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StuffThe O key on my laptop is kind of broken so forgive me if I miss any Os.

I got the internal vacancy, I am now a full time, permanent member of the CC team.

With the extra hours and flexibility I have on top of my financial//applications duties been working on the company website.

First off I have been cleaning up the rubbish table based code that the previous guy used (1994 has gone mate, sorry). Making it far more SEO friendly, and making it screen reader readable. I am currently building a custom tailored CMS system for the company when my other duties are done. So far things are slow but I continue to impress even myself, the basic features are all there along with some very robust, flexible security, user, content and developmental controls as well as a platform so flexible that there is always room to improve and no limits to what I can do.

I am enjoying my job even more now. Today despite 2 members of staff leaving due to contract expiry, was a good day, I not only got a lot of work done but I also blew a lot of people out of the water. We had a meeting with some guys from a really good and credible digital media and web developers firm. They had experience in building so many fresh new idea fuelled apps I must admit I was quite pleased with them. They were really nice guys, but ultimately their job was to try and secure some business from us. As I sat in the meeting more as a consultant to the Events/Marketing Manager, and the PR manager, I ended up taking centre stage when it came to the technical jargon and upon learning of my plans and how they were pretty much solid, the guys were pretty damn impressed.

Afterwards I was met with (perhaps a bit too much) praise and some pretty shocked looks from my colleagues, where they had previously thought I was some really smart, tech savvy, former web dev amazing guy, they now realise that I am pretty much a deity of all things technical. It's so refreshing to work somewhere that appreciates me, and gives me the flexibility to use my talents accordingly.
StuffSo it has been an interesting week.

The weekend started off boring, but I went to The Stage Door to drop off some CDs for Jay, the manager to put in the jukebox (not drink, my overspending has made me skint again). I end up talking to Alan, a guy I had just that second met, a black belt (first level/dan) in Judo, Black Sash in Lau Ga Kung Fu, and a Blue Belt in Brazilian Jujutsu/Jiu Jitsu. We ending up having a 3 hour conversation about it and I ended up showing him a few Jujutsu moves and chokes he didn't yet know, really nice guy, and he bought me loads of drinks, WIN.

Sunday I didn't have any plans, it was the first Sunday in a while I had woken in my own bed. Sounds bad that does... So Sunday was boring, I decided to pull out both of my tattoo guns/machines, load one with a 5 round liner and the other with a 5 round shader and add to my growing collection of dodgy tattoos, this time it was a "This Way Up" arrow on my foot. I'm trying to stick to my foot for my own work at the moment until I improve at lining, shading however is too easy. I was unable to sleep apart from for 20 minutes that night which is bad given how I had to get up early for the quarterly management meeting at work. Which had its interesting points.

Tomorrow I have an interview for an internal vacancy at work, basically my contract expires on Friday, and given how important my role is in making sure the companies money gets to where it is supposed to be, and how vital I am to the Applications department, the accounts department and to some degree the marketing department, an internal vacancy opened up for my job as well as some other duties on top, the pay is much better I hear, the hours are more ad I look forward to it.

I know somebody else within the company applied for the position, though they did ask me if it was ok first, didn't want me to think they were trying to take my job or anything, and since nothing in life was ever handed to me, I'm not afraid of competition, although given how I've been doing the job amazingly well for the last 6 months, and doing various other things for the other departments, I feel my experience in the role and my proven ability to expand upon the role make me the ideal candidate. Even so; I'll wear a tie/noose.

Hopefully if I do get it; It'll be an immediate start, which means this moths pay packet won't just be larger because of the extra pay, but because I am also owed 9 days holiday on my current contract which I cleverly decided not to take, knowing that legally speaking, the organisation which subsidised my contract are liable to pay me for outstanding holiday days, that means I get an additional nine days pay for doing nothing. :)

Let's just hope thing go well. For those who don't remember what I do for a living; I work for Caudwell Children, a local but nationally acclaimed charity founded by John Caudwell, the local self-made billionaire who founded and formerly owned Phones4u and the rest of the Caudwell group. The charity provides funding for equipment, therapy, treatment, and the Destination Dreams programme for Children with lifelong, life threatening and terminal illnesses/disabilities. My role within the company at present is to work within the applications team, and ensure that all of the money is spent correctly and goes to the right place, amongst other things I also provide in house tech support, administrate the CRM system, and do some web dev stuff for them too.

I genuinely enjoy my job, and find it gratifying to know it's for a good cause, I like the people I work with, my colleagues are all nice people, my manager is perhaps the best manager ever and the CEO is a hard working, respectable and dedicated person who despite being "upper management", is easy to get along with.

So here's to hoping that Q3 of 2010 goes well, as planned.

