Thursday 30 April 2009

Oops!

What can I say? It’s been almost a week now since my last post, and doesn’t time slip away fast the older you get? Part of it is getting into the habit of sitting down every evening to write a blog, and making sure it gets done. A couple of nights this past week I have been getting into bed and suddenly remembered that I forgot to do it, then the same happened again the following night.

Apart from all that, it was my birthday at the weekend and I have been rather busy as a result!

Saturday was spent watching the qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix, after which we went shopping, getting a last minute present for one of our friends’ children for their birthday party on Sunday that my daughter was invited to, and I had to go to the bank to get the money arranged for the fun day on 4th May. Nearly £400 in coins is rather heavy!

In the evening we went out to dinner at Genghis Khan’s in Brighton – one of my favourite places to eat. It’s quite different in that you select what you want to eat in terms of meat, herbs/spices, and sauces (including things like sesame oil, black bean sauce, sweet and sour, etc), then take it to the cooking area where they cook it for you. You can go up as many times as you like and choose whatever combination you like, so you can have several different dishes, and if you don't like one of your creations, you can just get a new bowl and start over.

And we had plenty of beer to wash it down with!!!

Sunday was my birthday, and I got jumped on by my children, not quite at stupid o’clock, but not far off – I am sure in years to come they will start to surface later than me, but while they are still young they tend to start wandering around from about 6am.

My presents were: a new snooker cue from my wife (although I had to go and buy it!), a Jeremy Clarkson DVD from my son, a Rihanna CD from my daughter, and Jeremy Clarkson books, Chris Brown CD, bike pump and vouchers from other members of my family. I put the music on my phone on Monday before I went out to play snooker in the evening, and I have tested the bike pump and of course the cue – not terribly successful with it in my first frame, but we won the two doubles games we played – more about the snooker league another time.

I ran the children to the Bouldering Academy which they have recently started, while my wife made cakes for work on Monday. That was for 2 hours, then we had some lunch and started watching the Formula 1 coverage, then my son had his St George’s Day Parade, which took up most of the afternoon, and my daughter went to her friend’s birthday party for another 2 hours. While everyone was out I took the opportunity to play some World of Warcraft, and soloed Wailing Caverns during my exploration of the Barrens on Kalimdor. I got back to the Druid at the start just as everyone returned and managed to kill the big boss and earn the achievement, then hearthed out to Shattrath to clear my bags and repair before logging off for a few hours.

Monday was back to work, but as I had cakes and a cue to get to work I had a small dilemma as my wife needed the car too, so I drove to work and she took the car away, and came back later to pick me up. The cue travelled in both directions as I had an away match so needed it for that, and Tuesday I went to work again in the car, with the same arrangement as Monday as the car was needed again.

Wednesday I was back on the bike!


And Noorul Choudhury got his marching orders from Sir Alan in The Apprentice

Friday 24 April 2009

Tired!

Work was soooo boring today - although I was late in I desperately wanted to go home about 1 hour after I got in - don't know if its anything to do with my birthday this weekend or just plain boredom, but there was hardly anyone in work today, and even then some of the staff were on half days, so it was deathly quiet today!

This evening we had another Residents Association meeting and were agreeing final details before our Fun Day on 4th May. I am Treasurer and needed to agree how much money I needed to get for floats, petty cash, etc.

Then there was a debate about one of the committee members, and whether she could make the commitment to the group, this is something that will be sorted out in the next couple of weeks I expect.

Anyway I'm really tired and run out of things to say for now, so time to go to bed :)

Thursday 23 April 2009

Wot no keys?

I'm an idiot - when I went on my bike ride last night I left everything at work, except for the key for my bike lock - I just removed it from my bunch of keys and left the rest behind so that I could travel as light as possible. I knew I could get away with leaving my bag and other stuff behind as I met my wife for lunch today, and to enable me to travel just as lightly home after work, I put my bag in the car when she met me for lunch, not even considering that I would actually need the keys for when I went home!

So here I am, in my back garden, in the sunshine, making my daily blog contribution, and I can't get in until my wife gets back with the kids from orchestra. It's not all bad; after all, it could be pissing it down I guess, or 2 months earlier and bloody cold!

