this week, that week, it all some sort of week.

So this week has not been to good, im still battling the flu and some days I think im winning but some days this is not the case. as I said the last time I stopped by I had a meeting I had to go ot and I was not expecting much and I would have been mistaken. There were time during this meeting I was ashamed to work for Odeon, not the site I work at but to work in projection. I would say 60% of the people there were some of the most un-nice people I have meet in years and I would be more than happy if I never had to see them, talk to them or even know they exist. I know this may come across as strong but I cannot describe in words alone the attitudes of some of these people.

Having got a new laptop a few weeks ago I can now afford to eat seeing as payday has finally come along and non to soon as I was starting to think if it would be ok for me to eat the grass in piccadilly gardens (it does look nice), this payday would also include my beautiful and lovely girl friend birthday, I would tell you my plans but im not underestimating the lengths she would go to just to find out what im getting her, I think I have a good idea of what she would like and a few things she would not be expecting so we will see if that plan comes together.

Moving on I have a question, how many people walk to work and listen to some sort of Mp3 player? I bet there are quite a few out there in blogger land who do and I am one of these people, there is always a sound track to my walk everywhere I go, but for a change just try one day where you don’t! I know it may sound simple but I tried it the other day and the world seemed so quite, and that was Manchester city centre at rush hour. HA maybe listening to music day after day had make me slightly deaf, hummm that would not be good.

Harmonisation part 2

So now Ex UCI and Ex Odeon have merged to become New Odeon the projection department has to become one in everything we do, this is from how we schedule staff to how the budget is managed. Over the last few months the power that we have started to roll out the changes to both side but from an EX UCI side there are not so many changes as UCI was a very profitable company and all things have been managed like you would expect a divers company to do but this is not the case of the stereotypical Ex Odeon. In the next few days I have to attend a meeting where they try to roll out some more of the changes they expect everyone to do. This would not be the 1^st meeting like this and the last meeting was very hard work. From what I could see the people tended to fall in to 2 groups, group one are people who are willing to change but just need to get their heads around how and what they need to do. The second group are militant people who are stuck in their ways and any idea which is not their own is not going to work and they won’t even give it a try. Being a person who has done everything they are proposing for many years there is nothing new out there which would cause a problem or a challenge but the main reason I’m there is to try and help make the process easier. But it is hard work as most of the people at this meeting are 10/20 years older than myself, I like to help out and I will do my best but there are still some tensions between the two old companies as you would expect from any 2 company who have been competing for years and years. All this is on top of the fact I have a horrible cold at the moment and seem to be grumpy. I think it will make for an interesting day.

Today I spent £3, all day

London!

Weekend just gone had a trip down to London for a friend’s wedding but seeing as it’s a long way to go just for a wedding we decided to venture down there a day early and do the sights, so drove down Friday morning to come back Sunday. You I have to say that it’s a big drive so stopping at some point was always on the agenda but we stopped at what has to be the nicest services I have ever been to, it was a tranquil Mecca of happy people. I just this is what you get when you have to pay on the M6 Toll road. Anyway the drive was ok but a little busy once in to London and for some reason my GPS decided to take us past every sight London had to offer but driving through London is not the time to have a good look around as there are cars, bikes, people all coming at you from different angles all looking to get hit by a car. So once parked up at the hotel (glad I paid the congestion charge from the 5 feet of road I had to use just to get to the car park) off we went to get some sights is, 4 mins down the road and we were at tower bridge, then on to the tower of London, short trip on the tube to Trafalgar square, down past Downing street and on to parliament and Big Ben and Westminster abbey. Then we went off to Leicester square to meet up with some friends to have some food in China town. After that and a few drinks we went off to Camden Town to meet up with some more friends and have what would turn out to be too many drinks, it was nice at the time sitting in the street drinking wine but the morning after was not so good.

