Wiki-tastic

I've been learning new things from Wikipedia all week.

Next years F1 rule changes.

The great Kevin Nugent is still playing.

My current favourite series of books,The Dresden Files will be on tv soon.

The connection between Torchwood and Century Falls.

FlyLady has her own Wikipedia entry too.

I love watching Veronica Mars and like the fact I can use this to unconfuse myself.

I've also been looking up places I'd like to visit, including Uluru, San Francisco and Provence.

Guilt Tripped

I've meant to post every day this week, but life has been busy - now I've been guilt-tripped into it I shall try and entertain.

I had a lovely three day weekend when I did not a whole lot. Got my hair cut by Anthony's cousin, went to Hobbycraft for thread, wandered into Boots and tried perfumes (Sui Love is yummy but Angel made me want to vomit) and watched the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Monday and Tuesday I got to go back to work! I wandered happily through fiction and put up shelf-stips in Sci-Fi and Crime. Then I got worried about Phil when he told me I shouldn't go down to the woods because the teddy bears were having a picnic. I think he's ok now, the medication had kicked in when I phoned him this afternoon.

Wednesday was a day off (since I'm at work tomorrow) and I spent the afternoon watching Torchwood and Roswell while making a New Home card for my friend Laura (who's just moved house surprisingly) after making my house all clean and shiny - which took about 45 minutes thanks to FlyLady.

I've just spent my last two days at the uni, pulling returns, doing paperwork and sighing at customers who really don't seem smart enough to be going to university (especially since they all seem to be law students!).

Other than all that stuff I've been thinking about Christmas (I know, I know) and what I can get/make people, the fact that I'm back at work tomorrow and have no more uni shifts (fingers crossed), books I want to buy, books I own that I really should read/reread, which perfumes I should sample next (since Anthony is still being obsinate about buying me Waterstone's vouchers for Christmas/my birthday), why I have to wait til Jan for the new WoW expansion pack, why I had a dream about some guy from Animal Park getting run over on the M5 and how much I'm looking forward to going to see the Bonzos with my dad in two weeks.

So you see I have actually been busy. Honest.

I am going to try to update more, if only to make Mark smile before he heads off to deal with Christmas customers.

One Day In History

Today was a pretty normal day for me,woken at 6 by boyfriend going to work, then I go back to sleep til 7 then up and onto the internet to check news, weather, blogs etc.
Headed off to work at 8.15, I usually work in a chain bookshop (Waterstone's) in central Wolverhampton but at the moment I'm covering a colleagues maternity leave so I'm based up at the university. This means leaving slightly earlier as I have to open up the shop.
Lovely misty morning to walk though, saw the old guy who stands outside his house most mornings and waved to him. I've created a playlist on my iPod nano for my morning walk - upbeat songs so that I walk fast and get myself going for the day ahead. Needless to say the evening playlist is nice and relaxing!
Work was the usual, serving students who seem unimpressed by the prices they have to pay for textbooks. It's hard to resist pointing out to them that they are investing in their future. I just know that they'll point out that I can't have gone to uni - I did, but found out that being good at a school subject doesn't mean it's a career for you. I miss working at my usual store, want to be selling lovely fiction books rather than law textbooks.
Home by 6, and time to fuss my two cats for a little while and to sort out my budget for the coming month. Payday is Friday and I have a 21st birthday present to buy for my baby sister, plus I have bills to pay and need to attempt so save for Christmas.
My boyfriend Anthony comes home around 7, he doesn't live here, but sometimes it feels like he does. The weeks he's on a sensible shift (lorry driver so he works nights and all sorts) he tends to stay here since other weeks I hardly see him. I cook us chinese for tea, first time I've cooked noodles but it works out well. I'm trying to do one new thing a week this year, and cooking proper chinese food with noodles was this weeks new thing.
Then we stick the footie on (Man U in the Champions League) and snuggle down on the sofa with the cats until it's time for bed at 10. Naturally I have to take a book up with me, and in honour of this blogging thing I'm reading 'Our Hidden Lives', a collection of extracts from the Mass Observation Project. This collection is post-war entries, I've already read 'We Are At War' which features entries from during WWII.
I finally get to sleep about 11, listening to a CD of the ocean to drown out the sounds of police sirens that seems to be the normal night-time melody of Wolverhampton.

Time Flies

Saturday was a day of many different things, which meant that it felt like several days rolled into one.

