Freakcity

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Quelle heure est-il?Often found arguing with myself - and losing!

Hugzee’s blog

The ramblings of a mildly incoherent mind...

Plimsolls

Sunday June 26th, 2005 at 19:06pm

No actually you can’t drink that, I did however drink far too much Pimms yesterday and ended up only having 4 hours sleep. Consequently I feel absolutely shattered now. Added to that, because I stayed over at my friend Sam’s I didn’t get to listen to The Archers this morning. I am currently trying to ‘Listen again’ but it’s absolutely horrible on a crappy dial-up connection : (

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’Tis done

Friday June 24th, 2005 at 22:30pm

I did actually remember that I’d banged the thought of making an apoointment into my tiny and very confused brain yesterday. It took slightly longer than 5 minutes, in fact on the first call I hung up after leaving the phone ringing out for 10 minutes. And then I couldn’t have an appointment for two weeks, but at least I’ve got one.

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Gah!

Wednesday June 22nd, 2005 at 22:21pm

Why can’t I do something as simple as take 5 minutes to call my GP’s surgery to make an appointment. Honestly anyone would thnk I’d undergone a miraculous recovery or summat. On the plus side (well I’m sure the doc will see it that way) I’m still taking the tablets. On the minus side, I’m sure the tinnitus has got ‘louder’ since I actually started on the medication. [bangs head] Make appointment tomorrow!!!!

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Stone

Saturday June 18th, 2005 at 22:04pm

Just a thank you to those concerned for my well-being. If you’ve met me you know I’m not exactly at death’s door. I have generally felt ‘out of sorts’ but I think, no I know that most of it is attributable to the stress I was (and to a certain extent still am) feeling about my job. Hopefully that stress will lessen as time flows along.

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Legs

Thursday June 16th, 2005 at 19:26pm

Random thoughts keep running through my head, no matter where I am. I was lost in a dream world walking between the company’s two buildings today when someone stopped to offer me a lift. It took me seconds to recognise who it was. My mind whirls (literally) at night as I lie in bed. I want to shut out the noise that at times can be overwhelming. My medication isn’t working either. I must go back to my GP and see if they can give me something else that may possibly be a little more effective. I’d also like some reassurance that there’s not something else, other than the manifestation of symptoms, wrong with me.

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Blue

Sunday June 12th, 2005 at 21:01pm

So many years since I’ve seen your face Here in my heart, there’s an empty space Where you used to be So long, it was so long ago But I’ve still got the blues for you Though the days come and go There is one thing I know I’ve still got the blues for you

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Blech!

Sunday June 12th, 2005 at 17:40pm

Orangery (clicky)
Orangery
There’s not much going on today. I’m really bored, it’s getting late. What happened to my Saturday? Monday’s coming, the day I hate.

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You’ve got the look....

Sunday June 12th, 2005 at 1:20am

....of a homosexual. I was meant to meet aziraphale for lunch yesterday. On the way in I got a flat tyre and had to stop to chnage it, so I was late. And we hadn’t got each other’s number. So, I turn up at 1.15 rather than 1.00, march into the bar and when asked by the waitress if I was OK said that I was meeting a friend for lunch. She looked me up and down and said, “There are no single gentleman seated inside.” So now I want to know if she just makes the same assumption about everyone, or do I look like a flaming poof?

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The road goes ever, ever on...

Friday June 10th, 2005 at 22:04pm

I almost went to Shell Island to join some others (I think we should have our own Big Brother-stylee commune there). Anyway I didn’t (it does say almost). It was late when I got home from work and I hadn’t prepared anything so would have had to have gathered my camping equipment scattered around the flat and pack the car. Also I got the bill for repairing my car when I got home last night, it wasn’t pretty : ( Feeble aren’t I?

