On catchup
I'm well aware that my prolonged absence from general LJ matters and my sporadic contributions to the blogosphere are causing great consternation amongst my loyal disciples readers and I promise you I will be trying my hardest in the coming days and weeks to rectify this gross misdemeanour. In the meantime, I hope you're enjoying looking at my delightful new userpic - me at the Grand Canyon - as much as I'm not. Here's a bit of stuff what I've done lately with a glimpse of the near future.
Last Friday (23rd) I went to see Mika at the Birmingham Barfly, a small intimate venue which may be known to some of you as 'the bottom floor of The Digbeth Institute/Sanctuary'. I was lucky to get the tickets as, since I bought them, things have gone rather massive. For those of you not familiar with Mika, take a pinch of Freddie Mercury, a dash of Elton John, a smattering of Robbie Williams and fold it into a generous helping of the Scissor Sisters. It's camp as christmas and twice as manic and I loved it. He engaged the audience with some decent banter and stretched his incredibly powerful falsetto round an array of his unashamedly uptempo songs. It's as close to pop as I'm generally willing to get with enough rock behind it to keep me entertained. In short, highly recommended although I can imagine how it's not to everyone's taste.
Tuesday we had our 'Head Office' PC installed at work. It's my job to get it up and running as quickly as possible so that we can start collecting data from our branches and use it to analyse things like purchasing patterns, overstocks and non-compliance with company policy. In other words, I'm going to be a spy for the company. One problem I have now is that I have to fit this in with the rest of my workload which hasn't lightened any. Plus, in the run up to Easter, people are having time off work increasing my workload further. Am I infinitely stretchable? We shall see - I suspect not. If you see any evidence of a nervous breakdown at some point you'll know why.
Wednesday - my new day off - I met Tom in town for lunch which was taken at Eat in Bullring. I then taxed my car at the Post Office and then we had coffee at Starbucks. Well...Tom had coffee and I had a hot chocolate. Not interesting, but true.
Thursday I had to go to one of our Wednesfield branches to sort out some problems which had been reported to me by a member of the Walsall staff who had been helping out there for a couple of days. I found no evidence of these problems whatsoever which only served to irritate me as I had a wasted journey. I turned it to my advantage though by leaving at lunchtime and doing very little for the rest of the day - in the guise of visiting our other Wednesfield shop and our Walsall shop. The Walsall shop now has one of those TVs which shows 'health information' and adverts and stuff - kinda like you get in the post office but slightly more interesting. I've not actually seen it in action yet as it was being installed whilst I was there. They also have one of those photo things where you stick your memory card in and choose your pics and it prints them there and then.
Yesterday I had to forego a trip to Craven Cottage due to my continually tiresome back pain. I could have made it to London and back but, frankly, it's much better off if I rest it. I can push it at times, like going to the occasional gig, but a day in London is still a bit too much. I know I just flew to the US and back but believe me that was not much fun. Anyway, Villa drew 1-1 with John Carew seemingly the only Villa player able to cover himself with the glory of finding the net. We still haven't won in London for a LOOOONG time.
Tomorrow I shall be going to see Birmingham's latest hopefulls The Twang at the Wolverhampton Little Civic. Friends of mine were at Uni with the lead singer's brother and I have met him a couple of times. To be honest he's a twat as evidenced by the fact that when collecting their NME Award for something like 'best band from Birmingham since Ocean Colour Scene' he managed to use the word cunt on live tv - in his amazingly broad Birmingham twang. Who said rock and roll was dead? Anyway, I'll report back and let you know whether I think they'll be around for a while or the flash in the pans that I suspect they might be.
Edit: You can see The Twang's first single/video Wide Awake here and you can see them collect their NME award here.
Bored yet? Sorry. That's my life
Last Friday (23rd) I went to see Mika at the Birmingham Barfly, a small intimate venue which may be known to some of you as 'the bottom floor of The Digbeth Institute/Sanctuary'. I was lucky to get the tickets as, since I bought them, things have gone rather massive. For those of you not familiar with Mika, take a pinch of Freddie Mercury, a dash of Elton John, a smattering of Robbie Williams and fold it into a generous helping of the Scissor Sisters. It's camp as christmas and twice as manic and I loved it. He engaged the audience with some decent banter and stretched his incredibly powerful falsetto round an array of his unashamedly uptempo songs. It's as close to pop as I'm generally willing to get with enough rock behind it to keep me entertained. In short, highly recommended although I can imagine how it's not to everyone's taste.
Tuesday we had our 'Head Office' PC installed at work. It's my job to get it up and running as quickly as possible so that we can start collecting data from our branches and use it to analyse things like purchasing patterns, overstocks and non-compliance with company policy. In other words, I'm going to be a spy for the company. One problem I have now is that I have to fit this in with the rest of my workload which hasn't lightened any. Plus, in the run up to Easter, people are having time off work increasing my workload further. Am I infinitely stretchable? We shall see - I suspect not. If you see any evidence of a nervous breakdown at some point you'll know why.
Wednesday - my new day off - I met Tom in town for lunch which was taken at Eat in Bullring. I then taxed my car at the Post Office and then we had coffee at Starbucks. Well...Tom had coffee and I had a hot chocolate. Not interesting, but true.
Thursday I had to go to one of our Wednesfield branches to sort out some problems which had been reported to me by a member of the Walsall staff who had been helping out there for a couple of days. I found no evidence of these problems whatsoever which only served to irritate me as I had a wasted journey. I turned it to my advantage though by leaving at lunchtime and doing very little for the rest of the day - in the guise of visiting our other Wednesfield shop and our Walsall shop. The Walsall shop now has one of those TVs which shows 'health information' and adverts and stuff - kinda like you get in the post office but slightly more interesting. I've not actually seen it in action yet as it was being installed whilst I was there. They also have one of those photo things where you stick your memory card in and choose your pics and it prints them there and then.
Yesterday I had to forego a trip to Craven Cottage due to my continually tiresome back pain. I could have made it to London and back but, frankly, it's much better off if I rest it. I can push it at times, like going to the occasional gig, but a day in London is still a bit too much. I know I just flew to the US and back but believe me that was not much fun. Anyway, Villa drew 1-1 with John Carew seemingly the only Villa player able to cover himself with the glory of finding the net. We still haven't won in London for a LOOOONG time.
Tomorrow I shall be going to see Birmingham's latest hopefulls The Twang at the Wolverhampton Little Civic. Friends of mine were at Uni with the lead singer's brother and I have met him a couple of times. To be honest he's a twat as evidenced by the fact that when collecting their NME Award for something like 'best band from Birmingham since Ocean Colour Scene' he managed to use the word cunt on live tv - in his amazingly broad Birmingham twang. Who said rock and roll was dead? Anyway, I'll report back and let you know whether I think they'll be around for a while or the flash in the pans that I suspect they might be.
Edit: You can see The Twang's first single/video Wide Awake here and you can see them collect their NME award here.
Bored yet? Sorry. That's my life