how much tape is in a back up tape?

Have you ever wondered how much tape is in a back up tape?

I have lunch for you downstairs

I was just sitting here eating my lunch, and my phone rang...


caller "hello is that Amber?"
me "yes"
caller "I have your lunch downstairs"
me "you have my lunch downstairs?"
caller "yes - you are Amber arent you"
me "yes"
caller "I think I have the wrong Amber - you dont sound like my daughter"
me "yes there is an Amba next door"
caller "yes I want the Amba next door - but if you were my daughter then I would have bought you lunch"
me "you can buy me lunch tomorrow if you like ;o)"


How funny was that?

free shouldnt mean 19 pence

In yesterdays Metro there was a voucher for a free bottle of Glacieau water from Tesco, so I picked out my bottle of water and got a packet of cherries too (to have with my lunch).


I got to the self scan tills (because there was no-one serving on the cashier ones because I was way too early), scanned the drink and my cherries, then I scanned the voucher (it had to be verified by the supervisor), the till then said that I had to pay £2.18.  


This was odd because the cherries were £1.99 and the drink was free - I thought to myself ok I will see what the receipt says.  I had a look at the receipt and the voucher was only for £1.20 but the bottle of water was £1.39.


In my head free means free, so I marched upto Customer Services and showed the lady my receipt and said that I had a voucher for a free bottle of water but the voucher was only for £1.20 - she said "yes this is correct and that I had to pay 19 pence because of the store price!"  So I said "but it is supposed to be free" and she said "because of the store price you have to pay 19 pence" so I said "but it doesnt say this on the voucher"  Ok I admit I hadnt actually looked at the voucher but I wasnt going to let her know this.


So I said to her "if its not free I dont want it then" and placed the bottle on the counter.  She then said "well I can only give you 19 pence back for it" and I said "yes thats ok"


So I got my 19 pence back...


I didnt actually want the bottle of drink, but if it had been something that I had wanted then I would have paid the extra.

ones gorn onto flickr

I was flicking through my copy of Metro this morning (getting to the horoscopes) and saw that the Royal Family now have their own flickr account!


They wont let us mere commoners comment on the photos which I guess is a good thing...


...as I dont think that the Tower of London would be nearly big enough for all the people making traitorous comments ;o) 

tummies for courses

Do you ever find that you can be completely stuffed from having your dinner, but still can find room for dessert in your special "pudding tummy"?  I certainly do ;o).


I wish I could take credit for this nugget of wisdom but Ruth came out with it when I was watching The Victorian Pharmacy ;o)


Talking of tv...


...I was watching The Hotel Inspector and saw that it is being sponsored by e-bookers imagine my surprise when Alex said "most people check reviews on Trip Advisor" If I was e-bookers I would be livid!  


It is being shown at prime time at 9pm (so the advertising price will be at its highest) on Channel 5 (not even a satellite channel I know) and the presenter is mentioning a rival review site ;o).


Got to make you laugh...

ter minutes

For the past week we have been having server problems at work...


On Monday an engineer was in to have a look at it, so I rang the company who do our IT to say that we were all logged off and asked them to shut down the server (as the engineer didnt know the password).


The bloke I spoke to had a thick African accent and said that they would shut down the server in "ter minutes", so I said "sorry I didnt catch that - how long?" and he said again "ter minutes" so I thought on my feet whilst trying to be diplomatic (It doesnt happen very often ;o)) so I said "do you mean two as in between one and three or ten as in between nine and 11?" and again he said "in ter minutes"!  I was losing the will to live at this point, so I said "thanks byeeeee".


It so happened that the part they had sent for the engineer to fix wasnt the correct part anyway, but luckily it all got fixed last night ;o).

More characters should have scars

James has been watching Sons of Anarchy and said that one of the actors Katey Sagal must have had open heart surgery because she has a scar like my one.


So I googled or rather yahood to see if she had and when she had it.  Would you believe that the scar isnt real and the background story hasnt been told yet.


Having looked at her on the show I must say that the scar looks real.


A few years ago British Heart Foundation did an advert and you could tell that the scars werent real, this made me angry because Im sure that they could have used people that really had undergone the surgery.


What has been the biggest markdown that you have seen?  We were in Wilkinson today and we saw England supporters products being sold off for 5p, if they were being sold for £1 before England went out then thats a 95% discount!

Network dead spot

I was on the train home last night, we had just got past Stratford, and the driver announced that there was an incident at Marks Tey that may affect our journey home.


A lady sitting two seats across from me had just got a text message from her friend saying that there had been a fatality (oh great why cant these ever happen in the mornings?), and she had stopped at Shenfield.  I thought to myself "oh well"...


The train then gets to Brentwood and the train stops in the very place where you cant get cell phone coverage, so I typed out a message to send to James for when the train started moving again.


The train eventually (about 20 minutes later I would guess) started moving again so I sent the text to James.  James then came back with "whats your eta" so I came back with "I have no idea its supposed to take 8 minutes from here but who knows".


