The Grind

Well I'm stuck at work with plenty to do and a half empty department and I'm bored stupid. I SO don't want to be here right now. Think I'm getting the pre-Christmas blues. Figured out that it's 44 days until Christmas day .... 49 until I get to mark the anniversary of the day my life started falling apart …. that's depressing. Glad all my Christmas shopping is done. I've also realised I’ve spent a year in a job that depresses and annoys me in equal measure and trying to find ways to escape. That's not healthy. I have an overwhelming urge to blog. I need to get some shit out of my system I think.

It's been nice that the boss hasn't been here the last couple of weeks. It's meant we can actually have a conversation for a change without feeling stares at your back or getting sarcastic comments about the Women’s Institute. Have I mentioned my boss exasperates me?? No?? Well I meant to .... he seems to be coasting until retirement. He doesn't want to rock the boat so he won't have to actually do anything .... like addressing the issues in the department no matter how often they’re brought to his attention. It’s so dysfunctional it isn’t even funny. There’s the expectation that, when he retires in a few years, the QA department will cease to exist. I’m actually hoping for that day to come if I can’t get out.

He's back on Wednesday. I was hoping I wouldn't be here, that I would have motivated myself to apply for a new job while I was on leave a couple of weeks back, been offered it, handed my notice to HR and then only had to deal with him for about a week and a half .... not a chance though. Just not had the energy .... I need to do something though. I know. I need to stop talking about it and Nike it but I'm too chicken!! Lol!! At least I KNOW I’m chicken.

I think I've convinced myself to apply for it but I'm finding it hard to send the application. It's funny because a couple of years ago I was doing everything in my power to escape .... applying for anything and everything. I think my confidence took a real knock at my old job. I couldn't do right for doing wrong there and when I was made redundant I was a mess because I was just getting myself sorted out. That was the second time the rug was pulled out from under me. I sometimes feel the same way about this job - that I can't do right for doing wrong, and that I should have "No fucker told me!!" tattooed on my forehead!! Thing is it seems to be affecting every other part of my life lately …. either that or I’m bi-polar (sorry tri-polar. ;)). It’s also ironic that I’ve been listening a lot to the new Bon Jovi album – yes, I finally listened to it and have had it on repeat for near enough a fortnight. Every word of that album is telling me that I need to start doing for myself, that I’ve earned the right to do so and I need to grab life by the balls and go for it, but even that hasn’t quite spurred me on yet.

After my positivity about Wii-ing the other day I’m struggling to find the motivation to actually do it. After a full day working somewhere that seems to suck the life out of you and destroy your soul, the last thing I want to do is come home and work out. I just want to unwind after 8 hours of being shit on from a great height.

The entire situation I find myself in at the moment isn’t helped by the fact that my mother has an incredible ability to shit on everything I decide from a great height so I then back way very quickly and doubt myself. Rather than just being supportive and saying “go for it, if it doesn’t work out at least you can come home knowing you gave it a shot” she becomes realistic and it just makes me second guess myself and my decision. Drives me nuts!! I don’t know if part of it is because I am her only child and she’s trying to protect me, or to not lose me, but I’m treading water and I’m tired. I’m not quite ready to resign myself to the life plan that seems to be set out before me at the moment. I think my first act of ‘rebellion’ has been to go against everything I was brought up to believe in a financial sense and ‘waste’ my money on a holiday (or several). I don’t think she’s exactly happy about it, but I definitely wasn’t about to let her shit on that too. I will get to see new places, meet new people, and go and see the band I’ve loved for 15 years on their own turf. That can only be a good thing. My life has been on hold for so long. Surely I’m allowed a break??

In other news, my 3 day old pair of uniform trousers split down the seam at some point. Not as embarrassing as you might imagine but I noticed a thigh height breeze as I was walking across the car park after work last night and the stitching had gone. Looked like it had run out of cotton tbh but it hardly says good quality. It's about an inch long .... doesn't bode well but I'm going to employ mummy dearest to fix it. I should probably complain to work but the way it is in that place it won't do any good. No-one gives a damn .... they couldn't be arsed to help with a solution when my blouses were itchy as hell so I doubt anyone'll give a damn now ....

Anyway, back to the grind and my last few days of boss-less freedom .... if anyone sees the Jovi Jet, send it my way. I would like to be rescued thank you very much …. *sigh*

Wonders of Wii-ing

It’s been a month or so since I embarked on Wii fitness. Admittedly I’m probably not being as dedicated to it as I could be but let’s be honest, after putting in 8 hours in the most mind numbingly stressful job I’ve ever had the misfortune to hold, who can blame me?!? But I’m still sticking with it ….

I’ll admit I’m impatient and not getting results as fast as I want – I was kinda hoping I’d drop about 4 dress sizes and several stone in 2 months - a girl can dream right?? ;) – but that’s not to say I’m not getting any results. I now don’t get out of breath as quickly as I used to, I’ve not had any funny turns and the blouse I’m forced to wear at my job feels a little looser. I’ve also noticed that the new underwear I bought a couple of months ago is also looser round the back. Y’know what I mean. They say you’re supposed to gradually work your way down the hooks but I’ve jumped 2 pairs with [a little] room to spare. Not that I’m ready to buy a smaller back size. That would mean at least two extra cup sizes – I’m not sure you can even BUY scaffolding that size?!?!?!?

The week before last, when I was on leave I cranked it up to an hour – a direct result of watching Diet Doctors on the Tuesday and listening to the horrors of what I could be doing to myself. I need to discipline myself to do an hour every night whether I want to or not. I haven’t looked much at my diet. I did a rough calculation on a website for my calorie intake (I hate how it sounds like I’m counting calories) and I don’t eat nearly enough of them from their calculations it seems. That’s probably why I’m struggling a little; not taking in enough energy. The job stress probably isn’t helping either. Weight retention as a result of stress is a pretty good bet. I probably need more sleep too, but when a lot of your friends live elsewhere in the world it’s difficult to keep in touch with them, work a full time job and get sufficient sleep. I'm also wondering if it may be a plan to try the Slim Fast thing - not as n "instead of 2 meals a day" thing, but rather to make sure I have SOMETHING to eat first thing. I'm one of these strange people who, a) doesn't generally leave enough time in the morning for breakfast, and b) can't really stomach the idea of breakfast before 10 am. I need to research that idea more though ....

