Confusion Reigns Supreme

Right. Light's try posting this a THIRD time. I got logged out the first time and the second time lappy decided that it wasn't happy with what I was doing having IE open for so long. Jeez, computers can be so uppity at times, can't they?

This could either be an epic post with dodgy piccies taken with my new phone, or it could be the most boring thing you've ever seen. You have been warned!

OK, let's start with some of my hometown's murals as I said to Usky that I'd try to post some a couple of weeks ago...

Along the High Street a depiction of life as it would have been during the town's heyday shortly after the opening of the branch line to Brookwood Cemetary:

Then under Victoria Arch, we find some more, unfortunately most have been vandalised by idiots with no sense of the history of this town , but of the least damaged these represent the importance to the town of

The Basingstoke Canal;

the Shah Jihan Mosque, the first mosque to be built in England;

Woking Football Club, founded in 1889, and defeated 1-0 by Everton in the 1991 FA Cup (the only football match I've ever been to watch);

the London-Portsmouth mainline whose branching of to Brookwood gave life to the town through death, ironically;

and the towns coat of arms;

Now we can go for a wander around a small part of the main town itself from Victoria Arch towards and through the market

down along Commercial Way,

catching a glimpse of the Hawker Hunter outside the nightclub

then a quick look up Chertsey Road towards the station,

and then off down Chertsey Road towards Dukes Court.

Here's a view a certain fellow blogger may or may not recognise - Dukes Court from outside the Rat and Parrot.

After a swift half (or two *ahem*) at the Rat, it was time to meander homeward. On the way home I took in the views of the rear end of a martian war machine

and the eyesore that is the Lightbox.

After that I retired to the peace, tranquility and above all coolness of home to try on my new boots!

And it's only taken me 4-and-a-half hours to post this.

I just hope the same hasn't happened to other parts of me. *ahem*

I'm at the pub (second visit today, for shame) on the way back home from a sweltering afternoon in very sunny Woking. I haven't been in to town for weeks, but little has changed. It's still a shite-hole of a town, despite recent redevelopments.

Anyway, the main reason for my little trek into Boringsville was to buy some new boots. I'm glad to say that that mission has been accomplished and it came in under budget!

£9.99 for a decent pair of size eights. Eights? I've taken size tens for years! How come my feet have shrunk so much?

Filmed at lunchtime. Test film take 2.

YES! It works!

We’ve just had one of our pool cars come back from being serviced, and the bloke who did it said that the front tyres were borderline illegal, with only 2mm of tread so they ought to be replaced.
As it’s going back and forth to Bristol all next week, I took it down to Kwikfit and told the guys there what had been said to us. After a brief inspection, one of the lads came back to me and told me that there was nothing wrong with the tyres, “Well, I don’t know which part of the tyres he was measuring. They’re fine, and the lease company won’t authorize replacing them.”
That’s the first time we’ve used that garage for servicing, and unfortunately as we don’t control the contract, it won’t be the last. I certainly will be doubtful of anything they say in future.

I has one!

Hollo dear
I am a lady with great sense of humour,am good looking and understanding,am 22 years old female, i want to meet a man of trust and honesty,who i can share my love, and also spent the rest of my life with.Someone with intellect and respect, a man that knows how to treat uncommon girl.My mail address is (joysonia4love@[well known provider].com) You can contact me with my mail address above for easy communication and to know each other very well. Looking forward to hear from you soonest, i will tell you more about me when i hear from you. I will send my pictures in my next mail when i hear from you ok. Have a nice day with lovely kisses,please dont forget to write me back through mail address for easy communication.
Yours Joy.

Thanks for the lovely kisses, dear, but maybe not, eh?
I'll be honest with you. Someone of my intellect can sense a scam message a mile off, so with respect, BUGGER OFF!

My brother's just flown in from Luxembourg for the weekend, and the first any of us knew of this was when he walked in the front door. Surprised the lot of us, but none so much as Penny. She didn't now whether to bark at him or greet him at first, so she did both!

Anyway, while I'm here I may as well tell you lot about the rest of my day...

I got the best feeling I’ve had for ages this morning when I took £200 out at the ATM and the balance on the receipt was still in four figures! I’m rich! RICH! RICH!
Shame the first £45 I spent was on fuel for the car, but you can’t have everything, can you?

Bought one of the items on my little list at lunchtime. An LG “chocolate” KG800 mobile and I’ve spent all afternoon playing with it. I like it. It’s so much better than my old phone.

I’ve never had a phone that can take piccies:

Ooops! Deleted this one by accident!

Dude, where's my computer?

The Polo field, from my office:

Not bad for £50. I still want a decent camera, though.

Tomorrow, I will mostly be shopping for boots.

I can't wait to get to the bank in the morning and take out some of that lovely, lovely bonus and fritter it away on something trivial.

