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Mates an dat

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So recently there has been alot of crap going on in the house resulting in Bob moving out. Part of this has resulted in the topic of what is friendship. People have diffrent ideas of what it is and therein lies part of the problem. I aint saying that we are not all friends but we been havin difficulties.

 

The hars reality of life is that most people are out for number one. I have a close group of friends about 10-15 people who i consider good friends – the rest are all aquaintences. But these friends i haveI love them all dearly. sometimes i disagree with them and other times we all piss eachother off but at the end of the day i know i’d be there for them and them for me.

 

I dont really remember my point anymore casue i’m tired – ioh well

Feelin groooovy

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY Paddy!

 

Man October is a really busy month for birthdays!!!

 

So Yesterday – My Birthday. It was actually a great day! I had quite a busy morning working on various bits and pieces where i ended up getting very little done. Then I had an interview in the afternoon. I think it went pretty well. Of course there were those typical interview questions which i could have answered much better but hindsight is a bitch and don’t we all know it! It looks to be a good position so watch this space! The bad thing was that I gave myself plenty of time to get there and thanks to the glorious London Underground I was ten mins late but it didn’t seem to be much of a problem!

 

I got home and changed, Jimmer arrived at mine and we headed out to the pub. The night was a great one. It was a smallish lil thing but it was cool the peeps who came were:

 

Bob,

James,

JP,

Steve,

Cass,

Cath,

Anna,

Meena,

Tash,

Dawn

and My dad!

 

It was ace that my Dad came along as i was not expecting him at all but i think he enjoyed it. So big thanks to all who came and thanks to everyone who called and sent me texts and all that jazz! I drank quite a bit but didn’t get smashed beyond stupidity! – It was a great day!

Party Time

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY Veronika!!!

 

Today is Veronika’s Birthday and I is going down to Twickenham later to James & Veris place for party time! Should be a giggle – it always is! – Its jus gonna be a small party with a bunch of people i aint seen in aaaages!

My big sis is ACE!

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY SANDRAAAAAA

 

Yes its my big sister’s birthday today and she is….older than me. Its my own birthday on Monday and I always get weirded out by it all. I am the youngest in the family and i’ll be 28! We are all getting on now.

 

Sandra has 4 kids and she has No.5 in the oven! She is one of those mothers who haas managed to retain her identity and not get lost in motherhood. I love her dearly and wish i could see more of her Peter and the kids. She is cool and collected even when all the poo hits the fan. Everytime i go up there i always have a wicked time.

That time is coming round!

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In a little over a weeks time my birthday is coming up. I really don’t know what to think this time! – I have not enjoyed my birthday’s for the last few years! Would be nice to be able to do so this year.

 

The other thing on my mind is the promise i made to myself last year – That if there was no big improvement then i’d jack it all in and change my life drastically! There aint been no improvement! We shall see!

I’m a survivor!!

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“Residents return home after fire” BBC News Website

Fire sparks overnight evacuation” – BBC News Website

I survived the Drama. So the other night I was woken at around 3 am by bob Bagging on my door saying we had to pack a bag and get out of the house quick. The fire brigade were evacuating the area! The shop accross the road from us had had a fire in the back. old car tires and a gas bottle. The evacuation was due to the potential explosiveness of the gas bottle.

 

So JP, Steve and myself went over to Tom’s plave and sat it out there – was not prepared to go to the town hall with the other minions! – Twas all quite odd!!

Hohn my skills.

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Oh its good to be home!!! Although I seem to have walked into a battle field. The tension in the house over the last few months has taken its toll and Bob is moving out – Bugger!