I’ve tended to stick with the Aerobic exercises, specifically the Free Step almost exclusively on the Wii Fit. It means I can watch TV (or listen to some music) while I do my exercise which is better than trying to get excited over a routine that doesn’t change (and apparently doesn’t always register my steps which means it LIES!!! Lol!!). Two half hour routines on that, one immediately after the other, seems to feel more positive than lots of two minute games which lends itself to lots of cooling down in between. Get’s the sweat and heart rate up and keeps it there, leaving a quick enough break to rehydrate. Ooh, get me sounding like I know what I’m talking about. Lol!!!

I also invested in the new Wii Fit Plus software to help break the monotony. I know that sounds bad but it was really just for a bit of variety on the exercises I seem drawn to on there. The most fun exercises in the original are the Aerobic and Balance games but once you’ve got the hang of them and filled up the top 10 scores they’re a bit same old and hard to improve on. It doesn’t really help to encourage you to keep trying them out. ;)

I’ve been told it takes 3 months to see results. I’ve decided I have until March. I want to have had my turning point by my 30th birthday. I will probably be disappointed, but as long as I have a goal to work towards I’m likely to be more focussed on achieving it.

So that’s where I am now. Should be fun …. :s

Live Before You Die

Well the plans for the big 3-0 didn’t exactly fall through. More like been put on hiatus for reasons only a few of us know, but it’s still a big year for me so I decided to do something very silly and make it a full on Jovi year …. well, for a few months anyway but it’ll feel longer!! Lol!!

I will admit that as much as I would love to follow the boys from country to country, staying in the same hotels and seeing every show they do next year (and, it seems, sounding more and more like a stalker) I’m afraid my budget will only stretch so far so I had to set me a limit. That limit became a little more flexible as time went on but meh. I have the savings, I can’t take it with me, and I have a lot of Jovi time to make up for.

I’ve been saving religiously for …. well I’m not really sure what for these days. The original plan was to pay off my student loan. At some point I figured “Fuck it. It’s not costing me anything and it won’t be used against me if and when I go for a mortgage” and then, bolstered by an unexpected win on the Premium Bonds a couple of years back, began saving just because it had become a habit, a good habit, but a habit nonetheless. Suffice it to say in the 7 years I’ve been saving I’ve managed to get a nice little nest egg together to use for a deposit or whatever.

I’ve not really gone without during that period and figured it was about time I treated myself so that was one of the reasons for the NY trip. Now that’s been postponed for a year or so I decided to use some of what I had put away. I’m still saving my money but at the moment what I have is sitting in the bank earning next to no interest (and don’t get me started on what a set of divs Gordon Brown, Mervyn King and the Bank of England are because I may say something I regret – seems everyone else knows how to fix the problem of the economy bar the people who have the power, but then I digress) so may as well use some of it …. so I did it. It’s not something I expect I’ll do regularly but once in a blue moon does no harm. As I have few overheads I can continue to be financially responsible and should be able to replace what I spend in good time.

Truth of it is, it’s one thing to be sensible with your finances, but it’s quite another to put this money away and then die before getting to use it. ;) To quote a well known piece of musical genius “it’s my life, it’s now or never, I ain’t gonna live forever” and if I do die with this nice little nest egg having never been used I will most certainly be kicking myself …. metaphysically speaking ….

So what did I do? I may have bought VIP packages to various Bon Jovi gigs in London, Mecca (aka New Jersey) and, in the next day or 2, Dallas. Like I said, it’s not something I expect I’ll do regularly but this year I wanted to. I also figured I’m past due. It’s been 18 months since I last saw the boys (admittedly a drop in the ocean compared to some!) and I didn’t do anything spectacular, or at ALL, for my 16th, 18th or 21st birthdays for various reasons, the main one being my Dad. AGAIN!!! Loved him to messes but he cocked it all up for several years even though it wasn’t his fault – not like he ASKED to be ill.

And let’s be honest here, what Jovi fan, in their right mind, is going to turn down the opportunity to go to a gig on or at least that near to their birthday; to have their favourite band at their ‘party’. Here’s hoping the girls fix it for me to be serenaded. They’re under orders to ensure they are displaying signage on the night which says “it’s my buds birthday tomorrow Richie. Sing something different for her, and then give her a big sloppy kiss!!” I’m so sick of I’ll Be There For You ….

So that’s the plan. I’m both excited and apprehensive. It’s going to be a whole new adventure having never even got on a plane before. I’m assured it’s like climbing on a bus. It’s quite a leap for the girl who’s never left our fair shores and has only ever driven alone as far afield as Plymouth.

Roll on 2010 ….. :D

And The Circle Continues

It’s kinda funny. I’ve been looking forward to getting my hands on the new Bon Jovi album. Of listening to those songs and relishing them, of reading the liner from cover to cover and marvelling (read: perving) at the hot totty contained within. However now I have it, I seem to be avoiding listening to it. I don’t know why, but bizarrely I feel apprehensive about it. My excitement has been replaced with nervousness about what the rest of the album is like. There’s no good reason to be apprehensive. The songs I have heard (We Weren’t Born To Follow and When We Were Beautiful – the latter of which I absolutely adore) are pretty damn good, and the reviews garnered from the leaked version of the album have all been positive – back to the Jovi we know, love and missed during the last album, so why can’t I flick that play button??

I don’t remember having this trouble with the other albums. I remember getting them home or in the mail, ripping off the cellophane cover (and swearing when I couldn’t find that annoying plastic tape tab, ripping it to my computer and MP3 player, and playing it through from start to finish several times over and reading the lyrics and liner notes and loving it.

I wonder if this time I’m just tired. The other albums have all arrived (for the most part anyway) when I’ve had very little playing on my mind …. but seemingly not this time. As odd as that sounds, despite the fact I’ve had this last week off from work I’ve barely relaxed. Between helping out Suze from a distance with my job and stressing about getting concert tickets and researching and making arrangements for them I’ve never really switched off. I’m also back at work on Monday which means my stress level is ratcheting up again already. I think I want to stop the world and climb off for a minute.

Best Laid Plans

The story of my life. I had planned to go to the Big Apple for my big 3-0 next year, but it seems that plan is this *makes really small gesture with fingers* close to being in jeopardy. I’m jumping the gun. I know I’m jumping the gun as nothing is for sure yet but I like stuff organised, especially something like this. Guess I’m a little OCD in that respect.