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Under pressure

Wednesday June 8th, 2005 at 21:15pm

Well I went back to work today, having spent my enforced two day exile mostly sat in the garden (apart from the visit to my GP and picking up the car from the garage on Monday). Must admit that when I drove into the carpark I got the same familiar sinking sensation I’ve had for quite a while (no headache tho). I wander in and greet my close work colleagues who fuss around me (but not too much cos I think they know I would’ve cried if they had). Got told I missed a cute delivery man yesterday - damn! Was collared by the MD. “I’ve booked a meeting from 9.30, which is before the one you have with John. But we need to iron out what we’re going to discuss at that meeting so can you pop in and see me before we go to the other building?” I readily agree and make myself a cup of tea. Before I get chance to have more than two mouthfuls Production are on the phone, “Come over, we don’t know what we’re doing!”. So I explain to the MD that I’m going over to sort them out but I’ll be back for a quick discussion prior to the meeting. At 9.40 they ring up trying to find me. The f***ing IT department haven’t done their part of the job properly, none of the hardware works and all the PQ scripts are wrong. I tell them I’ll be up in 5 and explain to the IT guy exactly what the hardware should be doing and leave him to it. The meeting actually went reasonably well, though it ran for 2 hours instead of 1. Loads of work that was just piling up and (almost literally) drowning me was palmed off onto different people. I got my two cents worth in about how shoddily we as a company, and me as an individual, have been treated by the system vendor. Checked that Production hardware was now working OK (it was almost apart from the keyboard wedge emulation software not running, so started that. Managed 10 minutes for lunch and then went back to check on Production. They seem to be reasonably OK apart from one of the barcode scanners resolutely refuses to scan. I try everything I can think of but have to go have a chat with the DBA so that he can finish something off sharpish. Wander back to my own building about 15.30, to be greeted by the MD (again) who still wants a ‘chat’. He apologises for how bad things have got and asks me a) why it got as bad as it did and b) what would make it better. We discuss what went wrong, including me telling him that I would never work for the guy ‘in charge’ (hah!) of the project ever again - promised he’d have my notice first. We eventually agree that the post-mortem is over and I tell him that to make things better I need to know what’s required, when it’s needed (no you can’t have everything at once) and the tools to actually perform the tasks (hey a live database would help, but I’ve been asking for that for over a month already). The MD said that he didn’t realise that there was still so much work to do before we could actually use the system, personally I think he’s been misled. Anyway, the upshot is that I feel a lot less pressured, I know what I’ve got to do and who else is doing what rather than everything just landing on my desk. My problems with the vendor are going to be escalated upwards (fuck knows what’ll happen there - prob nowt). And my Ménières seems to be subsiding at least a bit. I don’t know whether the medication is having an effect, whether lower stress is helping or what, but the dizziness, at least when I’m upright, is going and that means I feel less nauseous.

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OK...

Tuesday June 7th, 2005 at 22:54pm

...there’s another journal entry (that at least one of you knows about), however I haven’t finished it yet so it remains private until it is. Aaaanyway, I got a letter from Slimming World this morning that I’m through to Man of the Year semi-finals on 3 July, yay me.

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I....

Tuesday June 7th, 2005 at 16:53pm

...need to get something off my chest, it’ll probably be incoherent and rambling but who gives a fuck? I’ve had a lazy day (no, that’s not it) and I was laid in my hammock in the garden I drifted slowly back over my life. I won’t do the early stuff (bad things happened) but suffice to say I think I was somewhat precocious as a small boy. For instance at the age of 5 I used to read the newspaper upside down (that is the newspaper was, not me) just because I could. Oh I did all the childhood things of building dens with my friends, riding (and falling off) bicycles, climbing trees etc., but I was described as quiet and more often than not would rather sit in with a good book or be doing schoolwork than be outside. Awkward adolescence followed and though I knew I wasn’t attracted to girls (albeit peer pressure meant I had to have girlfriends) I was singularly unaware that I was attracted to boys for many years. Then I found Prestel, which had daisy chat, ah the late nights of linking up through my trusty old (new actually) VTX500 (was it 2400 baud?). I was 23, so it was 1985, my mother lay terminally ill in the next room to mine. I found a shag. He lived just down the road. So off I trot (sneak really) and into bed we go. Looking back it was OK-ish as shags go (no penetration) and once we’d finished I got dressed and went home. And I was horrified with myself, I have no explanation why, I just felt dirty and sordid and horrible. The guy recontacted me and wanted a repeat performance, hey who knows, perhaps he even wanted a relationship, but I shunned him and very quietly closed the door on my sex and sexuality. Twelve years passed and I end up working in Cambridge in 1987. I’ve got a new computer and am connected to the world once again. And once again I’m drawn to the ‘gay scene’ that exists on the internet. Oh don’t doubt that I still hated myself (loathe wouldn’t be too harsh a word) but old feelings were just too strong. What followed can only be described as a series of nightmare sexual one-night stands, each one making me loathe myself more and more, and becoming ever more sexually inadequate (or feeling that way). So 23 + 12 = 35, yep I’m 35, despise who/what I am have had a 12 year celibate gap and am sexually incompetent. Cripes. Move on a year, I move to north Wales bringing all my hangups with me. And then I found him, a man to whom I lost my heart. Alas it was no good, he had hangups and I had hangups and we never really got it together. I think I was so frightened that it would all go wrong that I couldn’t move it forward.

