Sunday, July 29, 2007

Achtung! Gaz Within!

Hello readers, and welcome back for this weeks adventure…

Are you ready?

Good!

I will crack on with last Monday. During the day I didn’t do much…

In the evening, me, Adam, Carl, Jo, Marcus, and Jenny went to the Greville Arms to do the quiz. We didn’t do to badly, but we didn’t do to well either!

On Tuesday I spent most of the day browsing the interweb and watching rather strange videos on Youtube. Since I was going to watch Transformers on Friday I was looking at clips of some of the cartoons, but came across a rather funny, video… Have a look…





Quite catchy!

In the evening I went with Donna to the Harvester in Solihull where we met up with her friend, Jen’ who I met when I saw Donna dance at the Library theatre. We had a laugh and stayed in there until about 11:30pm when we decided to leave. Jen’ hopped in “Valerie” (her car!) and I dropped Donna home.

Wednesday daytime was spent round at Selenas again. I helped design Kieron a custom paintjob for one of the many sports cars he owns on Forza Motorsport 2. It’s quite difficult, but some people manage to get spectacular results. If you don’t believe me, have a look: Clicky

In the evening I went down to fathers as usual. There was a Top Gear special on, and it was a race to the north-pole between Jeremy and James in a Toyota Hi-lux and Richard with a team of dogs! Quite funny in parts, especially when Jeremy shot james’ tin of spam!

Anyway, on to Thursday… Me, Selena, and Kieron went to Warwick Castle! It rained for most of the time we were there, though. Fortunately most of it is indoors anyway. The big let-down was that due to the heavy rain, their new exhibition, the firing of a real trebuchet, was cancelled! To cheer myself up I paid to have a go with a real longbow! Now I used to do archery when I was younger, but I had never fired a longbow before. It was a pretty cool experience since the arrows left much faster than a regular bow, and they tore through the targets (when I hit them!)

We had a good look round, paid for the ghost tower tour, and tried on some medieval hats! In fact, I have some photo’s for you, dear reader… Take a gander below…


The organ in the chapel (Posted just because I know Marcus reads this!)



Countess Selena of Lazy Hill posing in a classic helmet... battle-chic!

Sir Kieron of Lazy Hill Demonstrating his "mad-eye" stare!

This is just a bit of the castle... Enjoy.



Most enjoyable! In the evening I went to the packhorse as usual, where I told a bold tale of the days adventures to the usual gang. Actually we had quite a relaxed Thursday this week. It was quite nice.

Friday was the day I had been waiting for! I make no reservations about the fact that as a child I was a HUGE transformers fan. Everything I learned about friendship, self worth, pride, and courage, I learned form Optimus Prime… And it has done me in good stead. So I have been gearing up to watch the new film for ages, and Friday was the day I was watching it. Me, Selena and Kieron went to the AMC cinema in town. The plan was to see Transformers, and then go in to see the Simpsons Movie. Transformers was excellent, although Michael Bay seems to be a fan of the “lets shake the camera during the fight scenes to make it look more intense” school of directing, which is cool, but only if you can actually see what is going on during the whole shaking thing… Which you cant always do. Still, it was a great film. Afterwards we went in to see the Simpsons. Again it is a great film, with lots of laughs. Although I can’t believe they show Bart fully naked… And Homer giving the middle finger was a bit surprising… But hey, I suppose they can get away with it on the big screen. After we left the cinema, I dropped Selena and Kieron back and shot off to Tescos to get Gemma and Woody a present for their engagement party. I got a bottle of Champagne and some glasses, since I couldn’t really think of anything else to get them! I got to Adams for about 7:30pm and we were given a lift to the Silhill Football club where the party was. It was a great atmosphere and they had a live band on to provide music! As the night carried on past closing time, the bar staff left… Fortunately Glenn, who is one of Jo and Gemmas friends, is the captain of Silhill FC and has the keys to the bar… Plus the authority to open it! Now all they needed was someone with some good bar experience to serve….

… Hmmm?

… That would be me then! Well, actually, most people had a go at some point, but I enjoyed the bit of bar work I did. We left and me, Carl, and Adam (I think, I was 3 parts gone at this point) ended up back at Jo’s house, and then I ended up sleeping at Carls on the Sofa… Carl warned Jenny and Marcus of this by placing a note on the living room door… (Read the title of the blog, again)

I awoke early Saturday (damn!) as mummy picked me up from Carls. I was still a bit wobbly, but hey… Who isn’t after a night of Carling!?

