Saturday 18 April 2009

F1 poopy

A while back a few work mates decided to go watch the F1 Grand Prix. Armed with their over priced tickets they headed off to enjoy a day at the races. As a bonus a well known UK funky disco superstar was holding a free after race concert. Things looked set for an excellent day out.

Arriving at 2pm they queued to enter the race circuit. But prior to entry had to surrender all food and drinks. So that once inside they would have to join the queue of literally hundreds to get food and drink from the 2 lone F&B stands in the whole venue. After an age of queuing the start of the race drew close, so off to the stands. Pretty good seats, good view of some of the exciting turns the circuit has to offer.

With the race under way, the petty annoyances of earlier on start to fade with the excitement of watching the best drivers in the world battle for 1st place. But then in true sods law fashion the heavens open up. No worries they thought; we specifically got tickets under shelter, so the rain should make the race more exciting. Wrong, the roof over their heads started to leak like a sieve and the rain was so heavy the race had to be abandoned.

Great... so the whole reason they shelled out cash and travelled all that way was now washed away in the rain... Well at least the free concert was still going ahead. Might as well drown the sorrows of a washed out race at the beer tent. The only beer tent. The beer tent where you had to pay to enter and then pay again to buy a beer. Y-a-y...

The time of the concert was still hours away. Which was handy cos queueing to get served used up those hours nicely. In the distance they hear the concert staring to fire up. Time to make a move and get some front row seats. Or should I say front row stands, as it was standing room only.

As they approached the concert venue they realised there were just 2 entrances for the hundreds upon hundreds of people. Oh, wait, no. Make that 1 entrance, cos the other entrance was for VIPs. More queuing. And its starting to get dark, and the concert venue is outside. So all the bugs and mozzies are creeping out in the cool of the evening. All having a feast on the hundreds of blood donors standing about.

Once into the venue the tonnes of people have turned the rain soaked concert ground into an ankle deep swamp. A swamp with treacle thick mud to rival Glastonbury. Rubbish and lost flip flops adoring the swamp at regular intervals. Looking to the stage they see the warm up act jamming away. Some local group, the likes of which you'd more expect to see down ya local pub then as a warm up act to a world class artist. Enduring with the torture, they waited till at last the warm up band left. Only to be replaced by some DJ, scratching up and mixin them records like it was ya school disco. Again they endured till the DJ finally left the stage. Surely it must be the main attraction now? Nope just another local musical hack. Standing there,with tortured ears, semi soaked in the hot humid night air, ankle deep in mud, bitten silly by mozzies, hungry, thirsty and tired, the clock fast approaching 11pm. They finally had enough and call it a day.

As they made it out of the venue and moved to the car park they hear the announcement of the main attraction taking to the stage. At nearly 11:30pm, and a 1 hour drive ahead ,they could care less. All they want is a cool shower and a cosy bed.

Sunday 12 April 2009

Lazy B-hach

Been laid off work since Tuesday. Said there was nothing in the hangar for me to work on. But I'm being paid anyway so who cares. So did I do anything constructive during these 5 or so days off??? Pfffrt yeah right. TBH I can't even remember what I did during these days off. I think I went out and bought a toilet seat at some point... Also remember alot of PC, Internet, cable TV and gaming. Yeah alot of that. Till the point you know when you stare at a screen so long ya eyes get all blurry and fogged up but ya still keep going, chanting just 10 more mins...

Oh did a bunch of cooking these past 2 days. Really miss that. Mainly the cooking and the eating bits of it all. Been close to 2 weeks since I did any of it. Really wanted to get them brownies baked but alas never got in the mood for brownie munchin.

Past 2 days have been back to Halo 3 online. Thanks to Bungie and their multiplayer weekend, they've made online play free for the whole weekend. Guess they are drumming up the launch of the Mythic Map pack. At least I now know that online gaming in this country is a no-go. Ping is terrible. Constantly the laggiest member on the map. 1 match was totally unplayable cos I would die, and respawn... dead... and respawn... dead... etc... etc... SOOOOOO annoying. Guess online gaming here is restricted to stuff like Mahjong or Uno... FPS, not a chance.

Maybe cos of that I've moved back to quasi-ol'skool gaming. Been kicking it on Sid Meyer's Alpha Centuari. Wish I had Civ too... Been hankering for a bit of that as well.

Anyhoo, work beckons in 4 hours... better get some shut eye... Man Really dreading work of late... Becoming a real drag.

Thursday 2 April 2009

Poor quality

Realised a bit of shocking news, for me anyway. While paying my rental car bill I noticed a reference chart on the wall behind the clerk. It stated the fuel tank capacities for the various cars they had. I noticed mine had a 50 litre fuel tank. I always thought it was a 40 litre.

Which after some quick mental math I realised mean the shitty rental I was driving about did a mere 8 km per litre of fuel... comparing to my RX8 which did 8.5km per litre! And this car is a total boat handling wise, totally gutless and totally laggy due to the auto transmission.

I know its a completely boring thing to blog about to everyone else but after being hammered by other car owners when they realise I drive a rotary. Their line is always how unreliable, fuel and oil thirsty it is...

Never had any problems with a rotary. And certainly can't imagine anything close to the issues thrown up with the cars here.

Really miss driving my car. Life here has been very "meh" as of late. Really have no get up and go. Still on the tail end of recovery and still in the throes of poor working morale. It is getting to the point that if I don't get some kind of type course or other reason to stay on or maybe even a shift to another unit, I think it may be time to pack it in soon. Money certainly ain't the best here. Working hours are too long but at the same time too little cos they subtract a good deal for breaks. Work is unforfilling and guys I like working with are few.