As some of you know, the plan was two weeks in NY next April. All was going well …. too well maybe – accommodation was booked, leave days organised and non-refundable flights a weather eye kept on …. then it happened. Not exactly what I expected to happen but it did nonetheless. I was expecting boss’ to be awkward about time off work, or the apartment to burn down, but no, it was something completely out of left field.

That isn’t as cryptic as it sounds. I’m not going into details but it means there is a risk of a potential inability to fly. My solution was a simple one. Surprisingly it wasn't popular though …. wonder why??? ;) OK maybe that is cryptic ....

So now we’re a little in limbo. I still want to go. I will actually only turn 30 once despite inevitably trying to do so repeatedly as time goes on. I have a plan B …. she's said no at the moment, but I’m sure I can wear her down with promises of shoes and Jovi if needs be ….

Wish me luck!!!

Look Ma!! I'm Famous!!

I recently watched Wanted. If you don’t know what that is it’s a movie starring James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman about a frustrated office worker (McAvoy) who finds out he is the quick-reflexed son of a professional assassin who gets recruited by the boss (Freeman) of his dad’s former organisation, The Fraternity (which includes Jolie), and gets trained up as a professional assassin. Cue all kinds of shenanigans. I kinda like the movie, if not just for the car chase at the start of the movie, but as 2 hours of my life I’m happy to waste …. unlike when I watched Shrooms which, to be perfectly honest, was just shit!! Anyway I digress. The movie starts with Wesley Gibson (McAvoy) typing his name into Google and finding no results for it cementing his self view that he is, in fact, a complete nobody. I believe the technical term is “vanity searching”.

Well I got kinda curious and tried it with mine and came up with 4,700 results. I never realised I was so prevalent on the internet. ;) There were many entries on social networking websites the world over (not all me!), a few images that appear on my Myspace account, I even found my Twitter account – seems I rank kinda highly on Google searches (page 1 is good right???) so thanks to all my fans. I couldn’t have done it without you. :p

But the best result I found was a link to this entry on the Urban Dictionary website (http://www.urbandictionary.com/) which read “The most admirable, alluring, angelic, appealing, amazing, beautiful person there is. This girl is a seriously one person you want to meat if you haven't already, and if you have you know what I mean. She light's up my day whenever I talk to her. She makes you smile, laugh, trust and a lot more. Nothing could ever replace what we have and nothing could ever replace this girl. I could seriously hold this girl for hours and really be okay. She makes me think about what importance there is in life. I would rather spend five minutes with her and never see my friends again, than never see her and see my friends forever. She means that much. She is worth everything. I never want to lose her.”

Now, I like that, I just wish it was what someone thought about me, unless someone tall, dark and dreamy with talents DOES actually think about me like that. Suffice it to say I’m going to claim it as my own for the purposes of me feeling better about myself. :D

Affirmation

There are times in your life when you need a little affirmation that you’re not quite as alone in this world as you thought. It’s silly, I know, but sometimes you get to that point, generally when you haven’t really spoken to anyone to any great extent in a while, when you wonder whether you’re important in anyone’s world. You briefly touch base and sometimes there’s just one line in a conversation that makes you realise that you’re not as far apart from people as you thought.

I was talking to one of my online friends earlier today and we were talking about a variety of things, and one thing that came up was one of our regular haunts that, in recent weeks, I have drifted away from. Firstly because the conversation generally revolves around Jon Bon Jovi, and as much as I am thankful to the man for envisioning and bringing to fruition, that wonderment that is known as “Bon Jovi”, he doesn’t really do it for me and I don’t particularly need to hear about how tight his pants are, or how smooth his chest is, and secondly, I tend to feel isolated when I’m there, even moreso since my li’l sis there has been AWOL. I told my friend that sometimes it feels like the commonality began and ended with Jovi, and even then not so much because of the ratio of Jon girls to the rest of us, and the inherent focus that brings; and how the topic eventually turns to husbands and kids and I end up sat there thinking “Shit, I am so out of my depth right now”.

She said one thing to me, and it’s something I never really thought about before. It kinda got burned in there …. “I feel a 'mom' connection with you since you are so close in age to my own daughter. That .... and we are shoe whores!” She then went on to factor in single-dom, work, music and the internet. And that kind of nailed it.

Out of all the things that go on in that community, I kind of overlooked those things. I was so focussed on the ‘normal’ day to day conversation that goes on in that community that I missed it. Probably more than a little to do with neither of us having spent that much time there recently; her due to the demands of her job, and me because life has been a real kick in the teeth lately and not left me with the energy to really participate in anything in that much depth. The fact that, in the grand scheme of things, in this small corner of the internet, me and this friend do have so much in common …. and we wouldn’t fight each other for the same guy.

So apart from the fact that me and 3 of my friends are actually the same person – having very similar problems and things going on with us, there’s this other connection. Another person who I didn’t realise I had so much in common with.

And internet friendships score another point in the ‘plus’ column ….

Second Base

A little while ago I explained how I’d bought the EA Sports Active game for the Wii. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, after nearly killing myself that first day I kinda shied away from it simply because it took a week for me to recover because I’m in that bad shape. Well I decided to attempt it again. Not the EA Sports thing, but the fitness thing.

My new attempt at sorting out my health came as a result of something that happened that scared me a little. It’s most disconcerting to be doing nothing more than sitting on a couch watching TV and to suddenly, for no apparent reason, getting palpitations and dizziness. Of course, it’s obvious that this is more likely my blood pressure taking a sudden nose dive rather than anything else but it did freak me out some.

I think at that moment it was proved that my blood pressure has been way too high. Whether that’s because of work (knowing what my working environment is like) or whatever, I’m not sure but it was certainly something I needed to address and was not going to be helped at all by my physical fitness.

So that made that decision for me. I ordered Wii Fit and the board and I’ve actually been better at keeping that up than I was at the EA Sports …. and it actually seems to be working …. at least as far as my daily stress level is concerned anyway. It certainly seems to have dropped since I started doing it. Granted I’ve only been at it a few days and the actual physical changes won’t be noticeable for a while but I’m definitely sleeping better and finding it easier to get up in the morning because I’m working my stress out. I think that’s part of where the EA Sports fell down. Firstly it was more high impact and secondly, I was stressing that I couldn’t, and wouldn’t be, able to keep up with it.

