Archive for June, 2007

It’s been a long week. I was on the close at work last Friday. And Saturday. Sunday. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. And last night. 7 closes in a row no less. I like to think that’s pretty hardcore. It’s lagging a bit behind the store record but now too far behind anyone who is still currently working there. So over the last week I’ve done somewhere in the region of 70 hours worth of shifts.

It’s all good though because I have today off. I mean sure, it’s 2pm now and I’ve only just got up because I didn’t get to bed until 6am this morning and sure, I need to be in bed by 9pm tonight because I start work at 6am tomorrow morning so only have 7 hours of my day off to actually enjoy but other than that it’s all good.

I love the UK. We’re the only country in the world that can be well known for miserable rainy weather and still have an infrastructure that is brought to a stand still by heavy rain.

Yesterday saw me begin my hospital management summer internship.

It all started when I was wandering through Game Station to look at retro consoles when I saw Theme Hospital for £4. I had no real option but to buy it. Especially as it’s multi-player so we can do some LAN parties with it. Having been discussing this several days earlier it would have been a missed opportunity not to buy it.

I started playing in the late afternoon evening time and soon found myself engrossed in the game. Next thing I know it’s 2am and I’m all but screaming at my computer screen. Machine after machine blowing up, 2-3 epidemics per minute – what am I doing wrong? Why are my handmen useless? There are 30 of them on staff for smeg’s sake.

The last thing I need at this time of year is more stress. But all I want to do is start playing again.

Ah the joys of Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing.

But bad grammer aside, Owen has anounced that in fact our group, Parrot, achieved the highest mark in SE24. Factoring in every part of the group project we proved our ability to work as the best team, functioning as one unit working to maximum efficency.

Of course it didn’t work like that in the real world. Safa did way more coding than anyone else having the most commits (followed by George, Raby, myself and Sumara) and the largest commits (followed by myself, Raby, George and Sumara). We were never really working together on the code – I started it off before Easter then had Rationalist Week to deal with at which point Safa and George started coding while Raby need the UML and Sumara just did nothing. Go team.

Still, I’ll take it as a victory in a time of year that is causing an insane amount of stress, Plus it shows it may actually be giving News a read once in a while.

Guess how many hours I’m scheduled next week.

45.15.

45! 5 closes, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. That doesn’t include my breaks and that is presuming we are out at 2am. We haven’t been out before 2am in a while now, especially on weekends where before 3 is a goos time. So it will probably be looking to be more like 50 when you take into account what time we will actually be getting out.

In terms of who has the most hours I’ve beaten everyone in the store but one – Joby works 6 opens a week. I’ve beaten all the other staff though including all the managers. But then, who needs sleep anyway?

After the fun of Fruity on Friday, Saturday saw the long anticipated arrival of Wendy House. Well, you’re all rubbish because there was only myself, Michelle, John and Si there (for pre-drinks, I’m not trying to start a rumour that Si came to Wendy. Or am I? :p). I’ve missed Wendy, and the good old days.

Sort it out people!

Men don’t understand women.

Most of my gender freely admits this. We don’t, what you do makes no sense to us. What is far less commonly realised however is that women don’t understand men either. This comes to a head with flirting.

First of all, if you think you’re being subtle about it, you haven’t a chance in hell of us noticing. It’s never going to register on our radar, not one bit.

Secondly, if you think you are being obvious, you’re not. This might register as possible subtle flirting to us. Then again it might not.

What women don’t seem to understand is that anything short of “hey, I like you. In that way.” is considered subtle. Anything else we could simply be misinterpreting even if it registers as flirting so put together the general obviousness of men together with the suprisingly fragile ego and fear of rejection and you can go as far as to pull us as we’ll still debate whether you actually like us.

There is also the issue that flirting from a girl’s perspective is quite ambigious. Something that one girl does to flirt, another girl will just do out of routine. Some girls just have naturally flirty personalities. Close and personal dancing is something some girls do with everyone. It’s not flirting. Making jokes about you and me hucking up – I do this with most of my female friends, it’s not flirting.

Finally it’s also worth considering that every action you take it thrown into the debating ring when a guy is trying to work out if you are in to him or not. This includes how often you accept invites to come out, what reasons you give when not coming out, how you phrase it, how you act when you do come out, etc. Also it’s usually an assumption that you’re not into them so sending any kind of mixed singles won’t keep a guy interested, they are more likely to conclude you’re not into them and move you into the dreaded friend category.

To conclude my 2 cents, if you think you are being subtle you aren’t going to get noticed, if you think you are being obvious you are being subtle and if you are just honest and let the guy know, he may actually realise you’re into him. We’re scared, pessimistic, conservative thinkers and you really need to realise this and re-align this phase shift. Happy boyfriend hunting.

Just moved the next load of my stuff home and now have my desktop set up at home. I’m running somewhat of a wierd setup compared to normal as I’ve got my desktop sat on top of my desk (literally on the desk top) rather than underneith to reduce the amount of cables that need to come round the front of my desk (as it’s a fitted corner desk) – this way it’s just the network cable that runs from downstairs. I’ve also got my subwoofer on the desk to try to stop it vibrating straight through the floorboards and annoying anyone sat in the lounge below me.

I like to think I have my priorities right though. There is only a thin snaking path through my room with piles of boxes covering the entire floor and my bed is an even bigger pile which if you look at it from the top you cannot see any bed at all. But my computer is on, so all is well!

My laptop arrived back yesterday. I actually seem to be able to touch it without it breaking once again though I couldn’t get the wireless working last night. Haven’t tried it again yet though. I’m really hoping it doesn’t have to go back again.

Still haven’t sorted my server out either as I’m not entirely sure what route I want to go with it now.

On the plus side my fan is working perfectly. You can’t beat the good old fashioned reliable technology of a desk fan.

Damn.