Archive for January, 2004
Today, whilst paying for lunch, someone produced a ten pound note with the words ‘You wouldn’t know love if it hit you in the face’ scribbled across it in black biro.
What a great idea. We then scribbled onto another tenner ‘Write a message on a tenner - pass it on’, and paid for the meal.
So if you’re in Glasgow and you get a tenner with a message on it - let us know.
Oh, and the identity of ‘Sarah’ has been discovered. It seems it was all a very cruel practical joke. I was walking along the street glancing over my shoulder for stalkers last night, I’ll have you know. Rest assured that revenge will be mine; oh yes it will be mine.
January 30th, 2004
Weird dream last night. This one is unusual in that I can identify different blog posts that I read yesterday in it.
I’m in a small, cluttered office. There are two journalists there. They are journalists for some pop magazine, like ‘Heat’. I get the feeling that I’m not so much there for an interview as I am to help them out.
In exchange for telling them how to use their computers, they will teach me how to be a journalist.
One of the journalists, a woman, is the more excitable of the two and is leading the interview.
Later, I’m at home. I recieve a letter. It’s from the lawyers representing Ikea. They are wanting to sue me because I’ve been using their trademark illegally. I have no idea what they are talking about.
It transpires that the female journalist had taken the example database that I’d set up for her and created a crude front end web page for it. The database is full of furniture items that I’d made up for the example. Unfortunately she’d put a little blue and yellow Ikea logo at the top of the page, and I’d got the blame because it’s my database.
I remember thinking that it was surprising that a friendly company like Ikea would take to defending their logo so fiercely in the courts, and over such a trivial infringement of the law.
Then I woke up, half-an-hour later than I should have, having forgotten to set my alarm.
January 30th, 2004
Phone call, ten minutes ago…
“There’s a personal call for you”
“Ok…”
“Hello?”
“Hi, you don’t know me, but I see you on the train in the mornings.”
“Eh?”
“Well I’m wondering if you’d like to go for a drink?”
“Er.. is your name F by any chance?”
“No, who’s F?”
“Look, ha ha, just put T on, is she there?”
“There’s no-one called T here. I work in the office opposite yours, I was just wondering if you’d like to go out for a drink?”
“Which office?”
“I can’t tell you. My boss might get me into trouble.”
“Would he?”
“Yes. He’s a bit of a tyrant.”
“How did you get my number?”
“I’m clever.”
“I see. So what’s your name?”
“Sarah.”
(Long pause)
“So do you want to go for a drink?”
“No, I’m afraid not, sorry”
“Why not?”
“I’m married.”
“Oh sorry, I didn’t see your wedding ring before.”
“Ok.”
“Bye.”
I’m freaked out right now.
January 29th, 2004
I was dozing happily this morning when I became conscious of four little paws pounding up the stairs at what sounded like forty miles per hour.
Suddenly, the dog leapt across the bed, landing on the other side neatly ninja-kicking me in the nose at the peak of her arc.
Just as quickly as the assault happened, she fucked off leaving me fully awake and shouting the kind of obscenities that sends one directly to hell.
Ever get the feeling you’re living in a cartoon?
Good morning.
January 29th, 2004
I’d like to continue my series in DIY education if I may.
· When preparing a DIY task, make sure you have all the correct tools and are fully prepared for the task.
So, having previously realised that DIY is an exercise in compromise, I decided that the best thing to do was to save money by patching the hole in the hall ceiling myself. Down to B&Q with the missus I went straight after dinner where I equipped myself fully for the task. At home I set everything up and checked that I was prepared in full.
1 Bucket for plaster (For preparation of)
1 Pointed steel trowel
1 Lightweight plaster float (For application of)
7.5kg of building plaster
2.5kg of finishing plaster
2.5 Litres of water
1 Packet of disposable dust-masks
1 Halogen spotlight
1 Dustsheet (For radiator, protection of)
1 Pair of spectacles (For eyes, protection of)
I promptly set about mixing the plaster in the bucket. So far so good. The dust mask was discarded and deemed to be ridiculous - this was plaster, not sarin nerve-gas. The warnings on the packet about small quantities of lime in the powder had prompted the purchase and since the only uses of lime that I was aware of were illuminating theatre stages in the old days and dissolving murder victims, I decided to buy a mask.
Time to continue the checklist
- Consistency is think and creamy.
- Ladder is in a safe and secure position.
- Electricity to the wiring has been turned off.
· Do not forget the obvious when performing checks.