Time will tell whether it will be short-lived though, or whether I continue to work at it. I have to admit, even though it’s quite an easy workout, it’s a fun 30 minutes. It doesn’t really feel like a work out. I’m actually glad I bought it …. and afterwards I treat myself to some “You Give Love A Bad Name” on GH5 – I’m a fricking Rock God …. albeit on the easy level …. ;)

You Never Really Know

Two weeks ago I espoused the virtues of online friendships and I stand by every word. However this last week or so I was privy to the darker side of online friends.

It’s not as if I’m stupid enough not to realise that a person can be whoever they want to be on the internet; that they can make up any story they want and make people believe it, and take it to whatever conclusion they wish. However these can take a much sinister turn.

Two weeks ago I spoke of how one of my online friends had been suffering with cancer and how the disease had finally taken her life. Now however it seems all is not quite as it seems, and I still feel wholly manipulated, betrayed and pissed off by events.

It’s a long and sordid tale. A classic tale of ‘love’, loss and betrayal …. at least from one party’s point of view anyway. I became aware of the true extent of the whole situation both as it was coming to a head and afterwards. Suffice it to say that the friend I thought had died actually hadn’t. Believe me when I say that I can’t believe I could be so gullible but I think any ‘normal’ person wouldn’t make up a story about such a serious condition, and I’m not the only one to feel this way. Taking it one step further and creating a second persona to carry on the argument was also just beyond reproach, especially as it seems that was the sole purpose of returning.

She may have seen this decision as a chance at payback at those who she’d fallen out with, but she failed to consider the effects on the people who actually cared and mourned for her. And that is where my issues come. It’s one thing to pretend you’re successful, or to be much more extroverted when ‘faced’ with strangers on the internet, but preying on people’s emotions just to get one over on people you don’t particularly get on with is downright despicable.

In the end she was outed by a family member, but still, the amount of pain and hurt she caused with that one ill thought out action will stay with those who did care, for a while yet. As I mentioned earlier, I myself am alternating between feeling hurt and betrayed, and absolutely livid. The profiles in question have now been deleted, however there are rumours amongst my Facebook friends that more of her personalities are alive and well on there ….

I suppose we will never truly know what motivated such actions. For all we, as a community, know she could have been ill, and illnesses cause people to do strange things. Similarly she could have just been a manipulative attention seeker who wanted people to take sides against people who really had done nothing wrong. It could have been all of the above. One thing I do know though is I think I am now a little wiser. I’m not going to ask for documented evidence of whatever is going on with people, but I think I will take whatever people say with a pinch of salt and try to be less naïve. However, I can’t see how successful that will be. My nature means I look for the good in people first which makes me a prime target for this kind of manipulation.

I like the way one (actually several have said it in different ways) of my Facebook friends described the situation: “lots of people were taken in by her... it makes you a good person. Don't feel bad for making a friend... You can't control the actions of other people, just your reaction to them. You have done nothing wrong.” And she’s right. I did nothing wrong. My good nature was taken advantage of. I need to remember that, work through how I feel about that and try not to let it change me.

Fool me once .... shame on you. Fool me twice .... shame on me

“I’ll Go The Distance”

It’s funny how much of an impact someone can have on your life in such a short period of time. Especially one you’ve never actually met face to face.

I have been a member of Facebook for quite a while now, and along the way I have picked up a lot of fun and interesting people. In fact, my online friendships have been more successful than most of my offline friendships. I guess because the Internet manages to bridge the distance between people who share the same interests. The closest friends I have had in recent years have come from different corners of the globe – some easy to get to, some not quite so much -- but people that I don't suspect I would have had in my life were it not for the internet and it's communities. But anyway I digress.

Some time ago I met a lady on Facebook. She was fantastic and someone else I would never have had the pleasure of knowing if it weren't for that wonderful combination of electrons. She was suffering with brain cancer but in all the time I knew her I never saw her let it bother her, and until very recently I never knew the true extent of her condition. It took me some time to get the courage up to actually ask her what was wrong with her, mainly because I didn’t want her to think I was prying or being nosey if she didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t even realise how much she actually liked me until a few weeks ago and during those few weeks we became very close. She confided in me about things that were bothering her and valued my input on them – in my opinion the true measure of a wonderful friendship.

This evening I received the upsetting news that she had been hospitalised due to her worsening condition and that her condition was much further on than she had let on to me. I (or rather we) were told via Facebook messages and status updates that she had passed away at 11:15 pm BST and I was quite shocked at my reaction. I cried. I’m not a person who cries often, and I’ve always kept a tight rein on my emotions, but as I read the developments I couldn’t help but feel myself well up and my heart break. I last spoke to her last Thursday and ironically I had sent her a message this morning asking how she was because I hadn’t heard from her and I was worried.

I’ve appreciated for some time the value of the internet. As I said earlier, my best friends live in my computer. Most of them have helped me through some tough times, mostly documented in this blog and much more effectively than people in my own airspace simply because I could open up completely without fear of being judged. I could let out all my anguish and despair and not worry that they would think me weak, or withholding important facts that helped them to help me. As I type this now I am messaging two of these friends who are helping me deal with what I’m feeling.

People say the internet is a barrier to good relationships with other people, but the truth is I think it’s better. You may not actually see them every day but they are just a message or post away from helping you to feel better and to guide you through the turmoil in your life. Bless you my friends ....

"May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, may the sun shine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand." ~ Traditional Gaelic Blessing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RIP Linda. May you find the peace and serenity you deserve and may you now be free of pain.

"Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there; I do not sleep, I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints on snow, I am the sun on ripened grain, I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awaken in the morning's hush, I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there; I did not die."

Mary Elizabeth Frye - 1932

Near To The Madding Crowd

I swore I would never do it. Hell, I took the piss out of anyone who did and called them a sheep, yet here I am today having just joined the confusing world of micro-blogging. Yes, I now Twitter …. Tweet …. sound something like a bird in 140 characters.

For the longest time I resisted the urge to join Myspace …. then I did. Then I attempted to steer clear of Facebook …. I now spend way too much time there. And then I scoffed about Twitter and now I’ve attached myself to that. I swear I am not a sheep. Part of me wanted to see what the hoo-hah was about, but I think it’s also good for updates. A recent case in point being the recent Bon Jovi album news tweeted by John Shanks on Twitter and reported around the internet. It’s gotta be good for something. I doubt very much that I’ll report on my whole world a la Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore (although I reserve the right to change my mind!!)