Lunch was good, when we eventually sat down in the restaurant (the mother of the child my wife looks after was her usual late self); it was gone 1.30 before my wife arrived at the office. I had already sent a text to advise bashing the mother with a sharp or pointy object but she suggested that might not be such a good idea as she would still have the child...

We tried a new restaurant called Mamma Mia. Up until recently it was called Dim-t (or something), but I guess people weren't too keen on the prices for what they got for their money - we were certainly underwhelmed when we went there. Now you can get a 2 course meal and glass of wine or soft drink for £6.95. I got beaten by the meal and consequently spent the afternoon waddling round the office.

Just had a text from the missus telling me that she is just leaving - good thing too as the temperature is beginning to dip.

Then I'll be able to get in, get changed and go to college!

By the way, it was the Rough, Tough, Cream Puff from New York who got the chop last night!!!


Sent from my iPhone

Wednesday 22 April 2009

47 minutes

What can you do in 47 minutes? Play a frame of snooker? Play more than 1 frame of snooker? Iron? Washing up?

Maybe.

I spent 47 minutes of my day cycling just under 12.5 miles - left work and did a round trip, taking in Fordcombe, Penshurst and Bidborough Ridge - it was nice to be able to get back out and do these trips after work, now that the evenings are light again, and it's also good practice for the London to Brighton Bike Ride which I taking part in this June.

It's actually not that great a time - average speed 16.7 mph (maximum 37.2 mph), last year I did the same ride in around 46 minutes, and was on course to reduce that further, but then GMT got in the way, and I don't think its a fantastic idea to ride small country roads in the dark.

Just found out that all my talent points have been refunded again in WoW - how annoying is that? It took me a while to choose them all in the first place, and that's the second time in 2 weeks - granted last week was the big patch where Ulduar was added, but did they really need to do it again? Oh well, never mind, I guess!

Apprentice tonight - I wonder who will be up for the chop this time?

Tuesday 21 April 2009

Let's try again

After reading Tobold's blog about MMORPGs it reminded me that I started a blog a while ago myself, specifically about World of Warcraft, arguably the most successful Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game ever, with currently over 10 million subscribers worldwide.

I looked at the last time I posted something to that blog and was a little surprised to learn that it was very nearly a year ago!

I know what happened; I started before I went away on holiday - 2 years ago (ahem!), then it fizzled out after I came back, and after all, I guess there is only a limited amount you can write about 1 game, unless you are one of those people who plays a lot and has a whole website dedicated to things like progressing your character and making money in-game.

Anyway, I will try and give this another go, but thought it may be a good idea to widen the parameters of what I will ramble on about; suffice to say it will not be just about World of Warcraft but about what I have been getting up to in general.

Today wasn't wildly exciting - drove to work for a change - I normally cycle, but with the office being out all afternoon I wasn't happy leaving my bike unattended for that length of time, so I took the car instead. It tends to be a bit safer leaving a car as they are fitted with various devices intended to stop any would-be thief running off with your pride and joy.

I know its not a Bugatti Veyron, but I love it all the same - its a Toyota Corolla Verso (mini MPV) and we got it brand new in October 2008 - our first real brand new 'family' car. We did buy a Picanto around 4 years ago but that was very much my wife's car (which she loved too and was sad to see it go).

Anyway, back to work: we had a company-wide meeting to discuss what was happening with it going forward - essentially the company is two separate ones that started working in collaboration a few years ago and have decided to now make it official by bringing it all under one name, and at the same time streamlining all the various day to day operations of the business. I have to admit that I was struggling by this afternoon with concentration, and was glad to get out and go back home!

When I got back in my car to go home I returned a call that I received earlier from someone who wanted to see me about a position they have available, problem being that it is in London. My current situation is that I am in a job that I am reasonably happy in, it is in the same town where I live, and I am now much better off financially than I ever have been. To be honest, I don't think I want to travel to London every day for a job with a company that has just opened a new operation in the middle of a deep recession. I reckon I am better off sitting tight for now, where I can be home by 6pm every day and see my wife and kids, and stay relatively fit to boot.

Now if the job was paying around £100,000 per year more than what I am earning now it might be a different story, but they are not, and I am not really that interested.

I think my laptop is on the way out - there is something definitely not right as it keeps flicking back to the other browser window I have open - maybe a restart is in order, but I am going to go back to exploring Tirisfal Glades in WoW and do some more study before I go to bed.