Signs of a turning tide?

I heard some most interesting news today. Our beloved MD may be in some trouble... or, at least, may soon be.

Hot on the heels of the trouble he had getting rid of two copy controllers (both through shenanigens of one form or another), some other recent departees are coming back to haunt him.

One is refusing to speak to him at all, except to say "speak to my solicitor", and the other is asking the very pertinent question "if my job is being made redundant, why are there still two people with the same job title working there?"

I had to laugh, even though I know it was an unkind thing to do.

All this I learned after the announcement that he was paying for our whole department to pop off to Chessington World of Adventure next Wednesday (it's a down-week, so we're not skipping any deadlines). Certainly, he'll try to spin it that it was all his idea, and his way of thanking our department for all our sterling work. Of course, it wasn't his idea, and he may well be in too much hot water for this to make much difference... Only time will tell.

...not to mention...

What I keep forgetting is that the 18th was my Grandmother's birthday - the one who died earlier this year. Nothing was said, nothing was done... I guess from now on we'll be marking the date of her death instead.

Other stuff

Friday was the last day for another of the copy controllers at work (technically, that's three in as many weeks). More specifically, another of the good ones. Sure, she'd started going a bit off the rails toward the end, but one can't really blame her when the end was in sight for her.

I'd got a cool leaving gift for her - a joint gift with our boss - the 'Blaster Black' version of the Soundwave MP3 player. She was a massive Soundwave fan, or so she claimed. The gift certainly went down well, and drew many jealous glances from other members of staff. Our IT guy in particular, looked quite pained by the sight of it, as he said Soundwave was "the only one I didn't have as a kid". Aw, bless.

Her speech was fairly restrained - much tempered and cut down by her own account - and yet it said much about the state of the company when she arrived and as she left. I do wonder, however, if the reading from 'The Book of Karl' was way above most of their heads. Most would probably not know who Karl Marx was. At best, they might guess he was one of the Marx Brothers.

I must also confess that I was a little flustered by the glowing praise I received in her speech. I knew she enjoyed my deadpan humour, but hadn't realised there had been that much of it to warrant such a mention. It was also satisfying that what I'd taught her of Photoshop and Quark had been of use. My only real regret, as I told her later, was that I didn't get to work with her more... She was the only copy controller we've had (so far) who managed our largest magazine single-handed. While I sometimes had my doubts about her based on the company she kept, that cannot detract from her sterling performance. If only she hadn't been such a foul-mouth, and prone to such daft outbursts. That said, if I'd been her Production Manager, I might have got her to shut up once in a while...

As my boss and I extricated ourselves from the festivities (at the point where the core group were beginning to move on from the on-site bar to the favoured place back in Notting Hill), one of the remaining copy-controllers pulled us aside and informed us - rather sweetly - that we are the reason people stay as long as they do. We keep things going. We make things work.

Ironically, this view is the opposite of that which the recently-departed Senior Designer tried to put across. Nice to see it hadn't been working more recently.

Also nice to be vocally recognised as part of the reason anything actually gets done in that place.

I can't help thinking she'd regret gushing so much once she'd sobered up... but I'm not sure how much she'd actually had to drink... Perhaps she was just being sweet.

Another weird dream

Last night's dream - the half I remember at any rate - was really quite bizarre. It was set entirely at home, but a darker, slightly damp and decaying home. This was not helped by a kind of infection in the bricks, mortar and wood that made up the structure. Called 'milldew', it was a creeping, possibly sentient mould or fungus that had been accidentally brought in on the metal of my father's tools. It attacked the house beneath the visible surfaces, so the only real indication that it was present was the sound it made - a kind of chirruping or croaking, like a frog.

The sound freaked me out, and my father kept making fun of me for being upset by it but, after a little prompting, set about 'treating the infection'. The cure for milldew, apparently, was a kind of superglue, injected deep into the bricks. My mother tried to direct his efforts, but he started to do it his own way after she suggested moving to a particular area of the house, and he replied that would be a bad idea because that's where he'd need to put his tools to get them 'disinfected', so it would have to be the last place he went.

The effect of the glue was almost instantaneous - the chirruping stopped and the house became silent again by degrees.

I'm sure there was more, but I can't remember it for the life of me. All I remember is that it didn't get any less weird.

H45br0 0w|\|z M3 :(

So there was me, thinking to myself "Yeah, these TransFormers Animated toys are cool and all - very well designed, and very true to the TV show - but I just don't like the style." Seriously, I want my robots to look like robots, not Teen Titans...

And then they started appearing in Toys'R'Us.

