I officially need re-programming...

my lexicon has been brainwash to produce nonsense marketing speak. I just hung up from a call with a co-worker but before I did I managed to pull this one out of the had "hmm well if it's just a corporate opinion on the alignment of the banner then we're going to fight them on it as we're in charge of look... so i'm going to get this stirred back round the pot again and see if we can't win this battle."

I need serious help.

Have I a customer service curse upon me?

lately I've been questioning weather my stars are ill-aligned or if it's just a case of me over re-acting, or if I'm just down right unlucky... In the past 3 months I've
had a flurry of annoying customer service problems that have left me exhausted.

1- aeoroplan not issuing my points for my purchases and flights taken (and offering no solution...ie. their fuck up= my loss)
2- my gym fucking up my direct debit and only me noticing (now how often do you have to beg your gym to let you pay them)
3- my visitor's tax refund being rejected as my future shop receipt came up in my deceased father's name (I wrote them back telling them that I swear that it was I and not him purchasing goods in January at the future shop... Now they tell me it takes 6-8 weeks to process and then another 2 weeks for a refund to be issued if they deem you deserve one doubt it)
4- our continual leaky pipes in the flat ( the landlord will not return our calls unless harassed daily... it's taken 3 repairs in the past 3 weeks to fix one problem.. and no re-plastering of our ceiling as promised by them post the first leek)
5- my dental claim going missing in action (It's taken more than a month for my claim to be processed... can't wait to see what comes of that one)
6- my personal loan application being rejected via e-mail with promise of written clarification as to why I was turned down... has never arrived (I know it's probably because I've not lived here for 3 years yet but still... some sort of explanation would be appreciated!!!)
7- my recruitment company completely ignoring an e-mail I sent to two of their staff members inquiring about a position they had posted that sounded perfect ( I mean like a simple nahh it's not right for you would have sufficed)

Could it be that everything I touch gets sent to customer service hell or am I just trying too hard and expecting too much?

Some one sedate me please!

I woke up this morning...

but just before I did I remember dreaming about scraping out the insides of a large pumpkin... I could recall the smell and the sticky feeling... very odd. I really wonder what it could mean?

The weekend was nice a restful. Miss Hazel finally had a well needed haircut and is looking tres dapper! We went for drinks Saturday night with Sally and her friend who was visiting from Dublin. Good fun. The wooziness is finally subsiding and I'm going to make an attempt to return to the gym this evening... I just hope I don't spill off the treadmill in some terrible re-lapse.

I'm convinced that the Aero plan division of Air Canada is pure evil. They have the WORST customer service humanly possible. They try and charge you for everything and are very inaccurate with their crediting system. In the past 3 months I've flown with them and one of their star alliance partners... made purchases at the future shop from them (when I was home in January) and not one of those transactions have been credited to my account. The best part is, that they aren't in the least bit helpful! They tell you that you must contact the shop within 30 days if there are any air miles not credited... if it's after that, then too damn bad. And if you have a flight for which they have not credited you, you must provide them with your boarding cards for the flight in order to be credited. Like as if I keep my boarding cards FFS! How it's the consumer's fault that their system doesn't work properly, is totally beyond me... I lobby a boycott from aero plan! They stink.

the troubles with porn...

can be sometimes highly amusing...while tossing about solutions today as how to address the problem we're having with our content management system and scheduling... we came to the conclusion to keep the soft porn ads up all weekend long... My contact who had then just avoided having to get up at god's hour and pull down the banners wrote to me... with the most classic line ever....

'Fantastic. We all win...I can sleep in, commercial make more money and Dutch children get to see animated legs ;-)'

god, that was funny!

kaffin is coming!

what a perfect b'day treat! my mum is sending me the best present ever! My seestor cometh! She arrives on the 9th at 7am and stays till mid day on the 16th! I've got her booked in at the hair salon already! I doubt I'll be able to get any time off as my boss is on holidays that week but may be able to swindle some time to spend with her. Wonder if I can get her a one week membership to my gym for her while she's here!? Oooh I'm so excited!