At least once I jack up my followings I can keep relatively up to date from one page …. I just need to find the right people!!

I Don’t Get Paid Enough

Yeah we all say that don’t we .... well here I am. It’s Sunday night and I have reached the end of my week long leave from work. The only problem is I don’t feel like I’ve had much of a break. Not just because a week isn’t long enough – it never is. To be honest I don’t think that a fortnight would have been enough.

What it comes down to is that I’m the key admin person in my department at my place of work. I work in the Quality Assurance department in a ‘retail consortium’ – it’s really just a posh word for wholesaler. There are 3 of us in the admin side of things. one for Consumer Complaints, one Department Co-ordinator (i.e. me) and one ‘floater’ – not a nice description but an appropriate one who covers for both of us and also gets lumbered with the other stuff that other people don’t have time [or think they are too important] to do.

The problem is this. Although our floater, who we shall call Suzie Q (because that’s what I call her!!), has had complete one on one training with our complaints person for a couple of months now, she has yet to have a decent amount of time with me to go through everything I have to do thoroughly so she can cover for me properly when I’m on leave. At the moment things merely tick over until I get back after my leave.

This is the very reason I don’t feel I’ve had a proper break is because I have only had maybe 2 and a half days since Suzie Q started in the department in January of this year (7 months ago as of today’s date) so I have never had the chance to take her through everything I do in the depth I need to for when I'm off. This unsurprisingly means that whenever I am off she ends up having to text or email me to find things out. This means I still have a work head on and don't really relax. Of course on Monday I will have to hit the ground running with no chance to get up to speed on what's happened while I've been off so it'll be hectic. I don't get paid enough ....

I don't blame Suzie Q in the least because I think as far as a lot of the department is concerned my job is only admin and therefore really very easy so it doesn't need a lot of explaining, especially as far as our technical staff are concerned (not that they have any clue what I do most of the time). May be 'easy' on paper but it's complicated if that makes sense and doesn't sound like a contradiction. I didn't design the job so the complications are nothing to do with me and it sounds like I was really lucky, and that the maternity person I was covering for had to really fight to get two months with her before she went on her maternity leave. I know I've only just got the job as a permanent thing but I want out already ....

Going back to work also means I’m one day closer to the return of our maternity leave person. A moment I’m dreading. I have in essence been given her job and I think, although my manager has said I will be taking over from her, she will have a hard time letting go and that certain individuals will have trouble letting her go. She has been doing my [her???] job for 8 years and she would do everything for everybody in the department. I don't do that, mainly because they never asked me, but I just get the feeling that when she is back in QA the techy folks (two of them in particular) and maybe my manager want something to be done then they're going to ask her because she will do it, and they'll eventually gravitate back to getting her to do things and I'll be even less ‘loopy’ than I am now and I'll be sat there twiddling my thumbs and being paid for doing nothing. Sounds good in theory but it's so mind-numbingly BORING when there's naff all to do!!!! I also think she will have trouble not interfering generally (despite what she has reportedly said) and that has been backed up by several members of the department. I’ve been made, by one of my colleagues, to promise to let our manager know if she starts that crap so it can get nipped in the bud quickly .... but it won't. She’s very much the Queen Bee, the darling of the QA department from what I’ve heard and witnessed.

Yep. I’m dreading it. Anyone hiring???

I <3 Richie Sambora

As you may or may not be aware, I’m a huge Bon Jovi fan. I am, however, a bigger Richie Sambora (Bon Jovi’s guitarist) fan. Not only is he not bad to look at and seems to have a fantastic personality, but he also wrote 2 of, what I think are, the best albums of the last couple of decades: Stranger in This Town and Undiscovered Soul. I know the popular theory is that members of bands who then go on to record their own solo album are never (or rarely at the very least) as good at what they do as they are when they produce as part of a whole, but I beg to differ.

Recently I’ve found myself listening to my namesake album (i.e. Undiscovered Soul) and whether it’s because of my current mental and emotional state or something altogether different, I’ve found it talking to me. I’ve always known that Richie Sambora is something special. I’ve often said that his talent as a guitarist is what attracted me to him first, and that is true. I remember spending much more of my first Bon Jovi gig in 2006 (yes it took that long for one reason or another and I’m absolutely KICKING myself for it!!!) telling Richie to “work that axe” as opposed to “Squee!!! I want to have your babies Richie!!!” because my first image of Richie Sambora is from the cover of Cross Road where, to be honest, he looked really mean to a then 14 year old girl. For the longest time I wasn’t familiar with his solo work. Yeah I had Jon’s solo stuff, mainly because I loved the Young Guns 2 movie (which, at the time, was more than a little to do with my yen for Christian Slater. ;)) and Jon is the higher profile member of the band so I obviously recognised when his second offering was released – of course the fact the band is his namesake has nothing to do with it.

When I found out that Richie had a couple of solo releases also, of course I went out and bought them. Unfortunately they then spent the next couple of years gathering dust in my CD collection as I reacquainted myself with the band I fell for at 14 that had, alas, been put to one side when I bought into the whole boy band thing for a couple of years in the late 90’s – hence why I know that although, as a Jovi fan, you may stray from the right path, you ALWAYS come back because although they seem to have been classed as an outdated hair band by some (Blashphemy!!!!) there is a depth and soul to a lot of their material that isn’t immediately obvious and you find you miss that. When I finally did get around to listening to these two Sambora albums, I was absolutely blown away. Although there is depth to a Jovi lyric, a Sambora lyric is something else entirely.

I know I harp on a lot about songs from the soul and the depth of lyrics, but if you look, I mean REALLY look, at what Richie Sambora is saying to you, you see that his songs are full of hope. About facing adversity, holding onto your faith (either in yourself, or a higher power), and getting through the other side, and whereas Bon Jovi managed it with Livin’ On A Prayer – a song that, to most, is just a fun rock song, Sambora’s One Light Burning, Undiscovered Soul, Who I Am, etc are songs to be taken seriously. Songs to really listen to and hold on to, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll help you through some of your darkest hours.

The man doesn’t just have a soulful voice .... he has a soulful soul too.

