Post-work yesterday I went to play pool at the Gentlemen's club. In my possession was Chris Light, a friend of mine whom I have recently inducted into the work fold. The reasons for this are myriad. Firstly, I get a nice lump of £1000 for recommending him to work at my company. Secondly, he has recently graduated and was looking for a job. Now then, because I know how hard it is to find a decent job after graduating with a roll of toilet tissue, I thought I would lend a hand to Chris. You see, he likes his money. Now he has money, he likes to spend it. He is coming out drinking with us tonight and he's going to get well Charles and maybe be sick.

Listen up. We played pool for a couple of hours after work had finished for the day. Chris was a lot better than I was, and I only won one match-up. I did counterbalance this by drinking two pints of Fosters Super Chilled, although it was more like Fosters Mediocre Chilled. I also stole some of his dry roasty Nobby's Nuts. I also put some musak on the box of dukes. I also watched some of the cricket. I also had three pisses.

After this I went home to my home and moved a lot of things around in preparation for Monday.

On Monday we are getting a new TV. It's a 50 incher with HD capability. This means that the TV that currently resides in the lounge will be relocated relocated relocated to the top room where my Xbox 360 sits. This works out well for me, a larger screen on which to play video games and watch films. You see, the old TV was getting on a bit; whenever I turned it on I would have to wait for it to "warm up". During this period the picture would wobble slightly if it was set to AV mode. Highly annoying indeed. This did not impact on the huge respect I had for the TV set. Last night when we were carrying it downstairs we discussed how the TV had served us well. I estimated that it must be at least 10 years of age. This is highly commendable indeed. Thanks Panasonic. Thanasonic.

Once this had all been done and dusted, I fucked off to bed to watch Prison Break Season 2 and have a wank.

When I was quite a bit younger, I would estimate to be in the region of 14 years of age, I was hungry. I went to the kitchen and had a look to see what I could have as a snack. From the cupboard I gathered a large number of items to choose from, and then decided to make a sandwich.

Three slices of bread were used for this sandwich. And here is a list of items that I included within the confines of the Sammys Davis Jr:

Flora
Strawberry Nutri-Grain Bar
Kraft Cheese Slices
Jalapeno Peppers
Squeezy Cheese
Nutella Spread
Wafer Thin Ham
Heinz Tomato Ketchup
A Fried Egg
Taramasalata
Curry Powder
Cayenne Pepper
Golden Syrup
Milkybar
A Pinch Of Salt

It was fucking horrible.

On what was supposed to be a day off yesterday, I had to engage in manual labour against my will. You see, our driveway is of the block paving variety. Over time the bricks have gained this mossy residue which, once wet, acts in much the same way as water and washing-up liquid on a sheet of polythene. This results in all manner of near-slips. The powers that be saw fit to arm me with a pressure washer and proceed to clean the surface of the driveway.

Well, it turns out that this is far easier said than done. The basic premise of block paving is that these large blocks are rooted not in cement, but on a bed of sand. A sand bed, if you will. When it rains, which is a fairly common occurrence in this fine country of ours, a small amount of this sand is drawn up from beneath the bricks. This leaves a sandy coating on top of the bricks once the water has all dried up.

Now, with the pressure washer applying high pressure to the flooring, a great deal of sand made an appearance and subsequently got in my way as I was trying to blast the moss off the bricks. I was now left with black sandy water that simply would not wash away. Very annoying indeed. I cleaned the area in front of the house to begin, then handed over to my Sister to complete the task. I popped out and bought "Sunshine" on DVD, and when I returned my Mother was sweeping the driveway with a stern look on her face. It transpired that my lazy Sister had finished the task, but neglected to clean up or tidy away the cleaning implements. We were all unimpressed.

