you could hear both pennies dropping miles away!

It was only a few days ago that i realised that i wont have the same employer come Christmas time. so i made a quick call to my new boss to find out what the deal is for time off around Christmas.
I felt a little bit cheeky booking days off when i haven't even started working there yet. it was all good though, seems a fairly chilled kind of guy.

the other thing i only just realised is that our current car tax runs out at the end of January. i was under the impression it ran out at the end of February - so we have one month less to sort out our transport situation.

you may remember from an earlier post that we had to get the BMW banger quite quickly as a stop-gap solution till the new year. well now that new year is upon us we need to work out if its best to ditch the banger and buy either a new(er) car, or ditch it and get another banger, or the third option is to keep the banger and see how well it fairs through the rocky road of MOT.

If anyone has a car they don't want anymore..... give me a shout!

anyway, there we have two moments this last week where i heard a huge penny drop and slapped myself in the forehead in a "stupid boy" kind of way.

Moving on

I've have been working for Elucid8 for nearly three and a half years but now is the time to move on.
I've been looking around at various job prospects over the last few months, keeping my options open; looking at a wide variety of job descriptions and companies. As the saying goes "the world is a lobster" or something like that anyways.

So, where am i going i hear you all ask?! I am making a move into the world of TV and Film. The BBC doesn't want me but someone else does!

I'll be working for a company that supply editing systems to production people in either film or TV.

I'll be based at Pinewood Studios but will probably spend a lot of my time out and about visiting production houses and filming locations, also larger outside broadcast events that need on site editing facilities - sports events etc.

My job has the original title of Hires Technician. I start work on the 11th December.

Its going to be tough to leave Elucid8 for a number of reasons, of course the biggest of these is that i will miss Matt, Barry, Phil, Tim and Mark - we have a great working relationship together and i don't think that will be replicated in my new job or any other job for that matter! They are my friends and i shall miss them.

So here's to the Future, i hope that Elucid8 goes on from strength to strength and i hope that this new job of mine will be fulfilling, challenging and inspiring (that's not too much to ask is it?!)

For those that do, please pray for me that the next three months will be all i hope it will be, and that Elucid8 will cope without me.

i hope Elucid8 manage to find a suitable person to hold the position of "Elucid8 life committee chairman" a responsibility not to be taken lightly, you need broad shoulders and thick skin to cope at the top!

Sorry to those that i haven't told personally - i wanted you to hear it from the horses mouth so i figured the blog would be a good start!

Let me call you sweetheart

Yes i know its another lazy post but after seeing the orange advert featuring the audio from a funny laurel and hardy sketch i thought it was about time we re educated ourselves!!!

Ninja algorithm

Last.fm

You'll notice that under my flickr images there is a new box of stuff...

Its a list of the tracks I've been listening to and the tracks I'm listening to at that very moment - cool huh?

it lets you connect to lots of other people and their playlists - it also has a cool thing that gives loads of interesting info on the track/band you are listening to for example:

"Foo Fighters began as a solo project taken up by former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl after Kurt Cobain's death. On the debut and eponymous album, Foo Fighters, released in 1995, Grohl plays all the instruments (save for one guitar part recorded by Greg Dulli on X-Static). However, Grohl subsequently formed a band to play live shows and support the album. At that time, the band consisted of Grohl (vocals, guitar, occasional drums), Nate Mendel (bass), Pat Smear (guitar) and William Goldsmith (drums). However, after a dispute with Goldsmith, Grohl fired the drummer and recorded the percussion... "

Tis nice - I like!

Ikea, again - do we have to?!

So last night saw another trip to Ikea - I'm really starting to hate that place. the reason for our numerous trips to the blue and yellow store is that Jo is single handily refurbishing her office!
I have had to go along to lift the heavy stuff onto the trolleys.

Last nights heavy stuff were 4 shelving units and 4 sofa's! now the shelves weren't too much of a bother for my rippling muscles but the sofas were another story!

The sofas in question come kind of flat packed, but not really, and are delivered to ikea on wooden pallets in sets of four. all perfectly held together with straps and tape etc.
I asked one of the oh-so-helpful staff members if he could assist us by taking one of the pallets to the checkout and then through to the delivery area. He said that this was not possible and we would have to put them on the customer trolleys. So i went to work! cutting the pallet straps and tape which caused the four tightly packed sofas to take a deep breath and fill all the lovely foam filled cushions with air. The things were twice the size that they were a minute ago!
I quickly managed to get two of them jammed onto one trolley with much swearing and cursing at the sofas and trolley and any other person who got too close to me, or stood too long watching me do the tango with the two sofas and a trolley.
the last two were not in the slightest bit flat packed any more so they had to have a trolley each. so from here Jo and i with four trolleys (one full of plant pots) made our way to the checkout. My blood was boiling!

Let me take you back to the start of our Ikea trip - there is one thing i forgot to mention.

So we arrive and i am desperate for the loo, we had been sitting in traffic for ages and my kidneys were starting to hurt. I made a beeline for the Loo and to my horror found that there were no cubicles free. (those who know me will know that i MUST use a cubicle.... extreme stage fright sets in otherwise)
but there was no one using the urinals and i was desperate so i thought id manage OK. everything was going well but in the background i heard one of the cubicle doors open and from it came a guy with his young son. the conversation between them went:

Boy: Daddy what are they?
Dad: Leave those they are dirty, come over here and wash your hands.

from the corner of my eye i could see this young boy peeking into the furthest urinal, he then proceeded to go along the line having a look in each one. by this time his Dad was over by the sinks washing his hands.

i did my best to ignore all this and concentrate on the job in hand. the thing was that this kid kept getting closer! it got to the point where the young boy had looked in all the free urinals by which point he was standing next to me. (by the way, it was about this point that I'd realised i was having the biggest wee of my life...)
to my horror this little chap decided he wanted to see what was going on in my urinal! he tried to poke his head round and get a good look. I managed to turn my body enough to block him from getting his head wet. (where was his Dad?! - had he forgotten about him or something!)
thankfully he went away and i was able to finish what i was doing.

I am never using a urinal again!

one positive outcome was that i was able to use the XLerator again - wicked!