In Memoriam Part 2

The same day Michael Jackson died, there was another celebrity death. When all is said and done that particular 7 day period seemed to be a very black week for the show business community, but anyway I digress. The second death to which I refer is that of Farrah Fawcett. A legend in her own right and, whom I’d class as one of the strongest women in show. She died at the age of 62 from cancer and her death was pretty much overshadowed by the death the same day of Michael Jackson. A friend put it best when she described how Farrah’s 15 minutes of ‘fame’ in her posthumous state probably lasted about 3 minutes before it was overshadowed by MJ. The focus was on the unusual and sudden circumstances of his death, and she was buried quietly a week before MJ with her closest friends and family while MJ was surrounded by the circus. Again, she was way too young to die in the world we live in today.

The events of that week got me thinking. In a world where the entertainment industry seems to be all about the quick buck you just don’t get legends any more. Before too long most people will not know what an icon or legend truly is. We are leaving the era of the icon. Those names that will go down in history as pioneers, as artists who “out-ran“ their professional rivals and we’ll be left with nothing but a succession of pan flashes. The most obvious example of this is the whole Pop Idol phenomenon. I just find it a sorry state of affairs in entertainment today. Of course popularity is a good thing but I also think longevity should be as important. To use an accounting analogy, people know that investments are more rewarding long term and the returns they can reap surely far outweigh the returns you make off that current favourite.

The “what’s HOT, what’s NOT” mentality can be nothing but bad for the entertainment world. In my little world music is a big part of my life. The artists I prefer have been around for a long time, have always been a part of my world, and have honed their art to it’s finest point. I would be distraught if the artists I love had been dumped in short shrift if their first couple of albums completely tanked. This is the attitude we seem to have these days. It’s an annual event now in most countries to find the next money spinner, and this is why I hate Pop Idol. There are so many fantastically talented unknown artists out there who don't get a look in, despite having the chops to become legends, because they're not 'marketable' to the majority of the fickle music buying public (read: teens and fashion victims). They may not be pretty enough, or make the kind of music the industry tells the music buying public they should like.

By the same token, very few ‘Pop Idols’ have really stayed the course to any great degree, especially in this country. The art has become less about the art and more about the almighty dollar. It smacks of making as much money as possible in the shortest period of time and see what happens next. The first winner of the UK edition of Pop Idol (Gareth Gates) hasn’t had much attention paid to him for the last couple of years. Last I heard he had married, lost his stutter and attempted a comeback. Little has been heard from him since. The first winners of Pop Stars (Hearsay) broke up several years ago (although second year winners Girls Aloud do still seem to be pulling them in but I understand they are about to go an hiatus to see how they succeed doing their own thing)

I miss the days when bands and artists used to actually play instruments, when they could actually sing, when there wasn’t a different artist at number 1 every week and when getting the Christmas number one with some cheesy number wasn’t as important as creating something that would last and stand the test of time. When music was about music not marketing, and when you got a shot if you had talent that extended beyond your rack. I had the pleasure of watching a band called Heaven's Basement when I saw Bon Jovi last year who put me in mind of Aerosmith and no doubt have the potential to be a successful band. They were fantastic and are currently trying to get some attention around Europe. No doubt the experience they got from opening from Bon Jovi that night will get them some well deserved and needed attention, but are they likely to get the same promotion as the likes of Leona Lewis or any number of other manufactured bands that come out of Pop Idol and it's ilk?? Probably not because the music industry doesn’t seem to think that their sort of music is popular enough right now ....

Horribly enough I've been thinking it long before now with the publishing of an article some 9 months ago describing how the acts who had been around forever were gradually shuffling off this mortal coil. The death of MJ,amongst many, has made me realise that my old favourites, the classic rock stars aren't going to be around forever -- how I really need to get my quota in as much as possible. It's part of the reason I invested in an Alice Cooper ticket a couple of months ago. He, as well as many of my favourite artists, are getting on in years. 10, 20, 30 years from now I don't want to be thinking "if only" the way I am over Michael Jackson.

Rant over .... incidentally, you can find Heaven’s Basement (who actually play their own instruments) on Myspace at http://www.myspace.com/heavensbasementofficial

In Memoriam Part 1

On the day of Michael Jackson’s burial and memorial service I find myself finally having thought through my feelings on the whole affair. I have to admit, I haven’t been watching the drama unfold since that fateful day 2 weeks ago when it was announced that the legendary King Of Pop had passed away suddenly. For many who had him as part of their life and musical history that was probably the day the music died. Of course, that is said of every high profile musician’s death. They said it when Lennon was killed and when Elvis died.

I’d wager that with the ease of access to information and the amount of access to the rest of the world there probably hasn’t been an outpouring of emotion quite like we’ve experienced with Michael Jackson. Not because he was any more or less of a legend than Elvis or Lennon, but because times have changed. With the advent of 24 hour news and the internet – where information is available at the touch of a button, anybody is able to publish their own take on it, and we are no longer slaves to handwritten word – we are struck by the immediacy of “as it happens” reporting. Gone are the days when it would take several days for all the facts to come out and the slow ripple effect as newspapers gather the data. Within hours of initial reports the world was in mourning.

Of course I was sad and numb for a while at the news of the passing of Michael Jackson. He was a large part of my musical history being my first conscious musical decision and one of a few that have been a constant during my “music loving” years, but what struck me most wasn’t the fact that he died, or even how he died, but one photograph on the front of a gossip magazine. One photo of a man being wheeled out on a gurney wearing an oxygen mask as they tried to save his life and a photo which I have utter contempt for the piece of scum that took it. That man was Michael Jackson, and that was not the way I wanted to remember the legend. Unfortunately, despite the various tributes paid to MJ over the past couple of weeks that image has stuck with me. I’m sure it will stick with me for a while to come as it is reminiscent of something I experienced personally some years back with my Dad, and has, for the longest time, been the only image of my dear departed dad that I have been able to remember. Even as I type this I can see my Dad suffering the same way I’m sure MJ did. For my sins though, my memory is only in my head. MJ’s children and family have now had that image splashed on magazines the world over and it will not be as easily forgotten. Memories do fade, especially the bad ones, but an image in print like that is not as easily discarded.