Anthony and Alf came round about 11 in the end and after Alf fixed my anti-virus we went shopping and then spent the afternoon talking bollocks and drinking.

We went out to Cafe Champagne for dinner and took another couple of Anthony's mates, Mick and Sarah, with us. Choosing the curries took longer than eating them in the end, with Alf going for Kangaroo and Anthony for Ostrich. Both very nice, but not as nice as my Chicken Asanak...mmmmmm.

I'd sent Miss Campbelli a text to say we were there and that it had made me think of her, and she texted back to say that she was in town if we wanted to meet up.

So after dropping off Mick and Sarah (and stopping off at home so Anthony could borrow my Wrangler boots as he only had trainers) we set off to meet Campbelli and Jamie at Walkabout.

Got in there, and spotted her at the other end of the bar so walked over.
Campbelli turns round and glances at me, then turns away again.
Jamie looks at me slightly puzzled.
I say hello...
Campbelli turns round again...

it took her a good 5 seconds to realise that I was me - and then she squealed!

Apparently I am very, very, very blonde!

Lots of giggling and chatting for an hour or so before they headed off for a curry (not at Cafe Champagne as Jamie called us "Jammy, Jammy Fuckers" for having been there) and we went home as we were all knackered.

So six months ago I was out on the town like this, and now Miss Campbelli can't recognise me, even in the same outfit!

Grumpy People

I'm up early today cos I can't breathe properly when I'm lying down and so I thought I might as well get up.

However it means I caught the end of one of the BBC news programmes that I like the least, Newswatch. Not because of the presenter, who's a nice enough guy, but because of the people who are on it each week.

This week I caught a video from a guy who was bitching about the fact that BBc news presenters are sometimes standing, sometimes sitting. The fact they use each others names when talking to each other, the fact that they nod and smile at each other and sometimes talk directly to each other instead of at the camera (the example he showed was when Chris was showing Dermot and Kate some new hi-tech sports wear).

Now this is the very reason I watch the BBC news. The presenters come across as people, with their own personalities and interests. I like the fact they tease Declan in the morning and the fact that they mentioned when Sian had her baby. (I also love the fact that one presenter is just back from maternity, two are on it, and two more are pregnant - must be something about the programme).

I missed last weeks but the week before was I think the one where someone was saying that Richard Hammonds crash should not have been a headline as he wasn't a celebrity and the BBC were descending into tabloid television. Perhaps he was right, but when they interviewed him and he came across as a bloke who only listens to classical music (not that classical is bad but variety is the spice of life), always wears a tie, and only ever reads "worthy" novels - I realised that a headline about anybody who wasn't a politician would probably have provoked the same response from him.

I should really try to not watch it, but I do so love the stupid things that people complain about, and the reactions of the presenters when they cut back to the news after the programme. Today Bill turned straight to Louise and said "Hello Louise" and then they both started laughing. Perfect.

If you don't like watching the news people being human, put ITV on or something. But of course you can't do that...that really would be tabloid news.

Points mean prizes...

You may have guessed from the amount of posts that Anthony isn't here at the moment. All the crashes on YouTube gave his car ideas and he had to take it in to be fixed for a nice £490.

In the meantime I have been entertaining myself by trying to choose my two free audiobooks on Audible (thanks to a link on Keris' blog) and by writing bookseller reviews on Waterstone's.com.

Find my reviews and you'll win a prize! (Well, I'll tell everyone how great and clever you are anyway).

I have caught my annual post-Christmas cold early, this year I'm doomed to a post-Academic one too I guess. This means I am drinking lots of beer and craving my mother's roast potatoes. Aunt Bessie's are a poor substitute but I can't be bothered to go out and buy more potatoes so they'll have to do.

*sniff*

Time for a hot toddy and my Teachers DVD.

"Mass blog" to capture UK Tuesday

One Day in History

New Addiction

Looking on YouTube for that Albers "accident" meant that obviously I went on to spend a chunk of the evening on there looking up various things.

Anthony got in on the act and found this nice piece of footage that I can remember watching in one of the uni bars.



Another good example of why wheel tethers are a good thing, can you imagine being the poor bloke who had to go and find the two wheels his drivers car is missing?

It is a good example of a crash where every single driver walked away unhurt, but I still love this particular moment in the pit lane. Again, I can remember watching this.



