Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009 - 22:23

Really not sure why I have a bastard headache (probably caffeine withdrawal, but who knows) but I don't feel good cranially, so this'll be a very short one. Not, admittedly, that this is a bad thing - as I've very fucking little to say in all probability.

Today at work I got very little done, despite having quite a lot of outstanding stuff weighing me down (which maybe partially explains the headache, w.r.t. stress?) because we had our Annual Quality Meeting. This took seven hours, sat on an uncomfortable chair in a stuffy conference room, with little to say and plenty of thrilling Powerpoint slides to view.

So that was a bit of a bugger. On one hand it wasn't quite as bad as expected, but I just wish someone had told most of the people involved in presentations that "if a slide or graph or table doesn't actually show anything, there's no point in including it". Far too much in the way of people trying to prove they have done lots of work in preparing a report etc. when what they could've done instead was something useful :-)

I'm being a cock, I know. I suppose having had the fortunateness to have a bit of background in teaching and stuff, some of my presentation skills are more 'honed' than other peeps. That said, I would've expected better from the sales directors..

In the cricket, England bowled W.Indies out for 285, then had another bat and reached 31/1 (300+ runs ahead, with two days left). There was no football of interest (at least not to me) this evening.

Speaking of sport, I stayed up late last night watching NFL historical highlights online, and doing a bit of reading about American Football 'lore' so to speak.

It's interesting - I felt that the mythology and lore surrounding the American game (and other American sports in general) was subtely different in focus, compared to British views. I mean, I read about such 'important' moments/games in gridiron, all of which had iconic names ('Music City Miracle', 'The Catch', 'The Tackle', 'Ice Bowl', 'The Tuck Rule' etc.) and thought it interesting that there are no similarly viewed comparatives in British football.

I mean, we have great goals, and Banks's save against Pele, and Beckham kicking an Argentinian in 1998, and stuff - but there's not so much of a hype surrounding game-changing moments, and things haven't gone down in the public memory to such an extent. Yeah? You get me?

Boys & Girls Alone was OK - they went camping and both groups bonded a bit, then they got the lads and lasses together for a party and they just fought with each other and screamed a lot. Next week the girls move in with the boys so there'll be similar friction. But the programme makers will focus on a 'young love' storyline to make it more palatable.

The headache might be lack of sleep too, so I'm gonna get an earlyish one. Actually my intention was to be in bed by ten, but.. that didn't work, clearly!