The sofas have arrived and look fab! On of them arrived without the little silver legs so we're now waiting as they ship them to me here at work straight from the factory. The flat is finally looking more like a loft and less like a student flop!

The head is still spinning but the lovely nurse at the soho clinic re-assured me that it was probably just a viral ear infection. If I'm not better by tomorrow she told me to go back and see her and there would be a doctor on call whom could prescribe me something less zonking than the motion sickness tablets she told me to take last night. Jessus did they ever knock me out! In the mean time I'm slowly adjusting to life without balance... yea, that's me the drunk looking girl wobbling her way down the street.

The rain approacheth for the weekend and I'm scraping around to find something to cheer up my lovely hazel who is still trekking away like a champ on her relentless job search. She has a few more interviews booked for next week so hopefuly she'll land something soon. Anyone who knows anyone who wants a really great HR person/recruiter here in London please let me know as we would be so so grateful and offer a big shower of kisses to anyone who helps out this job hunt!

Can I just mention how badly Sean is kicking my ass at this blogging regularly thing? Dang!

blog is on a mini break

I've got a bit of a wobble/spins due to inner ear troubles... the world is kind of like a bad acid trip from back when I was 16. I thought I could manage work today but I think I was over estimating the need for balance... bus travel is very not condusive to this condition.

We've now an internet connection at home so perhaps I can blog from the sick bed...

The new sofas arrive tomorrow....

Hazel scored 2 more job interviews on top of the one she has tomorrow... Sally landed a job that she wanted and starts tomorrow... things are looking up for empolyment searchers!

*wobbles away*

I blame coldplay (posted yesterday but blogger was ill)

and the bad mozzarella and sun dried tomato cibatta I had for lunch yesterday. I felt so awful... I even went straight to be when I got home and was asleep by half nine!

It's absolutely freezing today, beautiful and sunny but dang cold! Where is summer? Probably the same place our sofas are... lost in space... I'm thinking that the possible 14 day delivery thing is more like a definite 14 day delivery.

My gym nightmare continues I sent them off a letter letting them just how bad it is that they messed up my direct debit and I wound up having to pay for 3 months all at once and made to feel like a criminal... In recompense they're giving me a month free... fair play I guess but it doesn't help the devastation on my bank balance of 200£ coming out of your account all at once... sometimes I wish I could just let things like this slide... but then everyone and anyone would just come along and take my money... Is this what other people do? Just sigh and mutter when things like this happen?

It's Wednesday again already. The week is flying by...

i should be working

i worked so dang hard yesterday that post gym i came home, ate a lovely supper and then passed out much to the chagrin of miss H.

perhaps listening to coldplay isn't helping my mood and the fact that our electricity bill came in at 450£ yesterday... regardless of what anyone says... you can't get ahead in London. unless you're uber rich... there is so little chance. Money is truly starting to be my albatross. I hate it. I'm so sick of it. The more disillusioned you feel the more you just want to pack it all in... then when you realize you can't it's even more depressing... and oh yea, don't forget about that student loan. I know that my values lie not in owning a big screen TV or the latest video game or mobile phone. I enjoy shopping but only rarely buy anything over 40£... I guess I need a holiday... however that too... costs. *hides under quilt*

I like my life, I like my routine, I am fortunate to have had the chance to get an education, move to a different country, have someone who loves me, have a great family... all those things are not at all forgotten... I just think sometimes the world is cruel and unpredictable... As my mum always says in her pessimistic wisdom... 98% of life is hard and unfair the remain 2% is amazing... Expect the 98, and rejoice when the 2% pays a visit. Is this why people turn to religion?

so it's kind of official

on this day of the little fat naked guy with the quiver full of arrows. It's looking up. Miss Hazel had a job interview this morning. And! We bought 2 sofas! Yes folks the impossible is possible today. We are to be the proud owners of two ghetto tastic sofas from the ever so exclusive Argos! Don't be fooled Argos is the new Habitat. Single handedly my flatmates and I will turn Dalston into the new Notting Hill mark my word. Change is a coming!

