Odd Thomas Odd Blog

I have a weakness ... and it's name is Mini Eggs! That's them, over there, on the right ... or it would be if I hadn't eaten the little buggers before I'd even reached the flat. Just when I thought I was doing so well with eating proper food, along comes the extra-early Easter preparation and the release of millions of those sweet, crisp, egg-shaped balls of mouth-watering chocolate ... and now I want to head out and buy a second pack to devour! NO! I MUST RESIST!!!!

Last night was the final night of The Centralian Players' production of House of Secrets by Peter McKelvey ... and oooooooh, what a night! Aware of how the cycle generally goes with these things - having a good night followed by a bad night - I was rather worried about how the final night would go considering Friday went so well. I think that awareness is what made me so scared and made me shake so much: I came so close to losing control. Its all very well to rationalise something - in this case, that it was the last night so it was almost over - but that rationalisation means absolutely nothing unless you feel the truth of it throughout your whole body ... and I didn't feel that until the first half was over and it really hit me that there was only half the play to go. Then I finally settled into the role properly. By the time the play was over, I have to confess that I was on a high from the adrenaline that was racing through my system, and by the time I got down to see my...

Woohoo, the second night of the play is now under our belts and what a corker it was! All the things I did wrong last night were on my mind tonight, so I was constantly on edge, nerves jangling my system more than a rampant rabbit ever could: though there was no pleasure in this!! The main piece that had me worried was my long bit with Hector as I really messed that up last night. However, we succeeded in getting it pretty much word perfect tonight and, when we both came off the stage, we were beaming like Cheshire Cats ! It probably helped that we had a really good audience that reacted appropriately to the play, laughing and gasping in all the right places. Getting that kind of feedback is great, as you feel the audience are really getting involved with the story, so it helps to bouy you along. There is only one problem with having a good night: because you are on a high from it, the following night tends to run not quite so smoothly, whether due to complacency or over-confidence....

When I first knew I was going to be in The Centralians' next production, I knew immediately that I would need to take the time off work so I didn't end up in a position where I had to work late ... as usually happens when I have commitments outside of work. Wednesday was a prime example of that. I had to work at the customer site to provide some training on several of the plug-ins available for the Immediacy CMS . This seemed to go generally okay and we managed to finish before three o'clock, which left me with some time to work on another job dumped on my lap by The Boss: putting pictures onto the customer's intranet! I'm supposed to be a developer, for goodness sake, not a content management lacky!!! However, I am not a Lotus Notes developer, so trying to work out what the previous developer's have done with the site, and how it works, has been a bit of a problem ... if it wasn't for OpenNTF.org providing a picture gallery template, allowing me to at l...

It seems that later this year I will be following in Simon Pegg's footsteps ... well, half of them, anyway ... as I have just registered with the ballot for the Great North Run ! Okay, I might not actually make it through the ballot, in which case I will have to pick a charity to race for, but I think I should make a determined effort to take part this year, especially after backing out last year because of the studying. What kind of fool am I to allow myself to be talked into this?! Well, in all fairness, I have been casually considering it for the past few weeks since I received the mail about the ballot opening. Then I started talking to my friend Up North who is always up for a challenge and who signed up earlier today, taunting me that I should sign up just so I can eat her dust*. So I signed up. Not that I'm in any way competitive, of course. Honest. *cough* Anyway, assuming I can get my widening behind out of the chair, I will probably be using this blog to keep all y...

I think I can safely say that I will be joining Cath's C.R.A.F.T club in the not too distant future. What with work and the play, and not being able to settle down to sleep until gone 1:00am, I am forgetting all sorts of things. It is especially embarrassing when I am halfway through a sentence and forget what I was saying ... which I am seriously hoping won't happen in the play this week. It's hard to believe that twelve weeks of rehearsals are now up. Finished. Finito. Barring, of course, the full and final dress rehearsal tomorrow night. I'm bricking it just thinking about it, but as the others have said, what's the point in doing it if you don't get nervous? The nerves really hit home on Sunday when we had gotten the set pretty much sorted and I walked into the hall to see the main lights off and the stage lights on. That was enough to set off the hourde of butterflies in my stomache, and I wasn't even on the stage at that point. With everything ...

Since the Hotpoint engineer left on Thursday with that confidence-inspiring comment , I have to confess to not being overly eager to use the washer-dryer: at least, not the dryer part anyway. So, with two washes down and the airer laden with more underwear than M&S can stock, I decided to try a third load, this time using the dryer so I didn't have to start hanging clothes on the curtain rail or off the shelves. My shirts are now being used as a set of trendy curtains ... yes, the dryer packed up again with an F-13 error. I am not a happy chappie. Which begs the question: did the engineer who came on Thursday know that it was going to break again? Time to fight for a new one. * * * * * Despite the ongoing grief with the washer-dryer, the weekend hasn't been too bad, just a tiring one. Saturday saw me making my usual trek to Presence for a late lunch and to learn my lines, this time listening to them on my Rio rather than reading them: it helps to hear the cue. Unfortunat...

