…and Pat’s feeling a little too confused to blog.

You see, today Pat did a number of things:

1. Sign Forms for Plane Tickets
   Despite not setting his alarm properly (hooray for “Repeat Alarm” mode, which only sounds the alarm from Monday-Friday) Pat just about made it to the travel agents to get stuff signed. All done… just need to wait for the tickets to arrive now!
2. Buy a Ruck Sack and Jacket
   This was a strangely enjoyable affair given that it was shopping. Neil (him from “Being At Work With Pat” and “Going On A Trip Around The World Too Just In A Different Direction But Meeting Pat In Melbourne” fame) was on hand to advise Pat which products were best to grab.
   They went to the Snow and Rock store in Cov Garden and Pat ended up buying:
   • Osprey Waypoint 80L Backpack
   • Marmot Gravity Jacket

   Both were approximately £Lots. Pat said something about his credit card starting to get hot to touch…

3. Have a Pizza Hut Meal for lunch
   This was goooooood.
4. Go to Dave, Pauly and RTJs’ Ealing Flat O Fun
   Much fun was had, including the watching / listening to the commentary of the utterly, utterly excellent Dark Place (said in a Dr Sanchez voice, natch), enjoying some excellent banter and… ahem… a pizza. He’s got a short term memory, I think.
5. Get a Camera For Free!
   Pauly G (below) is a legend, very kindly giving Pat his old camera as a replacement for his knackered one! Thank you :-D

“Hang on”, you might ask, “why has this left Pat confused?”… well it’s largely due to him watching the entire 13 episodes of this:

I don’t even want to start to try and explain it. Just look it up on Wikipedia. There’s about a gig of stuff on there about it… and there needs to be.

Pat keeps saying something about “It was all the dog’s fault” and talking about mushroom clouds and Paul Daniels. I’m guessing only those watching Paranoia Agent in Ealing will understand what on Earth that means.

Hopefully Pat’ll be in a fit state to blog tomorrow.

There’s a first time for everything, eh? ;-)

Toodles,

Squage

…and after a lie in I felt good enough to go to work.

Here is the excitement that awaited me:

(Yes, not much happened today)

Was quite a productive day (and short, of course, which is one bonus for feeling rotten). Can’t believe there’s now only 7 working days remaining! It’s quite exciting really, but scary when I think that I’ve got plenty of things to sort out before I leave a) work and b) the country.

I’m signing forms for my plane tickets tomorrow morning, alongside getting some US and Aussie dosh ordered at the post office, which is dull but necessary.

After that I’m having the slightly more enjoyable experience of going travel rucksack shopping in London with Neil from work (who’s also trundling around the world shortly (next week in fact!))… may not buy anything tomorrow but will be trying various ones on. I need to keep remembering that this is something I really want and thus not do my usual clothes shopping trick of “Yeah, this’ll do. Right, let’s go to pizza hut”. The second part of that might still happen, of course…

Then I’ll be trundling to Ealing to meet up with Pauly, Dave, Teej and co to watch and be utterly confused by Paranoia Agent… and eat pizza. Probably.

It’s going to be a healthy day tomorrow.

Tonight I’m just sitting around chilling out… I might have a pizza.

;-)

Pat

…and what a day!

I took today off work with the original intention to go to Thorpe Park with my brother Scuzz and his lady Sally… sadly Sally’s unwell at the mo so we decided to cancel the trip there and have a day of chilling instead.

It’s been fun. Had a TGI Fridays lunch with Scuzz and Sally, which was very tasty (if rather over-filling… a good way of practising for New York sized portions is how I’m thinking about it :-) ).

Following that, we grabbed a couple of DVDs from Blockbuster (via a nice membership application process, guided by a mardy woman behind the counter who seemed to think us entirely pathetic for not already having had a membership card… adding insult to injury by phoning my home to “Check that the number is valid”. Nice to feel like a criminal when you’re trying to give a company money for something (insert some witty satire about the recording/movie industry here)).

