So where are we up to, ah yes, the Thursday night. Due to Mark and Jimmy either starting late, or not working Friday at all, Thursday night seems to be “the weekend”. This time, after work, we managed to drag Kate along to a very cosy French restaurant just around the corner from work.

The purpose was pretty obvious, the work crew wanted once again to order a cheese platter. I however, had eaten a block of cheddar for lunch, so decided against it. Instead, I ordered the leg of lamb, which I must say, was absolutely delicious! It wasn’t cheap at £8 (but I am now living right) - but was a huge slab of pure meat, with a few potatoes added for good measure.

This was then all washed down with a few bottles of wine, which we all “swooshed” expertly, under the instruction of Josh.

Whilst it was a nice place and everything, the conversation once again turned to books and movies, of which i knew nothing, so was starting to feel a little left out and wondering if I should go. Decided against this in the end though as figured as the night went on, there must be one topic that will pop up that I knew about (where’s Helen when you need her!)

Before leaving, the guys all indulged in a glass of Port (which I really couldn’t afford, no matter how much I wanted to “live”) - which I had never had before and was actually very nice. I think next time, I might save up especially
Anyhow, after here, it was decided to go to ASSO to grab a coffee before the last train, however, horror! On arriving there, we found it closed. Not really wanting to end the night just yet, it was suggested we head to another coffee bar on the other side of the tracks - however, yup, this was closed to.

“Ah heck to it, let’s just go to another bar instead” was the suggestion, and seeing as it seemed like a pretty good one, was thus accepted. So a few minutes later, we found ourself in a “carribean” style bar, where a most fantastic drink was discovered!!! I think it was called Rum and Cow, which basically equated to: Dark rum, Milk, Sugar and Butter - all heated up. It was fantastic, though perhaps more a bed time drink I have been raving to Seiko about it, so I need to go and buy some rum to make it here.

By now, the conversation had turned more to something I was able to talk about, so was having a much better time - until about 2am, when the bar closed - not quite wanting to let anything finish, it was decided ANOTHER bar should be visited! lol…

First however, was the obligatory “man fight” outside the bar, with Jimmy setting onto Josh. All was going quite well, until I got a bit too close and a (badly?) aimed kick (at full force I might add) from Josh hit me square in the knackers - haha, it hurt quite a bit, but i couldn’t stop laughing, I really wish someone had filmed it - all I could picture was just You’ve Been Framed or something and how much I laugh at that, so it seemed only right to laugh at my self.

To his credit, Josh did offer to take a “retaliation kick”, but it really wasn’t so much of an issue
So finally, we headed on to the next bar (though minus Mark now, who had to depart) which was a small affair, full of the locals. After talking aimlessly for about 30 minutes, the young girl opposite and her friend (who later turned out to be her music teacher) started to strike up conversation. This was great for Josh, who understands quite a bit, however this left me kinda blank. To compensate for my seemingly stupidity, after every question I tried to look as clueless as possible, which always brought the girl out with a “kawaii!!” (cute) - well, better to get something out of the situation
I think it was about 4:30 when I finally left, though not before taking this incredibly gay looking photo of Josh, which I am sure he is very proud of ! lol…

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Friday was just a usual work affair, I had decided not to go out and just stay home to conserve energy so I would be ready for Seiko’s birthday on Saturday……

Saturday comes!

Though not officially her birthday (it’s tomorrow) - she had chosen this weekend to hold her celebrations.

5:45 and first stop the newly opened Icebar in Roppongi, which was housed in a pretty impressive building…

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So an Icebar? Let me explain… well it’s quite simple really…. just, everything is made of ice!!

Be it the glasses….

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The tables….

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And even the walls….

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Even more amusing, due to the extreme temperatures inside (well obviously everything had to be kept below 0) - you had to wear a “cape” type thing along with a pair of mittens (this also allowed you to sit on the ice chairs without getting you bum wet!)…

Aren’t we all a happy bunch
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The Icebar was £17 in total, which included one drink. I think good for a one time experience, but I doubt I would make it a regular. For a start, it was freezing (well duh!) and after about 30 minutes the gloves seemed to lose their effectiveness. It makes me wonder about the market they have though, as all of us felt the same - so I wonder how long it will actually last …. (there were about 10 people in there with us…)

The Icebar done, it was off up to our all time favourite “Hub” in Roppongi, where Seiko had booked the back section - very posh When we got there, to our delight, happy hour was running, which meant all drinks were half price for the next hour or so.

