Scribble Scribble Scribble

I'm sitting at my desk at GfK Martin Hamblin, kind of bored waiting for a market research interview to come through. Unfortunately, it's on a job where 99% of the numbers are off for Christmas, so I just get plenty of confused auto-switchboards being unable to find a suitable person and so getting into eternal loops, answer machines that the office is shut but should be open on the hours you are calling at, fax machines which 'shout' so much it makes my head hurt, and 'Greensleeves'. The other 1% are available to talk but won't because it's Christmas, think I'm trying to sell them something but are not interested, or just plain bored receptionists who wouldn't connect you for love nor money usually, but are doubly annoying because they are the only ones there. Just had my final break, so now it's the long, hard stretch of 1 and a 1/2 hours!

I'm writing this on my notepad which I'll copy up later. I have actually written a blog since my last one, but stupidly left it back in Plymouth. *sigh*

Anyway, Christmas was entertaining. I got back to good ol' 'Britsol' on Saturday evening, did crazy amounts of shopping until Thursday, wrapped for the majority of the available time on Friday (actually, thinking about it, I spent most of the time visiting Chrissey. Oh how I love her), celebrated Christmas with my parents, ate plenty of food, then on Monday visited my biggest brother and his girlfriend (Matt & Clare) in York, then on Tuesday 'till Wednesday night saw my other (middle) brother and me sis-in-law (Peat & Jo) in Colchester. Muchos fun was had overall.

Oh gawwwwd I'm so bored!

20 minutes has passed, and yet feel it's been 4 days. So far I've listened to almost 100 different exchanges & answering machines in the past 2 hours. I've spoken to only 5 real people. 2 have been receptionists, 3 people have refused (curses!). That's all in the past 2 and a bit hours. Trouble is, I've been here on the 'machine' since 9am. 9AM! And I was shattered even then! I really wish I had tried for that job at the local computer shop. Oh well, never mind. There's not much I can do about it now.

Oh great, now it's starting to repeat itself again. That's the 4th loop of machines so far! My head is aching more and more the louder those accursed robots shout. Oh good, 126 so far; almost beaten my record for number of purely automated devices contacted in a single shift. Also, the 250 I've contacted for all day is not a bad record... :(

Argh! The numbers have gone round within 5 minutes! *thumps head on table*

Anyway, for Christmas I got:

• The Killers 'Hot Fuss' CD
• The Beautiful South 'Miaow' CD (with the original cover art design - very rare :D )
• Private Eye Annual
• A hooded jumper
• Return of The King Special Edition DVD
• The Bourne Identity DVD
• Join Me' by Danny Wallace
• lots of bits & pieces, like chocolate and racing snails
• Pleasantville DVD
• The Virgin Suicides DVD (very good film by the director of Lost in Translation)

and...

• A SPACEHOPPER!

Peat & Jo have a tendancy to buy bizarre (but incredibly good) presents. One year, they bought me a 'Star Wars Sith Attack Droid' which fired foam discs which you hit with a humming plastic lightsabre. I kinda wore the batteries out. :P

This notebook is full of very random images, I must put them on my new, PHP-powered PottyMouth V2! Admittedly, the code still doesn't do everything I required from it (e.g.: you can't get it to list the name of the file, or description as yet), but I didn't want to waste a database on it, so I'm happy enough. I even got GD to write me some logo headers! :O (GD, in case you didn't know, is a program which can draw, write text, and manipulate graphics on demand, using PHP code.)

Oh good, only 15 minutes left to go! My brain was starting to melt, that was all. Almost 160 machines in 3 hours. Anyway, I think I'll have to stop now. Catch you all later!