 

Today i have had the tune “I wanna be in America” in my head! –

 

that’s all

Clerks2 & the death of a Director

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Don’t quite know how to start this as I feel there should be a certain level of respect held. Ok so basically yesterday I got into the studio and all the crew were called in for an announcement. The announcement was to tell us that the show’s Director had died in his sleep. Obviously a lot of people were very upset having known him for years and years. The shows were cancelled for the day and the entire crew was invited to the pub for a commemorative drink. Now I only met Phil at the start of this 3 weeks so I didn’t really know the man well at all. I had a few chats with him here and there but nothing really deep and meaningful but the impression I got from him was that he was genuinely a really really lovely talented and much loved man. While a nice gesture to go and have this drink I did feel totally out of place. I have not really felt like I’ve fitted in here with the rest of the crew. Not through lack of trying but I think my naturally shyness has not helped me to gel with them all. Also a lot of them I have felt have been down right rude and unopen. Where i have made an effort some of them have not and this has been hard. Not all of them mind but with all those in the broth its been a lil weird. It kinda reminds me of school in Dublin. I was a shy guy then and was labelled a bit of a d******d as a result and people couldn’t be a**ed with me. OK so we are all adults here but still the same grain has been visible and those of the crew who have been rude have been the culprits. I just cant stand when people don’t even bother to try and get to know you. People wont have a clue as to who I am until they get to know me and it does bother me that a lot of them have not bothered. As a result it made the drinks in the bar quite odd. I didn’t stick around as I didn’t feel very welcome and I realised that all these people who knew the guy really well were all gonna be chatting about him and I didn’t wanna be the idiot with nothing to contribute. So I went back to the hotel, slept then went and got some dinner and saw a movie.

 

So the movie I went to see was Clerks 2. Bloody brilliant! The whole thing was excellent, it was a lil cheesy at times but it was nostalgic, funny and heart warming and full f references that were just pure genius. Go See it!

 

Tomorrow is the last day here. I am looking forward to going home. Will be nice to sleep in my own bed, and get back to my own routine. Also will be good to be back with friends and family. 3 weeks is a looong time to be away working!!

L I V I D I T Y!!!!!

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I have been off the planet for 2 days due to the f**king IDIOTS that are Orange!!! 2 weeks ago I rang Orange to check to see if I could change my talk plan with them. I wanted to move onto one of their apparently super duper animal talk plans. On the face of it they look like a much better deal even though the f**kers are tying you into an 18 month contract! And Where once I would have been able to upgrade for free at 10 months? – No, Will I f**k – of course not cause that would be a deal that customers might actually benefit from. Anyway back to the point – I was told that o the 17th of the month I’d be able to sort it all out so while working away (painfully as I was having to use my Orange mobile as a modem with a painstakingly slow connection of 230k) I looked at the handsets on offer and rather stupidly got my hopes up with excited thoughts that maybe with a new better contract and a shiny new handset I could possibly have Orange make my life a lil easier! – WRONG!!!!

So last week I went into an Orange store here in Manchester. The 17th was coming up but it was a Sunday so I needed to find out what time they closed on the coming Sunday to see if I would be able to get out of the studio and to the store in time to sort all this stuff out. The lad I spoke to told me they closed at 8pm. As you can imagine i was a lil taken aback so i asked him: “are you sure? on a Sunday? – Not Monday – i mean Sunday?” he assured me Sunday was an 8 pm close. Cut to Sunday – We finished in the Studio around 4:20 so i walked up to the store and got there at 4:45 only to have the security guard block me from entering. – Guess what he said. Yes that’s right!!! they were closed!!!! i asked when they closed and he said 5pm! UUUUUH WHAT? its bloody 4:45pm!!! Then he gives me that typical security guard look of helplessness which is failing to conceal his true feelings of – I really couldn’t give a flying f**k as this means I am getting out of wok early! You know the one I mean, it inspires feelings of wanting to mach the expression wearers face in with an oversized ice pick. (this is the first point of Orange staff seemingly never giving a crap about customers and not being bothered) Not being happy with this i Got the number of the store from directory enquiries and walked round the corner and rang the shop. Who ever’s phone the line was diverted to had there phone unlocked in their pocket and instead of being greeted by the sounds of a welcome to the Orange store I got chatter between the staff which went along the lines of- “Yeah that guy earlier was a right f**king d**k head, glad we got him sorted in the end” and so on and so forth! OOOOh the professionalism just oozed from that call! I was really impressed! This is when I started to get really annoyed. I gave up and headed back to the studio with the intention of returning the following day.

