The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

The Arcade Fire's second full album has, today, fallen into my lap and for the past hour I've been listening to it... and I have to say it's a worthy follow-up to Funeral.

It is much the same as Funeral with downbeat, orchestral melodies and the melancholic lyrics. It doesn't have the same unity in the songs, instead a fine collection of different sounds.

It isn't meant to be out til March, but there's nothing like getting your hands on stuff like this early. I will recommend this, in the usual method, by awarding it four mayhems out of five.

Futility

I have truly learnt the meaning of this word today. We lost our other designer at work and Tim's been on leave for a couple days. I got in today to 100 unread emails in the work inbox. 7 hours later and it is down to 65. By tomorrow I fully expect that to be back towards three figures.

I am also tasked with maintaining a key partnership website, but the set of morons who kept it ticking over before managed to make a right pigs ear of it, leaving recurring problems and today a tidal wave of inefficiency and procedural neglect dropped on my desk like a sack of steaming shit. I managed to sort that out eventually, but not before another many headed monster jumped out of the cupboard.

This new beast was in the shape of our external web hosts. pickaweb. Generally, we have very few problems with them and that is to their credit. However, when you need help you are better off killing yourself. At some point they subscribed to some Indian call centre for their tech support and it really is the most miserable excuse for help. Today it was a cgi script that inexplicably deleted itself from the server. You and I both know the solution, reinstate the script. Two hours and several angry emails later and they manage to inform me what the problem is and how I can fix it (ie, what I already know). Except they are under the daft impression that I can access their hosting service plans and make sweeping changes to the server. I lost patience and am now almost home. Tomorrow I get to find out whether my final outraged email has yielded some results. If not, a search for a decent web host shall begin.

Twelve Monkeys

Brass ones. A tenuous movie title entry, but it is bloody chilly right now. However, I do have the extra incentive of my Wii waiting for me at home. A couple chores to get out of the way and then I am gaming it up for the night!

Wii have lift-off

After receiving the exciting email from PC World yesterday, confirming despatch of the Nintendo Wii I have had on pre-order since November '06 I checked the DHL tracker website this morning to find that the package was out for delivery... within another hour it had been delivered. Very exciting!

Along with it, the postie delivered a wireless router from my good friend, Jon, so I can hook up the Wii direct to the web for updates and virtual console goodness. Tonight I was meant to be reconstructing my Ikea wardrobe in the spare room... that will now be done with the utmost of haste and then the gaming shall begin! Shame Megan isn't working tonight as well, I'll have to share the thing now...

The Sting

Well, it's all chaos at work now that Jamblo's replacement resigned on Friday, lasting all of four months. Even better is the fact that 8 of the designs he created need to be started again from scratch. This is on top of the 8 other designs on my own schedule. I am hoping we can farm out some of these to Jamblo to help us cope til we can appoint another designer.

In the meantime I am headed home to play some internet poker and watch Season 7 of ER. That and await delivery of my Wii, which PC World have notified me is in the process of being arranged. They must have run down to Branscombe Beach, wading through the legions of gypos, to grab the shipment of Wiis that washed up and subsequently got looted.

Will it work this time?

Well, let's hope so. I have made a couple of blogposts in the past couple of days that have failed to appear. This is annoying, as it takes an age to form a coherant post on a mobile phone.

Anyway, yesterday I attempted to post the above photo of the Manchester Metro. Really for no reason other than to post the photo, although I did extend my post with some rather well thought out comments on the Metro itself and the tracksuit wearing, warm stella swigging scallies who populate it. I cannot recall what I said now, but rest assured it was something rather witty and clever.

There was one particular scally I remember though. We were on our way back from the Trafford Centre and this atypical Manc (flat face, bobblour nose, dour expression) boarded the Metro at the same station. I think he must be a Tourette's fella, cos he sat adjacent to us mumbling what I believe were various cuss words. Ordinarily I would assume this to be regular Manc Metro native behaviour, but it amused me that this odd and aggresive creature was swigging a pint of milk wand devouring a packet of Iced Gems.

