Sentient Fungus Present's....

cave_gary @ 2007-10-21T18:28:00

2007-10-21T17:31:47Z

Ah ha, It's back. Very breifly popped on the net up at the aprents house. Sadly a bout of paranoia (about just what embaressing photos of me there may be on there) has forced me to join facebook. I blame you all.

will have to ge tthe net sorted for my flat, as it'll probably be cheaper than entertaining myself with a never ending stream of dvd's and books (which sadly cost money).

Just incase some of you havent seen it yet, i'd like to report that my beard is one of the best things in the history of the world. ever :-p (not that i amsue myself by beard based mockery. atall)

Brief and not all that intresting

2007-08-05T13:34:14Z

Right, sorry it's been so long since being online, but i havent got an internet connection as i still don't know if i'm staying in my flat. There may be a small issue with a collapses ceiling*.

Basically my life has degenerated into the going to work, slobbing around weekends thing. The only thing close to news i have is that i got a promotion, and for the last month have been running our new Lab. We arent all that busy yet, and we've more or less been starting from scratch. The sad part of the promotion is that i'm now on days (so no 22% shift allowance) and have far less overtime. So in essence i took a noticable pay cut for the promotion, but as <lj user="bright_raven"> pointed out, that's hardly a rare thing to hear.

Using the cycle2work scheme with halfords, i shall shortly have a shiny 550 quid bike. Hopefully this one will survive, unlike my poor abused cheapo one.

Floods may have trashed most of glos., but ebley (where i live) never even lost water. Had some fun riding through the floods, but home and work life largely unaffected.

Sadly ireland doesnt look overly likely, given the utterly trashed state of my passport.

Hopefully i'll manage to do something intresting in the next few months.

* - my hot water tank leaks, and the landlord refused to fix it. 2 months later, the ceiling in my kitchen collapses. 1 month after collapse, still not fixed. so i may end up moving out after 6 months, rather than the year i originally planned. so no point trying to get net/phone/etc. contracts that last a year.

cave_gary @ 2007-05-13T16:46:00

2007-05-13T15:47:56Z

Just a quick statement that i moved everything over okay, and so far every thing is relatively fine with the world of the flat. unlikely to have internet in there before the end of may/beginning of june.

any old iron, any old iron....i mean pine

2007-04-26T20:13:03Z

Bloody hell. I just made off like a bandit!

I have an absolute ton of furniture and curtains (easily a grands worth) for FREE! :-D

Hurrah for Dad's boss's boss wanting rid of the stuff that doesnt suit his new home :-)

cave_gary @ 2007-04-22T14:57:00

2007-04-22T13:59:03Z

sucessful morning. I have bought a double futon and a two seat sofa for the princley sum of 70 pounds. Next week will involve a trip down to wottton under edge to collect all sorts of other furniture from a workmate of dad's. That leaves a requirement for a bed and a washing machine (and at some point a freezer) and i'll be all furnished.

Now i just have to make sure i get the bloody flat :-)

GRRRRR

2007-04-20T10:10:18Z

Who the hell do some of these random companies think they are? If i've never heard of you, and you send me a text message out of the blue asking me to urgently contact you, I'm kind enough to phone you and find out who you are and why you want to speak to me.

But i'm damned if i'm giving out personal information to any random company before they're willing to tell me what they want to talk to me about. If you want my details, you'll have had to tell me what sort of dealings you want with about, and i'll have to have decided that i wish to have dealings with you.

The bloody nerve of these people. If they are genuine, and representing organisations i've had dealings with before, those org's will have many of my details, and will easily be able to find me through the electoral register. So this is precisely what i have instructed them to do.

cave_gary @ 2007-04-15T05:22:00

2007-04-15T04:22:48Z

arse biscuits.

Got up at 4am on a sunday to go to work. Bike decides now will be the time to have a puncture.

So, no work today and i got up at 4am for nowt. bugger.

To quote myself in an early morning text to _tonylee_...

2007-04-12T18:55:52Z

Drama drama drama drama mushroom mushroom.

Yes friends, Brum was good and can be briefly described as follows:

Friday: far to drunk. covered myself in cow's blood. jabbered to much shite

Saturday: Was plagued by shop alarms, went to HoG, didnt get drunk enough. Various people got to drunk and cuased my overly sober self issues. examples include, but are not limited to:

Overly stubborn goths :-)

Pissed up aggressive welshmen

stupidly drunk people i dont like

People i do like expecting me to look after those i dont (who are in no way my problem)

Overly drunk boltonians deciding to be drunk at me after hours of dealing with shite from other drunks.

