the blog o' moosh

Friday, August 25, 2006

Bang bang! Let's have some power chords!

Thank you for your monkey advice! I've decided to go with the orange
extremities and green body. Here are his component parts so far.

He'll look something a bit like this when he's done:

Off to Kos tomorrow (really must pack) - silence from me for a week then
lots of photos probably.

adios!

posted by Claire @ 8/25/2006 06:35:00 pm | 0 comments |

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Thursday, August 24, 2006

I don't think it was a plane. I think it was a pigeon.

I'm in a dilemma. Mr Dangly Monkey still needs legs and half an arm and a tail. But I have grossly underestimated the amount of wool needed to get as far as I have (i.e. a body, a head, one and a half arms) and I don't think I am going to have enough to finish him.

And I can't just go order another ball, because of course, this is random wool I got off Ebay back in Nam, which had no paper bands on to tell me where it came from, what it is, etc. I thought of that, I assure you. I'm not one for planning my knitting, or even really following patterns - I am very much a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-voluminous-pants kind of knitter, a freestyler in most aspects of life.

Is it socially unacceptable for a monkey to have different coloured limbs from his head and body? Your comments are welcomed.

In other news, I had to go to Edinburgh yesterday for an evening meeting with some industry bods - it turned out that a mere 12 people were present, 5 of those were from the company running the show and 2 were me and Lisa. The rest were all geeks of the bearded, bespectacled or BO-y genus, in some cases, all 3. It turned out not to be quite as dull as I'd anticipated, which may have been something to do with the spectacular location.

The shindig was held here, in the Penthouse no less. The view of what is essentially the Castle's back door was quite amazing. Could see all the way to the firth of whatever it is too, as it was such a clear, sunny evening. I'm mildly ashamed that I don't think I've ever really been to Edinburgh properly - to see the history things. The castle, etc - I have a vague recollection of the camera obscura somewhere in a dark recess of my mind, and the 1 o'clock gun and my grandad, tongue sandwiches (as in a cow's tongue between 2 slices of pan (not plain) loaf) and vomiting cherries onto a pavement, but I can't be sure that was all Edinburgh. Or all me.

We arrived and almost got enrolled in a Edinburgh Film Festival party, which looked a lot more fun than our more sedate gathering upstairs. A nice man from the hotel told us that Gabriel Byrne and Charlize Theron had been in the penthouse the day before doing interviews - sadly, they didn't hang around for a short conference on corporate governence in the internet world (and who could blame them?).

Still, it was an afternoon away from my untidy desk, a trip on a train and some free pens, no less. The pens are thankfully nice writers, which makes up for the 2 glasses of dirty wine and the having to make polite chit chat with an Elton John lookalike with very luxuriant nostril hair.

On the way home, our train (or the one in front) struck a bicycle on the tracks. It was unclear as to whether there was someone on said bicycle, but judging by the relatively short length of time we were detained in the pitch dark some miles outside Linlithgow, I'd say that the rider escaped unharmed.

T-minus 3 days til meltdown - 32 degrees in Kos today!

posted by Claire @ 8/24/2006 10:25:00 am | 3 comments |

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Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Is there anything better than Meals on Wheels?

Well, that was a while ago. Maybe all that corporatespeak knocked out my blogging spidey senses or something. No matter, here I am. But I am departing again, for on Saturday, we leave for Kos! For a week! Where it's currently hotter than the surface of the sun!

We are going to be here for a week, soaking up the rays, drinking a lot and playing cards, most likely. A last minute type of thing as we both had holidays and some cash to spare.

Whilst we are away, I am going to try to forget:

that I am currently hating work to the nth degree
that there are currently about 18 people I would do time for not to see again ever
that I have a billion things I want to make and NO TIME to make them
that I feel like I've not seen any of my family since Noah was a boy
that I would rather be anywhere else than here right now
that I would rather eat broken glass than go to work most mornings
that I am BORED

Instead I will count my blessings that:

I am on holiday with my beautiful husband
I am in a place with so much history and interesting things to do
I don't have to DO anything if I don't want to
Jo is looking after craft-fairing quite contently whilst I'm away
yes, I've remembered to not only close the front door, but lock it too
and yes, I haven't left the straighteners on, they're in the hotel
I am not poor, homeless, disease ridden and am generally quite happy

But you know, sometimes it's just hard to remember the good things when you're miserable in an office with lots of other miserable people ...

posted by Claire @ 8/23/2006 12:15:00 pm | 0 comments |

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Monday, August 07, 2006

It won't come off. I think it's permanent.

Last week:

"Pick the low hanging fruit from the customer tree"
"we're in the ocean, we need to swim round to the beach"
"seek the work/life balance"
"cross the chasm"
"step out of your comfort zone"
"let's touch base"
"we need to dog food this one"
"move up the value chain"
"there are no silver bullets here"
"let's think about vertical messaging"
"we don't want to sit on our islands firing canons at each other"
"what's your spla cost on that?"
"let's get on the product road map"
"we can take them to the lake but we need to make them drink"
"talking business value language"
"empathy...great word"
"think of the circle, think of the cheese"
"suck it and see"
"people on the move"
"how hard do we have to swim to get to that island?"
"think outside the box"

Yay. Go team.

posted by Claire @ 8/07/2006 11:27:00 am | 3 comments |

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