-Ld CLLCCJWVBBUMMSSPPOOON Burton OM
StuffVery little memory of the last couple of months, Voodoo closed or moved or whatever after a series of unfortunate events, but soon rock nights will be back at The Vic so that's good.

Work has been good to me, I've been real busy.

Facebook are arseholes.

And I've recently seen physical evidence of how bad this site looks in older, shitty browsers, mainly old versions of SeaMonkey and IE. Glad I officially don't support either of those. Though IE8 Finally got it right with rendering.

StuffApril has been a very busy month for me.

I got paid, went Devils Night, woke up on Dave's sofa as usual, then went out drinking every night after that, one of which on an empty stomach with enough drinking I ended up throwing my guts up inside and outside Voodoo Lounge, I was a mess. The following weekend I was out drinking again, trying to not drink so much and make sure I ate. The weekend after at Voodoo it was all right, but then Dave and myself needed hydrating badly and the power went out, we couldn't resist slam dancing to complete silence, but the bar staff wouldn't even give us water which made Dave really ill, I looked after him though cause that's how we roll, his ex was giving him aggro outside and Dave nearly took one of her male friends heads off for poking his nose in business where it doesn't belong. Little Jim called us sell outs and claims we're no longer his friends because when we went to the stage for a "quick drink" e.g neck it back then make our way to voodoo, he started playing pool and we left, informing him we were leaving, but no that makes us sell outs apparently, he seems to forget all the times I myself, as well as others have been out with him (most times in fact) where he fucks off and leaves you with a bunch of total strangers because he'd rather disappear chasing skirt, but oh well fuck him, I don't have time for childishness like that.

This last weekend was pretty good, some guy wouldn't take no for an answer when he asked to play a game of pool and I almost ended up bashing his skull in but then Jay (Stage Door manager) threw him out. That was after a day of chilling in the Bingo hall with my friend Su who works at the bar there, had some old man telling me to be quiet, and before a night of going to The Rigger (shit as usual) leaving after about 20 mins, going to Voodoo, slam dancing most of the night and having a laugh with good friends. Good times.

Dave is meant to be tattooing my shocker on my shoulder at some point soon, but stuff keeps coming up, and I have plans for tomorrow that look to be pretty good. I had a management meeting yesterday at work which was interesting to say the least, and I have passed my probation period at work :D

Not to mention I have a very interesting Failbook profile picture at the moment taken whilst reliving old memories with Kyel.

That is a short and very watered down summary of the last month or so but I cant remember or be arsed to go into too much details right now.
StuffStill waiting to get paid. Therefore another weekend of doing absolutely nothing. Sucks big time knowing I could be out there with my peeps making an ass of myself whilst mildly intoxicated, where it's all at. But instead I am stuck here bored out of my skull.

Work has been all right this week, apart from a few anomalies that keep popping up, hopefully I am on top of things now.
That being said come Monday I'll likely be swamped with paperwork.

Funnily enough as soon as I get paid on Wednesday, there's something going on at The Stage, the night after is Devils night, then its the weekend. I could go for 4 days of intoxicated madness, however I don't like to drink or stop out late on work nights. Maybe it is a sign though?

I guess my social life is at a stand still until pay day though :(
StuffThis week has been sorta busy at work, the CEO had her baby so she's off ad the big payment run rush is settling a little bit. 2 days in a row I had total brain meltdown, doing insignificant but silly mistakes. I must be losing focus, need a slap.

My weekend-life has come to a halt since I do not even have reserve funds to spend on going out, had to borrow next weeks bus fair to work from Kyel, thanks brah.
It always seems to happen on the weekends where I REALLY want to go out, like when there's something going down or some opportunity for me.

Last night Kyel and I took it upon ourselves to drink the booze that we already had, rather than buying any, so we wandered the streets for 3 hours drinking like bums. We went all over Stoke on Trent it was funny, Kyel was so wasted though, Desperados, a bottle of Jack Daniels and some Russian standard can do that to you. It was unusual for me to the the more composed one. Had to drag his 6'3 ass home to make sure he made it there.

Strange times.
StuffSo in the last few weeks things have been moving a lot faster than usual. By that I mean my spending has gone through the roof, mainly on booze and getting around.

In the past month, I've pretty much been out getting hammered every weekend.

Ended up wandering around stoke in the early hours of the morning with some friends and strangers one of which seemed to be flashing her boobs to everyone and asking me as well as everyone else to get their dicks out, she wanted sex, I think only one guy took her up and it sure as hell wasn't me.

Crashed on Kyels sofa, and Daves sofa a fair few times.

