Odd Thomas Odd Blog

I seem to be finding it harder and harder to write anything nowadays, partly because of having so much on my plate, but mostly because tiredness has brought me to the brink of narcolepsy: I'm like a nodding dog in front of my 'puter. Thankfully, I have yet to reach the point where I'm drifting off whilst writing ... that's when the really weird stuff starts coming out. What usually starts off as a sensible sentence quickly descends into some kind of surreal reference before morphing into something akin to a declining ECG chart. Perhaps I should just go with the flow and scan these little wanderings in for all to be perplexed by :-) One of the more entertaining activities to wake myself up is to chase the flies hanging around by the window, the intention being to bat them across the office Wii Sports style, but usually with as much skill and grace as a hippo on caffeine. I don't know where they come from or where they disappear to, but they appear from around mid-mo...

All these years I thought I had no official qualifications whatsoever and it turns out that I've had a Diploma in Taking Stick all along ... well, blow me! For the sharp ones amongst you, yes, I am alluding to the recent change in employment that seems to have brought with it everything I expected and more, hence the expectant expletive in the previous post. Most of you will probably be unaware that I have been resisting promotion within the company for coming up to two years now. I can hear you all screaming now: "Why?! Are you crazy?!?!" Maybe. However, let me put it to you this way: would you take on a job that had no spec or outline of duties, with no idea if there is a pay increase and with a boss who has blatantly lied to you in the past, put your name on official company documents without either asking or telling you and hasn't paid your expenses for the past six months? Hmmm, I guess the control freaks amongst you would see this as an opportunity, but the mor...

Yesterday, I officially became the Director of Software Development. Oh f*ck.

This weekend, I mostly did ... nothing! Actually, I did have plans for the weekend, but they went somewhat askew when I found out last Friday that the diving kit I had ordered on express delivery last Tuesday had not been despatched: I was supposed to be going to Chepstow quarry with Pygmie on Sunday. Okay, it was just the BCD and some weights, all of which I could have hired, but nobody told me my order was being held up and I was really looking forward to going diving with the first bit of my own major kit. Needless to say, I was hopping around like a very unhappy bunny. Image from invisibleman.com Somehow, I managed to keep a reasonably clear head whilst talking to the nice girl in customer services and requested that the express delivery be refunded in full, as I am not getting a service that I paid for. As seems to be the case with a lot of customer services, all the girl could do was escalate the issue to her manager, so we ended the phone call and I waited. Quite surprisingly...

I am a big fan of computer animations and would love to have been leaving school now so I could go to Uni and learn how to do it all for myself. However, being someone that has all the creativeness of a stone and who is not keen on being considered a 'mature' student*, that's never going to happen, so instead I enjoy watching other people's creations, especially the Pixar stuff as their quality is amazing. Sometimes, though, it is the simplest things that can be the most entertaining ... such as The Owl , shown on CBBC . Yes, okay, its for kids, but its definitely worth checking out for a little chuckle :-) * I'm not all that mature ... get a few drinks inside me and I can be as childish as the rest of em!

Last night, I finally got around to getting some of Sunday's pics posted to Flickr . Unfortunately, there is nothing really there that I can add to a portfolio but there are a couple of reasonable ones that I thought I'd post here for you to have a butchers at ... its gotta be better than taking your time up with another epic account! At the end of the first display, the mounted police lined up and made sure their rides shared the applause. Rottweilers are gorgeous dogs, but you don't want to be chased by this one! These dogs love their job... ...as you can see by the fact that they launch themselves at their targets! In the Horse and Hound show, four teams consisting of one horse and one hound competed for the fastest time on the circuit. I believe that the guys at Bower Ashton have this open day every two years, so keep your ears open for this in 2010 ... if you remember!

Somehow, despite not posting very much recently, I have managed to ramp up another 100 posts in the past eight to nine months ... and it took me eighteen months to do the first hundred. Either I'm bored with too much time on my hands or there is a lot more to talk about ... or I'm just talking more crap than ever before. PLEASE don't comment on that! Anyhoo, it seems that Time is once again hurling itself past me like a million lemmings off a cliff as this is now my fifth attempt at writing this post since last Thursday, all previous attempts ditched due to lack of ... well, time ... and at the rate I'm going now, it won't be complete by the end of today, either. So, on with it... Thursday Thursday night had me visiting my friend TrickyFaerie and her hubby for another amazing dinner, topped off with an excellent chocolate birthday cake complete with cream, strawberries and chocolate fudge layers ... excuse me while I just go clean up the dribble! I really do need to...