Yes, i hate it when the shoe is on the other foot, and yes i deserve it :-)

On the plus side, i didnt shame myself (at least on the saturday), got to catch up with lots of people, meet others (some for the 4 or 5th time, apparently :-s) and had a truly excellent "who's more evil?" conversation with a very on form whiterrabbit.

sunday involved pub and avoiding a "pride and predjudice" marathon. But seriously, guys, if i'm talking to a vegitarian, god bothering yogaist, could you please tell me before the goose story comes up? yes _tonylee_ and madwelshwizard you are indeed cocks :-) I far prefer it if pretty women who dont already know me arent aware of my myriad of flaws/blood thirstyness till after the first conversation :-p

A great deal of thanks go out to my excellent hosts berley_girl, dark_raven, happy_dravya and of course Jim. Maybe i'll catch you on a more awake weekend next time :-)

So in summary good time had, wonderful seeing all sorts of people, not as much of a tit made out of myself as usual, more drama than usual.

Currently looking very good for my moving into flat in may, but sadly that will massively crush my disposable income. So, from now on my trips away will be fewer and far more carefuil with money. However, once i'm in and set up, people are morte than welcome to come down to see me :-)

Oh, in a side issue, I owe tony and co an apology for the friday in the country girl. However, the explanation will have to wait for a better time.

"this isn't my shotgun shack"

2007-04-04T21:49:53Z

Right, hopefully if everything goes alright with the referenceing (as the nice lady* at the letting agent expects it to), i shall have a flat about 2 miles from work as of the 9th of May.

This is great news as it means less cycling, more me-ness and greater ability to have people down. this is less good as it means after this weekend, no more trips to brum for a while (furniture will be sucking up most of my spare dosh) and possibly no internet for a couple of weeks.

But, it's a lovely flat. most excellent for my needs.

but yes, shall be around brum friday through early monday. anyone feels like seeing me, lob us a message.

* - she happens to have an excellent arse, as well shown off by a silky skirt today.

cave_gary @ 2007-04-01T23:18:00

2007-04-01T22:19:33Z

Hehehehe

ditzy_shoe_girl just managed to call me by her boyfriends name. Lets alll hope she doesnt make the same mistake when talking to him :-p

(sorry lass, couldn't resist)

cave_gary @ 2007-03-25T18:56:00

2007-03-25T18:02:25Z

Been the best part of a fortnight since posting. unsuprising that, as nothing intresting happens down here. ever. due to this lack of intresting reports, have some boring ones.

This weekend was mostly spent moving half a tonne (literally) of sand from front drive to back garden. Then using said sand to make a level base on a 4m*3m area of the garden. then many hours were spent pressure washing and laying (with all sorts of adjusting of level with sand) paving stones to cover said area. next weekend is concreting the gaps between stones, and eventually a shed shall sit there.

So, no change on the job front, i'm getting steadily more and more bored with my stupidly easy tasks. Also, people are becoming stupid enough to try and play their silly little politics games with me. Hopefully this won't annoy me enough to join in with my games, as sadly i'd destroy a fair few of their lives, which would be a tad disproportionate a response to their stupidity.

Hopefully plan to move closer to work will continue to pan out for end of may, beginning of june. Be it a flat i rent myself or a house share is yet to be decided (a small possibility of a houseshare has appeared, but it'd have to pan out, and i'd have to be sure it'd work out before i got myself into one of those).

Early shift's next week, so expect sleep deprivation if you have any contact with me.

"roll with the changes"

2007-03-12T15:44:40Z

Quality (if brief) trip up to birmingham. Lots of booze, some turning gerbil cages into fire wood, more booze, loads of people, more booze, some inappropriate behaviour and more booze occured.

Sadly i have just remembered that there was someone with a video camera at malediction. This worries me, as it increases the chances i did something stupid, and means there's the possibility of permanent record of my stupidity. oh dear.

Anyone who feels the need to berate/mock/inform me of any stupid arse things i did, now is the time :-)

Big thanks to bright_raven, berley_girl and co for the crash space.

"the mammals are your favourite time"

2007-03-05T08:44:52Z

Right, after many instances of missing it, i shall actually* be making it to malediction this coming weekend. Cheers to Andy, Kim and co for the crash space.

Given this is a lates to earlies weekend, i shall basically only be about lunch time saturday to as soon as i can haul my carcass to the train station sunday, so if anyone is daft enough to want to see me, who isnt going to malediction, we'll have to sort something out for the saturday afternoon.

In other news, went down to bristol with parents to see sister this weekend. Ended up in a rather odd, but very nice, place called "bar humbug". Certainly different, with reasonable food at a reasonable price (well, as reasonable as you can have on whiteladies road). nice and chilled.

