When I posted my last entry, I wasnt expecting such an inflood of comments. If this was a forum or Usenet - we'd almost have a flame war on our hands with some trolling thrown in :)

As it is, I am quite happy in my job. Changes are afoot, but either way - I should come out where I want to. I'm like that. Resilient (possibly), resourceful and I also don't believe management as far as I can comfortably spit them.

I have, several times in my life, been accused of letting people boss me around or not standing up for myself. But I have always won out in the end. When you study personality types - I come out as a passive-agressive - I get what I want through my passivity (is that a word?). People take my passiveness as a weakness - whereas I view it as possibly my greatest strengths. I let myself be manuveured into the position I wanted to be in.

Yes, its sneaky.
Yes, its underhanded.
Yes, its sly.

But I always end up better off for it :)

Frankly, if all the things at work happened like I would like them to, I would end up in a fantastic situation - and would possibly give up IT as a career. Maybe open that Fruit and Veg shop that I have wanted for many a year. 18 years doing techie stuff takes it toll on your head and I respect/envy those that can walk away from a career and head in a different direction.

Those people that have worked with me for many year will agree to what I've just written. Some of them have amazed me with who they have become and what they are doing now. Sometimes it makes me jealous, sometimes not.

Anyhoo, this weekend is my weekend with my kids and Shell - 3 things that make me happiest. Chandler is coming on in leaps and bounds and is so fucking funny, it hurts. The biggest issue I have is Rhiannon talking for him. He gets very frustrated about it all and takes some calming down. When I do have a 1-on-1 with him, I just want to cuddle him to pieces. For an almost 3 year old, he has some great insights on life.

On Wednesday, Shell and I were talking to the kids about the fact that we are moving a rabbit into the house (a house rabbit) and that means that they will need to be more careful about the noise they make, as loud sounds/thuds, etc can be upsetting to it. They both took this in, until Chan announced that we would have to be careful about lions coming into the house, as they are both noisy *and* eat rabbits!

Very insightful. He later ruined it by insisting that lions are scared of horses...

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[link]   Posted @ 13:00

With regard to management changes at work and rumours of our customer being sold:

"You can always do scare-mongering. There is nothing wrong with instilling fear, uncertainty and doubt in the minds of mindless sheep."

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[link]   Posted @ 14:57

FAO: Provamel/Alpro Soya
Product: Strawberry/Peach Yoghurt +CALCIUM

Dear Sirs,

I would like to highlight a problem I have been experiencing with your above mentioned product. Not only are they hideously expensive (but something I have to live with due to my dairy allergies) but they are costing me more every time I buy them.

The reason?

Of the past 2 lots of 4-packs I have purchased (8 cartons in total), I have had to throw away 3 cartons. Why? Because the sides have split as I have tried to seperate a carton from its neighbours and the contents have spilled out. And the reason for them splitting?

BECAUSE YOU CONNECT THE POTS TOGETHER TOO WELL!

You either have an issue with the wall strength of your cartons, or your perforation technique is shite!

I have tried various techniques (even resorting to cutting with a knife) yet I still end up with split cartons due to the amount of pressure required to seperate the cartons.

Please address this issue as soon as possible or else I will be forced to purchase alternative products (although this will be difficult as you have the market pretty well cornered for soya yoghurts).

Can I add though, that your Vanilla/Chocolate/Caramel Desserts are both yummy and dont suffer from this problem.

Yours sincerely

Tudor Davies, ham fisted cretin

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[link]   Posted @ 10:23

The weekend was spent moving rooms around. Our bedroom was at the front on the 2nd floor, so we moved into the bedroom at the back on the 1st floor. We then moved the childrens bedroom from the back on the 2nd floor into our previous bedroom and moved all their toys, etc from the lounge into their new bedroom. Got that?

It involved emptying each room in turn, cleaning the walls and skirting boards and finally cleaning the carpet using a Rug Doctor, before replacing all the furniture into the room. For those of you who have never cleaned their carpets before - its a horrible, horrible thing! The colour of the water thrown away was black and smelly. And we had been laying, sitting, playing, etc on them! Eurgh!

In other news (leterally), I read an amusing letter from someone called Jamie from London in this mornings Metro:

Whatever the outcome of this US election thing, I think the obvious answer has been staring us in the face for at least four years. The US is long overdue another civil war. All the Democrats should stay on the east of the Mississippi, all the Republicans on the west. Then they can test their expensive military hardware without dragging the rest of the world down with them.

An interesting idea (and reasonably comical for those Yank haters out there) and quite workable. But it doesn't take into account the fact that war, especially civil war, is a horrid thing. Sudan, Rwanda, Malawi, etc...

There. I have made political comment. And with regard to the US elections - [b[someone[/b] will win and quite frankly I don't really care who. My political view is extremely simple (much like my religious apathy): No matter who gets in - they lie, cheat and swindle and everyone ends up worse off overall...

Last night I had a really weird dream. I was in work, but wasn't sat at my normal desk. In fact, no-one was sat at their normal desk. But everyone responded to the name of the person whose desk it was, not who they actually were (you follow me). And everyone was asleep apart from me. Whenever I talked to anyone (using their wrong name), they would wake up, answer me and then immediately go to sleep again. I woke up after realising in my dream that it was silly and therefore a dream...