This weekend I also went out. This was on Friday. I was driving, so it was never going to be a fun night. The place we went to was really shit, this little bar/cafe thing in Banstead called "Cafe Italia". There is nothing remotely Italian about the place, as it is filled with ex/current gangsters flashing their cash around and talking overly loudly. There were also a few MILFs, but I steered well clear because they are undoubtedly married to mobsters. Mobsters. I had a bottle of Tiger beer and left at around 9:45pm. I had stayed for one hour and a whole forty five minutes.

On Saturday it was much more enjoyable as I ventured round to a friend's house to engage in an Xbox session. We played "Halo 2", which I was rubbish at. We played "EA Sports Fight Night Round 3" which I was amazing at. We played "Table Tennis" which I was also amazing at. We played "Smackdown 2007" which I was ok at. Because of the Pro Evo incident (it's broken) we were unable to play Pro Evo, this would have capped the evening off nicely.

On Sunday I went with my Brother to visit my Nan. We walked into Sutton and I bought Season one of "House" and an Xbox 360 game called "Bioshock".

I have played this "Bioshock" and can confirm that it is very good indeed. There is no doubt in my mind that they will create a film based on the game, and it will ruin the franchise forever.

Danny Boyle's "Sunshine" is an enjoyable film.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the gym to prepare for the kickboxing session ahead. I arrived at 5:15pm and did exactly 20 minutes on the cross trainer, before venturing to the rowing machine to procure a 2000m haul. Once these tasks had been performed I went out to the foyer of the YMCA to await the arrival of my sparring partners. Bruno Fountain and Jay arrived first, closely followed by Amanda and Paul. Then Graham got there, as well as Jay's mate Mark. We then headed up to the room to start our work-out. The coffee shop girl came with her friend, and another of Jay's acquaintances got there too. The stage was set. Ashford Mills was running late because he had got lost, the poor sod. He arrived during the warm-ups.

Once the lesson had finished we made our plans to go to the pub to watch the football. Paul Rodgers took a shower at the gym, Graham got changed and Bruno dropped Jay off home. This gave me a 10 minute window in which to race home, shower and change. Obviously all the little parameters would be involved, such as drying my drenched self, brushing my teeth and styling my barnet; but with these opposing factors I had set myself a strict time limit of 5 minutes to complete the entire complement of tasks.

Well, I can't tell you how quickly I got everything done. That's a lie, I can tell you exactly how quickly I got everything done: 4 minutes and 37 seconds. It really was a sight to behold, a triumph of modern engineering, a testament to what can be achieved with a little application, some self-belief and a giant leap of faith. Before I knew it I was back in the car heading down to the car park at Morrie's 7-11 (AKA Morrisons).

I rushed to the pub and found Bruno Fountain to be waiting at the bar. I ordered myself a Foster's Super Chilled luxury drink and settled up next to the quiz machine to peruse the match. It was 1-1 when I arrived, so I had missed both Lampard's goal and the Kraut equaliser. Gutted, was I? I was gutted. We jumped on the quiz machine and managed to win nothing at all. This was to be indicative of the overall performance of the England team. The German's scored a rather spectacular, if speculative, goal. They deserved the victory, no mistake. Why on earth did Steve "Mike Baldwin from Coronation Street" McLaren not put Shaun Wright-Phillips in the starting line-up? He was easily the best England player in the final chapter of the game. Shameless.

I also consumed a Coca-Cola, but I didn't get to finish the entire thing. I left it on a table whilst I nipped to the toilet, and when I returned it had been picked up by some over-zealous barmaid. Rats. There was over half a pint remaining, for crying out loud! Nevertheless, I had broken the seal and had to constantly relieve my bladder of it's contents. Slash City, Population: Me.

I then returned home and retired to bed in order to sleep like there was no tomorrow. Unfortunately there was a tomorrow, and it is now today. I have returned to work to a torrent of emails and other such annoyances, but I couldn't care less really.

Emailville, Population: Me.

Today is a day off to "recover" after my very relaxing holiday. Upon booking the time off a few weeks ago I decided that I would have a day off either side of my holiday. No scientific explanation can be assigned to this phenomenon.