And then I might buy myself lunch. A proper lunch consisting of food for a change.
But then again, why change the habit of a lunchtime?

Yep. That was me this morning.

No-one is safe from stalkers:

I've just noticed in my "Live traffic feed" tracking box wot I just put up last night that there are some very strange people out there.
People like the Belgian visitor who stumbled over THIS POST after googling for "RAF porn"

09.30:
Nothing like a Bank Holiday for putting your body-clock out of kilter, is there?
I’ve been counting down the days until Saturday because I get paid on Saturday, but it’s not Saturday, it should be Friday, but my head says that’s another day away so that would be Saturday. I’ve just got to try to convince myself that I get paid on Thursday so that my internal calendar can compensate for having two Sundays. Does any of that make any kind of sense? No? Didn’t think so, but that’s what it’s like in my little brain.

10.28:
And now it seems I’m an hour ahead of myself, too. I was just thinking “Only an hour ‘til lunchtime…”
An hour ahead, but a day behind. Where have the other 23 hours gone to?

Today felt like Monday,
I know it was Tuesday.
It's now Wednesday.
and I'm feeling rather Thursday

G'night all!

1. Moles are always smaller than you imagine.
2. One of the most awkward things to happen in a pub is when your pint-to-toilet cycle gets synchronised with that of a total stranger.
3. Everyone who grew up in the ‘80s has entered the digits “5318008” into a calculator.
4. Reading while drunk is horrible. You always seem to read the same paragraph at least twice.
5. Reading while drunk is horrible. You always seem to read the same paragraph at least twice.
6. Sharpening a pencil with a knife makes you feel manly.
7. You are never quite sure whether it is legal to have a fire in your own garden.
8. Whatever your age, the urge to make Barbie and Action Man shag is almost impossible to resist.
*But surely Barbie comes with Ken?*
*No, she comes with Action Man, she fakes it with Ken*
9. You never know where to look when eating an apple.
10. You never know where to look when in the presence of a woman eating a banana.
11. It is virtually impossible to describe the smell of wet cat in polite company.
12. Prodding a fire with a stick makes you feel like a Man.
13. When clearing out an overgrown garden you will always find a rubber ball.
14. You always feel a bit nervous when stroking a horse.
15. The most embarrassing thing to do at school is to call your teacher “Mum”.
16. The smaller the dog, the more it looks at you as if it would happily kill you given half a chance.
17. Some days you see a lot of people on mobility scooters.
18. Every bloke has flushed half-way through and raced it.
19. Elderly women with mobile phones just look wrong, somehow.
20. Driving through a tunnel is an adventure in itself.
21. Elderly women can eat far more than you think.
22. There is no way that you can respect a man who carries his dog. Unless it’s a Rottweiler.
23. There’s no panic like the panic you feel when you find you hand is stuck in something.
24. The most painful household incident is treading on an upturned electrical plug.
25. People who don’t drive slam car doors far too hard.
26. The day you keep aside a thin piece of wood to stir paint with is the day you’ve turned into your father.
27. Everyone had an uncle who tried to steal their nose.
28. Bricks are horrible to carry.
29. In every bag of chips there’s one green one.
30. Triangular sandwiches taste better.

1.                   More than 98% of felons are bread users.
2.                   Fully HALF of all children brought up in bread-using households fall below average in standardized tests.
3.                   In the 18^th Century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.
4.                   More than 90% of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of bread consumption.
5.                   Bread is addictive.  Subjects deprived of bread have been known to beg for it after as little as two days.
6.                   Bread is often a “gateway” food item, often leading to “harder” items such as butter, jam, peanut butter, cold meats and even MARMITE. 
7.                   Bread has been proven to absorb water.  As the human body is more than 90% water, the consumption of too much bread will result in your turning into some kind of gooey, squidgy bread pudding-like mass.
8.                   In 95% of fatal road accidents where a driver is at fault, that driver is found to have eaten bread.
9.                   Bread is baked at over 400^o Fahrenheit – hot enough to kill an adult within minutes.
10.                   Most bread eaters are unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.

Or something like that.

I checked my mobile phone credit this morning. I have £2.87 remaining.
The last time I remember topping up my credit was back in May when I put £20 on it.
I’m just not a very chatty person, really, OK?
Some may say that that shows I’m a man of action rather than of words, but calling me a man of action is a bit extreme. I mean, “Man of Action” implies activity and activity implies effort, but then again, “man of sitting on the sofa with his laptop in front of him” doesn’t sound too good, does it?

Have I not posted anything today?

Must be a sign of how interesting this Bank Holiday Monday has been.

I've decided that in order to appear more health-conscious at work, I'm going to cycle to the pub for lunch. A small gesture, but it may be noticed. As well as that, I might be able to sell the damn bike to one of my co-workers if they actually see it.
I've been meaning to sell it for over a year because I bought a better one.