Nobody hurt, apart from Jos's singed eyebrows because he had his visor up.

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There are an awful lot of crashes on there that I won't watch though. Ratzenberger and Sennas fatal crashes for starters, in fact any of the fatal crashes really. I couldn't even bring myself to watch Ralf Schumachers accident in the USA Grand Prix in 2004. I can remember watching that at the time and that's enough thank you.

I did watch Nikki Laudas crash. I'd never seen it and can remember dad saying that when he saw it he couldn't believe that he got out of that car, that ever time he sees him in the pits or on the grid he can see that crash and is always so amazed.

The one I did watch that I shouldn't have done was the crash that killed Roger Williamson. It was the reaction of David Purley that was the thing that got to me. I watched that one because I'd never heard of the guy, and I felt I should. As with many of the other crashes, it's one that changed the setup of F1, changed the safety rules so that others would survive, including Nikki Lauda and Gerhardt Berger.

A Masterpiece of Modern Engineering

Two weeks ago I was watching the Chinese Grand Prix qualifying when I saw something very funny. Kimi Raikonen was zooming round doing a hot lap during the second session, and his wingmirror fell off.

Yup, there he is, 180 odd mph and his wingmirror just falls off. On the on-board camera you see it just ping off, and then hit Jensen Button which wasn't quite so funny.

However Christian Albers managed to top that at last weeks Japanese Grand Prix. I've managed to find it on YouTube for your viewing pleasure.



All he did was brake for the next corner and poof. The wheel tether failed because the bit of car it was attached to went with it. The big silver bit of metal is his drive shaft which ended up lying in the middle of the track until a marshal ran out to pick it up,

Emily was watching it too (at about 6.30am) and her text message read

"that was awesome he must've been oh um shit right um pits?"

Unfortunately I haven't been able to find the ITV interview that he did where he described it happening to him.

"Well I just braked for the corner and then my wheel and wing were going past me. But F1 is very safe"

Feeling good

I'm feeling so much better today. Last night I was exhausted and I'd really had enough. Tonight I'm feeling more confident about myself, which means I'm feeling less tired and a lot less blue.

We had a big branch visit today which we'd all been very stressed about, and it went well. It also meant that Bod was up with us for part of the day and I hadn't seen her since the day she asked me to work up at the uni. Basiclaly she told me I was doing a good job and put my mind at rest. Just the fact she said that has stopped me feeling so bloody useless and enabled me to feel proud of myself again. Plus getting texts from Campbelli reminding me to eat have been very helpful too! WE WANT HER BACK BEFORE DECEMBER 20TH THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

Another thing that happened tonight made me realise just how much I've changed in the last few months. As I was walking back across the Civic Square I saw Jo/Mab who I was quite good friends with a couple of years ago. We haven't spoken for about 18 months, and I can't remember the last time I saw her. She is the kind of person who knows if you're there when she walks into a pub, so the fact she could walk straight past me without recognising me is quite a compliment to the amount I've changed since I last saw her.

Now I have a nice couple of days off and I intend to do some relaxing and have a nice lie-in tomorrow. Sunday I'll be up early for the Japanese Grand Prix however.

The only thing I have to worry about at the moment is a stonkingly great birthday present for a lass who will be 21 soon. She likes pink, Jack Daniels, photography, reading and tea. Any ideas for presents will be gratefully received.

(You can always give me some ideas yourself Miss Emily if you don't like what the readers come up with)

Glargh

I thought I was tired two weeks ago....

I've been meaning to post for a few days but I'd fallen into the routine of work, then home to food cooked by Anthony while I spend the evening dozing on the sofa until it's time for bed. But this week he's on nights so I have to get organised and cook for myself.

Eating in the evenings is something I really need to do this week. I don't get food during the day at the moment, none of us do. From 11 til 3 the shop is jumping and we don't get 30 secs between customers, let alone the chance for a nice hour lunch break.

So the three of us are surviving on Mars Bars and black coffee (or Lucozade for me) and all saying that we'll definitely eat something when we get home. Except then I'm too tired to eat!

I'm actually going to say: Roll on Christmas. Yup, Christmas is always hectic and stressful, but there's enough staff so you can stop and eat, there's a dedicated Goods In person booking in the stock for you to put out when you get the chance and you can rotate between the till, enquiries, stock and floor walking instead of trying to do them all at once.

I'm going to be good and go eat something other than chocolate now...