I woke up at 8:33am. I was not very happy about this, but that's the way things turned out and I just had to go with the flow. I started writing my last couple of blog posts and was finished by 11am, primo. I also had a bacon sandwich and watched Sky Sports News. After showering and changing and doing my hair I decided to pop into town, the premise was to pick up my Sister's prescription. I went into town at 1:21pm and this is why I done it.

I saw a few people from work, and I was worried that they would think that I was perhaps skiving off work. I walked on, seemingly oblivious, and carried on with my special little errand. If they ask me for the truth tomorrow then I shall respond with "The truth? You can't handle the truth!". Or I might just say "It was residual holiday that I am using so that I can spend all day playing with myself and going on the internet". This is sure to weird them out enough to never want to talk to me again.

I also bought a bottle of Ribena. It's a wonder how they figure out the golden ratio for diluted Ribena, I can never get it quite right. My favourite approach is to fill a pint glass with ice, then trickle the sweet nectar over the coldites. Once there is enough in the bottom I then fill the glass gently with aqua vitae. The ice, you see, forms a protective barrier, thus keeping the syrup out of direct contact with the warmer water. Once you have consumed the majority of the water, the largely undiluted Ribena particles remain at the bottom, chilled exponentially by the ice to a temperature that I can only hazard to be in the region of -40 degrees centigrade. Imagine, if you will, that the below diagram of the differing pelagic zones relates to my standard vestibule of Ribena:

Think of the Abyssopelagic zone as being the concentrated dose of Ribena. The Bathypelagic zone is the ice in the glass, acting as a barrier between that and the Mesopelagic zone wherein the bulk of the water sits. And of course, the surface of the Ribenacolada is none other than the Epipelagic zone. This surface water is the warmest water within the glass, but rising currents from the Bathypelagic zone can chill this water in very little time indeed.

I would assume that the Hadopelagic zone is a shot of some sort of spirit, perhaps vodka. We just don't know, we've not arrived at the technology to place spirits in Ribena yet, but scientists are working on it. I might try it at the weekend.

Thank you for enduring my Ribena habits. As a reward, here is a picture of my Brother.

That other diary was a ruse. It was short and non-descriptive like a midget spy. Here you will find a much more agreeable version of events, as told by me. As you have undoubtedly already perused the handwritten version, you will have a rough idea of what I got up to each day. Let the clarification process begin, and don't forget to search for the hidden hyperlinks. You'll have a whale of a time doing it. Here's a clue, they're underlined.

Monday 13th August 2007:

If you thought that seeing your common or garden doctor involved a long wait, you obviously haven't been to the vets recently. I had to take my Sister and her stupid rabbit down to this veterinary practice. The rabbit had picked up an eye infection, the inconsiderate little shit. A previous consultation had resulted in a course of eye drops for the blighter, and of course the vet simply had to book in a secondary viewing, just to wring some more money out of us.

So I drove down to this real sod of a vets and it turns out that it's in one of the shittiest roads in Reigate, a narrow sort with cars parked on either side. It is always my luck that someone is coming the other way, forcing me to pull in to an uncomfortable and tight space whilst they glide past without giving any acknowledgement of thanks. So once this had all been dealt with I pulled up and my Sister removed the offending animal from my car. I parked up somewhere a bit nicer and then went in to wait. We were right on time, 10:10am. There were two people in front of us. There was a woman with a dog who loved dribbling all over the place and took great pleasure in trying to get up close and personal with the other injured animals in the waiting room. There was also a girl, probably about 19 or 20, with a cat that had one eye. I found this funny and let out a little giggle upon first seeing the animal. The girl turned out to be quite attractive so it wasn't a total loss.

When it was finally the turn of our luckless rabbit, it was almost 11am. This was wholly shambolic. The appointment lasted all of 5 minutes and resulted in a further charge just for seeing the animal to say "Yeah, it's fine". I could have done that. I could have charged my Sister £25 to say "Yeah, the animal will be ok, just kep checking up on it". What a swindle and swizz.