So the day of the wedding, it kind of went to plan, getting there nearly 2 hours early and then for the bride to turn up late meant I had about 3 hours in the church and I think that may be a new personal record or something, the groom looked a little nervous as the time started to tick by. That is where the normality of this wedding ended as my friends and his wife are both royalty to a cretin degree. He is a tribal prince and she is a princess from Nigeria (I think) and with that come the rituals of such a wedding and they were wonderful, apart from the kolanut which was not so good. This was the day after the night before where I vowed never to drink wine again but after a few beers wine sounded like a really good idea red/white what every was going. One of the nice things of the right was when you had to dance up to the bride and groom and put dollar bills on their heads and let them fall off, I know it may sound simple but when you have known this bloke for quite a few years it was a strange moment in our friendship.

So back to Manchester on Sunday with a little stop in Derby for my girlfriends nephews 2^nd birthday, that kid loves tractors, I wanted to live my youth through him and get him some Spiderman PJ’s but it was not to be, well I was not allowed! I decided when booking the time off for the wedding to get in a few extra days in as we come close to the end of the year so I got another 2 days off, good job seeing as the laptop I wanted came out and even after the trip to London I could just by the skin of my teeth afford it. I have never just bought a laptop out right and at these prices its no surprise but the last one I got lasted me for about 4 years so I think is a worth wile investment. And I would like to say that this keyboard is lovely to type on, it may even improve my spelling! One can wish.

How to tell when you have grown up?

So knowing I was due some extra pay this month I have been checking out laptops for weeks and weeks finding the best laptop out there for me, everything from size and weight to the speed of the processor and front buss speed, size of the hard drive and making sure it would be able to handle video editing and odd game I want to play. Having owned the laptop I'm sat at right now for the last 4 years it’s something that will have to keep me going for some time. So I found it as stated in a earlier post, The Sony Vaio CR11Z/R and it’s the top of its range so my decision is set, all I needed next was the funds to get this wonderful piece of human engineering and that would have been today (even though the tax man took nearly £850 off me) so I potter down to the two shops in Manchester who have it in stock and I was going to play one off against the other until I got the deal I wanted as the cheaper deal would have taken too long to come. So off I went only to find out there is a updated model coming out in the next few weeks* with a larger hard drive and faster processor. * Now I say a few weeks but every where I look its due to come out ‘the beginning of October’ now for me that’s the 1^st but the sneaky people at Sony I believe don’t see it this way so I'm betting on mid October. Now to my point, think you have finally got the money to get that one thing you have wanted for some time, you have sat there just waiting to get your hands on the thing but now I could get more for my money, 10 years ago I would have got one today but I now find myself not and willing, if not too happy about it, to wait until I can get my hands on the better of the two.

I'm now grown up (to a certain extent)

Over the past few weeks I have had a lot of old friends coming out of the wood work so to speak, I went out with a bloke who I shared a house with 9/10 years ago, we also worked at the same cinema cleaning screen and the normal usher duties. It was really good to catch up with him for a few hours and chat about the good old days, I also had another friend from the same time in my life wanting to go out for a few, sat I'm going out with another old friend from Blackburn and I have a school friend who I have not seen for 12 years wanting to catch up. I'm not complaining and I'm looking forward to it but have I won the lottery or something? Maybe there is just something in the water.

Ok you may remember that I had some issues with my bank (That would be you NatWest) and there complete incompetence with home insurance and the loan I had with them, well I did get round to sending in a letter of complaint as the customer service I revived was below piss poor, please don’t just thin I wanted to vent me anger at them, I would in a very customer service orientated environment and I only expect the same service they would get coming to watch a film at my cinema. So one complaint was about the fact they were still trying to get money out of me for something that my name was not on and after informing them of this they then had wrote my name on the top (spelt wrong by the way) still wanting about £80 all down to the fact they could no longer find the person whose name was on the policy and all this was sent to my mums house and she was not happy, the next part of my complaint was about the fact I had tried to pay off a loan for 6 weeks and then they tried to charge me interest and fines for paying late and then put poor credit on my name all down to the complete failing of the loan department. So I hope you can see why I would not be a happy bunny.