Something else that bothers me about the death of MJ, is the circus that seems to have followed it. When I heard about the memorial for MJ, I began thinking that sounded like a lovely idea. When I discovered the ticket lottery for it I thought that was a little distasteful – they are, in essence, tickets for a funeral, but when I read today about the star studded “gala” that the memorial is slated to be (celebrity guests including Mariah Carey, Stevie Wonder, Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson that I can recall as I type) I found myself absolutely shocked. Yes, tradition dictates that a wake is in order after a funeral – a way to honour the life of the dearly departed, but when a round of celebrities decide to partake in something that can be nothing but good publicity for them and their career I start to wonder about their true motives. Do they truly intend to honour the life of a musical legend or to get a leg up in their own career and garner extra publicity that they are lacking??

Maybe I’m just getting cynical in my old age but one of my online friends said it best about a week ago, mainly in reference to how a few of MJ’s own family members referred to him. We all know he was the King Of Pop, and those who knew him only as a superstar will, 90% of the time, refer to him as such. But when MJ’s own family members refer to him firstly as the King Of Pop and secondly as their brother/son etc it puts a whole new perspective on the way MJ was treated whilst he was alive. We have been told a lot in the past about MJ’s early life and career and how he was allegedly abused and no doubt turned into a money making machine by his own father, but I would expect that, despite all that, the emphasis, from the Jacksons at least should have been on family before fame. Please don't take this as an attack on Michael's family, for right now they are in pain over the loss of a cherished family member.

I will miss MJ and his contributions to the music world. Despite his problems and issues over the years there’s no denying that he was a genius and has the right to be remembered as such. Unfortunately, I strongly believe that for every person willing to remember MJ as such, there will be several more who will focus on his “freakishness”, rumour and legal problems. I read earlier on my Facebook feeds page, the friend of a friend relaying how amongst the floral trbutes laid throughout Los Angeles for the legend there sat one in very bad taste given the current circumstances, making references to the paedophilia accusations of several years ago. I just hope that in death he can find the peace that was so sorely lacking while he was alive.

RIP Michael Jackson

Intuitive Leaps

I’m in a quandary. I’ve found what I consider to be the perfect job. It seems to encompass several of the things I enjoy most – surfing the Internet, taking photos, going to gigs and meeting people but bizarrely I’m having a crisis.

Something is holding me back from taking that first step and submitting my application for consideration. I don’t know if it’s because it would involve leaving everything I know where I am now and moving down to London, if it’s a lack of confidence in my ability to both win and carry out the job, it may even be down to some misplaced loyalty to my current employer who made me an official permanent employee as of Monday, but there’s definitely SOMETHING that’s stopping me from taking that step.

I’m trying to convince myself that it’s one of those jobs that don’t come up very often – the kind of job that most people would love because it seems so different from the humdrum life of an office. It may even lead on to bigger and better things in the future .... so why the HELL is it so difficult to just do it. Why do I seem ‘happier’ to stay where I am and spend the nest 20 or 30 years in a rut in Hell. Maybe I’m just not ready, even at [nearly] 30 to be an adult. I see all my friends being grown up and having families and buying houses, living in their own places and doing for them – bollocks to everyone else .... so why am I still here. Maybe it’s the years spent being responsible for my Dad’s sake that became lost and wasted years, maybe it’s the years I spent being miserable at my last proper job, maybe part of me thinks I should be the one who stays home and looks after house while my mother goes out socialising every night.

Whatever it is it’s not conducive to the life I want .... but I need to get myself sorted before life passes me by completely and I find myself sitting alone wondering where it all went ....

Not On The First Date

I came to the conclusion in recent times that it would probably be a good idea to try and get fit and lose some weight. Reason being that since I started my job I seem to have put on a little extra weight. So I wasn’t Kate Moss to start with, but I’ve been shocked recently when clothes that I used to fit in are feeling a little snug. It’s probably more than a little to do with the freebies we get at work that, let’s be honest, aren’t that good for a girl or her waistline.

I bought a Wii a couple of months ago on the pretense that I could buy the Wii Fit and work on trimming the waistline and get to a point where a defibrillator isn’t required when I reach the top of a flight of stairs. Up until now, the Wii has done a little Wii Sports, but has done more Guitar Hero – hey 5 coloured buttons and a switch are probably the only way that I’ll ever be able to play guitar with even a modicum of success despite the purchase of a guitar and amp my Mum made for me at Christmas. I’m a wimp – guitar strings make my fingers hurt. I’ll try it another day …. probably.

But I digress, back to the story. I’d been looking at the various Wii fitness aids/games (Wii Fit, My Fitness Trainer, etc), looked at the pros and cons, and reviews and eventually plumped for the EA Sports Active ‘game’. It arrived on Wednesday and I’ve been gearing myself to give it a whirl since. Well today I did the deed, and learnt a very valuable lesson. If you are one of the most unfit people on the planet do not, for the love of God, jump straight into the 30 day challenge – low impact or not.

I swear, I nearly died. I managed a 15 minute programme on the lowest impact level and didn’t do badly. But the absolute killer was the running (squatting coming a close second, swiftly followed by lunges -- basically anything requiring the use of leg muscles). Yes, there is a walking/running exercise which said 30-day Challenge uses as a warm up/warm down exercise. Not only did those bowling balls of mine very nearly give me a couple of nice black eyes (may be time to invest in a good sports bra, with extra scaffolding!!! ;)), but I could feel the excess inches also flapping around and hurting like hell and I hit that wall so hard and so fast that my legs were jelly by exercise number 3 …. That was about 4 minutes in. I did eventually say goodbye to 156 calories though ....

That’s not the worst part – although it comes close – the worst part was, a mere 5 minutes after my ‘low impact workout’ finished I discovered I had found muscles. My GOD I was getting stiff already. I guess that proves it’s done me some good but even as I write this 5 hours later and after a nice soak in a hot bath I can still feel the stiffness setting in. Every time I get up I’m walking like a navy …. or in an arthritic style. I’m so going to feel this in the morning.

Of course I recommend it right now. Does a bit of everything – lunges, squats, boxing …. inline skating!?!?!? – but time will tell whether it gets boxed away after a few weeks or it kills me. But nevertheless, the moral of the story is this. Don’t EVER think that you can just jump straight in at the deep end even if it is just a video game. Work up to it. I think I may have to try something different tomorrow …. if I can walk …..

Happy New Year

OK, yesterday was a bad day and it was good to get some stuff off my chest, but now I’m going to try and do my annual retrospective. As per, I’m not sure how this is going to come out but we’ll see where this goes.