When I got home I noticed a note for me in the porch. Pat next door had a problem with her PC. It wasn’t booting up properly so she wondered if I could go and have a look at it. I ended up fiddling with it for about 3 hours, before finally being able to load safe mode, where I did a system restore. I still don’t know what caused it to fail in the first place, I just hope it doesn’t happen again!

In the evening Myself, Daniel, Adam, and Carl went to see Transformers! (The others hadn’t seen it, and I wanted to see it again anyway!) We went for a 9:45pm showing at Solihull and were in the Deluxe screen! After a slight fracas involving the seating, we were sat near the front. When the film started, it was in the wrong aspect ratio. Fortunately someone told them and they corrected it!

I re-enjoyed the film. I might get it on DVD when it comes out…

Anyway, we left at about 1:00am and I dropped Dan back.

This morning, I awoke and have done very little except write this blog… But I’m going to have to sign off now because I am working at the Legion in a bit. (Emergency cover, someone somewhere is off ill.)

Anyway, TTFN, readers!

Monday, July 23, 2007

Why am I all yellow?

Well readers, hello again. It’s time for another dazzling instalment of my ongoing existence!

This week has been filled with wonder and joy, so without further ado, I will begin:

I went to work on Monday knowing that it would be the last Monday to go through before September. The last week of school was going to be good… It was general chaos as usual, but with very little work being done.

In the evening I went out as usual with the gang… I think we might have gone bowling… I probably lost… Yes. That sounds about right.

On Tuesday at work it was the day of our mural painting! The art department was in charge of 5 murals going up around school and I was in charge of some kiddies painting a “Charities and celebrations” themed mural by the office at the end of the Orangery…

… Sorry, I mean “Covered Way” for all you ex-woodrushians!

Anyway we got it done… Just, and because I was feeling lazy I let the kiddies do most of the work. I stepped in a few times to tidy edges up and blend some paint together, but it really is the kids mural, not mine… Here, I have a piccy!

I still need to paint the actual door!

On Tuesday evening I probably went out again… Possibly to Carls… Check my shoutbox, because if I’m wrong I’m sure he will let me know.

Ah… Wednesday. It was activities day and so most people were out on trips… Me included. I went with some other members of staff and 3 coach loads of kiddies to Oakerwood, in Shropshire for a day of Paintballing, quadbiking, and “It’s a knockout” tournaments. (If you don’t know what “it’s a knockout” is then clicky here”)

The coaches left at 8:30am and as soon as we were on the M42 the driver said “So, this Oakerwood place, just remind me where it is, again?” My response was less than enthusiastic… Fortunately I knew the rough location as I had seen a map in the staffroom on the leaflet for the centre. We got there for about 10:30am and parked up… After the driver did a 23-point turn in the road to reverse up the long private road to the carpark!

Well anyway, it was a good day. I spent the day quadbiking through wet mud and was plastered by lunchtime. Our group met up with the paintballers and, after a drink and a burger, we went over to the “It’s a knockout” courses. We split in to 8 teams of 10, staff included, and were given a series of challenges… All of which involved running around/over/through/down large inflatable bouncy-castle-type things with slides, ladders, and wobbly things which spring about a lot! By the time we got back on the coach at 3:15pm I was completely shattered and dozed off…

Back at school, we were met by some members of staff who had a letter for us all...

… rewind 3 days. You will remember the vast amounts of water falling from the sky? Well A-block corridor had developed a slight leak, which wasn’t really that bad… I mean, It’s not like huge lumps of plaster were about to fall off the ceiling…

… Back to Wednesday, and that letter…

It basically said that due to huge lumps of plaster falling off the ceiling, A-block corridor had been labelled as a serious health and safety violation and the school would need to be closed off to everybody until it was fixed…

WOOHOO!

We had finished for the summer 2 days early! Actually, on a slightly serious note, what had happened is that the water had leaked in to the plaster causing it to swell and dislodge itself from the masonry work. The problem is that the school is over 50 years old and that corridor hasn’t had a re-vamp’ since the invention of asbestos! Yes people… I said asbestos! Now no one is sure if there is any up in the nooks and crannies or not… But no one is going to take that risk either!

Wednesday evening came around and Me and Father were going for a bite to eat at the packhorse, since he had a “2 meals for £5.00” voucher. When we got there we saw Malcolm, one of my dads mates who comes skiing, having a meal with his family. We joined them and had a right old chatter. After a while Adam, Carl, and Marcus turned up as well… I had quite a good evening!

Thursday… The first day of my summer holidays!... It was raining.