I think it’s safe to say me and Toshi certainly made the most of this, ordering in two at a time, drinking one at the bar and then ordering some more…. lol…. well, you need to make the most of a good offer right?

For veteran readers that saw my cake before, this was nothing compared to the ABSOLUTELY ENOURMOUS example that was produced for Seiko, I don’t think the photos do it justice, but this thing was massive. To carry it there in the first place required two people and I dread to think how much it had cost…. see for yourself…

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I don’t think it was all eaten in the end, though Toshi did do his best…
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Come 10:30pm or so, it was once again time to move on, with Muse being the end target, though not before stopping off at a Hawaiian bar called “Be Sun” - where ever more alcohol was consumed (and judging by the colour of Seiko, it seemed she was nearing her limit ;))

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I even picked up this rather fetching flower (though not as good as the christmas tree I had at christmas :D)

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With the colour of Seiko now fast changing, it was figured now would be a good time to get her to Muse before she completely passed out …..

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So onto Muse it was…. I could drag this story out, but really, there is no need. I will give the following key bits of information, and you can work the rest out for yourselves….

Arriving in Muse, Seiko ordered a white wine…. followed by a red wine….

Can you guess yet?
Hehe… yup, you guessed it, 30 minutes later or so, it was the obligatory “carry Seiko home walk” - provided by your fine young gentlemen Ben and Shimpei!! hurrah!

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Of course, before we actually took her home, we had to go for another meal (!) - so to the Ramen shop (where Seiko fell asleep in the bowl…. I wish I had taken a photo of that, classic) - after which, the taxi was called and we were all whisked home, arriving back at around 3am - one of our earliest nights out ever!!

Sunday was the usual uneventful “sleep in late” and do nothing all day, until the evening when Seiko returned so we watched “Totero” - another anime made by the same guy that did “Howl’s Castle”. Again, it was a great movie, though perhaps slightly bemusing as subtitles were coming up, even if the characters weren’t actually saying anything?!?! At first it seemed maybe this was to “catch up” - but it soon became apparent, that extra dialogue was just being added! (For example, it would a quiet scene, with no one saying anything, yet various words would spring up in the autotext). It also got a bit confusing when they starting talking about “Sprites” until about 20 minutes in, when obviously the translator realised his mistake and changed it to “Spirits”! haha…

After work on Monday, I was in quite a good mood, so gave Seiko a call to see if she had already eaten. Fortunately, she hadn’t, so we decided to go to Bochi Bochi (the okonomiaki place down the road), also meeting up with Shimpei (who would arrive later on). I’ll try and get some photos next time I go, but for now, peruse the website, it should help explain it a bit better.

About an hour after we had started eating, Shiho also arrived, so we ordered again (the exact same, Pork and Cabbage, followed by the BochiBochi Okonomiyaki) - which I think amused the waitress somewhat. So it’s safe to say, by the end of the night (2am), I was quite full and had drunk a substancial amount of Umeshu (that has got to be THE best drink in the world).

It’s so nice to be able to live
So anything else? Well, tonight Vanessa from work is leaving, so we are going out for her farewell party. I’ll take the camera along and hopefully get some good shots (you will also be able to see who I work with too), Yumi is also going to be back in Tokyo (woot!) so will be coming along too.

Better get to the post office to pay my health insurance now (only 4 months late :eek:) - then off to work early to study for my next training session…. will do my best to update this tomorrow and not let it get so far behind again in the future….

To you my friends, goodnight

What a day, have been the most stressed i have ever been in ages, but luckily all has been sorted out now.

Even though I went to sleep quite early last nite (about 11:30) i still woke up shit tired and not wanting to go anywhere, especially not work
Got ready really quickly and because the bike has been fixed up, i managed to get in on time. woo hoo!