So I got 2 letters back, 1^st would be the loan wanting more details back from me, they are MY bank, they have all my details and this is my reply, I also go along to point out that I would hope they would be able to check my details for a loan in my name and that I would hope there computer systems are to a point where they would save information.

The 2^nd letter back would be regarding the insurance, this one started off really good, they said they had sent a letter to my mum apologising for her distress and they would no longer be trying to get any money off me (ITS NOT IN MY NAME!) and that they have listened to my conversation (one on many) I had where I changed my address. Well not only did they get the address wrong but my mum received no such letter, the address they said I had changed to is 126 miles away from where I had moved to! Does this mean I had post going to Durham? In my reply I ask how can my bank who I entrust to look after my money not even get the small details correct like address and the spelling of my name?

To be honest I am not letting this go easy, I could just drop it but the amount of crap I got from NatWest during a very difficult financial time without any support has given me the right to give them a hard time during this time and im enjoying pushing the customer services as any one should come to expect from any service they get from any company.

I’ll keep you updated as im sure the next set of letter I get will be interesting.

Tech Blog Vista Vs Xp

As you may have noticed I like my computer, there are people out there who don’t like computers or want anything to do with them well I'm at the other end of the scale. I like making web pages, editing videos, playing games, surfing the web, most things computer related. I thought I would give the new vista a go so installed it so I have Xp and vista in the same computer and just picked which one I would like to boot to at the start, I wanted to do this just in case I thought it was crap, things went well until 2 days in and somehow I lost the boot sector and my computer would no longer boot! Well for me that’s not a good thing, to be honest its not the extra work and problem solving its losing things like photos that is important to me, you can get back your music and you can go out and buy your photos. So I got a pucker copy of Vista and installed it and you know what I like it, before all you Mac users start to explode your right, they did sit there with a Mac and seal loads of ideas but what you going to do about it? There are some niggles like the ‘are you sure’ aspect, everything you would like to do you have 3 buttons to press to say it ok, I switched this off within minutes. The other problem was hardware, the only thing which is not compatible was my TV card so I had to get a new one for it to work. If you are getting a new computer soon I would recommend Vista as there would be no hardware issues and it a easy OS to use but if you are thinking of upgrading check out the Microsoft compatibility web site also the manufacture of you motherboard, graphics card, hard drives, TV card, sound card and any usb devices you may use as drivers still seem to be a problem.

So keeping on the Tech side of blogging I went out for some food last week with some friends, out of the 10 of us 3 had Mac’s (and 1 really wanted one) and 4 had PC’s (the other 2 didn’t want to going the Tech conversation. The topic of me buying a new laptop came up and we discussed what is the better of the two, PC or Mac? We all had good arguments but one thing that I did notice is how PC users tend to see why someone would want a Mac and why they are good but Mac users don’t have anything nice to say about PC, May be you have to be like this to own a Mac! Don’t think so but I did think it was strange.

Started to play Medal of Honour 82nd's First Airborne on the Pc and what a good game, we all have different interests and one of mine would be war, not just the killing but deeper than that, the friendships formed like no other and the things people have to do just to survive, I find it truly amazing. So I like war games, granted its not like the real thing and I don’t think it ever will be unless the game starves you, kills of some of your friends and puts your life in real danger but I still like to play them and 82nd's First Airborne is a good one, if you have seen Band of Brothers its like that just you get to run round. If that’s the type of game you like I would recommend it.

So as I said I'm thinking of getting a new laptop, the one I have now is good but it does not have the power I would like to edit videos so seeing as I may have a little extra money coming my way I thought it would be a good time to upgrade so I have been looking around, The one which caught my eye is the Sony Vaio CR11Z/R which RRP’s for £999 but after a little web digging I found it for just under £900. This may be a lot for some people to spend on such a thing as you can pick up a ok laptop for sub £500 now but this will keep me happy for some time (I hope) and I will sell the one I'm typing on now for £250+.