After some booze and snacks buying we settled down for a nice afternoon and evening of DVD watching.

Here’s a quick review of the two films we watched:

X-Men
Really, really good. Lots of cool action, some great unexpected bits and, well, come on, it’s X-Men! The ending is ace, also. Make sure you watch until the end of the credits!

Poisiden
With all things considered, I must say that on careful reflection this multi-million pound blockbuster was a splendid film. If you enjoy improbable / inexplicable dangerous situations, cheesy acting, lazy dialogue and irritating characters, that is. What’s that? These people are the ONLY ones who try to escape? What’s that? It’s ok to kill some guy just because the audience haven’t got to know him yet? What’s that? You’re all stereotyped disaster movie idiots? I see.

Later on Extras was watched (wow, nice pen) and we’ve just watched lots of Family Guy episodes and laughed quite a lot. Excellent fun.

And now I’m off to bed, not feeling 100% for some reason (may have overindulged… I feel a bit grotty).

Speak later!

Pat

Dear oh dear. The pub by our office no longer has spotted dick on its menu. It now has:

“Spotted Richard”

Here’s a question for you: is it PC gone mad or is it actually the real name of the dessert and I’m just ignorant?

Yours befuddledly,

Pat

…and I’m annoyed.

It’s funny how the journey into work can really set your mood for the entire day. What’s more annoying is it’s all my fault.

I’d decided last night that it’d be an excellent idea to go to the gym first thing today, meaning that:

1. I’d miss the morning traffic
2. I’d feel refreshed and ready for the day and
3. c) I’d actually get to the gym, as opposed to what normally happens after a long day at work (particularly those with a pub lunch (as today’s going to be))…

Sadly, on waking up to my alarm some 45 minutes early, I leaned over in a half-asleep state, reset the alarm for my normal wake up time and promptly fell back to sleep, smiling smugly.

I think karma decided I need to get a kick up the ass, for when I finally fell out of bed at normal time, it was raining and foggy outside.

What does that mean? It means people forget how the hell the odd metal contraption with wheels in their driveway works.

It normally takes 40 minutes to get into work. It took 1 hour 20 minutes today.

I definitely need that pint at lunch…

(Pictures to follow, as despite having my camera docking cradle here at work, I’ve left my camera at home! I am teh best!)

Pat

…and after a very dull day of working from home doing documentation, Pat wandered out into Chelmsford to meet Lev and Andrea for a Thai meal at a place called Lanthai. Apparently it wasn’t chosen because it started with LAN… although I suspect if Pat had had anything to do with it, that would’ve been the deciding factor.

Anyway, he’s been banging on about it since he’s got back – apparently it was very, very tasty and the waiters were very cheery (which makes a change in comparison to some places in Chelmsford). Heartily recommended if you’re up for a Thai meal in the Chelmsford area!

One warning though: this place may cause conversation to move from normal things to very surreal discussions about portals to a parallel universe in the restaurant toilets.

Amazingly, these discussions weren’t driven by Pat at all, who doesn’t seem to want to discuss the full details through fear of making his friends come across as FULLY MENTAL… ;-)

Anyway, apparently a very entertaining evening with Andrea and Lev.

“I can’t believe you’re going away to have fun for a year, you git” count for the night: ~100.

Mr Wheller looking very pleased at Pat’s consistent mentioning of going away…

Tarrah,

Squage

…and I finally made it to the gym!

20 minutes (with gaps during as I was ker-nackered, oh dear) on the treadmill… 10 mins on bike… and some weights and I feel very, VERY tired.

I’m going to go to bed. Got a working from home day tomorow so I’ll have a slight lie in at least… also I’m going to see Lev and Andrea in Chelmsford, which should be nice.

Right, yes, short post, good.

Night :-)

Pat

…and as Squage mentioned I went to Field and Trek (and Blacks) in Chelmsford to buy myself various bits and pieces for the trip.

