Merry Christmas

I just wanted to say Merry Christmas to my fellow Manx lad Bloggers, and to those other bloggers that I regularly read. Also to those regular readers of the Manx Lads, I only know one, so Merry Christmas Darren.

That’s about it. I hope everyone has a Great Christmas and even if they don’t get the present that they really want, that they are surrounded by people that they really care about. Spread the love people!

I almost forgot, Merry Christmas to my Brother and his wife who live half way round the world.

Merry Christmas to one and all.

S. B. E.

School Boy Error.

Silly, silly mistake - trusting an untried website to process an order. Doh.

Drawn to the quirky art of Jeff Thomas - I found a great looking site Azuzephre for the artwork of Jeff Thomas. Looks nice, huh! So I order a bunch of prints, thinking to frame them up as a pressie for the blonde in my life -

- I even forget about the order - made a month ago - until it comes to counting up the stocking fillers. And I find I'm one missing. Ummmmm. Double checking - the order is still pending. Money has been paid thru the paypal account - Numerous emails later - and no response. So, double Doh-eth.

Although sites out there may look good, professionally designed and concepted - you can't trust any but the bigger players.

Anyhoo - Have a groovy little Christmas.

The Gravy Train

I have boarded the Gravy Train; destination: Retirement.

I have my feet under the desk, I have my cup and tea bags in my desk, and I am ready for anything that the Civil Service can throw at me.

In the day and half I have been here, the main IT Department that we all defer too has shown a complete lack of IT Knowledge. However, as I have no Admin rights what-so-ever I have been unable to help them. In fact when trying to prompt one fella in the right direction on how to map a drive, I was told to stop talking whilst he concentrates………

Who cares, take a day or so I have all the time in the world. I’ll go and make myself another cup of tea and get a biscuit.

All A BOARD!

Bloody Thieves :)

So I finally felt in some sort of shape to make the journey downstairs today and try and catch up on a few e-mails. I must be starting to come around a little bit because as I sat down I noticed that the piles of drinking change that I left as I quickly emptied the contents of my pockets (closely followed by my belly) on Wednesday night have magically disappeared.

Apparently there is an unwritten rule that when dad comes in drunk and leaves money in open view it's a free for all to see who can claim it first. Now I know the rule I will make sure that next time I don't come home until I've spent up.

Christmas riddle

Ahhh - I love Christmas. With it's thin tinsel, impatient shoppers and excuse-not-required drinking sessions. Time to dust off the same old jokes (Darth Vader does indeed know what you're getting for Christmas) and buy a new santa hat to lose on the lads Christmas day out.

But can anyone help with the Christmas riddle of the Lockets advert where people and animals fall over. Love it, naturally, as they're short enough for my attention span and quaintly amusing as a Robin sneezes himself off a branch or some bloke skids off his feet onto the pavement. But what the heck does that voice say at the end? It's a yell or a mocking scream or a something-or-other. Anyone have a clue what they're saying?

It bugged me last year. It's gonna bug me this year . . .

Office Christmas Party 2004

When it comes to works Christmas parties I only have 1 rule, go hard or go home, at best I only make a complete and utter twat of myself! So the works xmas do 2004 was another blur to me. I remember being sat on a table with 3 or 4 directors, I can remember drinking wine* like it was fruit juice, I can remember being an obnoxious cunt. On leaving the restaurant it's all limited to tables, dancing, bouncers, arguing, more arguing, a night club and eating chips at some point. I had to face the music in work afterwards but I just pretended that I knew what everybody was talking about and wasn't it all a great laugh, like you do. Those 5 hours were to be lost in my mind forever, or so I thought.

Cue this morning waking up in a cold sweat. I'm not normally somebody who dreams, I'm a very light sleeper but last night I slept like a baby. Unfortunately my mind managed to trawl its way through the entire events of that night back in 2004 as if I was bloody sat in the room. It was like watching myself on video only a 100 times worse. There are few things in life duller than listening to somebody bang on about their dreams so I'll not go into details, all I want to do is apologise to all you boring fuckers that were not as drunk as me. That'll teach you. Seriously though my behaviour that night was shabby.

On to the spooky bit, the only reason I've mentioned this at all, and this is what freaked me out. Yesterday was 3 years to the day of that Christmas party! That's some spooky shit going on, locked away for 3 years and then on the anniversary bang. I normally get flashbacks for a few days afterwards not 3 years later. Is this some type of warning not to get too messy this year? More to the point do I care if it is? Next Wednesday the lads are out for a combined works/lads beer session and with all the best will in the world it will get a little rough around the edges later on. Maybe I should take notice and have a soft drink every now and then, then again that would be a bit gay wouldn't it?

* The fact I was drinking wine is a good indication that I was just a little too shit faced before even turning up, I'm purely a beer man.