Tuesday 14th August 2007:

After all the flying nonsense and the drive to the apartment, we had some food. I took great delight in eating Jamon Serrano. It's one of my favourite food sources.

Let's talk more about these superhuman blinds that make the room very dark indeed. They're essentially security shutters, and almost every residence in Spain has them, from what I can ascertain. It's difficult to explain the effect of sleeping in a pitch black room, it really is a unique experience. Hours of fun can be had trying to guess what time of day it is, and even my usually dependable bladder was confused by the darkness. Instead of rousing at 6am for my morning slash, it would be more like 3am, not very conduicive to my sleep pattern. After this first night of complete darkness I decided to have the blinds open a little bit to try to emulate the light levels in my trusty bedroom at home. I didn't get it quite right, but it was ok.

The heat was also a mitigating factor in my sleeplessness. We had air conditioning there, and I would often put it on a sleep timer, leaving enough time for me to fall asleep. This meant that I would eventually be woken by the cloying heat. At this waking point I would put the air conditioning device on again, but might fail to set a sleep timer. This meant that an hour or so later I would wake up shivering, and would have to turn the device off. This constant tug of war between hot and cold may well have resulted in illness, had it not been for my amazing immune system.

Wednesday 15th August 2007:

We should really have figured out that it was a national holiday. The streets were empty, the bus was empty, the shops were closed wherever we looked, and it even smelt like a national holiday. Nevertheless my Mother's persistence in walking round was unfounded and she finally reasoned with my logic that "If all the shops we've seen so far have been closed, then why would there be open ones anywhere else?". Indeed, the only places that were open were newsagents and Burger Kings.

The armpit shaving was very weird. It helped though, that anti-perspirant was really uncomfortable. It would get all clogged up in the hairs, and whenever I raised my arms above an angle of 2 degrees, I would feel the hairs pulling against each other. The smoothess of my armpits was insurmountable for about 5 minutes, then the hair started growing back. At the time of writing (a week after the initial shaving) the hairs are resemblant of astro turf.

Thursday 16th August 2007:

Nice relaxing day in all honesty. Swimming and eating and reading was broken up with a bit of Sir David Attenborough, the hero of all times. I also watched "Deja Vu" with Denzel Washington. Denzel is great. He's got a rather severe over-bite, look out for it next time you watch a film with him. "Deja Vu" was good because I had to keep explaining the cause and effect of time travel to my Sister, who was trying to pick holes in the plot because she couldn't grasp the gravity of the situation. You see, she is of the belief that films are fiction, but we all know that every film is a documentary, which means it is real and filmed live and there are no special effects, like "The Matrix".

I also nearly tripped up an old man when he was walking round the pool, I had left my goggles on the side and he got all tangled up in them. It was funny because he was too busy saying "Ola" to us to notice my trap. It so nearly worked as well. He looked a bit aggrieved and pointed at the goggles as if to say "There's the culprit". I simply looked at him and motioned that he should pick the goggles up. To my amazement he did, and I laughed at him for being such a pussy.

Friday 17th August 2007:

We went shopping in this precinct place. The only shop I found solace in was the instrument shop, so I gazed at the guitars and software and such whilst the women did their clothes shopping. We then ate at this place called Foster's Hollywood, which is normally pretty good. Unfortunately it wasn't very good this time. Mum ordered a jacket potato with her food, which they clearly forgot when the plate turned up adorned with patatas fritas (that's chips to you peons). The waiter soon realised and said "The baked potato will be 5 minutes". The baked potato never arrived. Instead I got the bill and we got the bus home. Fuck you and your potato laziness.

This was also the first evening that we went to "El Garaje". I really can't stress enough how attractive the waitress was. I also had my most favourite beer ever, "Desperados". This is a beer that is brewed with Tequila. As a result it takes like Tequila beer, funny thing really.