* = obviously this is subject to surviving another week of cycling :-p

"with the ghosts of every drinker thats ever done wrong"

2007-02-27T21:10:41Z

Todays ride home featured rain, heavy wind driving said rain, more rain and roads more resembling streams. The upshot of this was gary being drenched to the bone within 3 mins.

Now, may people may consider that a bad thing, but this is where "gary on early's with almost no sleep" pattern brain functions come in. You're soaking wet, therefore you cant get any wetter. So, thrash the hell out of you legs, and enjoy a nice zoomy ride through all the fun water. So i did, very calming.

For those whop havent noticed, my little "existential crisis" (as yartek put it) has wandered off. to be replaced by amusement and my old alpha plan. If work want to keep hold of me, then they'll just have to pony up a real job rather than nebulous promises of a undefined future role, if they don't before i'm all army fit, then they can bugger theselves :-p

Sadly i have had a total of 4 hours sleep these last two days. Also Life on Mars has been replaced by footie. And there is nothing more annoying than wanting to know the answer to something, when you know you cant even try to find out, let alone ever know. Silly past not being like the internet :-p

I rather like this album. However some of it reminds me of the excellent "up the bracket" by the libertines, and some of the lad's singing is a little to close to the artic monkeys.

"It's knowing your weakness that made you strong"

2007-02-26T16:28:25Z

I must say, getting Donnie darko on DVD fro £2 in WH smith's rocks almost as much as getting mallrats for £2.84 in tesco did :-)

Absolutly mullering myself on the ride home is less good, especially as now i'm going to follow it up with a run. I may have gone a tad mad today.

Things that amuse me: My boss's lame attempts to justify picking jamie for the job over me, and his beleif that vague, unqualified promises about possible future options will somehow make me beleive my department offers a good shot at a career :-D

In more entertaining news, the mass destruction that is the MLRS is being sent off to helmand province :-) Cue grid squares containing taleban being entirely removed from play. mmm...cluster munitions.

edit - Hell yeah, just knocked off an easy 1.8km (mix of up and down hill, tarmac and muddy wood) without any trouble. Would have had no problem whacking another 500m on top if i'd felt like it. Didnt bother to time, as it's the first time i've ran since before christmas.

However, this is quite promising. the Biking must be far better for CV than i thought for me to have been able to bang out that distance after so long not doing the running.

Feeling damned good now (but i think my muscles may hate me tomorrow morning when i climb on the bike again :-D )

cave_gary @ 2007-02-23T12:34:00

2007-02-23T12:41:31Z

Unsuprisingly it was a tad late to arrange things for this weekend, so i have obtained my own amusement. In the form of dvd's, doom3 and "Volkerball" (a limited edition dvd/audio cd package from rammstein) :-)

In other news, the right pedal fell off my bicycle last week, so today i have to replace it. I may whinge a lot about the bloody bike, and need to fix it a lot, but I can't really comlain given the poor thing has done at least 1250 miles since i got it, and isnt really designed for that sort of level of use.

Also, i feel the need to say the following: If you do 60% of the work, it's entirely reasonable to get less money. You want the same money, do the same amount of work. Yes, i am talking about wimbeldon tennis. Start playing best of 5 sets, then i'll consider equality to have been served. As it stands, only unprincipled greed has triumphed.

Dammit!!!

2007-02-22T22:32:33Z

Arg, haley has thrown a strop, so i am not going to visit pete in Northampton tomorrow. More than 12 hours notice would have been nice, but ah well.

So, i have a day off, a free weekend, and have just been paid. So, Anyone feel like doing something this weekend? Anyone feel like exchanging having me cluttering up their sofa for 2 nights for some beer* and the chance to laugh at me?

If so, feel free to say, and i'll love you forever/buy you booze/make you wish you hadnt offered :-p

* = insert drink of choice if beer isnt it.

cave_gary @ 2007-02-11T18:03:00

2007-02-11T18:04:34Z

This post is a short public service announcement:

Burnout:Revenge is far to addictive. And i shouldnt be allowed to drive cars. ever.

cave_gary @ 2007-02-05T23:19:00

2007-02-05T23:21:14Z

Thi smatters to absolutley no one, but Quickest time back ever. 45mins to get home this evening on the bike, with the hills almost all against me. (for comparison, my average time in, with the hills almost exclusively in my favour is 45mins). My legs are not overly happy with me right now.

In other news, the film ultraviolet is exceptionally shit. Also Salmon microwave meals are even more disgusting than normal microwave meals :-(

"on the road to manderley"

2007-02-03T18:19:31Z

It occurs to me that i haven't bored you lot with the rather unexciting details of my life for the past 2 weeks. So, prepare to have your insomnia cured.