Cut to Monday afternoon. – I got to the store and was seen immediately by a phone trainer. He was very helpful. He helped me choose the talk plan that suited me best and I had already chosen my handset – A lovely new spangly SPV M600. After going through the motions he came back to me saying I’m afraid you cant do that as the system is saying you cant change your talk plan yet. WTF????? I was already told that I could!!! What the F**k is going on here???? I told him that he was wrong and he gave me that “don’t give a s**t” stare so i called orange myself, spoke to a lady who confirmed I was right and then shoved my handset at the assistant. Full of apologies he continued the transaction. (this is the second point of Orange staff seemingly never giving a crap about customers and not being bothered – oh they has got some great customer service skills innit!!). This goes to show how bad Orange are as there systems don’t collaborate on key customer information. One system says one thing another system says something else! Had I not pushed the matter I would have found myself waiting unnecessarily for an extra month! How idiotic is that!!!!

So he continued to process my transaction and while I was waiting I was again shocked, this time by another member of staff. An elderly gentleman came in to sort his pay as you go sim card and get some money put on it. He did not have his phone with him but did have his card and for what ever reason there was a screw up of some sort. I think they needed to know his phone number which he didn’t know. Now, instead of being polite, the assistants attitude of treating the gentleman like he was an idiot! then getting a little irate with him as he had to go through a refund procedure and it was all the mans fault! What an A**EHOLE! Had that been me i would have had a right go at the assistant for being so bloody rude but the timid old guy just stood there apologizing while huffy w****r assistant dude did the refund. (this is the third point of Orange staff seemingly never giving a crap about customers and not being bothered – only this time the guy seemed visibly put out by the fact that he actually had to do his job!!!). Ok so back to my story. Once i was sorted the assistant told me that within 16 hours my new handset would be activated. I went home and started to play with my new handset all happy as a pig in s**t!

Then the morning arrived!!!! (cue the theme tune from Psycho) I woke up to find my old handset was deactivated however my new one had not been. Uh Oh! This meant i had no phone line at all. It meant I had no connection to interweb via my phone – i was cut off from the world! When ever i made a call the phone would connect to the Orange Registration Menu. I got through to some bloke who said it should be active but there was a delay on the system slowing down some of the upgrade activations. This is stupid as why would they deactivate my old phone before activating my new one? That’s ridiculous! Orange basically had cut me off from the world the t**ts! – I was told to wait and try again. I had 5 calls to that line during the day trying to get it sorted. The final 2 calls were perplexing as it had been over the 24 recommended hours for activation to take place and they were a lil confused by it all. Several hours later when I was able to get my hands on a working phone I called them again and they called me back on the other line. It was at this point that we found that the sim card numbers did not match. And i don’t mean there was one digit wrong, no. the whole thing was completely wrong!!! The only thing I could do was to return to the shop to sort it. At this point in case you have not already guessed i was completely livid! I’d had a whole day of not being connected and i’d had calls to make to clients which i failed to do as a result! GRRRR!

Cut to this morning! – 9:15am at the orange store in the Arnedale center manchester (yes i had to get up early to do this) . At first I was intending to go i there and shout and throw my rattle and swear at the guys in the shop as it seemed that they had given me the wrong sim card but being used to Orange’s ineptness I decided that no, i’d keep it together until i know all the facts never mind the fact that i didn’t trust myself from loosing it completely and castrating them all with a paper clip and a siemens phone charger from the shelf. So I went up and explained all that had happened. The usual apologies ensued along with that aforementioned expression (resist the urge to castrate, Mark, resist it!). After a bit of fumbling and a couple of calls it turned out that when they registered my new sim card the lady at Orange head office or where ever the hell she was took down the wrong number for my sim card. Now here is the big f**k up. The assistant did not verify the last 4 digits of the sim properly which as I understand it is Orange procedure. Who’s to blame – both of them!!! Idiots! – LAZY idiots (this is the fourth point of Orange staff seemingly never giving a crap about customers and not being bothered). SOOOOO the outcome was that he told me my old handset would be reactivated within the next few minutes and my new one would be active later today.

