…and as I write this the hangover has finally subsided. Not a particularly fun morning, although managed to get through with lots of tea and chocolate. This afternoon I managed to confuse my workmates and myself as I explained some rather unpleasant VBS and Windoze Batch Script code that I’d kinda forgotten about… the process wasn’t helped by us all being rather worse for wear.
Oh well, hopefully the conclusion of handover stuff on Monday will be a bit better… although given that I’m going out on Sunday night I suspect this may not be the case!!
Also, as he’s going to be on a training course during my last two days of work I’m not going to be seeing Gib at work ever again (er, apart from when I come back. Yes).
I’ll be meeting up with him next week but still, it’s a little strange, even sad… Gib was also feeling the sadness * when I took a photo of him:
* “sadness” may be “eagerness to get away from Pat taking stupid photos”
Tonight I’m going to be going to Rob(a.k.a. The Baron)’s house with some of the other FBL gang to watch some Mighty Boosh, eat pizza and have a few drinks.
Hangover? What hangover?
Til tomorrow…
Pat
…Pat seems to have forgotten the exact amount through the results of going out to the Chelmsford Comedy Club last night, not having to drive and consuming one or two pints.
This is a blog for yesterday – Pat’s original intention was to blog when he got home from the comedy club. For some reason (possibly being unable to type – Pat can’t remember) he didn’t get round to it.
Might have something to do with behaviour like this occuring:
Oddly I seem to be suffering effects similar to Pat today – feeling a) tired, b) as if a farmer has just spread muck in my mouth and c) like someone’s playing steel drums in my head. How peculiar.
Anyway, yes, that’s my excuse for a short entry today (well, yesterday)… nnngh.
We’ll have to wait and see if Pat’s alive enough to do today’s entry later, cos this is more than enough staring at a computer screen for me today.
Til then,
Squage
—
Unwell
…and today I spent most of the day worrying about the amount of stuff I’ve still got to sort before leaving work on Tuesday.
Well, it was less “worrying about” and more “mulling over”. Worrying implies that I’m not going to the other side of the world away from all of this in a week or so :-)
Either way there’s lots to do and very little time to do it. It’s going to be quite a contrast in a week.
This evening I went out for a meal with the folks, my brother and his girlfriend, which was really good fun – with very tasty food (yep, another evening of thoroughly healthy eating…)
Plus there was the added bonus that one of the waiters looked like an Indian Sylvester Stallone.
I hope he didn’t hear me humming the Rocky theme tune (which I didn’t actually realise I was doing until it was pointed out to me by my brother…)
Anyway, not much else to say today… other than the following:
My plane tickets arrived!
It’s a funky “electronic ticket” thing, which is a single ticket reference for displaying at all the airports, which I can duplicate online / at home as needed – thus never worrying about losing tickets!
I’m really going, aren’t I?
Blimey.
Mind you, with journeys to/from work like this, I can’t pretend to be worried:
Pat
…and it’s funny how some things never change.
When I was at school, my favourite times of year were during school holidays. When I am at work, my favourite times of year are during school holidays.
Thanks to Half Term, my journeys to work this week are literally halfed in time. It’s uncanny how few 4x4s there are on the road too… strange, that :-)
Anyway, once at work I’ve had a productive day. Got some more handover stuff done at work and fixed a few issues that’ve been going on for a while, which is nice. Also, it was a very nice today so got to grab the one nice thing about our office – the view of the chapel by it:
Managed to get some currency ordered this lunchtime for pick up next Tuesday, so that’s another key thing sorted. Also got a cheque cashed in today for that much needed boost… (hooray for the overtime that’s planned later this week!)…
Tonight, after a fast journey home I went out to the joy of TGI Fridays in Bas Vegas (twice in one week… this whole “getting fit” thing is going oh so well), catching up with Angela, Ellryn, Ash and Chanel.
Twas really good fun (despite a waiter who was something between fun and a cock… not sure what), had a good chat and a laugh, caught up on lots of gossip and was just great to see the peeps!