Okay back in the real world.

Had the funniest experience while getting a manicure on Wednesday at lunch. Highlights included....

* hearing all about the lady who was doing my nail's plans for valentine's day (taking her bf to the spearmint rhino )
* hearing about the other staff member impending labour... and life and relationship with said father of child to be...
* freaking the manicurist out by guessing her second name accurately... come of folks, she was a Sarah... most of us Sarah's are Sarah Elizabeth's

Last night I caught up with the lovely dearbhla and had a great night chit chatting about life and important thinks like fashion and footwear. We quickly left the 'dog house' this pub that's way too smoky in a cavernous basement type of set up... The people were too loud and obnoxious and the smoke was terrible... God what an intolerant non smoker I am! We moved on through the freezing temperatures and ended up at cafe med on dean st. It was so nice and warm (freezing cold loo) but nice, spacious, warm, good menu, good food, good prices! I highly recommend it! Met up with Hazel and her friend Dez and then swiftly shuffled off home!

Just in... Miss H just scored a second interview for monday! *claps hands*

URGENT!

for all you peeps going to the massive anti-war demonstration on Saturday here in London or elsewhere... Please see my friend Dom's artistic contribution that you can take with you on the march....

It's an exercise in social geometrics people. Listen and listen loud.

http://www.fotoplus.org


as Always, Dom, you're brilliant... Please give credit to my friend

Anyone having job leads in Amsterdam (graphic designer type stuff) please feel free to also contact Dom as he's a lookin!

Maybe it's just the February blah's...

but I feel like my blog is slowly turning into a big whinny-fest.

for the second day in a row having left home at half eight it took me till ten to arrive here at work. Not fun. I guess I'm resolved to turn up here at 9am like I have always... if I don't' get on the bus by eight I'm not here till ten, get on it before eight and I arrive here at quarter to nine. There is no justice. Bring on the congestion charge, bring it on!... Get everyone off my god damn road so my bus can go! -end rant-

I'm meeting my cousin who is coming up from Sussex this Saturday for lunch. I'm getting a little concerned as the big anti war march is going to be kicking off around noon and I know the city will just be flooded with people! Wonder what part of town would be go to go to? She's arriving at Charring Cross... any suggestions would be appreciated.

On that note... if anyone wishes to bless me with the winning lotto numbers for tonight's draw, please feel free to do so in my comments feature below.

If I'm not blogging tomorrow, you know I've won... go on, I dare you!

I wrote a big post this morning and it's vanished.

If it had of published... you would have read about:

*working late on friday night
*going on hazel's office party on a boat on the Thames... and enjoying watching her face light up with joy as she pointed out all her 'babies' that she's hired.
*launching the site we've been working on for a month now...
*my new red kitten heeled pointy shoes that I bought for 19£ in Dalston (which is btw the new 'bond st')

too bad it was wiped.

with all the fuss and jingle...

going on at work one finds it harder than usual to blog.

On my way home from the gym last night I noticed just how light it is here in London in the evening. I know of the evils of light pollution and such but it's NEVER dark here... City living is strange that way, especially in such a huge city. I've written about this before ,but some nights the sky is a beautiful orange colour kind of the colour it would be if you poured orange fanta into my mum's old smoky glass tumblers.

Heard from Hannah today, she is off on the hunt for a new job. With Hazel and Sally also on the hunt, I can but hope that good things do indeed come in threes.

I've not mentioned it yet but today marks 3 full weeks of 'happy non smoker Sarah' *said with sarcasm* I've done really well but it's not at all been easy. I can hardly imagine how hard it is for people whom smoke shed loads... I never did smoke much but obviously enough to make it hard to stop. I didn't even really make that much of a conscious decision to quit... I was ill and had a cough so I didn't smoke and just left it at that. Giving up sucks. I miss it.... but i'm sure I'll live a longer life now for having given up... great! If I gain a stone I'll go freaking nuts. So I've been toiling away at de gym with Luke's mantra in my head 'you get back what you put in' so I push myself harder and harder... who needs a personal trainer.... simple fear of inevitable weight gain is motivation enough... at least I hope it is....

