When good ideas go bad

It was another day at work, a Wednesday in fact. Being the conscientious employee that I am I was doing some research on the internet. Ok, thats complete bollocks. Being in a job where all you are hired to do is answer phones, and due to a number of 'technical difficulties' that resulted in our department having absolutely no customers and therefore, no calls, there isnt a lot to do. So I spend a lot of time browsing inane websites, sending emails to friends and playing games, which becomes very boring after 6 weeks when you've reached the point where you are sure you have read everything worth reading on the web. Anyway, with this in mind, I was quite excited to get an invitation to join some recently-made friends on a night out. I replied and said I would see them at the nomiated meeting place later that night.
While I was preparing to go out, I decided that I would go for one beer, and be back in time to get enough sleep for my next day at work (got to be alert for all that web-surfing). So I off I went. I met the girls and we had beer and conversation. And it was good. So we had another beer and talked some more. And it was still good. But I had to go home and sleep. The voices in my head had other ideas. Ok, not the voices, it was the (now slightly drunk) girls saying I didn't need to go home, stay for one more beer.
Me: 'Ok, another beer, but I'm going on the last train home. '
Girls: 'Nah we live out near you, get a taxi with us, and here, have a tequila'
Me: 'Mmm, tequila. Yeah, you're right, I dont need the train, taxi is good.' (Besides now there was drunken shenanigans and dancing, and its not polite to leave when you are having that much fun)
Anyway, it was obviously a brilliant idea. Who needs sleep when you can just keep drinking? Yay! More beer, that is the answer! Its all so clear to me now!
Anyway eventually I got home, at 1:30am. Which isnt the worst time to get home, except if you have to get up at 5:30am. And if when you get home your flatmates are still up and you talk to them first before going to bed.
5:30am - Hmm, alarm is going off. Ok, better turn it off. (Sit up) ok, ok, room is spinning a bit, just wait a minute, it will stop. Alarms off. Right, better get a shower. Actually, its difficult standing up when you're whole body wants to go to sleep. Not actually hungover though. Hmm, in fact, quite possibly still a bit drunk. Man, now I have to go to work.
Eventually I get ready and leave the house to catch the train. Train ride is a bit of a problem, it's an hour, and I fall asleep and nearly miss my stop. The walk from the station is also difficult. It is actually hard to stay awake. At my desk, I sit quietly and down about 2litres of water in about 30mins before I even feel vaguely functional.
And I think perhaps last night was not really the best idea. At least not on a week night.

The English have no taste (buds)

I'm getting used to the fact that the guys I work with are not the most cultured people (see my 'Boys are Dumb' post). Their eating habits (bar one) leave a lot to be desired. Pies, chips and 'bacon sarnies' are the go. So is any type of sugary fizzy drink and whatever is on offer on the office vending machine. Fruit and veg is a bit of an unknown for them. The one guy who is on a diet seems to only eat cheese and drink hot chocolate. This has something to do with 'not eating carbs' rather than eating healthy...
But despite all of this I did not expect the same from my flatmates. They seemed to be a bit more sophisticated, actually eating vegies instead of believing them to be some form of foreign food. How wrong was I.
I had decided that since all four of us were going to be home one night that I would make pizzas (from scratch) . I had picked up a really good recipe for the base watching Jamie Oliver one night, and previous attempts had been very successful. So I spent my lunch break that day in the markets near where I work. I managed to find some decent vine-ripened tomatoes (quite a feat in England) for the pizza sauce. Got some decent cheese, mozzarella and a good fetta. I got various other toppings, including baby spinach (a good combo with the fetta). When I got home that night I got to work. I kneaded dough, made sauce and chopped vegies. My flatmates, to their credit, helped where the could, even making cocktails to 'aid' the cooking process. I put the pizzas in the oven and it was not long until we had the perfect pizzas. The cheese melted nicely, the garlic was strong, and the toppings were a perfect mix. Everyone complimented me on my efforts, and we sat down to eat and drink.
Then, to my horror, one of my flatmates got up to get....KETCHUP. To put on MY pizzas! The next thing I knew all three had the ketchup on their plates, dipping slices of pizzas as though they were some sort of dodgy party pies. Despite my groans of disbelief, they continued with their ketchup orgy and I vowed never to go to such lengths for them again.
Still, after four more of the cocktails, I could almost forgive them.