Work

So January rolls around and I was working. I was on my final month of my 3-month contract and was kind of looking forward to it. Despite it being money in my bank every week it was kind of a thankless job. I was working alongside someone who, despite the fact I was there to help her, really didn’t want to hand anything over to me to take the pressure off so I was glad when 31st January ended and I could escape out of there. Yes it meant I was out of work again but this time it wasn’t for long and after a month or so of chat shows I was back at work again doing credit control in Beverley.

Again, not the job I really wanted, but needs must and I got another months pay or so out of it. It’s not a commute I’d want to do every day. As I mentioned in one of my previous blogs, a trip that was meant to only take 30 minutes wound up taking an hour every day, and having to do that every evening with a headache from staring at a computer screen all day trying to make heads or tails out of the hash that someone had made of their sales ledger did me no favours. I’d already started to build up some resentment at my agency contact for being worse than useless and bugging me every couple of days. She kept arranging me interviews during work time which meant I was losing out on quite a lot of pay and I got consistently irritated. While working that contract I worked out that after tax and NI I was working simply to get to work. I had very little disposable income left afterwards. I was, in essence doing 10 hour days and all the pay I was earning when she wasn’t sending me to interviews on works time (which cut my hours by nearly half), seemed to be going on Bridge tolls and petrol.

After another month or so on the dole after that I started another job which lasted 8 weeks and was purely so I could get some breathing room. I was a stop gap for the company that Mum works for who needed someone urgently. They’d been advertising the post for a couple of months with no takers so the fact that I was available for work meant that I could step in for a little while. It was only doing admin but it was what I needed …… a job with little or no pressure which allowed me to give some thought to whether accounts was where my future lay. I decided that at the moment it wasn’t and set about hunting for another admin-based job. Around the same time I also chucked in my AAT course. I couldn’t get the time off work to go to the classes and as a result I wasn’t getting the support from the tutor and was getting further behind so I threw it in. It was going to take forever to get caught up and I wasn’t being kept informed of things like the exercises he said he’d provide or exam dates – y’know, really unimportant stuff!! *rolls eyes*

Which brings us pretty much up to date in terms of work. In September I started a Maternity leave cover job at Nisa-Today’s in Scunthorpe – a “retail buying consortium” that probably supplies your local corner shop – if you see anything with a label that reads Heritage, Costcutter or Nisa-Today’s Value, then that’s us. I’m working as support in the QA department. We make sure that the places that supply the own label products are up to scratch in terms of production conditions and labeling. Of course there’s more to it than that but I’m on holiday until tomorrow so I don’t have to think about it just yet. ;) At the moment it seems I stand a pretty good chance at staying on when the contract ends, but we’ll see what the situation is come August.

It seems that although I spent a lot of time out of work last year (that’s gonna feel odd to say for a little while!! Lol!!) I’ve actually worked for about 8 months out of the 12. Guess it just felt like less because it was so ‘bitty’ and random.

Hobbies

The big one this year has been the photography. I’ve taken way too many photos this year but I think I’m getting a better eye for it. I even went so far as to trawl around eBay and get me a really posh Canon camera kit from the US for about half the price it would have cost over here. I’m not sure it’s got as much of a workout as I would like. It’s a lot harder to smuggle into gigs, but the photos I have taken I’m very pleased with and seem to have got a good reception. Hopefully in the future I’ll get to take it somewhere other than my back garden to use it. ;) I did attempt fireworks last night but I haven’t looked to see how successful those were yet. As per everything is on the Ol’ ‘Bucket

I’d also been toying with the idea of learning guitar and taking piano up again. So much so I’ve been buying up sheet music by the bookful and now have to get back to it. I was learning piano 20 years ago so no doubt I’m a little rusty, but I want to try and learn that and guitar again. I tried taking guitar up about 8 years ago and didn’t get very far – one of the downsides of having a poorly Dad: noise wasn’t really appreciated. To encourage me, Mum bought me an electric guitar and mini-amp for Christmas …… now need to dig the Play Guitar books out of the garage. Saw them a couple of months back but to find anything in there you need a map, a Sherpa and some breadcrumbs and supplies. ;)

Jaunting

The big one was Bon Jovi twice in June. They were absolutely awesome and I had a fantastic time and took loads of photos (which we’ll get onto later ;)). It makes me a little sad that I missed out on seeing them live for so long but at least I’ve had the opportunity. :) Kerry and I also took a chance on Starlight Express at the beginning of the year. We were pleasantly surprised and wanted to see it again only to find that we’d caught one of the last shows …… gutted, but I think we’re going to keep an eye out. Also on the cards this year was Oh What A Night and a lap dance from a policeman. Saying nothing else. You can read all about that in Kerry’s blog, along with the time I almost got knocked out by a stage door when we went to see Dave Spikey at Grimsby in April and the time I forgot we were meant to go and see Russell Howard …… what can I say, it’s been one of those years. I suppose thinking back a bit there have been a few little jaunts: a few Paddy gigs, some Russell Howard, Jason Manford (which aside from the performance we gloss over!!), Michael McIntyre, a few others and a blast from the past in Mike McShane at Paul Merton’s Improv show. I think the difference this year is that last year I did so much mileage with jaunting (and have the credit card bills for petrol to remind me!!!) that it doesn’t feel like we’ve done much. No, we weren’t in a different location every couple of weeks, but I think we’ve averaged one a month. I’ll have to check the stubs. Kerry’s blogged the jaunts so much better than I can so I’ll let you read them on her ‘Space, but as I’ve said before you’ll have to befriend her first …… tell her I sent you. ;)

Well that’s what 2008 brought in a nutshell. What’s the plan for next year?? At the moment the only things I’ve booked are Sweeney Todd and Nickelback tickets. There was going to be Extreme Jaunting in the form of a hop over the Atlantic for a week or so in February to go to Philadelphia for dinner with one Jon Bon Jovi amongst a variety of Philadelphia Soul events which I was really starting to get into the idea of. Unfortunately, those with the votes cancelled the Soul’s 2009 season so the other events have been cut. Made it less cost-effective to go so that’s been knocked on the head, and I now have to find another use for my 9 remaining leave days from work. Guess I’ll have to wait until my 30th for my cross-Atlantic trip. ;)