The train then gets to Shenfield and the driver opens the doors so we can have some fresh air (if we want), a whole load of people got on at Shenfield (our train wasnt supposed to stop here out of interest), and again we were stopped for 20 minutes.


The train then got to Ingatestone (again we were there for 20 minutes) and the driver  opened the doors this time only one person got on and he went straight into the toilet, and didnt resurface until we got to Chelmsford.


I ended up being an hour late!

you have outstanding transactions please see customer services!

Lets firstly go back to last Sunday...


I had scanned all of my shopping using their fast track system and had got to the till.  The cashier then went to scan the scanner and it all went blank!  She then called over to a supervisor to ask "what should I do?" and the supervisor said "you will have to do a full rescan" oh well...


...so it all got scanned and that was the end of it...


This morning I got to the supermarket and scanned my loyalty card so I could get a scanner and I got "you have outstanding transactions please see customer services" come up on the display.  Now I have used my loyalty since, admittedly it was in a different branch but surely the system would think "well hang on Amber has used her card since" but it doesnt!


Anyhow I was in the shop before 10am (bloody Sunday trading laws), so I explained to a bloke (who was sorting out the newspapers) by Customer Services what had happened and he said that he couldnt help, but to go and ask the ladies on the tills.  So I saw a group of ladies down the other end of the shop and "hot footed" it down there.


So I get down to where the ladies are, and one of them looks at me in shock and immediately steps back, I think to myself "does my breath smell that bad?", and I explain what has happened and how the bloke told me to speak to them about it.  The lady who had the shocked look on her face then said "I cant leave what I am doing because I have the money" (hence the shocked look on her face) and told me to go "back to customer services because the bloke who unlocked the doors would be able to unblock my card".


So I went back to customer services explained again what had happened and he unblocked my card and I was able to get my scanner ;o)  I then went back to the lady and said "thanks for your help" ;o).


I got to the till after getting all of the shopping and it was the same cashier who managed to "piss it up" last week on the till, but at least it all went ok this time ;o).

Another Amber but a different spelling

A few weeks ago one of my colleagues came back from making the teas as said "you'll never guess what?  There is another Amber next door" ;o)


I couldnt believe it two Ambers in such close proximity...


Anyhow yesterday I was making the tea (yet again) and I saw who I thought was the other Amber.  I was feeling brave so I came out and said "are you the other Amber?"  Dont worry I was smiling and not grimacing and she said "yes" she was.


But she is spelt Amba.


When I lived at home in Ingatestone there was another Amber on the same estate, I think that she must have been five or six years younger than me.  Her grandmother took her to the doctors and I happened to be there too.  I got called in for my appointment and her granny was mortified that there was another Amber in the village ;o)

An A-Maze-ing meal

Yesterday was the third (and final) part of my 40th birthday celebrations...

We were supposed to go for this meal on the weekend of the end of May bank holiday, but NXEA in all of their wisdom decided decided to run engineering works that weekend!  So the meal was rearranged for last night.

We went to Maze restaurant (one of Gordon Ramsays more reasonably priced places, or so we thought!).  We got there and were sat down and were asked what drinks we would like so we both ordered a diet coke each.  We got our drinks then another waiter then came over with the menu and explained to us that the dishes were all tasting sizes (think of half the normal size), he said that people tended to order two from the cold and warm and two from the meat & fish (parts of the menu).


Flipping heck I was planning on just having a main course and a dessert!  So I rethought what I was going to have and decided to just have one thing from each so that I would still have room for a dessert ;o).  I would always rather have a dessert than a starter.

They werent kidding about the portion sizes being small!  They were tiny!

James did as he was told and had two & two, and the place being as posh as it was they would bring over a plate for me too so I could share it ;o).   I knew it was posh in there when I went to the toilets and saw that they had Molton Brown hand wash & hand lotion.

I had quail from the hot & cold part and rack of lamb & shoulder from the meat & fish part, James had octopus & asparagus from the hot & cold and Pollock & deer from the meat & fish - I got to share the asparagus & deer (it was so nice of the chef to know which order to bring them out in ;o)

I was looking around (like you do) and saw that the lady sitting next to James was drinking a passion fruit drink (I thought I want some of that) so when James second hot & cold taster came I asked the waiter if I could have one too ;o)  It turned out to be a cocktail of passion fruit & vodka and was lovely ;o).  I ended up having two of them!

When it came to the desserts I was hoping that the same thing of ordering two was applicable, so James asked the waiter and he said "no they are normal sized servings" damn I now had to decide which dessert to go for!  So I went for the peanut butter & cherry jam sandwich (I managed to get the cherry jam down my top) and James had the rice pudding.


Just after we paid, the waiter brought us over some petite fours (which I forgot to take pictures of).  The table sitting next to us were taking pictures of their food too.


Incidentally the hand wash was good at getting the cherry jam off of my top ;o).


The waiting staff were very attentive and even folded up your napkin went you went to the bathroom.


The meal was really nice and I doubt that I will ever go anywhere that refined again ;o)