Work was proceeding as per usual, until wedensday. Where after some twat (who will remain nameless, and has a far higher opinion of himself than he has either the brains or talent to back up) changed his fiddling from the programs that "nellie"* runs, to her hardware. Cue the transformer on our half a million quid bit of kit (which happens to be instrumental to the entire department, and therefore company) exploding. Therefore nellie is now a waste of space untill wedensday, when replacement transformer will hopefully have been constructed and installed.

Therefore there was no point us loading any more cans (as we couldn't seal, and therefore press them in to the quality polycrystalline cutters we are famous** for). Hence i took friday off. So, that meant wandering home on the bus thursday. that meant hitting the stroud game exchange. Which meant getting a second hand x-box, crimson skies and MOh:frontline. Whoops, there goes 70 quid.

Friday, headed into stroud again, bought 5 dvd's for 20 quid in woolies sale. bought 3 s/h dvds from game exchange for a tenner + mortal kombat and half life 2 for £20. headed home. Sadly dozy bint in woolworths forgot to put in the dvd for "ultraviolet", therefore cue going in again today, and buying £20 of cd's in woolies sale when i got the dvd replaced. As if more evidence was needed that i have gone rather mad, the cd's included the greatest hits of rod stewart and a catherine jenkins album. Ah well, sane points, easy come, easy go.

This is the tricky one. Let's face it, i'm getting old, and can't really afford to waste time (hell,i'm in 24 in 30 days, then i'll officially be in my mid twenties. arg). so, what the hell is the plan? stick with this company, smash the hell out of myself getting army fit (while still having to do shift work and cycle my 75 mile's a week***), stick with this job and blag an OU degree out of them (highly possible, it would just have to be in mech engineering or something geological) or wait and see as to which to go for?

Well, as per usual, i'm not sure, so i'm going with option 4, wait and see. I'll continue to slowly ramp my fitness back up to pre fox assualt levels, and while doing so, i'm applying for a promotion at work. Yes, i wont get it, my competition is an old mate of my boss's. But i'm damned if i'll give him a free ride (and it'll have the advantage of reminding the bigger boss's who brought me in at the beginning i'm still here, and they might want to see some of their ideas through before i start cuasing trouble :-p).

Other problems with future include:

1)How can i stop the utter drivel that pours form my mouth when pissed up? really, the mouth seems to keep talking while the brains fucked off to take a piss somehwere, then the brain comes back and has no clue why so much unmitigated bull shit flew from my mouth).

2)Ways to stop myself randomly assigning people to be opposed to for an evening. I get bored as i lack sufficient enemies these days. So i will start drinking and decide "that "x" is obviously against me, i must oppose everything they do". Sadly I seem to mainly chose toxicpixie, [Bad username: persplex_avenger], any nearby emo kid or my own liver for this dubious honour. When this failing is combined with number 1, serious levels of making a prick out of myself ensue.

3) Social life. Obtaining a social life from scratch sucks balls, and is rather difficult. so i don't bother. However, its starting to look like i'm here fore 12 months or so. So, is it worth the effort of spending 6 months of that doing something hard, and not guarenteed to succeed, which i might then not need 6 months later? of course, the alternative is more of having all my non work social intewraction at the end of a trainline (as it is now). once again, will put off a decision on this issue.

4) "the anger". Was it back in a proper way, or was it just a random one off resurfacing? damned if i know, but as no one got smashed last time, it seems my will is good enough to deal with the odd resurgence. so wont worry, but will keep a careful eye open. and avoid bringing an axe to parties :-p

5) women. one of these days i'll have to learn how the hell to deal with that half of the population. But on the plus side, i can't possibly get any worse :-)

Well colleagues this turned into far more of a random speil than i was intending. whoops. But on the plus side, i'm sure at least one person will get a better nights sleep after trying to read all of this drivel :-)

* = Neelie is a giant blue machine, that has been a great deal of trouble. Essentially it is a giant device for welding the tiny cans together using a cathode ray. Easiest way to think of it is as the worlds most expensive TV. However, due to massive problems getting it up and running, followed by regualr breakdowns, we declared it a white elephant. Being blue, obviously that became Nellie the elephant. then Nellie, and worryingly enough, now often "her/she".

