Archive for April, 2009

It’s Easter, holiday time! Those beautiful extra long weekends where we can all relax and take some time off work.

Well, almost.

I got called into work on Friday for a meeting which took up most of my daytime though I was home a few hours earlier than I would have been if I had been at work as normal which was nice.

Saturday I was working as Normal. Given we now open until 1am however it was a rather late one so I didn’t end up getting home until well after 5am and didn’t end up getting to bed until 6.

Sunday I went back to work to cover someone’s shift which turned out to be just as long as Saturday nights though I did get home a bit earlier. Working Sunday also pushed everything else back so I’m now working today as well. Fun times.

Last week myself, Norm and Nicola went down to the Yorkshire Evening Post to do an interview as they wanted to do a feature on Leeds Atheist Society. It came out in Thursday’s issue and was good coverage for us – very positive compared to the stuff we normally get (which isn’t saying much as we normally just get attacked in the media but it was geniunely good) and it was a full page piece too.

If you missed the paper edition you can read the article online on the YEP website.

Continuing the ongoing efforts to get the technical set ready for Rationalist Week I’m currently busy installing software and configuring the computers that will be used during the week. As such they now have matching wallpaper so they look nice and pretty 😀 .

Speaking of Rationalist Week preparations, our lounge is now home to a large selection of food products, as per the picture below. Interesting this is just one of several big piles of stuff which is now ready for the week though I think both I, and my housemates, will be glad to get out of the way next week.

I’ve just put the album on and am currently mulling over how well it sums up Humanism. I mean, it would seem to sum it up very nicely indeed but then if I was to make a choice I would have to choose gold. Might have to give it some more thought.

Along those lines, the Humanist Action Group headed out on Thursday to do our usual trip round. As normal there were two of us which is interesting given 17 people decided to join the HAG group on Facebook and proudly display it on their profile.

Interestingly though it was at least a different two this week. Rich was unable to make it has he has retreated back to his parents for a while due to illness so myself and Nicola headed out. Turns out there were quite a lot of people out, which is a good thing in one respect and a bad way in others. Strange feeling really.

Does anyone else remember the Jonathon Creek episode where Adam Klaus is doing that reality TV show in which he has to live like a pig?

It was called “Animal Farm” and appeared in the episode “Gorgons Wood”, originally broadcast in February 2004.

I don’t know about you but I found it very amusing. The parody of reality TV, imagining our television programming would ever stoop so low was simply hilarious. I mean who would even make, let alone watch, such a ridiculous and interlectually bankrupt programme?

Anyway, it starts next Thursday on BBC Three.

Saturday having been a cheap night I decided my budget could squeeze a bit of an evening on Sunday, especially given my parents had been kind enough to throw me some going out money as an Easter present and so headed down to meat everyone at KFC – we’re all skint at the moment so not doing real restaurants. We also grabbed a quick drink at The Mill while we were down there so all in all an enjoyable and rather budget evening score.

Having done my open on Saturday I found that I had the evening off for once which made of a strange feeling. Nobody in the house really doing anything I headed out to meet Craig and Zoe for a few drinks at the Gascoigne in Garforth which is a pub I haven’t actually been in before.

It seemed a nice enough place, big with plenty of space and the drinks were reasonably priced at least for a pub in Garforth (which means they aren’t actually that reasonable of course 😉 ). It just being the three of us we weren’t out for too long but I did appreciate the novelty of being somewhere other than work on a Saturday night.

I’m really feeling the stress and strain at the moment so I’m trying to take it a bit easier. Hence it’s only 11:15 and I’m in bed already. With I hope only about 30 minutes of work to finish off before I can go to sleep I am hoping to be out by around midnight and almost get my full 8 hours in!

I feel this is somehow giving in though, normally I would have just had some red bull and kept going for a while longer, while I could do given my detox doesn’t start until Sunday (and to be honest it will probably be fairly flexible). I feel it might do me some good almost getting the required amount of sleep in for one night though so I’m going to give it the old college try.

Not being able to close up on Saturday I ended up getting stuck on the open. This means getting up shortly before 4am which is very much not appreciated and there is something just freaky about getting to lunch time and having finished work for the day.

At least it gave me a chance to work with Danny for once, who was equally happy about the opportunity greeting me with a hug as I walked in the door. Suprisingly, or perhaps not, Becky was still there finishing up the paperwork from the night before too. Good times.

I’m quite impressed by how light it is in the evenings now. I don’t want to think about the fact that this will only keep itself up for another few months and then it will start getting darker again but then really we probably have five months before it is getting dark at an early time again which is probably long enough.

Rich and I headed out, as usual, on Thursday though with limited success given that Rich hadn’t had much time to prepare anything as he is feeling rather under the weather at the moment and while we were out his flask exploded. Not really the best start to the evening.

Apparently, though we had, had a better evening than Rich’s flatmate Liam who had managed to pick up food poisoning off Burger King. Rich suggested that he make up a formula of water, salt and sugar to rehydrate (apparently there is a special formula which makes it work best) and in a somewhat ironic twist, the only salt they had in was some salt packets from guess which restaurant…