One thing I did spot (ok the Girl friend spotted) was how many bars now have free Wifi, one being the Trof! This is great news. Quite Sunday, Girl friend has a new book, I have some videos to edit and we both would not mind a drink, hey presto we are there strawberry beer in hand. L like this plan.

Ps i have no idea what is going on with my font, Blogspot is in German aswell!

2 weeks of work

So my boss was on his hols the last few week so I got to do everything I normally do and everything he normally does and some more just for fun. You know it was hard work and it did take a lot of my energy but I did enjoy it, it was not just the amount of work which was hard but having that feeling that you are the one responsible for it all, if something goes wrong it may not have been your fault but you are the one who has to answer for it. In the space of two week we had the Superbad prem (see last post) the Imax bulb needed an unplanned change (£7400 pounds per change is a big deal) and a list of normal things that needed doing. One thing which I was happy to see was the support from the full team over these 2 weeks, it really good to see everyone working in the same direction.

So after spending the last few years going through a work harmonisation I spent most of the time not really thinking about it to the point it would make my angry/upset/pissed off ect as there was and is very little I really could do about it well it finally gone through, what does this mean for me? Well more money for starts and that would be for less hours (now salaried) that means I MUST do 39 hours a week or get them back somehow and trust me I intend to. Another good thing about going from hourly to salary is I get 2 wages this month, Yes 2! And some back pay! I'm sure I will be able to find something to spend it all on but it nice to get something back for once.

Superbad Premiere

We had the premiere of the new film from Seth Rogen called Superbad, I got chance to watch it last week and I have to say I did enjoy it. We last saw him in Knocked up which was a good film but I think Superbad was better. Anyway we got to do the premier with a Q&A after the film with the 3 main actors from the film (Jonah Hill, Michael Cera and Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and the night went well apart from some stupid question and a bit of a broken Mic.

Well after we did a good job we got some tickets for the after show party and after a long day it was a welcome idea to go get a drink so off we went. Once there we got 3 free drinks which was nice and what was even nicer was another 3 free drinks half way through the night, after 2 hours and 6 pints I was done especially as I had to be back to work in 8 hours and god did I feel rough the following day, rough but well worth it.

I think Cinemec had a good night with the Zoo Girls!

Happey is not the word

Hi all. After my trip to the lowlands festival I have a lot to talk about and I'm in the process of getting it all down but one thing I didn’t want to miss is how I'm feeling. This was my first festival and with the threat of theft, getting ill and anything else you may through in there I was very uncertain what could happen. I was there for just 4 days but I have never had fun like that. I really, truly cannot describe how I feel, I will write all about it and to you they are just words but for me it will always and will forever be a time in my life which I will never forget. I think there are a few points in your life where something makes you happier that you can last remember and this would be one but another thing I didn’t expect was the feeling after. Remember without the downs in life there would be no ups! And the one and only down to the festival is that it had to end, and with that brings a little sadness. Also I like to think that after a good friend went travailing is part of it to but it hit me after being back for a day feeling sad that it’s been such a long time since a felt that way.

Having this blog for me means I can look back and see where I was and what I was up to and without meaning to sound beg headed its been a long trip to get here but I feel like one of the happiest people on this little planet, hey don’t get me wrong there are things I would change given the chance but it wouldn’t be life without things like that. It has been a while since I have written a blog like this one but me feeling stay the same. Love makes the world go round, without the lows in life we wouldn’t have the high’s, you have to be happy, and the list goes on.

Just to keep you updated got the good review, got the money, got the holidays, got the bank holidays, got less hours.

Night all

camping!

Ok back to blogging after I may have forgotten about if for a small amount of time. Sorry!