Found out that 2020 are being real bastards about fixing some broken machines, cause basically they didn’t get the maintenence contract. Here’s how the story goes.

Last July, ADT were looking at getting a new computer provider, and going for 2020 Group. They provided a load of machines etc and all seemed to be well. However, the machines started to go wrong a lot, and then the maintenece was crap etc etc, so Zak decided ‘no we’ll use someone else’.

Right, so 2020 find out about this, and then become all friendly and the like, trying to win his mind back (as it were). However, he’s having none of it and this year, the contract goes to someone else. (June 1st this month).

Now, a machine (well 2) go down now, and seeing as they had 3 years onsite, we ring them up (2020 this is). NO, they are not onsite and need to be sent back. Bear in mind one of these is a server and this is NOT an option.

So we tell them this. ‘NO’ it was not onsite you had, so send them and we will fix them (yeah, like when??). We fetch out the invoice for when they were bought 3 years onsite - 8 hour response is says.

I ring them up (i hadn’t yet spoken to them) and talk to the head guy. Nonon, he says not onsite. I mention the invoice, ‘we even if they were, we have a week to do it’, i mention the 8 hour response, ‘i don’t believe this arrangement was made, can i see the invoice’.

Bloody cheek! calling me a liar basically! so anyway, we now await a response.

So that was most of the day, but in between there was quite a bit else going on, oh and why was i stressed?

Well, i have been waiting for some cheques from various people for a while, which have not yet arrived, and no word from them either. I then find out my email (company one) has been down since friday, so there may be loads of people that have been trying to get to me (this REALLY pissed me off).

Zak says Mark is coming in, so i cancel my lunch with cheryl, and rearrange with him (cause mark always pays and puts it as company expense :))

OK, to put it past me (email is sorted now) i go to lunch, with the intention of afterwards going to pay in my cheque i had been sent. I get to the cafe, and just want to check i have everything…

WHERE’S THE CHEQUE??!

I frantically look for it, but just cannot find it. I then leave my lunch and run back to college, NO i cannot find it.

Then it hits me, i sent a letter earlier, oh no, it had better not be in there?!? I rush to the postroom, and luckily the mail has not yet gone, find the letter and, hurrah! that was damn lucky!

Back to the cafe then (all sweaty :eek:) and then to the bank to pay it in, before browsing around putney for a bit (well about an hour actually :)).

Mark never showed so i had to pay however, make note of price and get a receipt….

When i get back, i have olivers machine to config for him, it;s great, if i put enough stuff on it, he’ll give me a phree 7110 (you know, the matrix phones). Didn’t manage to finish it, so will do it tomorrow.

Club is an uneventful as usual, except i find out its Yolandas last day tomorrow, hmmm, maybe i should get her something, i never really paid much attention to her before Oh well, Staines ain’t too far.

Mark turns up with the new digital cameras, so give him the receipt and demand he pays it Sweet, cause he says OK hurrah!
Finally, its checking mail, sorting out zaks machine, and generally just playing music until 8, when i realise i should have left at 5 whoops!
Quick stop off on the way home to see cheryl and to apologise for not being there for lunch. She says she’s gonna start going to the gym and get a belly button ring. Hmmm, she just wants to pull and lot in ibiza, and you know what you need the energy for ….
On the way home I manage to reach incredible speeds on my bike, but get home totally f*cked up and out of breath, although i managed just over 2 miles in under 6 mins (with hills and stoppages in between :P)

Check mail here, fulfil any requests and setup my new domain account, which basically takes me up to now, oh i do love to read the newsgroups (they take up so much time… woo hoo!)

So once again, its good nite and godbless

Heya there people, I’m sorry I haven;t been posting so regular, just been getting too tired and not feeling like doing it so much, am thinking i am no good at this kinda stuff any more, but i must start getting back into it
OK, i’ll try to write what happened each day, just to try and give you my weekly picture….
Monday
Hmmm, a week ago almost, sugar, hard to remember. Well, i must have done something, but i’ll be damned if i can remember just what… hahahahaha!