Saturday 18th August 2007:

"Prison Break" is better than I expected, but it suffers from "Lost" syndrome, where every break has to arrive on a cliffhanger. I suppose they are trying to build some sort of tension, but after a few episodes you figure out that there's always some massive work around and everything is alright in the end. Still, it's something to watch in these post-Sopranos days. I actually had a dream that I was telling my Dad that "The Sopranos" is the best TV show ever made, and that he was a fool to watch this "24" and "CSI" guff. Now that I am awake I still stand by my claims.

Sunday 19th August 2007:

I had a dream that I had to use a samurai sword, which resembled one of those big knives that the kebab shop men use to cut the meat off the doner kebab leg thing, to cut people up. I could feel the resistance as the sword hit the bone in an arm or leg, and I conceded that I would have to use ultimate force to cut through people's limbs. It was really quite horrid because I obviously didn't want to do it, I'm not that kind.

Jesus' band is called "Crudo", or "Raw" in English. Unfortunately this makes them sound like an 80's hair metal band, but I can assure right here and right now that they are not a hair metal band (and yes, those are all men) from the decade that is best left forgotten. We played an eclectic mix of modern day rock songs, and songs from back in the day. I was playing bass for the most part, but towards the end I picked up Jesus' guitar and thrashed away to the tune of Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. Joyous.

Monday 20th August 2007:

By now you will have realised that the final two days of my holiday were missing from the hand drawn flavour of diary. Here they are.

Mum and my Sister went to the beach, so I stayed at home because I care not for the beach. I watched "Born On The Fourth Of July" and ate some pizza. In the evening we went for a BBQ round at Maria's parents' house. It was tasty and I had muchos beer.

Tuesday 21st August 2007:

The day of the flight. I spend the whole day feeling all tense, I really hate this flying malarkey. Check-in took ages, and there was this annoying pair of women with four kids between them, they simply pushed in to the front of the queue stating "We've got young kids with us and we need to check-in and board first to make sure we are all sat together". This annoyed me because they looked like the kind of women who had just had two weeks of letting the kids run around unsupervised while they got slaughtered on cheap wine and gin. I am confident that my judgement of these tarts was 100% correct. No margin for error here.

So naturally, once the plane had started boarding, these women were nowhere to be seen. Once the priority passengers had boarded, it was the turn of the rest of the fleet. Namely us. And lo and behold, who should turn up but the two cunts with their devil children in tow. "We were busy shopping, let us go in front because we have kids with us". Not content with merely pushing in to the front of one queue, they occupied themselves with jumping in front of everyone else. This annoyed me no end, and I was visibly irked by their conduct. What whores. Luckily there was to be no more trouble from these bitches.

The flight was a bit shite, very windy on both ends. My favourite bit is the landing once all the wheels have touched the ground and the plane starts slowing. There's a big difference between the general ambience of taking-off and landing. People don't really talk before take-off, but as soon as the plane touches down they're all chattering away as if their lives depended on it. This relieves me somewhat. We got our bags and had to endure a 2 hour detour whilst my brother went to pick up a watch from this guy who lives in Lingfield. "It'll only take 15 minutes" he says. We got home exactly two hours after we landed. Luckily we had procured some Fish N Chips on the way home, and I ate these with much gusto. Good old Blighty.

In the evening I checked my emails and then went round to see Satpaul, who had also returned from his holiday in Riga, Latvia. We played Pro Evo and caught up on the happenings of all and sundry and then I decided to head home to my very own bed.

Please find a short diary of my holiday. It may be of note that the diary in and of itself is not very detailed. Fear not, for I shall elaborate in later posts. For now, just you worry about reading up on it, and directing your hand to your mouse and hovering the cursor over the picture that you wish to enlarge. By the power of motor neurons you should be able to form a clicking motion and engorge the picture with tasty pixels, thus making it appear closer than it actually is. Thanks kindly.