I basically did nothing all day, except find http://www.simpsonizeme.com/ where you upload a photo and it turns you in to an official Simpsons character! How cool is that? Piccy... (Taken from phone camera off the screen, since I couldn't work out how to save the image)


D'oh!


Ahem... Back to the blog... I then went to the pub in the evening. Lank wasn’t out so I decided to take a leisurely stroll up to the packhorse. The evening went well, as ever. Kate decided to put all of her money in the quiz machine… But she won £4.00 so… Um… Yeah! Great!

She did, however, give me a lift home at the end of the night so I wouldn’t have to walk through the rain. Bless her little cotton socks.

On Friday, I did pretty much the same as I did on Thursday. In the evening I went for a curry down at my nans. T’was very nice. I might go again this coming Friday!

On Saturday I had a curious call from selena. She had bought an “Ab Roller”!!! (Yes, it’s OK… My first question was “A what, now?” as well.) Basically it’s a frame that you use to “crunch” your Ab’s with… But she insisted that the holes for the feet were drilled on the wrong side, so she wanted to use the drill in the entry to make some new ones… After playing with it for about 10 minutes, I swapped the hand bar over so that in fact, it DID fit together with no extra drilling… Although that presented another query… We were both expecting the damn thing to pivot, like a hinge when you did the sit up thingys, but it didn’t… It was a solid-state frame you just hung on to! It was completely pointless… So we took it back to Argos, and she swapped it for some aerobic step thingys… With bungee cords… (Yes, I know, it sounds weird) but not only is it a good work-out, it’s also quite good fun! In the evening I probably did something… Or maybe not, I keep losing track of the days!

Ah… Sunday. In the afternoon I went to see Donna and her dance class perform at Solihull Library Theatre. After a slight hiccup (which would take far to long to explain) I was seated. The theme of the whole show was “music from the movies.”

It was very good. I had never seen Donna dance before… She’s really good! The outfits were amazing, and the whole shebang was awesome!

Afterwards I dropped my old weights over to Marcus and went to my nans for tea as usual. Me and Selena left at about 10:30pm because we had to pick mum up from the airport. She was coming back from Majorca, but was slightly delayed. We eventually got the ok at 11:45pm and set off from Wythall…

… Taxi drivers are dicks…

… Why were there so many all driving AT me!? Have they got a death-wish!?

After dodging all the taxis on the Coventry road, I got to the airport and picked mum up. I then came back to go to bed as I was knackered!

This morning I had to take mum in to work because her car wouldn’t start! Typicall!...

… Anyway, I’ve been typing for far too long now… I’m going out in a bit, so I will have to cut the end a bit short…

Sorry, readers…

TTFN

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Home alone...

Hello readers and welcome once again. I will have to ask you to forgive me, since this post will be a little rushed…

The past week has been quite normal, with Monday and Tuesday being spent out and about in Solihull with the usual gang. On Wednesday at fathers, I sat and watched “Collateral Damage” I’ve never seen it before and although it’s not blockbuster material, it’s a good old fashioned action film. It’s a “Arnie Swartz’ runs round and defeats terrorists with big explosions and weak one-liners… Oh yes and there is a final showdown, and a bomb.” Kind of film.

Thursday night in the Packhorse was good fun, because Jess and her little daughter, Brooke, came out for a drink. We ended up sitting outside as well…

… Which was nice!

On Friday I got up to go to work and said “Ta-taaa” to mother for a week. She was off to Glasgow and then on to Majorca with someone from the internet (the guy came to the Birmingham meet-up at Becketts earlier this year.) She will be gone for a week so I’m home alone! In the evening I went over to Carl and Marcus’ house… Yes, you read that right, readers. Marcus is now an official resident of the back bedroom in Carls house that I was talking about in my previous post.

Saturday was interesting. In the morning I went out to Argos to get some weights. My old ones are crap now so I wanted something a little heavier, and with a better hand bar. I got some meaty 15Kg ones that were half price… Well, I love a bargain!


Grrr...

In the afternoon I went to a barbeque for all the staff who helped out with the school play. I got there for about 5:00pm and left at about 1:30am this morning! Everyone had a good time, and I am now in possession of some the worlds funniest video footage of certain members of staff dancing after copious amounts of vodka. In fact, in case any of the kiddies read my blog, I’m not going to post it. I did however get a rather nice photo of a sunset!

Aaah... lovely.


After I came home for about 1:50am I went to bed, only to wake up early at about 8:00am… Why is it that when I’m late to bed, I always wake up early?