I was forwarded the first of these in Facebook and couldn't help sharing them with you here. Very funny - though you might not want to watch them if you're sensitive to certain profanities :-)

A week ago today I had an engineer in to fix my washer-dryer, who basically commented that it was a waste of time buying these things as they always break: always good to hear in our modern, state-of-the-art society! As he couldn't fix it there and then, he booked for the engineer from the previous breakdown to come back today. The engineer turned up around lunchtime, spent 30 minutes fixing it and complaining on the phone that the last guy didn't even look into the problem properly and then left saying, "See you again soon, no doubt". So, does that mean its fixed and is just a crap product or that its not fixed and I'll be seeing him again when I next try to use it?! I think that when the insurance runs out on this, I will consider purchasing a regular washing machine: that's six engineers I've had out to this now and its barely two years old. Well, at least today went better than last night. I'd had a reasonably good day at work yesterday and, come ...

...what's my line again? That's pretty much what last night was like, our first rehearsal on stage ... and what a difference to rehearsing at the church hall! Up until now, I was starting to get reasonably confident with my lines, only dropping the odd bit here and there, but last night it was like I'd just put the script down for the first time and was trying to remember what I'd read. I panicked. And when I panic, my mind goes blank. Completely. In that state, if you ask me my name, there is a good chance I wouldn't be able to tell you and all you would get is my goldfish impression!!! Thankfully, I wasn't the only one this was happening to and it is apparently expected when you first hit the stage: I just hope it doesn't happen when the audience turn up... By the time act two came around, I think I was a bit more in control and I didn't forget the lines, though the thought of having to be prompted still fills me with dread. Call me anal, but I don...

Crikey, I didn't realise that a whole week had gone by since my last post! Admittedly, things have been a bit swamped, what with being dumped on at work by The Boss and ramping up for the play in a couple of weeks. Whilst I don't mind helping the boss out with stuff, it is frustrating when he disappears off on holiday for two weeks, dumping some application in your lap that he's cobbled together. Three days I wasted trying to fix his code in order to load financial data from a third-party system into the new system at our customer site. The man should not be allowed near a keyboard: his work would make the hardiest of developers cringe in fear or, at the very least, have nightmares about it. Even more frustrating is discovering that he has handed my name out to people to do jobs that we shouldn't even be doing. We might as well be a full-blown department of the customer's instead of an out-sourced solution, for all the freebies we do for them. Anyhoo! Enough abou...

Whilst rehearsing for a play can occasionally be tiring, there is the odd occasion where we kind of lose all control ... tonight was just one of those nights. We were about to go back over a scene for the second time when one of the other members walked past, making a sound not too unlike this one *. Okay, looking back, it was one of those 'you had to be there' moments, but both Lawrence and I lost control ... it was at least fifteen minutes before we managed to get on with the rest of the scene without cracking up. Childish? Yes, but incredibly funny at the time ... it must have something to do with not eating much today. That's my excuse! Once again, I have small welts all over my body where I was pinching myself to stop from laughing. I'm starting to look like I'm developing Hives ! * Provided courtesy of Soundsnap.com - why not check out the other fart sounds ?! Yes, I'm a big kid!!

I am so totally shattered today, its as if I've had all the energy sapped right out of me. Mind you, its hardly surprising considering the amount of exercise I've had over the past couple of days doing the DIY, swinging around the loft like a tooled-up ape. Good news on the DIY front: I can now have a bath with the light on and, judging by the power of the fan, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the flat left the ground one night ... its like I've installed a jet engine! I swear I could feel my hair attracted to it by the suction! Luckily sorting out the wiring wasn't much of an issue. All I had to do was buy some 4-core cable* and wire that in place of the existing 3-core (which I couldn't use due to the third core not being sheathed). The hardest part was threading the cable through the ceiling ... I couldn't remove the fan because I had done the previous trick of sealing it into place!! Still feeling in the DIY mood, I decided to try and sort out the t...

After something of a slow start to the day - namely not getting up until gone midday - I popped down town for a bite to eat and to learn my lines, whilst deciding whether to go to my cousin's birthday party or to get my broken bathroom fan sorted*. Knowing what I am like, I decided to bite the bullet and get the fan sorted, otherwise I would be having a bath in the dark for the next few months** ... I'm not the most motivated when it comes to starting DIY projects, which is odd as when I get into the swing of them, I really enjoy it. So, apologies to my cousin! If its any consolation, I feel really guilty about not showing my face ... again! I will have to find a way to make it up to her. Anyway, I managed to run through my lines once whilst having lunch at Presence again, which caught the eye of one of the staff ... and definitely the most attractive girl there. Well, she now knows where and when the next production is showing and which group is producing it ... is it too m...

Many people received Wii s for Christmas last year and it appears that there have been some additions to the pack, in the form of silicon jackets for the remote controls. Jealous? Then you can register to get your own, FOR FREE ! Just fill out the Wii Remote Jacket Request Form and sit by the postbox like a Raving Rabbid !! Happy Wii-ing!! * * I don't think that will ever sound right!

From barely one second into the new year*, I have been planning on spending money on all kinds of goodies in 2008, ranging from a new TomTom to a new phone ** to a new TV . However, as with all of my best-laid plans, it appears that other forces are at work here and trying hard to postpone the fun side of things by adding up lots of little costs for me ... which makes a change as I usually have a huge bill for something or other round about this time of year! I've already mentioned that my washer-dryer has gone tits up again and, luckily, extended the warranty the week before Christmas (how's that for timing?!). Well, in addition to that, the bathroom fan that my Dad and I replaced a couple of years ago, has also decided it was a bit fed up of the daily spin and started smouldering in its little corner of the ceiling. As it is attached to the light switch, this has meant digging out a handful of candles from the back of the cupboard so that I don't have to bathe in the da...