As i type this my old phone still has not been reactivated and i hold no hope for the new one either resulting in me still not being connected! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! Not at any point have i been offered any form of compensation for all the trouble I have had! I ask you WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS COMPANY???? This is lunacy! I will be copying this entry as my letter top them. I’m not gonna make it all formal as i don’t think the neanderthals that work for the company will be able to understand it. I will ask them what would they do if they were in my shoes. I’ will also tell them that i intend to leave them and not pay them another penny! as far as i am concerned Orange have not provided the service i pay them for therefore they are in breach of contract – Quite simple really! Lets see what they say!!!

Yay me and my superior web coding…

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For my regular viewers you’ll see that the design today is a wee bit diffrent – (this is a boring post by the way) Yes I am cracking the whole thing of CSS code. So for todays design changes all i had to do was change the css page- YAY me!

 

As we speak I am sat behind the set and the show is going on – am getting a bit sick of it now!

Big up the NASA posse!

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Well what’s been happening over the last few days…

 

This morning I got an email from a girl who works for Nasa – She was looking at some of my videos last night and mailed me about em – It jus goes to show the power of the Web. I have people at Nasa watching my videos- I RULE!!! lol

 

I had Monday and tuesday off this week so I went up to Glasgow to See Sandra and her family – It was ace! I got up there and we went to pick up the girls from school. There is nothing more heart melting than 2 lil girls running to you with their arms outstretched shouting “Uncle MAAAAARK” in their lil Glaswegian accents! They really are so gorgeous! Later while my sis did motherly stuff like ironing and cooking I played with the 4 kids in the garden. I now have the firm understanding of kiddies psychology in the way that you can keep em all happy and make em do stuff for u by turning everything into a game.

Later on I had dinner with Sandra & Peter and we watched a movie. The following day I Brought Sarah and Rebekah to school in the morning and Me Sandra and the wee ones Peter and Lucy went into town and had a coffee , well proverbially as it was tea and a cake but u know what i mean!

 

I left Sandra off to get her train back home and I went and got my train. It connected at Preston so I got off there and took a look around at my old Uni town. I strolled up the high street and went and saw my old flat which is now a swanky bar/restaurant and what was once my bedroom is the men’s loo – People now pee where I once slept – how hardcore is that! lol

 

After this I jumped on the train and came back to Manchester but on the way back i had to dish out a bit of a “shut the f*#k up” to a bloke who was being a nuisance and annoying some girls behind me – he got all abusive and so i stepped in. I got back here and made my way to the hotel. This new hotel I’m in is not as nice as the last one but the room is soooo much bigger!

 

Also this week I’ve had 2 blast from the past people get in touch with me! Firstly it was Laura from school which was nuts! Thank you Myspace and the Dre from Iowa emailed me too which was another biggie! See – The interweb is a bloody fantastic thing!

 

Anyway – that’s all for now – I need to do some invoices and think of ways to entertain myself for the rest of the day!!

How Ninja Are You?

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Production company are messing me around. Was bout to check out of the hotel when I get a call from the office saying I was due in the studio today – I was told before I had today off and had arranged to go up to Glasgow for thwe 2 days to my sisters place – EEJITS!

Life as a video wall engineer

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So I got the informa video sorted this morn and its on its way to the client – gotta do an invoice for it now. Looks like about £2500 – wohoo!

Life as a Video Wall Engineer aint as exciting as one might think. I have been bored out of my mind!! Basically every day I come in around 10-11am, Power up the screen and that’s pretty much it until the end of the day when I power it down at around 9:30/10pm. Yeah its a loooong day of doing nothing. As previously mentioned I had the Informa video to do but that has now finished and I am now at a loss. There is a web site that needs finishing but that might take a few days to get the info I need from the client. Otherwise I’m worried about going insane. Cant help but feel a lil guilty for sitting here doing nothing and getting paid for it!!!

The rest of the crew seem friendly enough but the shy guy I am has prevented me from, I dunno, I suppose its getting better and am starting to get to know them all a lil better now that I’ve been here for 5 days. Time will tell!

Oonagh is coming up to see her sis this weekend so will meet up with her on sat night then on Sunday and monday I have 2 days off so will go up to Glasgow and see my sis and the kids and Peter. Should be coolio!