Well now that I’m up I had better start doing some weights… I want to tone up for Turkey!

TTFN readers.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

I went a rhem... (a what?) A rhem, I went a rhem. (Oh you mean a "room") Zat iz what I said, a rhem...

Hello readers and welcome to that special time of the week where you sit down to read all about my adventures, after I have sat down and thought “What the hell have I been doing this past week?” I might start typing up little notes in Word each day and amalgamate (ooh, big word!) them in to a single blog by copying and pasting it in to blogger at the end of the week to avoid all this nonsense.

Anyway, lets begin with Wednesday (since Monday and Tuesday appeared in my last blog) After a disastrous day at work (where I managed to smash Sally’s favourite Piglet mug by tripping over some stepladders which fell over and knocked it off the stock room shelf) I came home and spent quite a few hours just messing about on the computer until it was time to go down to Fathers. After watching the Diana concert I came home and spent another few hours messing about on the computer (I love http://www.digg.com/) before going to bed.

On Thursday work was very normal. I came home, got myself some tea and waited until the magical time of 8:00pm which is when I go to the pub with Lank. There weren’t many people there though, probably due to the smoking ban keeping everyone at bay. Still, it was a good night like it usually is and we left at about 12:00 midnight.

Friday at work, 3:00pm couldn’t come soon enough. Everyone in run-down towards the end of the week and waiting to go home on Friday was agony. In the evening Marcus phoned me to ask me if I wanted to meet up with him, Adam, and Carl for a drink in the Plough. When I got there Adam had already had an invite to go and watch a band in Leicester with Gemma and Woody. On the off chance that Jo hadn’t gone, Marcus gave her a ring to discover that she had gone with them, but the band in Leicester was on too early so everyone was in the Jug of Ale in Moseley. They told us to get down there pronto so we did… And I’m glad we did because we had a really good night. After we were booted off the premises about 10 minutes after the bar closed by a group, nay, a hoard of bar staff who really do not know how to talk to people properly, we headed to Shirley to have a pint in the Red Lion. Marcus was already pissed and got slightly worse as the night went on! We ended up staying at the Lion until 3:00am (I love the good old Lion Lock-in!) but were beaten by tiredness so we left.

I awoke bright and early Saturday morning. The original plan was to go to Memorabilia at the N.E.C but everyone had dismissed it the night before. Carl rang to see what I was doing and wondered if I might go over to sort out some “Business” that needed seeing to along with Marcus and Adam…

**Story time**

A few months ago, Carls house mates, Kate and Claire decided to move out so Carl has been living on his own. This means there are 2 spare bedrooms in the house that Mike, Carls dad, will be renting out. Adam had already said that he was interested in renting a room and moving in. Then I said I wouldn’t mind moving in, I mean it wouldn’t be cheap, and I’d seriously have to watch my spending but I think I could do it. Then Marcus said that He wouldn’t mind moving in…

… Problem. 2 Rooms, 3 people interested. We decided to go for a walk along the canal, have a pint at the boat inn, and take the day slowly. Afterwards we came back to discuss the matter… After a brief stint on Guitar hero 2…

Marcus was interested in the back room with the double bed because that meant that Jenny could stop a couple of nights per week. Which left me and Adam to have a gentlemanly chat about the front bedroom… I mean, he could probably better afford it, and it is still close to his work. I, on the other hand would have to move to Solihull, and really put myself on a budget…

… We didn’t reach a final outcome.

** Le Fin**

So anyways that was the evening. At about 12:30am we left to go home. Adam dropped Marcus back and I shot off as I was feeling knackered with all the walking we did. When I got back home I was casually browsing the interweb and came across something that will, in the next month or so, take the world by storm… Something that I know people are going to loot at and say “Oh. My. God. YES!” I won’t try to describe the awsomeness of it. I will simply give you the poster to look at…

Thats right people. A live action/CGI Alvin and the Chipmunks film coming out THIS CHRISTMAS! IS THAT FREAKIN' AWSOME OR WHAT!?

All together now:

Watch. out

cause here we come

It's been a while but, we're back with style, So

Get set, to have some fun

We'll bring you action. and satisfaction

We're the chipmunks

C-H-I-P-M-U-N-K

We're the chipmunks

Guaranteed to, brighten your day

When you, feel like a laugh

Give us a call we'll give you a roll

And if you, feel like a song

Tune in to us and, sing right along.

We're the chipmunks.

Coming on stronger than ever before.

We're the chipmunks.