Got to go try out my new tent in a pre festival camping trip up to the lakes last week, and what a nice trip. Jump in the car with all the things I thought I would need, spend 1 ½ hours on the motorway and then another 50mins in some of the smallest, winding but beautiful roads I have been on. I tell you any one could go without a GPS unit on the motorway but I thanked god for having it when I had got up there. There are so many small winding roads with no signs for miles and miles. Anyway once up there tried to camp next to Windermere (which we had just crossed on this cool little car ferry) but as you may expect in school holidays it was full so we heeded off another 8 miles to little Langdale (I think) which is sat in this beautiful valley. Having been in the city for some time now I was more than happy for people to look and point at the ‘City folk’ (hay I didn’t need a water proof coat just a brolly) and after putting the tent up in good time might I add we set off for the one thing I knew would be round the corner. The pub! After that things become hazier the more I think of them.

So after not the most comfy night sleep (dam the air bed) we set off to spend the day doing some sightseeing stuff, so back in the car, GPS on and away we go, headed up to Ambleside for some breakfast and then on to Grasmere for some traditional short bread and then on down to Windermere for a coffee or two. It was fantastic and a beautiful day to walk, talk and drive.

So had my review last week! How did it go? It went good, I think I did a good job and didn’t fall short in any areas. For every question they had I came back with all the info they needed, one of the bad point about doing well is they give you more to do and now do i. some things are easy and others are going to take a little more work. So after the last statement you could possible understand why things are not to good as after a good review, working hard for the last year I'm (at the moment) getting paid less that 80% of the team I manage, yep that would be right I have heard nothing about my job, a lot of chatter but no contract and no pay. For the last 8months I have made less money that the last bloke in this job and it look like I'm going to stay here, forever. It’s like the people who make these decision don’t mind its taking so long or that I'm now a little pissed off and earning less that the team I'm supposed to manage. I also have a feeling that the money they are going to offer is not worth it for the job, I know there will be some room for negation but I don’t know, I have a full feeling that it won’t be much more or less that if I was getting paid per hour. I don’t know, only time will tell.

So my week so far consists of doing loads of hours so I can have some time off to go to lowlands over in Amsterdam and I go Thursday and come back Monday and I'm soooooo looking forward to it.

photo's

Get your hands off my beer!

Great bird life in NQ

Its a house, no bridge, hummmm bridge house

i like driving in my car............

The many faces of Darth Vader

Hair cut and about time to.

For a while now I have need a hair cut but I have not had hair this long ever so I had been reluctant but that time came as it was becoming too long. So while getting it cut thought I would get a photo or two so now you get to see before, during and after.

Maybe i'll shave soon!

Mondy Tuesday happy days, Wednesday Thursday Camping days.

So after working hard in my new position at work its review time Tuesday, and it should be an interesting day. After the big take over what feels like 10 years ago we are finally getting to a point where things are starting to get sorted out for the department I work in much to everyone’s joy, now things are going well for them I think it is time I made a move on my job and what I can get out of it. I don’t mean to come across as selfish with all this talk of ‘what can I get’ but sometimes you need to spend some time looking at what’s on offer and just pushing and pushing, remember you can just ask, they cal always say no but you will never get if you don’t ask. I did think about the slogan ‘what do I want’ ‘money!’ ‘when do I want it?’ ‘Now!’ but with only myself singing I don’t think it would have the impact I'm looking for so I'm down to just plain old bartering. I think have done the work needed for me to walk in well informed and with all the points I think work in my favor so now it’s just waiting for the day.

As for this week I managed to get 2 days of which are Wednesday and Thursday so as a pre festive test I'm, with my lovely girl friend going camping! Thinking of Windermere lake but I would like to enjoy the sun at some point so it may be more of a weather based in to where we go. Thought it would be nice to get out of the big city for a few days and its perfect time to get that tent up other than my living room all ready for Lowlands! I can’t quite describe how much im looking forward to going in August and as a cherry on top they are showing Death Proof which was part of the Grindhouse movies, this is a Quentin Tarantino film and it was due to come to the Uk as a double bill with Planet terror (Robert Rodriguez) but the stupid Americans (no offence to you smart one’s) didn’t like it so now they will be coming out a separate releases in the UK but I get chance to see one of what I think will be two very good films.