Christmas approaches Sunday, 17 Dec 2006
Posted by esotericintrovert in happenings, musings, photos.1 comment so far
It’s that time of year again, switch on ‘pre-programmed enjoyment sequence X’ for however long it takes to pass through the wonderful emotional joy that is the festive season.
For some reason it’s not seemed like Christmas is at all approaching, though to spare me the obvious evil that Thursday night shopping this week or even shopping next weekend I decided yesterday to go and buy all my shopping. Although I had to go again today to get two more presents, but yesterday I did manage to buy almost all my presents within two and a half hours including wrapping materials and avoiding the majority of London crowds. I have reaffirmed my love of Fopp. And as you can see I’ve spent today wrapping them, I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed wrapping – maybe I should open a shop that sells cookies, apple tart, chocolate torte, and offers a deluxe present wrapping service.
Walking along the streets of London at this time (and no doubt many other towns of this fair land) of year the smell of roasting chestnuts whafts about, and it’s a really beautiful smell which makes me feel all wintery. But I started to think that you don’t get chestnut roasters in summer – so where do they go? Is there a chestnut roasting equipment storage area/graveyard, or do they convert into those mobile hotdog/burger people that stand outside clubs??
Talking of food I got very disturbed today when buying my paper – creme eggs are already on sale!! It’s not even Christmas, some people probably haven’t even bought all their presents yet!
Oh well off to bed where I shall dream of present wrapping, roast chestnuts and having nightmares about three months of easter commericalism.
A whole new world Monday, 11 Dec 2006
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Sorry for the dodgy post title, but the flatmate is threatening to buy me Jordan and Peter Andre’s album for Christmas and for some reason this title came to mind (For those not aware of the musical stylings of such angelic voices they reproduced a rendition of the main song from Disney’s Aladin film at their wedding reception).
Anyways, so it’s been the first week of the new job (well it’s now technically the second). And the intial reaction seems to be good so far. More glamorous surroundings, a nice supportive group of people (who can actually help when I’ve technical problems), and less unnecessary stress, oh and a better salary.
I’ve also acquired a digital projector, so we now have a home cinema set up, yay! (though not yay to the dodgy paranormal solider investigation game that the flatmate wants me to play).
MyFirstJob™ Monday, 04 Dec 2006
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So I’ve finally left MyFirstJob™, which gainfully employed me for 15 or so months, of which 14 have been spent working as a social researcher for an inner London local authority. It’s been an ‘interesting’ year to say the least – its certainly had its good times, but there’s been an awful lot of bad times (usually soothed by consumption of copious ammounts of alcohol). I’ve had a number of good opportunities (and to some extent have actually been very lucky) but I also feel like I’ve not been treated very well and that my previous job really didn’t provide any opportunities for development (both in career terms but also in skills/professional terms).
And so without any more cathartic bitching (in the blogosphere about my last job that is, for I am naturally a bitch to some degree!) tomorrow I start my new job as a sparkly social researcher proper.
How you know you loved the 90s Friday, 24 Nov 2006
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Got a rather lovely email forwarded to me today, I usually hate forwards specifically if they say you must pass this on or else your eyes will fall out or something to the effect of that, but this one had a nice ending that said: “You loved the 90’s!! Pass this on and add on anymore that u remember!! Big up the 90’s!! If you don’t pass this on…….fair enough…. it’s a free country “.
Anyways so here’s the email (oh and if you hadn’t already guessed then its a list of all the great things about the 1990s):
How you know you experienced the 90’s:
- 10p Mr Frosty Ice Pops on long summer days!
- Gordon the Gopher!
- You could do or tried to do the Prodigy step. ‘You’re no good 4 me….’
- You owned or longed for an Adidas three stripe tracksuit
- You owned a compilation tape with TOP TUNES such as “Mr Vain”, “What is love” and “Rhythm is a dancer” and ‘How Bizarre,How Bizarre”
- Girls thought Blue Mascara was cool!
- Girls actually fancied Garry Barlow more than Robbie Williams
- The Racoons! (nuff said)
- You owned a pair of Nike Air Max, and wore them to death
- Mr Motivator (What ever happened to him?)