Tuesday
Ah, today was the day we decided to convert to using a DHCP server instead of manually giving out IP address’s to each computer. Spent quite a bit of the day investigating into which one would be the best (it only turned out later that Windows NT has one built in… doh!) but eventually plonked for one by Vicomsoft. Was fascinated by how it worked, so my day at work went quite quickly, then work ended…..

Marc finished maybe his last ever day at school today, so we decided to celebrate (cause mrs m was out) with a bit of a drinking competition, with (as usual) cheryl deciding not to participate. Things were actually going pretty well for a 15 year old and a 19 year old with no food, but it actually turned pretty nasty when we both started to feel ill, and ended up with marc in bed and me wrapped around the toilet
I don’t remember too much, but i do know mrs m was dead angry when she came in, and insisted i go home, which i did (admittedly 40 mins later :P). Cheryl says me and marc were all saying we loved each other and stuff, i dunno, i cannot remember ANyway, dad picked me up, and i pretty much fell asleep after a 40 MIN (hehehe, soo sloooow) shower when i got home.

Wednesday
Feeling pretty awful from night before, but had to eat a biscuit in the morning so i could take tablets Had left bike at cheryls, so had to get the bus in. Late, (but then what did you expect) and wasn’t feeling too good when i finally did get in.

Zak decided the dhcp server was great and sent of the purchase order to register it, the key arrived, as did the new version via email. Which was great, except it didn’t work, it just kept crashing all the machines.
Worked on it for the rest of the day (even late for cisco) problem was NT takes soo long to reboot, it just slows everything down. Finally sorted it by removing the software and installing one by a different company
Mark Reid (from centerprise) took us all out for lunch, which i (somehow) managed to eat, so that saved me a few quid, woo hoo!

Cisco was ok, had to do exams, so cheated and got 100%
Thursday
Got in to the nice suprise that the dhcp server was actually working (woo hoo :)) and got onto the phone to tctrust to get some ip’s unfiltered (so we can all surf the porn sites JOKE!!! :P) This will be done soon, so i am happy, even better though, is we can now run a webserver from college, meaning i can move my hosting over, hahahah, like that would work Nothing much else to report.

Friday
Nothing much in the morning, just going around finding all the machines to change their ip addresses, and pretty much nothing else up to lunch. After lunch i had to go down to PoundLand to buy new headphones for the IT dept (hahah, don’t you dare laugh!) two ducks from mcd’s for zak (well armaan really) and a box of choc’s for avril (from christine), oh and to pay my cheques into the bank!

Got back and had to get straight to work on the new computers to be sorted by the end of the day (4:45). However, Derrick got frustrated when they weren’t done in time, and basically just went home?!? Zak and I were there until 7pm making sure they were all ok for the big cisco conf this monday. He wasn’t very happy, but i guess we’ll see what happens on monday (the derrick thing i mean).

Saturday
Ahh today (well just a bit of yesterday) got woken up at 10 by dad doing diy next door, i am getting really pissed off by this, i can never lie in on the w/e and am feeling rottern all day. However, finally got out at around 4 (after watching muchos tv :D) to go and take marcs airgun back. Aparently it just needed a clean though, so we went off down c/j to get dads fathers day present for tomorrow (oh and his card also) before going back to cheryls.

Ordered a chinese (sorry wilbur, not yours!!) and settled down to watch the England vs Germany match (england hadn’t won for 34 years in a competition match v them) and guess what…..

WE WON!!!!!!

Hurrah! Except i forgot to put the bet on (again) so didnt advance my winnings Watched a bit more tv after this and then walked home.

Actually a load more happened today, but i am really REALLY tired now and just want to go to bed, i’ll tell you about it tomorrow.

Just been told i need to be up by 12… bollox
ANyway, i’ll be more awake tomorrow, so c u then!
Signing out…… eof… coolfusion

been down here for the past 20mins whilst zak is on the phone with mark (who wants the college maintenence contract), funny? what is, is that we already know the answer What is it? :?:
Should mark be or :(…. ok, we’ll put you out your misery, the answer is….

:thumbup: to a 3 year contract… well done