Ho-hum. Better get round to sticking it in the back of the car ready for tomorrow.

I have several friends online here who are keen on Doctor Who, some of them have been since the glory days of Tom Baker, Jon Pertwee or even earlier, and a few could be classed as borderline obsessives (you know who you are!)

I enjoy these people's friendships as I normally look beyond what anyone's interests are in order to try and get to know the person rather than the interests.

BUT - here's the confession - I've only ever dabbled a bit with the newer series of DW, nowhere near enough to even call myself a viewer, let alone a fan - so far I think I've seen two complete episodes of Doctor Who and around half a dozen of Torchwood, yet I still enjoy some of the banter about the series and occasionally join in with ribbing Mr Tennant.

There. That's got that off my chest, I feel so much better now.

Thank you for your understanding.

No, I don't care that the European Grand Prix clashes with the Olympic Closing Ceremony.
I wanna watch the brm-brms!

*stamps foot and throws a minor hissy fit*

If it's not one thing, it's another!

I've just tried to take a quick piccie of the dogs being cute, but I can't.
My camera is broken.

Mind you, it was a cheap camera anyway, and totally inadequate for what I want out of a camera.

So that's another item on my shopping list.

Boots,
Battery for lappy (still haven't got round to buying that!)
Web 'n' Walk dongle,
Mobile phone,
Camera.

Not necessarily in that order.

Which reminds me...

Reeves and Mortimer, eat your hearts out!

YES! The NeoKube is back for another fortnight!
It's back by popular (my) demand because it's so feckin' kewell.

Why only a fortnight? Because I'm a skinflint and refuse to pay for it. I'm trying it out again until they take it away from me. I have enough email accounts available to me at present to do this three more times, so fiddle with me widget while you can!

Sometimes I feel that I can't go on with this, that it's starting to become a chore.
It was bad enough when blogging was just a habit, but now it occasionally feels like hard work. Hard, boring work, trying to think of what I want to keep recorded for posterity in cyberspace and deciding what I should keep to myself, and wading through page after page of other people's not-so-secrets.

Then I look at my stats.

How could I even dream of letting down the THOUSANDS of people who read my blog? I can't just leave them hanging on to the edge of that cliff, can I?
Will he buy himself a new pair of boots? Or that USB Modem? Or even that swish new phone he's got his eye on?
What will he spend his bonus on?

So many questions yet to be answered. And so much music for my little ferrety friend to find.
Can I give this up? Yes. I'd do it tomorrow, if I had to.
Will I give it up? What? And leave an audience disappointed like I did with my quiz-nights?

As if I would!

Aaaaah! The roar of the grease-paint, the smell of the crowd...

How long have I lived with my parents?

All my bloody life, that's how long. So you'd think after all this time they'd sort of understand that I'm rather keen on watching anything with an engine being put through its paces. So how come, this afternoon, when I should have been riveted by the qualifying sessions for tomorrow's European Grand Prix from Valencia, was I watching that 14-year-old diver (well done, lad. You'll be even better in four years' time!) and "admiring" the "artistry" of the Synchronised Drowning?

Anyway, GO LEWIS! 2nd on the grid, but I know you can convert that to top of the podium!

3am and I'm still blogging.

Thank feck it's now Saturday and I have nothing planned for the morning.

Night all!

I received a small blue envelope this morning. I looked at it and I knew exactly what it was, but not what it contained. I opened it with trembling hands, the sweat of anticipation beading on my brow (or maybe that’s the hangover kicking in?) and I saw before me a figure.
Or should I say four figures? Six if you include the pennies.

Yes, it’s my pay statement. One week from today I will have over a thousand pounds in my bank account for the first time since I had my teeth (and the contents of my wallet) pulled out over two years ago.
My finances have never really recovered from having to pay for that. OK, buying the lappy and the iPod haven’t exactly helped matters along the way, but you have to have the essentials, don’t you?

Roll on, next Friday!

I’s skint until then though. Another fun-packed Bank Holiday weekend in store for me then, isn’t it?

Does anyone recognise the following problem?

I have for my security when I'm surfing (or even usually just blogging) Grisoft AVG 8.0 Free and Spybot Search&Destroy.
I've only recently upgraded to AVG 8.0 and it keeps throwing up a screen saying that it has discovered a threat, but if I click to erase the threat another panel opens up saying that it can't find the relevant files. I never had this problem with AVG 7.

Is my lappy getting paranoid or is it me?

Talking of paranoid:

I received an email this morning at work telling all staff that there would be a powercut next Wednesday in order for essential maintenance to be carried out. There then followed a good few phone calls between our Buiding Manager and the Maintenance Department, but the end result is that the power outage has been brought forward to tomorrow (Friday) afternoon.

Bloody good call, that. EXTRA LONG WEEKEND! WOOHOO!

Shame I don't have the money to enjoy it.