It started with Starscream (remarkably cool - stylistically similar to the transforming jets in Macross), and now I have Bumblebee, Prowl and Lockdown.

My excuse? It was my birthday on Monday (34, as I told one of the teenage Salesmen at work, feels not unlike 19... or 17 on a good day... only I'm fitter now than I ever was then) so I have birthday money to spend, and they were doing 'Buy Two, Get One Free' to introduce the line.

And damn it all if they aren't really good in person. Bumblebee is very dynamic and, while I still have doubts about the design of the toy's feet (not entirely convincing, y'see), I warmed to him instantly. And I mean instantly. Prowl is a little indifferent, but only a little... His range of movement is irrationally limited in some ways, but he exudes effortless cool even in floppy-hipped toy form. Lockdown looks like some kind of bondage freak, or something out of a TransFormers/Spawn crossover (no, Hasbro, don't even consider it. Look away NOW!) and, while his hands and knees are not as functional as they could be, he still manages to look pretty darned good.

Do they look like robots? Not especially.
Are they cool? Undoubtedly.
Will I end up buying more? Inevitably.

In other news, I have not been at all surprised by the lack of people saying how much they miss our departed Senior Designer. He was a great brown-noser, and had a clever way of giving all the right people (bar myself and our manager) the impression of being very good at his job while actually doing very little so, ultimately, there's no reason to miss him.

Production is much quieter, and seems to be working more efficiently (bar a couple of odd glitches with new people), so it seems very likely that we'll be able to function perfectly well with only four copy controllers rather than six. I'm almost surprised but, as I continually pointed out, we used to have six magazines run by one copy controller who still had time to chat.

My second attempt at flat-buying is going a little weird. The estate agents told me they used to be the managing agents, but were no longer... but I received a letter from my solicitor including a copy of a letter from the estate agents in their capacity as managing agents of the flats. When the estate agent faxed the same letter to me, he carefully missed off the letterhead. Not sure yet how worried I should be about that... but it does mean that I'll be to-ing and fro-ing on the phone between the estate agents and my solicitor tomorrow. On my press day. Again.

What is it about these proceedings that mean the shit hits the fan on every single one of my press days. Are they doing it on purpose?

Gotta say, also, my birthday this year was a very sedate affair. I can't drink anything alcoholic at the moment as my allergies have hit (even smelling beer sets my nose streaming!), so I just had a simple dinner at home with my folks. I got the DVD of Appleseed: Ex Machina, fresh off my want list from the London Expo a few weeks back, then a total of forty quid in cold, hard cash (half of which has now been spent on TransFormers I don't have room for). My sister made her birthday card (it's really cool... if I can get off my arse, I may post a photo...), and my mother managed to find just enough scraps of TransFormers wrapping paper (which is probably about 20 years old) to cover the DVD. My old mate Paul got me a Star Wars TransFormer - the Snowspeeder/Luke Skywalker - which looks great in its alternate mode, but the robot mode really does explain why (if the rumours are to be believed) Hasbro sacked the design team that worked on SWTF.

Ticking along

One way or another, things appear to be progressing at work.

Nobody so far has said anything (that I've heard) about missing the Senior Designer who's no longer with us (the other may or may not stay on briefly as a standard level designer). Bizarrely, though, one of my designers confessed to missing the Senior Copy Controller, who's been out of the office for most of a month due to the ongoing behind-the-scenes political wranglings. It's bizarre largely because he didn't liker her much... and I hadn't realised she liked him particularly, or would really notice his absence.

It is often pointed out to me that I'm a little strange... and, at least nine times out of ten, I can't understand why it is that I'm 'strange' and everyone else is 'normal', because 'normal' just seems so weird or so dumb.

For example, one of the editors at work is supposedly considered attractive "because she has nice breasts". I can honestly say that I have never bothered looking that far down, and that I consider her completely unattractive for many reasons, none of which are physical. She cries at the least provocation, she's a complete snob (despite not exactly being premium stock), and she's too dumb to realise that she's completely out of her depth, and should never have been appointed as an editor.

My boss pointed out that I have never described anyone's attractiveness (or lack thereof) in terms of physical attributes, which is entirely true... though that's not to say I don't notice them, just that they're not foremost on my mind.

Why does that make me strange, rather than the guys who focus on breasts or legs or whatever?

Lazy days

When it comes to doing things while on holiday, I think I'm getting worse... I hadn't really set out to do anything with this last week off work (probably my first mistake) but, having determined that there were a few things I could do, I managed not to do most of them.

Not least all these photos I've taken of my BotCon eBay wins... Some have made it into my Photobucket account, but none have appeared in here yet. Nor have I added them to my website. I started updating some pages, but gave up because it became tiresome. I really need to revamp my website, but it will be a mammoth task and, frankly, I just can't be bothered right now.

