5 tricks to pull when you're bored.

I’ve had a long and stressful week this week. Apart from all the overtime, we’ve had a lot of work and everyone back at the office is burned out, myself included. The one thing, though, you tend to learn while under pressure is how to release it, by playing stupid tricks, or at least, having the idea.

5) What goes up, must come down.
If you really want to wind somebody trying to do a site inspection right up, there’s no finer tool than this one. Take a full king-sized bed, and chuck it out of the first floor window, knocking down an entire scaffold in the process. No word of a lie, we had this one happen the other day. As stupid as it is, the funny side is there, if you ignore the potential deaths and huge stacks of paperwork it’s inflicted upon me. Oh, and for good measure, tell the inspector that he’s the cause of the problem, while the bodies are flailing around in the background.

4) Problem with the neighbours? Get some Japanese Knotweed.
Yup. As a semi-regular floater-rounder of the East Lancashire Railway, I sort of knew about Japanese Knotweed, and when a job came up this week that required us to remove a load of the stuff, I found out just how much I knew. The stuff grows practically anywhere, in three days give or take, and once it’s there, it’s impossible to get rid of, so much so it’s considered an invasive species in many countries, and as such the spread of it is illegal. So, why not plant a load of it in your neighbours garden, for six months of guaranteed stress?

3) Never tell the truth when a lie will do.
So when someone called me up with the wrong number, I pretended to be the person the required. I never in a million years thought it would work, but once I started, I sort of had to finish. Paula Finnagan, if you’re out there, a bloke called Joseph Branning will be attending your confrence on Wednesday at 9.00am, although sadly he’ll end up at a random address.

2) If you really want to confuse the office, put stickers everyware.
We have a big open plan office upstairs at our depot, and for some reason, it fell to me and a collegue to plaster “Switch off when not in use” stickers on the screens. I thought it would be a far better idea to stick “Switch off the light when not in use” ones on the screens, or stick them under the telephone handset, or my favourite, using “Danger, Asbestos” stickers instead.

1) When your collegue is being a tit, throw him in the skip.
If your collegue is being a bit of a prat, talking about his new corporate role, salary, company car, and just his general smug gittiness, it’s hard to keep nodding, so eventually you want to put a sock in it. Well, we went one better, and picked him up, square in his chair, carried him out to the skip area, and just plonked him the wood skip. Trust me when I say I’ve never felt so good in my entire life.

5 tricks to pull when you’re bored.

I’ve had a long and stressful week this week. Apart from all the overtime, we’ve had a lot of work and everyone back at the office is burned out, myself included. The one thing, though, you tend to learn while under pressure is how to release it, by playing stupid tricks, or at least, having the idea.

5) What goes up, must come down.
If you really want to wind somebody trying to do a site inspection right up, there’s no finer tool than this one. Take a full king-sized bed, and chuck it out of the first floor window, knocking down an entire scaffold in the process. No word of a lie, we had this one happen the other day. As stupid as it is, the funny side is there, if you ignore the potential deaths and huge stacks of paperwork it’s inflicted upon me. Oh, and for good measure, tell the inspector that he’s the cause of the problem, while the bodies are flailing around in the background.

4) Problem with the neighbours? Get some Japanese Knotweed.
Yup. As a semi-regular floater-rounder of the East Lancashire Railway, I sort of knew about Japanese Knotweed, and when a job came up this week that required us to remove a load of the stuff, I found out just how much I knew. The stuff grows practically anywhere, in three days give or take, and once it’s there, it’s impossible to get rid of, so much so it’s considered an invasive species in many countries, and as such the spread of it is illegal. So, why not plant a load of it in your neighbours garden, for six months of guaranteed stress?

3) Never tell the truth when a lie will do.
So when someone called me up with the wrong number, I pretended to be the person the required. I never in a million years thought it would work, but once I started, I sort of had to finish. Paula Finnagan, if you’re out there, a bloke called Joseph Branning will be attending your confrence on Wednesday at 9.00am, although sadly he’ll end up at a random address.