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And...

Monday June 6th, 2005 at 16:14pm

...breathe! Day 1 of enforced absence: I’ve been to the doc’s (yay rang up at 9.40 and got an appointment for 11.20 - it’s only with a locum says the receptionist, fine by me). He’s put me on betahistine so I’ll see how I go on with that. There was some very nice eye-candy picking up his prescription when I got to the pharmacy counter, tried flashing him a smile but that got no response. Picked up my car, which has been at the garage for over a week (cylinder head gasket). No bill, the girl hadn’t made it up yet so she’s going to post it - eep, sound ominous. I’m supposed to be on a ‘promise’ tomorrow, though whether he’ll actually show is anyones guess. Ah well if he doesn’t I can just laze the day away. Oh and I got a phone call from our personnel manager, our managing director wants to see me first thing on Wednesday. Perhaps he can sort the whole sorry mess out.

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Thank-you...

Sunday June 5th, 2005 at 1:44am

...for the music! So I went and worked in the pub tonite, and towards the end of the evening (well after hours anyway) there were only drunked people in. And there was an Abba tape in the machine, so me and two laydeez sang Abba for about an hour and a half, including me doing some very wude movements to gimme a man after midnite. I drank lots of whisky at the pub and now I’m drinkin vodka, I may hate myself in the morning (who am I kidding, I hate myself all the time).

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(Doctor’s) Orders

Friday June 3rd, 2005 at 16:43pm

Well actually orders from our Operations Manager at work. I’ve literally been ordered to take Monday and Tuesday off work before I have a mini-nervous breakdown. He used to be my boss until I was transferred onto a ‘high-profile’ project, and currently I have no idea who I report to (today I was told it was the Information Systems President in our US office - first time I’ve been told). There is no management of the project, I have about 2 months worth of work to do with a go-live date of 13th June, and I don’t even have a live database (nor a date when it will be turned on). I haven’t got a fucking clue basically of who wants what and when or what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m worrying so much about work that I’m not sleeping properly, I feel physically sick when I get into work and I just don’t want to be there. I thought things were getting better, but they’re not. I just wish I could leave (and I don’t like quitting partway through things). I’m arguing with my boss cos all he does when I tell him how shit and flaky the software is is to make excuses for the vendor and then expects me to come up with technical solutions to make it work. When I do contact the vendor they come up with lines like, “We believe it should...”, what’s all this believe shit, you wrote the fucking thing you ought to know what it does. We’ve paid 2 million US$ for a gold coloured dog turd in my opinion (though that carries no weight). I feel like crying - again : (

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Jam tomorrow...

Thursday June 2nd, 2005 at 7:23am

A brief entry-ette that I was gonna make last night but having worked from 7am to 11pm I really didn’t feel like it and chatted with Bat instead. Anyway I digress (I swear I’m getting to be like Ronnie Corbett telling one of his jokes). Jam tomorrow... as I was leaving my main job at just after 5pm I got caught in a minor traffic jam getting of the industrial park. As you do on these occasions I was looking round at people in other vehicles. Two lanes across there was a transit-sized van with a rather cute driver in it. So I stared, and stared and eventually he looks round and right at me. I continued to stare (how rude of me) and then I smiled at him. To my great surprise he smiled back (I usually tend to find people scowling when they’re sat in heavy traffic). So, I just think it’s nice that you can smile at someone and get a smile back out of them. Wonder if there’ll be a traffic jam tonight....

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