should James be flattered or furious?

James went to lunch yesterday with one of his workmates and they were looking at the community projects in the atrium outside Chelmsford Library (where the Registry Office happens to be too), and the Registrar pops out and asks "Are you the wedding party?" to which James said "I have affection for him but Im not marrying him" to which the Registrar laughed ;o) He should never have worn that pink shirt and rainbow tie combo ;o)

Since losing all of his weight James is always asking "do I look gay?" to which I normally say "dont worry you dont look neat enough" ;o) I do love backhanded compliments...

I guess this weekend we will be looking for some butch clothing for him ;o)

getting my back up

As you recall from here and here we have been having problems with our back up at work...

...on Friday an engineer turned up to fit a new tape drive (as our previously fitted one wasnt being recognised) , so once it had been fitted I put a tape in and (stupidly) expected to come in this morning and find the tape ejected and an e-mail saying that the back up was successful.

Did I heck?

No I came in and found he tape still in the tape drive and an e-mail saying that the tape drive wasnt being recognised *sigh*.

So I e-mailed our IT company and told them what had happened (as I was in before 8.30 when the help desk officially opens).

I then got an e-mail back saying that the back up had been configured to look for the wrong tape drive!

WTF they were the people who told the engineer what tape drive to bring!

I never ceased to be amazed by some peoples stupidity!

dont expect four mid week posts every week

I cant believe that last week had so much going on that I did four mid week posts!

One thing that I didnt mention was that on Tuesday it was two years to the day until the Olympic torch will be lit in London. The Mayor of London Boris Johnson mentioned that the search is now on for Olympic helpers and ambassadors.

I thought that this was something that James could do until Boris mentioned that they didnt want anyone annoying! I bluntly said to James "this puts you out then" he looked a bit upset, then thought for a while and said "I suppose they dont want perfectionists" ;o).

On a plus point I weighed myself this morning and saw that I have lost two pounds ;o)

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)