"And then they bring out Maria..."

Angharad has been going to the gym for a couple of months and in some sort of masochistic way has been enjoying it. Of course when one enjoys something the first thought is to share it with your friends and loved ones which is why the little darling gave my name and phone number so I could have a free trial.

I found out about this today when Roberta, the peppy Spanish fitness instructor, called me to bully me into going down.

Me (confused because my phone is ringing on a Saturday afternoon): Hello?
R.T.P.S.F.I: Hallo Mr. Ryan, this is Roberta from L.A. Fitness. You have been referred by a friend who thinks you need to go to the gym. How about a free session to see what you need to do.
Me (battered by the combined attack of peppiness and Spanishness): Uhm. Yes. That sounds like a good idea.
R: Great. Can you come down in five minutes.
Me: Woah there lil horsey. I can come some time next week.
R: I don't think that's enough motivation, why don't you just skip along right now.
Me: No. Really. Next week.
R (Showing her true alien side, for all fitness instructors are from a dying alien planet come here to steal our hard earned flab): Now really Mr. Ryan, don't you want to be fit. It's in your best interest to come down tomorrow.
Me: But it's a three day weekend. I'm being lazy!
R: That's not good enough. You have to make an appointment now.
Me (starting to sob): Okay okay. Tuesday evening.
R: That's better. We'll see you at 6pm on Tuesday. Don't forget, we know where you live...

Help.

Home, home on the range

My Mini City allows you to create a little hamlet which will grow as people visit it. Please click through and make my empire grow.

Update: Now we have an unemployment problem. Please open a factory by clicking here.

Update 2: The transport network is creaking. Please donate some roads.

Happy 2008 to you all.

Milky shakes

"Why did your emplyees ejactulate into my grandmother's milkshake?"

They might be the Chav's Bling, but they have some cool headed responders.

Kahfee

The office where I work, like most modern offices, has a posh coffee machine with several options. Is this wealth of choice really actually worth it? Let's try all of the options and see.

• Café Crème: Not a great start. You'd be forgiven for thinking that this is coffee with cream as I did. Imagine my disappointment to find it was just a cup of black, quite bitter, Americano style coffee which tastes no better than instant. Milk might help, but for the purposes of this taste test the only addition I'm making is my usual two sugars.

• Americano: This actually does what it says on the tin. Unfortunately it tastes like warm dirty water. We'll not be having it again.

• Espresso: No, it's not expresso and in this case it's barely espresso. I won't be sleeping much tonight.

• Café au Lait: From the French for Coffee with Milk, one would expect it to be simple coffee with a dash of cow juice. In reality it seem more like a latte, with a dash of Americano style coffee topped up with heated milk. This seems to be the best, so far.

• Hot Water: You are kidding? No, I won't drink a cup of hot water with two sugars in it.

So, apart from only keeping me up for the next week I've discovered that machine made coffee is pretty much all the same. I just want a pot of filter coffee - is that asking too much?

Perning in a gyre

It's that time of year again - the annual redundancy ho-down.

Come see the sweating brows as our forty contestants are whittled down to just eighteen for the prize of a cash settlement and a trip to the Job Centre.

Friday mornings. Teasingly not the weekend, but only eight hours again from the two days a week we get to ourselves. Unless you're a student then you never bloody work apart from the week before exams.

Just has the most gut wrenching news that a engineer can face; company is changing focus. Aparantly all it means for me is double the work and learning how to cope with another two products. Who needs a life anyway?

Good news though is that the Brahma Kumari centre is having a talk by a woman who's thought meditation to prisoners. Going up to meet Iain tomorrow and to Peterborough on Sunday I think, so I'll be nicely occupied.

Incipit Liber Primus

Well here it is - a diary I've been planning to keep for the past god-knows how long. Hopefully Bloger will make it a little simpler than writing a lot of bloody html.

Just back to Cambridge from a weekend home in Dublin where much alcohol was imbibed and many brain cells destroyed. The only problem was Ryanair - The Low Service Airline. I got into Stansted Airport in plenty of time for my 7:10pm flight when it was delayed, not for fifty minutes, not even for an hour, but for four long hours. Airports are depressing places at the best of times, but having to wait until 11:30pm while three flights to Dublin leave ahead of you, without even a cup of tea from the airline is enough to make you go looking for the nearest clock tower.

Bah!