It was sad to say goodbye at the end of the night though.
- Angela – great to see you, sorry I won’t see you before I trundle – take care and have a flippin’ ace year!!
- Ellryn, Ash and Chanel – great to see ya too, I’ll see you at the leaving do/in work!
Toodles,
Pat
…or 2 weeks…
…or 1 fortnight…
…blimey. That came around quickly.
In 2 weeks time from now (11pm UK Time) I’ll probably be in a restaurant in New York, wondering what the next year is going to hold and feeling a mixture of excitement, happiness and gut wrenching worry that it’s all a crazy mistake.
I can’t wait :-)
Neil (you know, him from “Being At Work With Me” and “Going On A Crazy Round The World Tour, Which Coincides With Mine At Christmas In Melbourne” fame) has 0 days to go. As I type this he’s on a plane to Thailand.
Wow.
Despite him deciding that he wanted to leave my lovely employer, I can’t help thinking that he was in two minds:
As you can see, he’s really quite sad to be leaving the office.
:-)
Have a top trip Mr Craven – see you in Melbourne!
Pat
…and I had a lovely time at The Landseer in Islington today with other Uni mates. Amy and Paul brought their lovely new son Tom along for the experience and he seemed to enjoy meeting everyone (well, ok, he was alseep almost all of the time but hey let’s not get into the semantics…).
I know for a fact he’s going to love the present we got him:
YES! It’s a big dinosaur, with squeaky bits, scrunchy bits and a mirror… and it’s big and green. You may have noticed that last bit actually.
Anyway, after a nice lunch and catch up we all went our own way and I had an amazingly good journey home (in that it was reasonable without too many massive delays – which is amazing for a Sunday…). Shame it was pissing down for my 15 minute trundle back home.
Drowned rat? Ho yes.
Still, our team just came second in my local’s pop quiz (we normally end up about 4th of out 7), which a) made up for it and b) was quite a nice way to say toodles to it for a year (I’m out and about next Sunday).
In hindsight I shouldn’t’ve had that third beer though.
Still, it’s only Saturday I guess. I nice lie in tomor… sorry? What? Whatday? Sun… ?
Ah, crap.
Pat
…and Pat’s feeling a little too confused to blog.
You see, today Pat did a number of things:
- Sign Forms for Plane Tickets
Despite not setting his alarm properly (hooray for “Repeat Alarm” mode, which only sounds the alarm from Monday-Friday) Pat just about made it to the travel agents to get stuff signed. All done… just need to wait for the tickets to arrive now!
- Buy a Ruck Sack and Jacket
This was a strangely enjoyable affair given that it was shopping. Neil (him from “Being At Work With Pat” and “Going On A Trip Around The World Too Just In A Different Direction But Meeting Pat In Melbourne” fame) was on hand to advise Pat which products were best to grab.
They went to the Snow and Rock store in Cov Garden and Pat ended up buying:
Both were approximately £Lots. Pat said something about his credit card starting to get hot to touch…
- Have a Pizza Hut Meal for lunch
This was goooooood.
- Go to Dave, Pauly and RTJs’ Ealing Flat O Fun
Much fun was had, including the watching / listening to the commentary of the utterly, utterly excellent Dark Place (said in a Dr Sanchez voice, natch), enjoying some excellent banter and… ahem… a pizza. He’s got a short term memory, I think.
- Get a Camera For Free!
Pauly G (below) is a legend, very kindly giving Pat his old camera as a replacement for his knackered one! Thank you :-D
“Hang on”, you might ask, “why has this left Pat confused?”… well it’s largely due to him watching the entire 13 episodes of this:
I don’t even want to start to try and explain it. Just look it up on Wikipedia. There’s about a gig of stuff on there about it… and there needs to be.
Pat keeps saying something about “It was all the dog’s fault” and talking about mushroom clouds and Paul Daniels. I’m guessing only those watching Paranoia Agent in Ealing will understand what on Earth that means.
Hopefully Pat’ll be in a fit state to blog tomorrow.