Miss Duffy wrote from down and under today to report that she is to appear in a new documentary featuring ex pats living in Oz. She's working for the people they are filming... She's distributing flyers and such at clubs at night. Leave it to miss D to do something exotic. I'm happy she's having such a blast on her world travels! The documentary airs in April here in the UK...

wooo wee wyclef!

my wisdom tooth sure is a hurtin... it started coming in like 2 years ago and then for some reason stopped... now it feels like it's decided to grow in a bit more and dang does it ever kill. Knowing my luck it's just a whopper of a cavity. Now, I'm not at all scared of needles or any other common dentistry thing... I'm terrified of having that frozen mouth feeling. It's worse than anything else I can describe... The last filling I had I asked them to do it without freezing as I would rather the pain than that terrible numb feeling. The lady dentist was a star and agreed to do the filling minus the freeze. It was simple, hardly hurt at all, it was just about two or three seconds of a really cold feeling then it was over. Why they insist on freezing? for the money of course... half the cost of the procedure is the freezing! My consultation with my dentist is on Thursday at noon... here's to hoping for the best.

Our new housemate has arrived and hopefully will settle in nicely...

New massive attack CD out on the 10th... mixed reviews but I'm sure I'll be tempted into getting it...

it drives me absolutely mental...

when feck heads on the bus insist with sitting with their legs akimbo! It's always men and i hate them for doing it. It gives me such London transport rage when I sit next to an offender. What makes them think that just because they have a cock they deserve more room than anyone else? What else bother's me you ask? Well, that mad woman on the bus on Wednesday night who verbally assulted me for 15mins cause she thought I had 'tutted' as in 'tsk tsk' (for cdn peeps) I hadn't even said a word... freak. She screamed at me about how much of a pathetic low life loser I was... Hmmm. I just love the mad people I meet on the buses here.

Hazel is happily departing her tyrant of a work place. In less than a month now she'll be free to work for a more deserving and less horrible place than she is now. I curse those mean people who employ her now...

We're off to dinner tonight with Dan and Sal... Japanese is on the menu. We're going to that place I went with Dearbhla one night... that is of course if Sally's flight arrives on time... London is still reeling from the 3mm of snow that fell yesterday. Can you believe some people spent over 12h stuck on the M11 yesterday... OVERNIGHT in the dark with no food or toilet! WTF!?!?!?!

I hate it...

when she picks at her fruit while she eats it. It's all about breaking off chunks of it and eating it that way... not the normal way. She wont engage in the banana, no no, she's got to break pieces of if off and masticate every tiny little piece of it. It drives me mad. Just bite the damn thing! I think the way people eat banana's can say a lot about them... now i'm not talking Freud... it's just interesting. Life is always interesting in when you look at in under a microscope. So yea, the her I speak of eating the banana, is me, and i'm strange... I just can't help but eat them that way...

We are soon to have a new flatmate. Rent will be much lower, life a little easier. I'm pretty happy about it :)

Plans are a brewing for out holidays in June... Off to Malaga to bake my translucent coloured skin... I greatly fear that I will never come back.

Heard from my friend James today, his son is getting so big I cant' believe it. God it was just yesterday when I held him in my arms! Geesh I was only 18 then, hardly believe that.

Tis the season for job hunting, Sean's mission is looking quite promising. I hope he follows through with the gimmick thing and impresses that lady who's hiring... She seems to be freely contacting him which is a positive sign. He's so charming, how could she resist?

Welcome to my seestor's blog!

it's Friday

and it doesn't really feel like it. it's beautiful and sunny. We hazy is a wee bit sick so she's home in the nest recovering. Guess my cold combined with her co-worker's colds finally got the better of her :( I'm still laden with cough it's mad... unfortunately I don't have a doctor in the country and by the time I get one, and get an apt. then I'll be better... lets hope so...