Some £100 shoes were part of it (about 5 times as much as I generally like to spend (I’m such a fashion nut), but these are niiice all-purpose jobbies), along with various things such as mozzie spray, sleeping bag cover, travel pillow… still need to get a bag, jacket/waterproof thing and, of course, hat, but I’m getting there!

Whilst in Chelmsford I also met up with Dan Nichols, who used to do sports reports and banter on my Dream 107 show back in the day.

Twas good to catch up and also find out that he and his mate Dom have got their show nominated for Best Entertainment Show at the SRAs – for the second year running! Nice one! Didn’t stop RaW getting 8 nominations, mind :-)

Here is the man himself, looking esctatic about his achievement:

And no, there wasn’t a solar eclipse. I just don’t have a viewfinder at the moment…

You can listen to the best of Dan’s (and Dom’s) show on their website. If some oddly familar features appear in a future Radio Squage show, it’ll just be a coincidence.

Later I did a muckabout radio show. If you didn’t hear it, you missed an hour of possibly the finest, funniest radio in the whole world. If you did hear it, sorry for being a liar.

And finally, I’ve just come back from my local’s pop quiz… we did… er… averagely (4th of 7) and after about 8pm I was wishing to get to bed. It finished at 11pm.

So yes, bed it is… I just hope I’m awake enough to remember how to drive to work tomorrow…

Toodles,

Pat

…and you’d be forgiven for thinking “Hang on, isn’t this only 22 days to go?”. That’s because this is a, uh, retrospective view on Saturday.

There’s no good reason for the lack of entry yesterday other than this:

• Friday night Pat went to an 80s club called “The Reflex” in Southend
• Flavoured shots were available at this club
• Drinking started at 8pm
• Drinking stopped at 2am

Essentially, Pat wasn’t in any state to write anything even vaguely coherent and because… er… I… was… away… I couldn’t write on his behalf.

To summarise Saturday:

• Pat felt like death
• Dark Place finally arrived on DVD!
• Pat watched Dark Place
• Pat watched telly
• Pat went to bed

Today is going to be a bit better (hell, he woke up prior to midday, which is a start) as he’s meeting his mate Dan from Dream and going to Field and Trek to buy such exciting things as a rucksack, combats and walking boots.

Oh and I think he’s going to be doing a show on Radio Squage… so if you’re around between 6 and 7pm, tune in to this stream:

https://www.squage.com:8000/squage.ogg.

Windows folk need Winamp or another player, which supports OGG/Vorbis format to listen (I think you can grab codecs for Windows Media Player if that’s your weapon of choice).

Linux folk need mplayer probably, but I’ve no real idea :-)

Anyway, I’m off out with Pat to do some socialising and purchasing.

Toodles!

Squage

Imagine the following:

• A big valley
• 6 or more big pylons around the edge of the valley
• A wire extending from each pylon, connecting with all the others in the centre of the valley, several hundred feet in the air
• Another wire hanging down from the connection point
• A small plane-like vehicle at the bottom of the valley, with the wire connected to it
• A big engine in the plane
• A verticle take off
• A crazy flying session all around the valley
• You in the plane

It’s insane sounding, isn’t it?
Surely something like this can’t seriously exist?
Surely Pat wouldn’t want to do this?

Yes it is.
Yes it does.
Yes I would.

Check it out!

Kinda puts the caving and bungee jumping into perspective… although to be honest I’m still most nervous about the bungee.

There’s just something about looking over the edge of a 40 foot drop, knowing that rather than stepping back from the edge I’m going to be willingly falling off it that doesn’t quite sit right with me.

But hey, it’s partly why I’m doing it. And shooting myself around a valley in a mental rocket-on-wires.

What the hell is wrong with me? :-)

Oh and by the way on an unrelated note, there was a classic cars display outside our office today… here’s a couple of them:

Again taken by my excellent Nokia phone. I really do need to get a new camera.

Pat