** = Well, we would be famous for them if you happened to be in the business of drilling for oil :-)

*** = Not as helpful as it may sound. All the cycling does nothing for me in terms of cardiovascular (which is what i'm short on). It has however made my ,previously quite strong, legs a tad excessive.

the weather may not hate me, but my bank and liver do

2007-01-22T09:14:26Z

Now, i don't often say things out loud to myself. But looking out the window a few minutes ago, in a biggles style, i ejaculated the following phrase "it's bastard snowing, cock!". For those not paying attn, snow is not fun, it's a way to make my cycle to work that little bit harder.

In other news, quality weekend was had, with minimal disgracing of myself. Well, minimal by my standards :-p

Sadly it saw the return of "the anger". After a good couple of years abscence, i wasn't quite prepared for it's resurgence, especially over the thoughtless and rude behaviour of an emo kid for fucks sake. I'd manage to forget just how powerful and urge it gives you to crack the targets skull open like a ripe orange. I'll have to keep an eye on this agin. bugger.

Right, no one else is allowed suprise parties anytime soon, as this one ended costing me extreme amounts of money :-)

cave_gary @ 2007-01-17T21:34:00

2007-01-17T21:37:24Z

ah well, it appears my installation of windows xp finally died. Either that or my comp is entirely kaput). Next time I in brum, i may try to extort a copy of a xp pro disc form someone, and attempt to fix with that. Of course, depending how money is this month, i may juts buy a cheap PC to replace it. Either way, till then, i need new ways to entertain myself. Cue more raids in the loft for books i haven't read recently.

Apparently there is a good chance of 40 mph gusts at the time i cycle in tomorrow. This could be fun :-D

"does your mother know that you're out?"

2007-01-15T16:22:59Z

Things that suck:

Vomming in the coach on way back from work's post crimbo event

Catching a workmate giving me a friendly headbutt in my peripheral vision, and making his nose bleed with a rather smooth upward hit from the heel of my hand.

Birmingham city council sending me letters demanding full payment of tax, when they have already agreed to a payment plan, of which i have already paid the foirst installment (in plenty of time)

Things that rock:

pay day soon

the works crimbo do (minus the above points)

"annie, let's not wait"

2007-01-03T17:27:59Z

My bike appears to have a symbiotic relationship with mud. While away, my father pressure washed bike clean. Rode to work this morning amidst all sorts of clanking and other assorted not particularily pleasant noises. Ride home this afternoon, witht he same noises. Untill i hit a big arsed puddle. The bike gets a little mud on it, all the creaking and clanmking ceases. This is puzzling and odd. Therefore entirely to be expected in my working life.

This past weekend, i realised (and mentioned) that i had become a stereotype. Doing nothing intresting while at home/work, and basically having fun once a month. This is rather unacceptable, as it allows to much slidfe in the direction of drone-ness. Therefore it makes sense to me to improve my ability to mock pretentious people. Yes, my lack of a classical education has always limited me in my higher level options for mocking the stuck up. Therefore i intend to find a teacvh myself latin book. or course of books. or steal a latin speaking minion, lock them in the garage and foirce them to teach me the language in exchange for water, food and heat. but most likely the book. Then, i can truly mock the pompous with satire where i appear to be pompous. It'll rock. or not, but either way, it's something to do.

Other boredom destroying plans include the likely to be hilarious spectacle of my parents and I playing badminton regularily. They lost by suggesting i buy them raquets for cashfest, which i did. so they lost all excuses. hahahah. Friday will commence operation parental exercise.

in other news radio 2 keeps playing annoying pop indie tracks that get stuck in my head. this one appears to be by a band named aftewra variety of sea bird. possibly a variety that i imagined, but possibly not.

These thought porcesses were brought to you by a week of having only alcohol cuased collapse (rather than sleep) and a mere hours sleep between getting home yesterday and getting up at 4am this morning.

"as i was exploring the outskirts of the city, i found an abandoned super robot"

2007-01-02T17:55:49Z

Reasonably successful trip to brum. As far as i recall only one relatively unreasonable rant and one entirely stupid arsed (massively offensive)statement in the shame category. There may have been third and forth shame entries, but as i dont remember destroying the dvd player (and no one else remembers what happened to it) and not having been hit with any hammers, i feel it unlikely that i am missing 2 shame features.

So, mostly there was silly amounts of food and booze, lots of randomness and chatting, far to many cats (okay, they werent actually all that cat like, so i'll let them off), excessively heavy handed directing from clint eastwood, and even more booze.

But the main point that needs making is this. Super robot monkey team hyperforce go! Any show that's enemy is a supergiant robot thing called "the skeleton king" (that lives on a star destroyer shaped asteroid, and has the best minions ever), and features 5 random monkey robots that pilot a giant robot along with some sort of super powered emo kid is well worth watching. I may track down the DVD's at some point.