Got my hand tattoo done

Been "taken advantage of" as in was bought loads of drinks against my will by a very attractive female who totally came on to me was all over me and woke up in a hotel room with her the next day after a night of fairly good sex, Probably wont see her again though, she even paid for the room, hah, I'm such a whore.

Partied a lot for no specific reason, been hit on by a fair few people...this just isn't right. Spent most of my wages by that I mean all of my wages.

Windmilled outside the stage door.

Thrown up more.

And other stuff which I cant remember.

Work has been good, very busy lately.


I cannot think of much else off the top of my head, but If only I had more money :P

Well, Peace out hot mommas, pimp daddies and all the people rollin' up in caddies.

P.S

SHOCKER

shocker_crew
StuffOkay, other than work there has not been much going on around here lately, although I have been spending too much money.

Got a laptop from Argos, that is pretty good. Went to the stage door for " a few drinks" with Kyel on Friday, those few drinks became a few more and a few more, and they all ended up with the contents of my stomach in Kyels kitchen sink later that night, great night though, met some interesting people. Some of them might have been scared when I was doing my impression of Dr Rockso when he talks to Murderface (See Metalocalypse).

I had another crackpot conspiracy theory a moment ago. Energy pries have sky rocketed over here and as a result people are using less gas and electricity. Now think about it, we are paying a LOT more than we used to, but using a lot less than we used to. Energy companies get more money, use less energy, keep more fuel, can last longer without alternative solutions, is it just me or is this a conspiracy with energy companies? Just a thought.

And I'll leave you with that, There's a packet of chocolate malted milks that are begging for my attention.

Peace Yo!
StuffIt has been a busy week at work, with the remittance advices and all. Initially as always when approaching a new task, there is that bit of comfortability. However this part of the job (apart from waiting at the DocuColour for other people to finish printing their 10 million page long stuff) is a lot more enjoyable than the rest, must be because it combines copy & pasting, wandering around, and fancy folding. Not forgetting the cheques and stuff that are in my hands. "Hey, give me my money now" "Sir, that was rude of you to make demands of me, oops your cheque just fell in the bin". Not that I actually did that but it would be funny, all know what a twat I can be to people who are being a twat to me.

FINALLY had my review or what ever the "bullshit" term for it was, and have also been praised a lot which is unusual given how most people I've dealt with were always ungrateful wankers. It's nice to be working as part of a team who are pleasant and decent. Adjusting to what level of mischief I can get up to, obviously I can't do my usual walk around naked in places stuff, wouldn't want to be sacked for gross misconduct. However noticing that Ben (PR Manager) has his computer in a place whereby typically the rest of the Office can't see it unless they're raiding the stationery cupboard, I did find some pleasure in confusing him by shouting "stop looking at porn" when walking behind him, I'm sure I will expand on that soon. Graeme (Graphic Designer) seemed to be looking for Narnia in the cupboards earlier, that's become a subject of today's stick men drawing on a post it note.

There are some strange people at that place, like Simon (Design Dept. Manager) or whatever his fancy title is, apparently he likes dressing up and had sheep costumes and all sorts of stuff, this being a guy who was saying something about PVC suits the other day.... my mind can only assume the usual dirty bondage sheep molestation type stuff, which to be fair, we've all done that ;) He's a sarcastic git though, and I like it.

My manager Lisa and her assistant Jan are a little bit.... crazy, only mildly though compared to my standards, but I'm so glad they're not "normal". We had a new Applications Assistant start mid way thorough last week, and she certainly is a hard worker, I'm gonna have to up my game wouldn't want anyone stealing my thunder.

I must include this picture that had me in stitches of my brother Gareth in his cowboy outfit at some party PMSL.




Work has been pretty much all I've done this week, was gonna go watch Ninja Assassin at the Odeon tomorrow but there not showing it any more...cunts. It's showing at the cinema in Newcastle, but neither of us like Newcastle and can't be bothered to go there. I must get my photos done so I can finally get some ID after all these years, after that I'm going to get my deed poll sorted for changing my name, though I'm not yet settled on what my new name will be. Need to buy some decent weights, and get my hand tattoo done, most of that will be coming out of the end of this months pay slip. After that I don't intend to spend any more money, with the exception of Final Fantasy XIII and Metal Gear Solid Rising, in March.

StuffSo I started my new Job as a Purchase Ledger Assistant at Caudwell Children on Jan 18th.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the company let me enlighten you. Caudwell Children is a charity that pays for therapy, treatment, equipment, and dream holidays for sick children. Visit http://caudwellchildren.com for more info. Basically every penny donated or raised goes to the children, all our overhead costs are paid for by John Caudwell, a very rich and well known man who founded Phones4U, which I believe he sold a couple of years back.