Lifeofian is on holiday as of tomorrow, so expect little to no updates during this period of downtime. It's been a busy and uneventful couple of weeks, and for that I apologise. Expect normal service to resume at the end of the month, which just so happens to coincide with pay day.

Ian

With no blog posts forthcoming since Friday, you would be totally justified in thinking that something was wrong. Hush your dirty little mouth, there is nothing wrong with me, I've just been working particularly hard these last couple of days and couldn't be bothered to write anything. You see, sometimes the truth hurts more than a lie.

Because it's been a mildly interesting 5 days, I will list some of the things I have done. Let it begin:

On Saturday I went out in Clapham in the evening for Paul Rodgers' birthday celebration and drank a hell of a lot;
I stole a toy machine gun from a man dressed as a soldier;
I "fired" the machine gun at traffic;
I stole a light saber from someone dressed as a Jedi;
I danced with Uncle Sam and God and a woman dressed as Robin Hood;
After getting a taxi back to Coulsdon I walked the 5.84 miles home in the dark. I set off at 3:30am, stopped to talk to some cows in a field and tried to push one over, and got home at 5:30am;
On Sunday I got 4 hours sleep and then drove to Sutton to see both my Nans;
On Monday I went round to a co-worker's house to play some poker in preparation for a charity poker night on 28th August 2007. I won the first game and went out first in the second game. Swings and roundabouts, really.

I have also watched a few films at various intervals. Here are the films and the intervals:

"The Last Kiss" - Saturday morning, 6am.
"Donnie Brasco" - Sunday afternoon, 5pm.
"Dawn Of The Dead" (remake) - Monday evening, 11pm.
"Die Hard With A Vengeance" - Tuesday evening, 7pm.

Earlier today someone said "We have a situation" when they were on the phone to someone. It made me think of a Hollywood blockbuster about soldiers or astronauts. It's not really suited to the job that we do, I wish there was a bit more urgency in our day-to-day occupation.

Tonight I am going to be kickboxing and then I will watch another film. I'm thinking of watching "Pan's Labyrinth" for the 7th time.

Yes, that's about it really.

My colleague was just telling me about her dog, Ollie. Because it's a nice day I asked if Ollie would be out in the garden. I was informed that he was in the garden at this very moment. This excited me. "Will he be barking at the old man who lives next door to you?", I asked. "Yes", replied my colleague. I then asked what Ollie's bark sounds like, and demonstrated vocally what I thought he might sound like. Initially she refused to vocalise the barking, but after a bit of persuasion she came out with a series of short barks in quick succession. Confident that I had built up a nice mental image of Ollie The Dog, I then requested that she film Ollie by way of video documentation device (VDD) and bring it in so that I might witness his bizarre behaviour.

On a number of occasions I have heard about Ollie The Dog's exploits. The other week my colleague became imprisoned in her spare room because the door handle does not operate from the inside. Ollie was in there with her because he had been snoozing on the bed. Realising that the only way to get free of the room was to attract the attention of her elderly neighbour, she shouted out the window and caught his eye. "Not so quiet now, is he?" quipped the old fart in reference to Ollie's distinct lack of characteristic barking. He called a relative of my colleague, and this relative popped round to free the stricken pair. Ollie bolted straight outside to the garden and ran up and down for ten minutes flat, celebrating his freedom.

My colleague also told me that a friend of her's was videotaping Ollie The Dog running around in circles barking for a full five minutes. Her friend was in stitches at this mentalistic behaviour.

I want to meet this Ollie The Dog, I bet he's a right legend. I asked my colleague to illustrate Ollie The Dog using Sharpie as a tool. I then asked her to write a few informative facts about Ollie The Dog. When I found out that he was from the streets, I added this fact to the bottom. Please see below.

You wouldn't believe that it is nearly 12:00pm. I just checked my watch and indeed it states that the time, sponsored by Accurist, is 11:42am. The clock in the corner of my screen is incorrect to the tune of 10 minutes. It is 10 minutes slow, if you must know.