Alvin, Simon, Theodore

Doo-doo. Doo-doo-doo-doo. Doo-doo. Doo-doo-doo-doo!

TTFN readers!

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

What? You mean there was a Willy Wonka before Johnny Depp?

Hello readers and welcome to a slightly late blog. Although, in my defence it is late for an important reason… You see if I had blogged on Sunday, as usual, then the photo’s which are part of this wouldn’t have been taken, and you would have had to wait a week to see them…

But first, let me go back to the beginning of last week…

Monday morning. The school play was drawing closer and I had a set to finish painting. The white washing had been done and I had started marking out where certain colours were going. Al my designs were looking good on paper and now all I had to do was paint it all up…

… So at 3:00pm I went down to the hall to discover that brushes had been left to dry up and so had the rollers… I gave them all an emergency soak and set to work. I left at about 5:00pm to get some tea and get out of my paint-stained clothes!

In the evening I went out with Donna to the Drawbridge. I was driving so she could have a drink or 4. At about 10:00pm she had a text from a work collegue who said he was coming to pick her up! I suppose it meant that I didn’t have to drop her home (but did you consider that I might have wanted to take you home, Miss Pickard?)

Anyway, she text me at god-knows what time thanking me for an enjoyable evening, so I guess I’m not completely hopeless at taking women out for a drink (women of the world, take note!)

Tuesday at work, I did more painting on set, as well as the odd cover lesson. More paint, more people, more mess!

Tuesday evening was interesting… Or at least I think it was… I can’t quite remember what we all did! John’s blog will tell you… Go there now to find out (but come back here afterwards, I haven’t finished yet)

Wednesday… More painting. In the evening I went down to fathers as usual.

On Thursday I decided to get some serious painting done! But I was “Helped” by a load of kiddies. Mark, who had found some cheap spray paint, decided it would be better to spray everything… Now this was a slight problem for 2 very specific reasons.

1) Spray paints didn’t match the matt colours I had chosen for the colour scheme
2) He decided to give the spray paint to kiddies who didn’t know HOW to spray paint.

Mark built the set and I think he wanted to help further... Not that he hasn’t, in fact other than Craig Hall (drama teacher and director of the play) Mark has done the most work out of everyone… He has got great enthusiasm and wants the play to do really well… But I have A DEGREE IN ART, and great enthusiasm and want the play to do really well… The kiddies started spraying things and basically, although they meant well, and I’m grateful of the support, it was one of those situations where I wished everyone would just piss-off and let me do what I do best. Actually it must be said that there were a few people genuinely helping and doing a good job… And guess what? They were all using brushes, and under MY direct supervision.

In the evening I was glad to go down to the Packhorse. I was in need of a pint or 3.

Ok, Friday… Was basically a full days painting! In fact I managed to GET IT ALL DONE!!! Woohoo! The only thing left was the giant Wonka Bar, which I wanted to do at home. Also I took home a load of questionnaires to put in to excel. The school needed them done and I had no time to do them whilst I was there so I just snatched them with the promise they would return all nice and tidy first thing Monday morning… So that’s what my weekend consisted of. Wonka bars and spreadsheets! I did take time out to go to see shrek 3 with Dan, and popped in to a party at my sisters house on saturday . It was a friends birthday and they had a pinata! Like a pro' I got the ol' phone out to video it!




... Why do I sound like a dick?

Moving on to Sunday I spent the whole day doing spreadsheets until I went down my nans. Afterwards Selena came back to help me finish my torture that is Microsoft Excel.
On Monday, i.e. yesterday, I took all my work back to school. The wonka bar was finished and so was my sexy little data sheet! It does look pro' I must admit. I hated doing it, but it will be the best department data sheet in school!
Ok, you may have noticed I'm sort of rushing through this now... thats because I am going to see the school play in a bit! It is the first showing and i want to see how it has all turned out... And remember those pictures I mentioned at the start? the ones i delayed my blog for? well here they are...
Ladies and Gentlemen... The set of Willy Wonka, as imagined by myself....

The gates to the factory. (the other side becomes the glass elevator. I will get you a pic' of that because it looks really good!)


The chocolate shop


The Bucket family bed (those are my handprints)


The Bucket family door (the other side is the door to the invention room at the factory)

Also, in art club (which I have been neglecting due to my set-painting) some of the kiddies have decided the door to A1 needs brightening up... So...


They have painted Goku on it! The 2 responsible have done a good job, and we now officially have the coolest door in school!

Right. I will have to sign off readers, I have a play to watch!

TTFN...