If anyone has any insight into what this means, it would be appreciated :)

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[link]   Posted @ 09:15

Living in the South West of England (as I do) near the sea (which I also do), wind/rain/gales is something I have grown up with. I remember visiting the sea front with my parents when I was a child and seeing the waves destroying the coastline. It was awesome. And the flooding, etc.

What I fail to understand, is that certain areas of my locality get damaged every single time and yet they get all surprised when it happens again!

Come on! You live near a coast, under sea level - YOU WILL GET FLOODED. If you don't like it - move somewhere else. Its quite simple...

I was off work yesterday due to TOIL (time of in lieu) as I had worked 4 days hours in under 3 days. So we got up late, went into town, wrapped loads of Xmas presents, went bowling with Su and Dave (I won overall and we'd put �20 into a winnings pot which became mine) and then played Cranium in the evening (after a Chinese purchased with my winnings). I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed playing that. Its ace. I highly recommend you purchase it now. If I had an affiliate link, I would do so, but I don't, so there isnt.

It has also come to my attention over the past couple of days, that there are several people (mostly younger than I) who had no idea who John Peel was. I find this outrageous. Even my Dad knew who he was! So for anyone that doesnt know who he is (and why he was so important to the UK music scene), go and find out. We have lost a national treasure :(

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[link]   Posted @ 12:17

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[link]   Posted @ 18:09

...has been broken! Maybe

I bought some clothes for the kids from "real shops". Although, I think clothes should probably be excluded from my challenge, as they are always best bought in person. Many a time, I have ordered something from a online-shop or catalogue and the item has been nothing like it was meant to be. So thanks to Tesco and H&M for providing cheap childrens clothes. One of the items I bought will have to go to Rhiannon straight away (see yesterdays entry).

Yesterday evening, I worked until 7pm and so this morning I started late. I dropped Jessica (ex-sister-in-law) off at work (she is on work experience during her half-term) and then made my way to The Mall at Cribbs Causeway, Bristol. I arrived at 9.30 and the place was deserted. For good reason, too - none of the frigging shops open til 10am! Bastards. I'll remember that for next time.

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[link]   Posted @ 11:51

...seemed to work a treat. He was asleep until just gone 7am and Rhiannon was asleep until almost 9 - possibly the longest lie-in ever! So swimming and peeing while asleep seems to be the answer :)

Last night I managed to ruin one of Rhiannons tops as I washed it with a pair of jeans that sneaked into the wash. Frankly, it looks bloody awful now, along with a T-shirt, some socks and 2 pairs of Shells string pants. And re-washing on a high temperature with bleach and Vanish didnt work either. Ho-hum! As I'll have to replace the lot, its been an expensive mistake too.

News item of the day is this. Its obviously been a slow day for news.

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[link]   Posted @ 16:05

Bop It Extreme 2 has a solo score limit of 250. Shell knows this cos she reached 250 and then it stopped and told her the score. It doesnt mention this in any of the documentation. She feels pretty cheated. Less than a week of ownership and she has completed it. It will now just be kept for evenings in with other people - although not Shell as she is obviously too good for it.

Loads of Xmas presents have turned up - I need to start wrapping them soon so they can't be easily found. It looks like my "100% shopping online" quest will not work due to slippers, but eBay might still rescue me.

I've had the kids since Friday lunchtime, although they spent from Saturday dinner time til 3pm today with their Nanny. They have had a great time, and this looks to become a regular occurrence - them staying over for a night every month. Afterwards, Shell suggested that we go swimming at the Sedgemoor Splash. We told them that we going to the carpet shop (something from Shells childhood) and the hours journey (due to traffic) flew bye as they chatted and were excited about "the carpet shop". We swam for an hour, came home and they dropped off to sleep immediately. We will definately be doing that again :)

One issue we have with Chandler at the moment, is him waking up in the night to visit the toilet. He has a potty in his bedroom, but still wakes me up to visit the big toilet. To combat this, I am going to put him on the toilet in his sleep when I retire. I remember doing this with Rhiannon when she was diddy and it worked a treat. I will update tomorrow on progress.

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[link]   Posted @ 20:32

As someone who has a bit of a trainer thing going on (I love trainers), finding this site ^{courtesy of Stormwerks} was fantastic. People have a go at me due to my lacing methods (generally I do them too tight) but now I can do each pair of trainers in a different way. However, there are a couple of disadvantages to this:

1/ If anyone ever notices, they will think I am mad (or sad or both)
2/ What if someone notices and it becomes a topic of conversation!

Yesterday, I found out that the kids are now on half-term. So I have arranged a couple of days working from home (I have loads of documentation to do) so I can do my work and watch over them, while they play, watch films, etc. I might be able to arrange an actual day off next week and spend the day doing something more productive with them. This weekend they are staying over at their Nannys on Saturday night and on Sunday, visiting their great-grandad (who is a hoot!). They are incredibly excited about staying over at Nannys house and kept quizzing me about how many more sleeps it was til they did it, what the sleeping arrangements were, etc.

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[link]   Posted @ 14:57