Back To Normality

It's surprisingly hard to get back into the daily routine after this weekend. For those who didn't know, we were in Manchester for a mini break. Megan had bought a hospitality package for us and that was terrific. On top oe that she had also arranged for three nights in the Deansgate Hilton. Better than that, however, was the fact that Megan's best mate's girlfriend who is the reservations manager had upgraded us to the Executive room and the perks that come with it.

One of those perks was the option to have breakfast in the Executive Lounge on the 23rd floor. That is the bit I will miss most. The other treat was the Exec Lounge being open til 8pm and unlimited drink. It is quite impressive how one gets used to such things.

Now it is back to normal though and I am just walking into County Hall to see what mayhem awaits me.

Blade

We got a note at work today of a chap selling sets of knives. He had 200 sets to get rid of due to the company sinking and needing to clear stock. RRP of £149 and selling them for £20. Their normal customers are restaurants and commercial kitchens and are made of good solid steel.

Right now I am sat in Crediton AFC playing skittles with the boys, first match since the christmas break. Not going that great at the mo, but we should win. I should hope so as well, we currently sit top of the league. Same for the pool league. I won both my frames and the team won 7-4 in total, keeping us at the top. Fingers crossed we can close out both.

Flatliners

I am now the moderately proud owner of a bargain Acer 17 inch monitor which cost me £99 from Staples. The only thing missing is the DVI port. Otherwise the specs are sound. 500:1 contrast ratio, 8ns response time and 270 candlelight. Good for the money I reckon.

On Sunday Rich and I went to play golf for his second handicap card. The weather was pants, but Rich shot a 22 over par 92, which was great. I shot my third 78 in 5 rounds though, which I am dead chuffed with! 8 over par, even on temporary greens, is great for me and with my beloved Nike Sasquatch driver I am finally finding the consistency to push for the lower handicap I am after.

Another Day

So the first week bck at work has drawn to a close. I have managed to complete three designs so far and the inbox is virtually empty. Next week the schools start back in earnest and their return heralds the start of another busx spell for us.

Anyway, time to relax for a couple of days. On Wednesday I signed up for the 14 day trial of EVEonline. I may give that a crack tonight. And if Megan has forgotten to take the kievs out of the freezer I will use that as an excuse to get a chinese or pizza for tea.

Hope you all have the most splendid weekends.

Shopping

As if I didn't spend enough money over Christmas I had to drive Megan and her friend to Clerk's Village on Saturday. Just to cap it off we had to leave at 8am to be there for opening time. And then Megan made me cough up £4 for a six hour ticket when I reckoned we would only need a four hour ticket, costing £1.50. For those of you not mathematically inclined, that means 8 hours is cheaper than 6.

Anyway, a-shopping we did go. There were just four shops I was inclined to go in and in all four I made purchases. Marks & Spencer had cheap chino trousers and I bought two pairs. Then off to Clerks (with side trips to a dozen other stores, being dragged around by Megan) where I bought three great pairs of shoes for £75. I also bought a pair of weather-proof trousers for golf and a shrt for my Dad. The next stop was a minor stop in Wittards for two pasta bowls, but before that I had to endure the Next sale. Pasta bowls secured, the girls mooched off to various lingerie shops ro I went to my last stop, Van Heusen, where I picked up three half price shirts. That was my shopping completed. By the time we got back to the car, after paying homage to the Burger King, we had been precisely four hours.

The rest of the weekend passed eventfully. Saturday night we went to the best curry house in Exeter, Tandoori Nights, before heading to Exeter's new Vue cinema to see Night At The Museum.

Sunday we went to my mates for their son's first birthday and then Jimson and me welcomed in the new year with a couple bottles of wine and the TV.

New Years day saw Megan working wh ile i played golf. Twas a lovely day when we started but within no time we got drenched. So i went home and did the ironing instead.