day had gone.

I went out on Tuesday, and had a game of snooker. I think I won. I can’t remember. Really, I wanted to stay in, and watch my ebay auctions end. But that would have been rather antisocial of me. Not that I minded. The night ended with a nice chinese purchased by Daddykins.

In fact, my sleep pattern was bollocksed pretty much all day. On Wednesday, I woke up, on the couch at 4AM. I went back to bed, and failed miserably to sleep. I spent a few preparing the first few CDs for their journey through the postal system. And, I ended up going back to bed at 9.

I did manage to sleep and got up at about (sigh) 4. I then decided that it was time to get the site changed to Wordpress. I’ve mentioned it quite a few times over the next few days, so there’s no real need for me to mention it again. But, I started the arduous task of adding categories to each of the 500+ posts.

Thursday was a better day, I went to the town, bought a couple more CD’s, and a few storage boxes. You see, something happened the other day. I talked to my dad about moving some of my stuff downstairs, such as my records and CD’s. Without hesitation, he said “go for it”. as long as they were neatly organised

WTF? I was expecting an argument. Me and my dad never, ever see eye-to-eye about stuff like that. So, the storage boxes were bought to move the now useless video tapes out of the cabinet so I can slap some CD’s there. So, I got on with that, moved the remainder of my LPs downstairs, and moved some CDs into the cabinet. But now, there’s two boxes of videos which I don’t really want to chuck out, but don’t have space for. Or time to convert to DVD. So, I now have to find storage for them. The loft will be too cold/damp, and there’s no space left in any of the cupboards, with the exception of the cupboard under the stairs. Which is where I think I’ll put them…

God, that has to be the most boring paragraph in the whole history of things boring.

So, to bring some excitement back into this, lets talk streetlighting.

Yes, the lamp over the back of my house has gone off AGAIN. You know, the one with the cover missing. The one which was off for about 6 months.

What I might have to do is set up the webcam again to see if and then they bother to come and fix it. My webcam’s not been in use since about the end of June now, so I might have to get it set back up again. Can you stand the excitement?

Moving on swiftly. Something happened at work this evening, which amazed me. I’m not the only one in the entire world to have heard of “Downtown” by One 2 Many. Yes, it’s been so long since I mentioned my favourite Scandanavian band. Dan had been playing songs from the 80’s during the first of my three night shifts. As the shift drew to a close, I said “Here’s the best song you’ll have never heard before”, and began to play Downtown. At that point, Angela, who was sat a couple of desks away began singing it. Shocked, I turned to her and said “You *know* this??!!” She replied positively, and informed me that they play it on VH-1 all of the time.

I was amazed. The only other people I know who know One 2 Many have been introduced to them through me whittering on constantly about them whenever I get the chance. Or playing their tracks ad nauseum.

Anyway, moving on, as I mentioned work again! Something that has struck me about searching through these blogs is the amount of time I do actually mention work. I don’t really intend to, but it seems as if I do it all of the time. And, considering the amount I moan and whinge about the place, thet can’t be good!

Technorati Tags: angela, one 2 many, work

Just came back from a great night next door with the neighbours. And, seeing as it was next door, I guess it would have to be the neighbours. Anyone else being next door would obviously be entirely incorrect and rather weird.

So, yes. Just like old times. It’s a long while since I’ve seen my ex-neighbours. James, their son still lives there, and is probably reading this now, a I gave him this URL a few days ago. It was good to see pretty much the whole family together again.

Nothing much to report since yesterdays post. Chris came over last night, and we had a cracking night. It’s a very long time since he’s been over. Far too long. But then, he’s back in employment.

Speaking of which, Chris has forwarded me 5 images of Steetley. These will appear in the gallery in due time, once I work out how The Gimp resizes images

Technorati Tags: barbecue, bbq, chris, gimp, james, neighbours

…but seeing as I don’t have the wireless adaptor for this laptop yet, I decided that trailing 20 metres worth of Cat-5 cable around the house wouldn’t be the most enjoyable thing I’ve done.

So, I’m typing this entry, refreshed and empty, ready for the day ahead.

As reported yesterday, I did indeed go to Michaels BBQ, mainly to watch the England match. The match itself was crap for the first half, and didn’t improve at all until Rooney and Lennon were brought on. I’m not a football pundit in any way (in fact, I can’t remember who we were playing… Trinidad and Toboggan?), but you know they’re playing shit when *I’m* shouting at the telly.

Somehow, we won 2-0.

However, during half time, it suddenly occured to one of the crowd at the BBQ that we had left some hot dogs on the barbie. Surirpsingly they were still edible, although very crunchy. Apparently, they had a truncheon-like quality to them, and could be used in drugs raids to hammer down doors. Alas, I kept my ideas to myself, and within a few minutes, the brave members of the party actually ate most of them.

After the dubious hotdogs were consumed, we played keepy-uppy for about an hour, though I lost count of how many times the ball ended up over either next doors garden or the boundary wall, allowing the ball to merrily roll down the street into the path of oncoming traffic.

After the Sweden v Paraguay match, most of us went home, but a good night was had by all.

Technorati Tags: barbecue, bbq, dell, football, laptop, michael, Socialising, work, world cup