Boys are dumb

My vocation (IT) means that I am often working in very male-orientated work spaces. Where I currently work, I am the only woman in my department. The boys I work with (they could not really be described as men for reasons that will become apparent) are nice enough, but they are, essentially, boys. Let me explain.
In my first week in the job, there were two empty drink bottles sitting in the window. One used to contain some sort of fruit drink, the other wheatgrass juice. They had been there for some days, and the boys had discovered that, when you removed the top from the bottle and took a whiff, that they had become quite 'ripe'. If these were sensible people, they would have thrown them out. Instead this become some sort of 'test' (of manhood or stupidity, I will never really know). They had left them in the window to assist the 'fruitiness' of the smell. Every morning they would dare each other to take a smell. Now, despite the fact I never took a smell, I knew these bottles (particularly the wheatgrass one) smelt bad. How did I know? One morning it had got so bad one of the guys was dry-retching after a sniff. And yet they persisted for another week before someone decided that it may be a good idea to throw out the bottles (you think??).
Topics of conversation also leave a lot to be desired. The main topics are cars (how fast they go), girls (how big their boobs are, and whether or not they'd give the page 3 girl of the Sun 'a go'), football (mostly what they would do if they were a player/coach) and finally speculation on who is a 'poof' (whether it be someone in the office or a celebrity. They are usually they are waaay off). But they out did themselves the other day. They were talking about a particular strip club that some of them wanted to go to, but they couldn't remember the name of it. Nothing particularly unusual about this until they describe the one 'feature' of this club that made it stand out from the others (and they reason they wanted to attend). Yes, this bar had a midget stripper. Now this isnt that bad, except half the guys then said they knew which club it was, and talked about when they had been. It was then talked about for 20mins while they discussed the various merits of this club. Yes, this is a normal work day.
And people wonder why I dont date men.....

Illness - but not my fault!

I woke up this morning feeling nauseous and with my head doing 360 degree turns (or was it the room?), and I thought 'what the...? I dont recall drinking last night...' or maybe that was the problem...
Actually, it turns out I had an ear infection type thing that was throwing off my sense of balance, and as a result making my stomach feel like I'd eaten a truck load of fairy floss and then had 10 consecutive rides on the Gravitron. Anyway, I called in sick at work and headed down to the doctors to get some drugs to ease the seasickness I had from sitting very still in a fetal position on the couch. As they started to take effect, and I realised I was on my own in the house with no chance of any sympathy until my flatmates returned from work, it occurred to me there is probably one thing worse than being by yourself when you are sick.
And that is, being sick for all to see.
Earlier in the week I was out at the local shops doing some shopping (as you do in shops) when I noticed, just in time, that some kid was being very sick in the middle of the aisle. I was about two inches away from being quite involved in this scenario (ie being thrown up on), but did a nice little side step that allowed me to just be an observer. As I walked away (and the kid went for a third and fourth round), I watched how everyone else was dealing with this. Wisely, most were giving this activity the very large berth it needed. The staff in the shop, however, were moving even further away as their manager appeared on the scene to reassure the boy and his father (who was doing the 'you'll be ok' pat on the back, while still keeping his feet a good metre or more from the dropzone) and started to look for someone to clean up the mess. Suddenly the shelves at the back of the shop required urgent refiling, and they all diappeared. I later spotted two of the younger staff members cleaning up the mess by getting paper towels and kicking them around the general area with their feet, while trying not to touch it in any way. In the midst of all of this was the boy looking as though the only reprieve he was getting from being embarrassed from what had just happened, was when he had to throw up again.
Remembering that, I suddenly feel a lot better.

The first of many

Why email when you can post?
This blog is going to be part travel diary (as I meander through Europe) and part general rant, because sometimes you just have to reach out to the world and say 'oi you!'.
For those of you who have just stumbled across this page, rather than being told to go look by me in an email, well enjoy, but dont be surprised if I'm writing about things that reference events/people in my life that you know nothing about. Actually, ditto goes for my friends too, but at least they are used to my ramblings by now.
I will eventually post my Europe adventures here to get people up to date if you havent been on my exclusive email list (names changed to protect the guilty, of course).
As for the title of my page, well if you dont know what it is about, I feel sorry for you, so I suggest you Google 'Eric the half a bee'. I'm sure it will all become as clear for you as a chip shop owners artery.
About me? Well, if you dont already know me, keep checking out my posts, I'm sure it wont help at all.