My Job there, which I'm still learning is to keep track and process all the purchases that the company makes, which is a lot of work in some respect, but work that I find myself to be good at. At my last job working for Datasave, I like most employees there was treated like a pile or crap, but here at Caudwell the people are nice, helpful and pleasant, I have not had any problems yet.

When the manager of the Marketing Department found out that I was a former web developer, she wants to borrow me and get me to look at stuff and so on and so forth, and I keep being borrowed to do odd jobs around the office usually computer stuff, or sort out Simon's Excel formulas. I really don't mind it, it's nice to feel wanted and useful for a change. My manager is sound as a pound and a little bit strange, but strange is always good in my books.

The vending machine ate my money the other day, my own fault, I was so tired I tried to purchase a Twix when there were none in stock, so I got nothing. Perry the PA to the CEO said she would sort that for me and hopefully get my money back.

There are many perks to working there, get to go to VIP parties and stuff. They are sending me to some ball in London this May. The ball will be filled with celebrities and press and it's our biggest fund raiser of the year. These balls have featured performances by Tina Turner (yes she came out of retirement for us), Whitney Houston, Rod Stewart and this year Elton John. They send me, expenses paid there and I stay in a luxury hotel apparently. I wasn't quite digging the whole fancy balls and dressing up stuff at first but, I guess I'm starting to like the idea, as long as I stay sober. Think about it, representing sick children, celebrities, the press, my job on the line, and me plus alcohol.... yeah that won't go down well.

Anyway I am enjoying my new job and have no complaints so far.

Socially these last couple of weeks haven't been as eventful as previously. Been busy at work so no Wednesday club or anything like that. Haven't been doing much with my weekends either. Keep trying to drag Kyel out on Friday nights but he's either knackered from work or has things to do. Booo!!

I finally actually purchased MY OWN copies of Final Fantasy XI and XII. For those years that I kept using Vikki's copies, I never actually had my own. But at least my Direct FF series collection is up to date now. As far as all the spin offs are concerned I could not care less for them. I have 1 to 12 with a few spin offs in between (Crisis Core, Dirge, AC, AC Complete, Dissidia, Tactics Advance etc) and come March I hope to add FF XII to the collection. I had a quick go on FF XII earlier still had my old save, weird going back to wired controllers, shame my PS3 isn't back compatible with PS2 games. As for XI, well I retired from that a long time ago, cannot be arsed with MMOs any more, especially not XI. FFXIV looks good though....

Anyway, enough of my random ramblings (that are unusually upbeat and positive) but things (well most things) have been going good for me as of late. Although I never did get those previously cancelled plans made up to me yet, guess good things come to those who wait.

Peace out homies.
StuffWell Wednesday I was out with Jimmy and Dave dossing around Hanley during the day time, we ended up in The Jovial for a quick drink, had some funny conversations.

Thursday I went to doss around with Briggzy (or Girlsname as we now call him) and then we ran into Dave who was just passing through on the way to the dentist, but ended up missing his appointment cause he was talking to us for an hour. We then went to the cafe where Dave using his cheek got us a discount on our cake and hot chocolate. We later were joined by Gordy and we ended up at The Stage Door having a drink, playing pool, Gordy kept trying to finger my anus when i took shots. Prior to that we went to Wilkos and spent half an hour filling those "fill the cup up for 3 quid" cups full of sweets just to see who could cram the most worth of sweets in, Dave won.

After Gordy and Girlsname left the pub it was just me and Dave, some random lady boy from Cheadle started telling us about how he sleeps with members of his family and then showed us a video of his nan dancing topless for him...freak. Then along comes a gay 44 year old telling us his life story, he made the guy from Cheadle look normal. Then as I get home and tag the peeps in a Facebook post, my cousin Amy starts going nuts cause it turns out that my good friend Dave is the guy she was with at Devils Night and the guy she fancies.

Even freakier on that note was that she said that the only time his attention was away from her was when he broke the liplock to sing to "Don't stop believing" which happens to be a song that I sing to him all the time. Freaky, a good friend gets off with my cousin whilst thinking of me..... that's just odd.

Now I seem to be embittered in a bloody war against her for Daves affection LMFAO!!! Friday was uneventful, until I went around Kyels place, we then went for a quick drink with Malcolm at China Gardens before returning home. Saturday I got woken up early from what little sleep I'd had to help take the dog to the vets to have its stitches out and a new dressing applied. So when I got in I went back sleep until 5pm. Still haven't beat NANCY on Tekken 6 grrr. Sunday will probably be boring and Monday I start work. Hopefully I will be able to sign off and give the JCP enough shit to actually pay me what they owe me this time around.

Either ways, I've run out of crap to say now, 'cept DAVE IS MINE!!!!
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