I had another cool story idea, but failed to make a start on writing it up after I came up with the perfect opening paragraph and then forgot it entirely before being able to write it down (note to self: ALWAYS carry a notepad and pen... or charge up that blasted palmtop and start using that again).

On the upside, I'm feeling pretty well rested, and possibly even ready to tackle the office.

Today, I popped uptown with my boss (having met her at the office because she had to resend a page from Friday's magazine) to photograph her plushie Boo (see Megatokyo) at various touristy locations. We didn't do half of what we'd planned because things aren't open long on a Sunday and both of us ended up feeling too lazy to do much wandering around in the bright sunshine we had today. There will be other opportunities, though, and she's resolved to start a website documenting Boo's travels. It's going to be fun to see that take shape.

Phase Two

While I got off to a later start than I'd have preferred, I have accomplished all the flat-related stuff I set out to do today.

With the new bank account set up, I have closed two sets of savings and had the balance transferred to the new account - one in the form of a cheque, the other electronically. Both should be cleared by the end of next week, if not sooner.

Of course, progress is still in the hands of the solicitors, and it transpires that the information my solicitor is waiting for has been posted by the vendor's solicitor, rather than faxed.

In other news, while it's been reasonably sunny, I have managed to do a fair bit of photography, so it's only my laziness that has prevented either website updates (yawn) or images popping up in here. Let's see if I can change that today...

I have one or two other tasks to which I should attend, but I may be able to drop some pictures by later...

Phase One

One quick visit to the bank later, I have a new account set up to be my collection point for the deposit. My initial question was whether one of my existing accounts was suitable. When the Customer Services woman said "Ooooh, that's an old account" I knew the answer was basically 'no'.

They were quick to offer an alternative, however, and equally quick to get it set up. Not only that, but the first amount has already been transferred, so the beginnings of my deposit is ready and waiting.

The next step would be closing one of my other savings accounts. I phoned up that bank and told them what I was intending to do (minus the details about it being for a flat purchase... I shall scream the very next time someone asks me "Do you have a mortgage?"), and was told that I'd have to get my bank to close it for me. They have to write the letter informing the savings account provider that I'm closing their account and wish to transfer those funds into this new account. Being done by snail mail, that'll take about a week.

The good news (if one can call it that) is that I had a follow-up call from the Estate Agent asking if my solicitor had received the remaining paperwork. I cheerfully informed him that they had not, so the Estate Agents are going to bother the vendors solicitor again.

Fun and games.

One of those days

OK, so waking up at after 10 in the morning was never going to be a good start to the day.

With my flat purchase seemingly progressing another notch, my mother has been making suggestions. Yesterday there was more confusion than was warranted over which slice of my savings I should put into my deposit (eventually settling on closing down an ISA and one whole savings account, and funnelling the results into either an existing savings account or a new one set up for the purpose).

Yesterday, she wanted to talk detailed financial logistics before I'd had breakfast.

This morning, while I was still in bed, she knocked on my door and 'suggested' that it would be "good to get [the ISA closed down] this week". I agreed - it's not as if that was something I hadn't considered and, in actual fact, I'd planned to do it today. All I needed, as is standard with these things, is my passport and a bank statement or bill as means of identification.

Sometime later, she announced that she was off shopping, just as she has every other day this week - one trip per day for her mother, possibly followed later by another for our own household shopping. She'd not normally be out long for either.

After I got out of bed, got showered and dressed, I went downstairs and found a note stuck to my ISA's account book, to the effect that I'd need to take that, my passport and a bank statement or bill as means of identification.

Well, duh. That sounds familiar.

Awkwardly, I have no idea where my passport is. They're all stored together (or so I thought), somewhere in a mess of overstuffed drawers that I have no hope of ever navigating.

I tried anyway.

I noticed that my mother's passport is not stored with the rest. It was actually out of the drawers, as she was in the midst of getting the passports ready for updating, because they expire this year.

And, typically, she's been out shopping far longer than normal today. She may well have her cellphone with her, but she's not going to be able to tell me where the passport is because those drawers are completely crammed in no particular order. Even though she knows, broadly speaking, where they are, she still has to look for them herself.

So, basically, I wasted a couple of hours of the morning sleeping, and she's wasted three more hours of my time - so far - because she hadn't either indicated where the passport is, or just got it out and ready.

I could have done all kinds of other stuff with my day so far, and I've just spent it getting progressively more annoyed that, on the rare occasion she communicates with me, she communicates only the most useless crap.