- Running on the spot dancing!
- You wore leggings/cycling shorts with long t-shirts
- You owned a Bennetton, NafNaf, sweater shop jumper or waistcoat
- Girls owned scrunchies in an array of colours and tacky headbands with their names written on in thick glitter
- You bought Smash Hits for the song lyrics and the immense amount of stickers that you would stick everywhere!
- You had a pen pal
- You could only watch the Simpson’s on sky
- On a Saturday afternoon you watched Baywatch Catchphrase, Gladiators,Generation Game, Noels House Party and then Casualty
- You taped the Pepsi Chartshow on radio one and tired in vain to pause the tape before the annoying guy talked and ruined the whole thing.
- Cans of Coke were 25p
- 10p Space Raiders Crisps
- A grey Fruit of the Loom jumper was a must have
- Sharkie & George were the crimebusters of the sea
- Puffa jackets
- You used the line “it’s a free country” every day
- The Sky Sports Blimp!
- Impulse body spray for girls
- Hooch Alcoholic Lemonade (where’s it gone?!)
- ‘Don’t forget your toothbrush’, ‘TFI’ and Big Breakfast with Chris Evans
- You had at least one troll
- You know the dance to Macarena and Saturday Night. You also tried to scat like Scatman John! Bi bat ba ba da bo…
- You watched Baywatch and longed for the day that Eddie & Sharni got together!
- You watched Byker Grove ‘ha ha ha whatcha laughin at!’ (the themesong ending), and saw PJ get shot in the eye with a paintball!
- PJ and Duncan not Ant and Dec! Dodgy Pop Not Dodgy Presenting!
- Shellsuits & bumbags!
- You longed to live in Beverley Hills 90210
- Home and Away was a prime time ITV programe watched by millions
- You owned a Spice Girls album
- Fruit salads and black jacks!
- Strike it lucky on a sunday night with Michael Barrymore when he was straight & married
- Chain letters
- You had fake ID
- You remember Todd Landers in Neighbours
- You religiously watched Saved by the Bell on a Saturday morning!
- Live and Kicking on a saturday morning, not Steve (please just shut up) Jones on T4
- Edd the Duck and Andi Peters in the Broom Cupboard
- You watched episodes of Friends and The Simpsons that you hadn’t seen a thousand times before
- Phillip Schofield didn’t have grey hair!
Items 45 to 48 are courtesy of me.
6 days to go Thursday, 23 Nov 2006
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Well six working days to go until I finish my current job (yay!) and seven till I start my new job (eeek!).
Have acutally had a relatively interesting week, considering I’m ‘working’ which over the last year has tended to mean I do nothing but work, eat and sleep. I’m becoming a bit less of an introvert and being sociable: i’m now a facebook user and its scarily adictive trying to find people, i’ve also joined thingbox a sort of facebook for the gays. I’m getting a bit scared by this socialisation streak, but i think i need to re-establish contact with people after a year in the wilderness, and also meet some new people (possibly even a man?!?!?!?!?, eeek!).
I had my consultancy leaving dinner on Monday and went to a very nice thai restaurant called Isarn on Upper Street, and had a very lovely merlot and had fried chicken with ginger and chilli jam and brown rice. Conversation decended into politics with me basically being pissed off about London house prices, to which my boss suggested that I shouldn’t subscribe to the value set that owning your home is a symbol of success. I think I just have to marry into money. I also went to a lecture hosted by the RSA and the Forum for the Future which a friend of mine is an alumni of. It was very interesting particularly how it looks like emissions trading is moving up the policy agenda as a key mechanism, though how to convey and even ’sell’ it to consumervoters is certainly going to be a tricky topic. You can download an mp3 of the lecture and question session here.
I’ve also discovered a rather odd video of a guy wanking (no its not porn, its a part of a film contest where a number of shorts will be selected for a dvd to see how far the BBFC will let them go), but there was something rather moving about it (not in that way, though the guy is quite cute). Oh and its certainly NSFW, I’m sure you can work out if you’re of a disposition where you wouldn’t want to watch it.
Well time for bed, as yet another day of pretending to work is ahead.