I climbed the ladder with my float, trowel and plaster and reached upwards towards the missing section of my ceiling. At that point I relised that something was missing from my checklist.
- Make sure you can reach the fucking hole.
The job is now half-done. I managed to stretch up to get the hard to reach sections by poking plaster at it with the tip of my trowel. It’s not going to be a visible section of plaster anyway, and in any case I managed to get a better look at the damage and re-assessed it as ‘ignorable’, so even if I balls it up it won’t be a disaster.
Oh, and glasses don’t stop globs of plaster getting in your eyes after all.
January 28th, 2004
It’s snowing outside. I hate snow.
I like looking at snow, it’s all very pretty and everything - I like the way it changes the landscape, making everything anonymous. Unfortunately it’s fucking freezing, makes your hands hurt and freezes up things like your car windscreen and door locks.
People who like snow don’t have to walk dogs either. And it takes twice as long to walk to the train station in the morning because you walk like a constipated robot trying not to slip up and break your arse-bone.
Update: Anyone know how to enable trackback pings on your old posts? Updating the ‘allow pings’ field in the post entry table isn’t enough, coz I tried it.
January 28th, 2004
I’ve just learned that the company I work for has sold software to a nuclear power station; software that I had a hand in creating.
Why couldn’t they have sold it to a manufacturer of teddy bears, or perhaps a company that makes greetings cards. Anything.
I feel ill.
I’m sure it’ll be fine though.
*grin*
January 27th, 2004
“Do you have a reward card?” asked the young lady at the Tesco checkout?
“No” said I, because I didn’t.
“Ok.” she said before taking her own reward card and swiping it through the till, as casual as you like.
What a great scam. Just like the guy who quoted us £750 to re-plaster our hallway today. That was a scam since we’d already agreed to have it done by someone else for £180.
Everyone has a scam but me. I need a scam - I think it would be financially beneficial. Anyone have any good scam ideas?
January 27th, 2004
I’ve invented SEDI. It’s a bit like DIY except that it stands for ‘Somebody Else Do It’. I’m expecting it to catch on in a big way. In the meantime, I’ve been learning lots of things about DIY over the weekend.
· A little knowledge is a dangerous thing
Especially when working out your budget and you don’t really know how your central heating system works. I know much more now and the budget has been neatly defenestrated, as have many of our plans. Unfortunately we’ve already started, and where I say started, I mean ‘destroyed the living room and hallway’.
· There are five reasons that any DIY occurs.
The first four are ‘aesthetic’, (e.g. Putting up wallpaper,) ‘practical’, (e.g. Lowering a ceiling for heating purposes,) ‘maintenance’, (e.g. Rebuilding a broken wall,) and ‘hiding things’, (e.g. painting over dampness to make it looklike there is no dampness). The fifth reason is ‘as some kind of vendetta’. I have no idea what I have done to the previous occupants, but it must have been bad.
I started taking off the polystyrene tiles on the hall ceiling only to discover that they had been glued with megahypersuperglue directly onto woodchip wallpaper. You just don’t choose to do something like that. The only reason I can think of is to piss me off.
I decided that there was nothing for it - we’d have to replace the ceiling. Out came the hammer and down came the ceiling.
· Remember that the reason you attribute to any DIY that has occured in the past is simply an assumption.
I had assumed that the reason for the lowered ceiling was for #2: ‘practical’ reasons, i.e. to assist in the heating of the hallway. Makes sense - it’s a cold hallway next to an outside wall.
As it turned out there was also a bit of #4: ‘hiding’. The plaster ceiling next to the roof slates had crumbled with damp to the point where a large chunk had fallen off and onto the back of the suspended ceiling below. There are cracks, crumbly bits and even a little shattered, discoloured wood all around a large hole.
Our budget was refenestrated, kicked in the ‘nads and redefenestrated. Things are looking expensive.
Oh, and you remember how I said things would go wrong on Friday? Well tumble-drier guy phoned at 4:30pm (!) to say he couldn’t make it. Utter bastard, for the third time.
And the plasterers did three of the four walls and went home. Their boss had apparently failed to tell them to do all four. Now there’s another (different) plasterer coming out tonight to finish the job.
Oh what jolly fun this is. I’m so glad that I started on this journey of DIY discovery.
January 26th, 2004
I’ve just seen a strange thing. There’s a large patch of grey gravel next to the office where I work.
This morning there was a girl standing at the edge of this gravel (An empty car park really) and had placed a potted house-plant in the centre of it. She was standing with a large-format camera taking pictures of it.
Got to be art, really.
January 26th, 2004
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