There’s a first time for everything, eh? ;-)
Toodles,
Squage
…and after a lie in I felt good enough to go to work.
Here is the excitement that awaited me:
(Yes, not much happened today)
Was quite a productive day (and short, of course, which is one bonus for feeling rotten). Can’t believe there’s now only 7 working days remaining! It’s quite exciting really, but scary when I think that I’ve got plenty of things to sort out before I leave a) work and b) the country.
I’m signing forms for my plane tickets tomorrow morning, alongside getting some US and Aussie dosh ordered at the post office, which is dull but necessary.
After that I’m having the slightly more enjoyable experience of going travel rucksack shopping in London with Neil from work (who’s also trundling around the world shortly (next week in fact!))… may not buy anything tomorrow but will be trying various ones on. I need to keep remembering that this is something I really want and thus not do my usual clothes shopping trick of “Yeah, this’ll do. Right, let’s go to pizza hut”. The second part of that might still happen, of course…
Then I’ll be trundling to Ealing to meet up with Pauly, Dave, Teej and co to watch and be utterly confused by Paranoia Agent… and eat pizza. Probably.
It’s going to be a healthy day tomorrow.
Tonight I’m just sitting around chilling out… I might have a pizza.
;-)
Pat
…and what a day!
I took today off work with the original intention to go to Thorpe Park with my brother Scuzz and his lady Sally… sadly Sally’s unwell at the mo so we decided to cancel the trip there and have a day of chilling instead.
It’s been fun. Had a TGI Fridays lunch with Scuzz and Sally, which was very tasty (if rather over-filling… a good way of practising for New York sized portions is how I’m thinking about it :-) ).
Following that, we grabbed a couple of DVDs from Blockbuster (via a nice membership application process, guided by a mardy woman behind the counter who seemed to think us entirely pathetic for not already having had a membership card… adding insult to injury by phoning my home to “Check that the number is valid”. Nice to feel like a criminal when you’re trying to give a company money for something (insert some witty satire about the recording/movie industry here)).
After some booze and snacks buying we settled down for a nice afternoon and evening of DVD watching.
Here’s a quick review of the two films we watched:
X-Men
Really, really good. Lots of cool action, some great unexpected bits and, well, come on, it’s X-Men! The ending is ace, also. Make sure you watch until the end of the credits!
Poisiden
With all things considered, I must say that on careful reflection this multi-million pound blockbuster was a splendid film. If you enjoy improbable / inexplicable dangerous situations, cheesy acting, lazy dialogue and irritating characters, that is. What’s that? These people are the ONLY ones who try to escape? What’s that? It’s ok to kill some guy just because the audience haven’t got to know him yet? What’s that? You’re all stereotyped disaster movie idiots? I see.
Later on Extras was watched (wow, nice pen) and we’ve just watched lots of Family Guy episodes and laughed quite a lot. Excellent fun.
And now I’m off to bed, not feeling 100% for some reason (may have overindulged… I feel a bit grotty).
Speak later!
Pat
…and I’m annoyed.
It’s funny how the journey into work can really set your mood for the entire day. What’s more annoying is it’s all my fault.
I’d decided last night that it’d be an excellent idea to go to the gym first thing today, meaning that:
- I’d miss the morning traffic
- I’d feel refreshed and ready for the day and
- c) I’d actually get to the gym, as opposed to what normally happens after a long day at work (particularly those with a pub lunch (as today’s going to be))…
Sadly, on waking up to my alarm some 45 minutes early, I leaned over in a half-asleep state, reset the alarm for my normal wake up time and promptly fell back to sleep, smiling smugly.
I think karma decided I need to get a kick up the ass, for when I finally fell out of bed at normal time, it was raining and foggy outside.
What does that mean? It means people forget how the hell the odd metal contraption with wheels in their driveway works.
It normally takes 40 minutes to get into work. It took 1 hour 20 minutes today.
I definitely need that pint at lunch…
(Pictures to follow, as despite having my camera docking cradle here at work, I’ve left my camera at home! I am teh best!)
Pat