Sunday, Apr. 26, 2009 - 21:01

Fairly busy week at work, and additionally a pretty 'full' weekend too, so I fully admit that this is unlikely to be the most wonderful and well-crafted diary entry.

Things at work are generally OK. I've had plenty of frustrations and annoyances in the past week, however. Some of the lab staff are stubborn and ignorant, which worries me when I'm trying to ensure that testing is done to a high standard. Some of the supervisors are less than helpful, alas, and have been effing and blinding about me while I'm out of the room. Somne of my bosses are on a different planet and are making demands about what results I should be obtaining in my validation work, long before the results are in - very unscientific, and something that has annoyed me greatly.

Alas I can only anticipate things building up stress and annoyance -wise over the next few weeks as we prepare for our audit. Having no lab manager and with the deputy lab manager leaving in a week or so.. I wonder if we're screwed. Well, I suppose it's a ready-made excuse if we do have problems :-)

Added to that, I had a long chat last night with a friend from work which was a bit blargh. Not the fact she rang, nor chatting to her - that was all good and enjoyable.. just the nature of the conversation in that she's upset about work because her supervisor isn't making time to train her in new tasks, whereas other peeps are being trained.

Alas, I can see both points of view, as the supervisors are under pressure to get everything done on time, and hence haven't much chance to train people up in new stuff. It's essentially the supervisors choice who they get to do stuff, and as long as it's all done, no-one in management will care about individual training needs etc. As much as she wants to do more, if her supervisor wants to pick other peeps because he doesn't think she's able.. well.. to some extent that's tough shit.

Had my Ma and Pa visit this weekend, which has been super nice.. We went for a curry yesterday evening, which was cool. Alas though it's left me a little knackered as I was up early yesterday to tidy my pig-sty of a flat, and I was up early this morning as we went out to the countryside for a murble round a wee picturesque market town. I've had a kip this arvo but still feel quite tired, and also a bit disorientated w.r.t. not having had my usual weekend's worth of relaxing and sitting on my arse eating rancid polecat urethra.

Yep, I got bored at the end of that last paragraph, as you can clearly see. Apologies to those eating at the time, who were upset by the mention of their wife.

Saturday's football results generally were pretty good as far as Middesboro' and Sunderland supporters were concerned, with Hull, Sunderland and Stoke all losing. Alas, Boro failed to take any advantage of this by losing tamely to Arsenal today, whilst Blackburn won to move a little clearer :-(

I really should watch Lars Von Trier's 'Dancer in the Dark' some day. I should rewatch 'Festen' too, I guess. Plus I've not seen 'The Idiots'. I wonder if there is a LVT festival in the West Midlands at some point?

I finished reading that John O'Farrell book in the week, and very good it was too. I've started reading Dan Brown's 'Angels & Demons', and it's been OK so far, notwithstanding a few niggles I have about factual inaccuracies. I'm not talking about taking liberties with the truth for the sake of artistic licence and better storytelling, I'm more bothered about incorrectness that just seems lazy.

It just seems very shoddy of an author to not bother to research (or to think it unimportant) and hence make mistakes about physics which the average sixteen year old would not make. Implying that electrons and protons were 'opposite' in the same way as matter and antimatter are - ignoring the fact that there is a significant difference in mass between the two particles, and that electron-positron and proton-antiproton are the accepted antimatter 'opposites'. I think part of me is comparing Brown to other authirs who seem to have done their research a lot more thoroughly.

Apprentice was good this week (cereal adverts) even though the boardroom was again between the Project Manager who didn't really manage (Kimberley), the disruptive pain in the ass (Lorraine) and the only person who actually seemed to have any ideas and do anything even though in the end it was quite crap what was made (Philip).

Kim went because she was a shit Project Manager. I wanted Lorraine to go because even though she's obviously intelligent and stuff, she's a drama-queeny non team-player. She'd get away with it if she was Lucinda from the last series. I'm more sympathy for Phil because despite being a gobby aggressive twat (just the sort of person I dislike) he did contribute most of the ideas.. which for a creative task is good. It's just whether a shit idea is better than no ideas (or multiple-character ideas that don't meet the brief) at all..?

I'd like to know, to what extent, people bring it upon themselves. In general and specifically. I mean, there should be some kind of average whereby one can quantify how much someone brings a bad outcom on themself. Smokers and lung disease. Sunbathers and skin cancer. Motorcyclists and bike accidents. Ginger kids and being abandoned by thier parents. Battered wives and spousal abuse. Rape victims and rape. I'm not saying anyone deserves bad stuff, but.. if I go around telling meatheads that they are cocksucking pisskidneys, I kinda would be bringing a beating upon myself, yeah?

LISTENING TO:- Um. Quite a bit of Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris. My Ma has loaned me a few CDs too, which I'll listen to in the coming weeks forsure.

Bored now. Going to go and iron a few shirts. Resent the fact I have to go back to work in the morrow.