2) If you really want to confuse the office, put stickers everyware.
We have a big open plan office upstairs at our depot, and for some reason, it fell to me and a collegue to plaster “Switch off when not in use” stickers on the screens. I thought it would be a far better idea to stick “Switch off the light when not in use” ones on the screens, or stick them under the telephone handset, or my favourite, using “Danger, Asbestos” stickers instead.

1) When your collegue is being a tit, throw him in the skip.
If your collegue is being a bit of a prat, talking about his new corporate role, salary, company car, and just his general smug gittiness, it’s hard to keep nodding, so eventually you want to put a sock in it. Well, we went one better, and picked him up, square in his chair, carried him out to the skip area, and just plonked him the wood skip. Trust me when I say I’ve never felt so good in my entire life.

Tuesday the 9th June, 2009.

It’s alright, I didn’t type in the wrong box or anything. I’m just thinking, though, about today, and what it means.

I probably won’t remember today ever again, as it was largely unremarkable. I did treat myself to a taxi to HQ this morning, as I had a meeting, was running a little late, and had won £20 on a bet earlier last week.  So, I got on with a lot of work, attended a meeting, did a lot more work. I had lunch with my friends, some I hadn’t seen for a while, and did more work. The two highlights of the afternoon was probably the fact that, out of the office window, I spotted a Class 57 “Thunderbird” locomotive (Alan Tracy, to be exact), and I did go to Subway with Angela after work to settle that Apprentice debt.

I find myself angry with my phone, since it totally reset itself and I lost all my settings. Windows Mobile 6.5 is very buggy, so I’m spending my evening fixing my phone (and making a nice big backup!) – and then I’m going to chill out with some Deep Space Nine and my box of Cadbury Heroes.

I guess can look back in a few years time and read that, and remember what my life was like this month, week, day, whatever. Then I can put some Voyager on and eat a box of Cocoa Electric.

As a side note, lots of cool mega awesome photos of all sorts of things that I got up to weekend are at my other website, – just ignore the trains if you like.

It’s also worth mentioning that, if you just happen to be after Windows hosting, we’re now doing it at no extra cost with 50% off the price and a free domain to boot. Just head over to http://www.flowinternet.net/

Lovely.

Today, I'm going to be patriotic.

I’m feeling pretty rough this morning, stuck in bed with some hot lemon and the remote. Since the TV in my bedroom is Freeview, and our areial is, to say the least, shite, I’ve been stuck watching Sky News.

I’m glad though, because it means I have the honour of watching the 65th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings. This is the annivesary of when British, American, and a few crazy Canadian’s decided that they’d had enough of “having it up em”, and as a result, we beached ourselves on the shores of France, and liberated it. Which was jolly nice of us, wasn’t it?

I don’t pretend to know a lot about the war, nor can I begin to imagine the sacrafice these people made, not just during this time but during the entire war. I respect it though, and I find it pretty sad and, indeed, worring that, in 10 or 20 years time, we’ll probably not gather to remember D-Day in the way we do today.

The fact that the Queen has not attended this year, and that Gordon Brown has decided to wade in, bringing all his contorversy with him, is very depressing. It’s overshadowing the day, frankly, and I don’t think our veterans deserve that, do they?

It was, however, nice to see Barack Obama attend. He’s clearly a very popular man, and the British, French, and Canadian crowds alike all greeted him like a celebrity. This, I think, is quite unique in politics today. Nobody in our political system could dream of such a response, and I really do love the man. He does good work, he’s popular with the people, and he genuinely has respsect for the event which he’s attending (which no other US President has, IIRC).

A few years ago, when George W. was the President, I wished the American’s would listen to the rest of the world and take note. Now, with Gordon B. as our Prime Minister, I wish the rest of the world would listen to America.

But this asside, lets take a moment to pay some respect to those who sacraficed a great deal for us to have our “free” and wonderful world.