The only reason that I can attribute to this rather quicksome morning session is that I have actually been very busy and productive. I find that the "T" days are my most pro-active days. By "T" days I am of course referring to both Tuesday and Thursday. These days both begin with the letter "T". It is all the better if you start these days with a cup of tea, but I hate tea. It gives me acid reflux.

So I have done a fair bit of work, it's all hinging on whether this particular customer is happy with the work that I have carried out. If they come back to me with a "Yes" then I shall be very happy indeed, and the company will make another £100k through my own hard work. If they come back to me with a "No" then I shall more than likely be stuck for ideas as to how to get them to pay this large chunk of change.

In reference to last night, I got home and had some steak and a jacket potato. It was alright, the steak was a bit fat ridden, so I had to cut around the nasty gristly bits and whatnot. I coupled the act of eating with the act of watching The Simpsons. It was one of those Hallowe'en specials, which was strange considering it is but the beginning of August. Not to worry though, it was watchable. "No TV and no beer make homer go something something"... "Go crazy?". "Don't mind if I do!".

After this I drove my Nan home and took my Sister with me. She had decided to stay overnight at my Nan's. This was fine by me. So I took them both home and then stopped in at ASDA on the way home to see if they had any DVDs worth buying. They did not have any DVDs worth buying. So I went home and went to bed and watched some episodes of Scrubs before drifting off to sleep. I then proceeded to wake up at intermittent periods. 1:30am was the first port of call, so I got up and had a midnight slash. There's nothing quite like having a midnight slash. Then I returned to bed and woke up again at 3am. Then I fell asleep a third time and woke up at 5:30am. This was beginning to annoy me by now, so when I woke up again at 7am I decided to stay up. There's no point in going back to sleep when I've only got 30 minutes until I need to get up again. If I was more tired I would have surely welcomed this extra half an hour in bed, but instead I got up.

After my shower I practised with the unbreakable/shatterproof bottle that a colleague had lent to me. I have a couple of flair tricks down like you wouldn't believe. I have a little routine. If I can be bothered I will video record this routine and amaze you all with my flair skillz. Once I had practised enough I decided to empty the dishwasher and wend my merry way to work. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I love it when the schools are off on holiday.

Sharpie and I were both thinking that it had been too long since the last Sharpie drawing. So, as you can imagine, I set to work right away without hesitation. The resultant pictorial was drawn whilst I was on the phone to Steven Paul Allen. I was operating the phone with my left hand, leaving my right hand free to draw this picture. I think it's something to shout about, personally, as I am rubbish at drawing at the best of times. Please permit me to say a few words.

First of all, the phone. I use this most days just to speak to other colleagues. I rarely make an outgoing call on it, because I'm just too lazy to speak to people. I'd rather communicate via the phenomenon of Electrical Mail. I have captured the purest essence of the phonecular device by way of Sharpie. It's so photorealistic that you can almost reach out and touch the buttons. In fact I bet you tried that already and then realised that it's just a JPEG and it cannot be operated. That was my ploy, I bet you feel silly now.

Secondly, the notepad. This is where I like to make notes. The notes are generally ignorant of work-based exploits, they are more concerned with listing things. You will have seen these lists before if you are an avid reader of my web-log. I have also drawn a few Sharpie pictors in this notepad. Unfortunately the raw power of the Sharpie means that there is some bleedthrough on the pages, and it ends up soiling the pages underneath. To date Sharpie has actually gone through 3 whole pages with his futile ink.

Thirdmost, the calculator. I do actually use this for more than spelling out "80085". I perform complex summisations on this contraption. We just don't have the technology to surpass the calculator, it's the most advanced gadget in existence. I'm beginning to think that the calculator is powered by anti-matter and dust mites. It's certainly not any nickel cadmium battery that I know about. The calc also has a solar panel. This is strong enough to power most of the eastern seaboard.

Now feast upon it as if it were a roast dinner. As you will remember, click to make it big. Click to make it bigger. Click to make it big.