I've been really enjoying reading the book Todd bought for me for xmas... It makes my morning bus journeys much more enjoyable... Thanks again Todd!

Kaffin is off to the arc hotel in ottawa, this weekend with her new beau. I'm so excited for her, I've always wanted to stay there... mind you, you won't catch me back in ottawa in the middle of their -40 snap... nuh aahh.

I found a link for speed dating here in the UK i'm going to send off Dearbhla and Helena as they said they would love to do it for a laugh! They even have special nights for specific interest groups, religions and occupations! LOL!

I shall report back if I can convince them to go!

sporting...

miss hazel's fabulous new boots yesterday sure made my tootsies hurt... i'm cursed... wearing heels one size too big and trainers one size too small. I swear I picked up the larger size but the clerk rang in the smaller one at the till. I'll never learn

out last night with the fwbl crew. What a laugh they are. Dearbhla is apparently suffering greatly today. Hope her wee stumble didn't leave her with too many bruises.

work is super busy finally!

It's Wednesday already. I can't believe it. Cough is almost gone so it's time to hit the gym again... hello, gym I'm Sarah... and yes I had toberlone for breakfast.

very sad to see kimmy go... didn't manage to catch her on the phone before she left :( best get busy and start importing newsfeeds... *runs away*

The peak of the weekend...

was lying around sat.night after watching the cheezy movie French Kiss. We watched the funniest programs ever. It was on Channel 4 and it was called Comedy Lab. It features numerous hilarious skits, taking the piss out of Shoreditch and the people who live there. For those of you who don't know, it's a part of town not too far from where I live, which is trendy and such... prime target for this type of program! One description of the episode (found here) that we saw was

'The first of Channel 4's latest Comedy Lab experiments provided a guide to becoming a Shoreditch Twat, one of those ultra-trendy scruffs who spent four quid on a beer and apparently know the most stylish ways to vomit.
Most helpful were the tips from a style guru who burst into a loft apartment to sort out the owner who was still, shockingly, attached to last week's tastes. Out went luxury food. In came "ironic trash" – white bread and own-label baked beans. Out went Zero 7 and The Strokes from the CD collection, replaced by Xpress 2, Ms Dynamite and Brown Love. "I guarantee that none of your dinner party guests will have heard this yet." And out, too, went Juliet, the man's girlfriend of three years, replaced by "shirtlifter chic" in the shape of smouldering Frank.'

What this reviewer failed to mention is the hilarious part where a guy was looking for that ever elusive date to go clubbing with... He finds this back street brothel where he has 3 sorts of ladies to chose from... One being the ultra trendy chick with the shoreditch retro 80's hair and clothes... who's requests for the date include a gram of coke and a taxi home at the end of the night. The second being an estate girl, pram face and all, sporting the latest track suit and agreeing to go on a date as long as he promised to pick 'her up some chips on 'e way home... God it was so funny. For some reason I can't remember what the third woman was like but whatever.... Words hardly do it justice. Good work channel 4, made staying in Sat. night bearable.

it's Saturday

and i'm making a very rare blog entry... why? Because I'm at work you see! It's getting to crunch time for the launch of one of our new portals and we're running around like santy's elves and xmas eve. I kind of enjoy the rush of when a project is about to be completed. Don't like losing the weekend over it, but ho hum.

I think I'm finally starting to get over this killer cold that has plagued me since I returned from sub zero Toronto temperature on Tuesday morning. I have cough that makes people on the bus get up and sit further away from me for fear of contracting it!

We went to see Tori Amos last night in Hammersmith... Holy moly is it far away from where we live or what? I guess it's beamingly obvious that I spend all my time in the north/east part of London... apart from when i'm at work which constitutes as the west end but I don't see it that way...Anyhoo... the concert venue was nice and small and it turned out to be a sit down concert which was kind of odd but good for me since I'm not 100% well right now. The show was sadly flat and the stage decor and the lighting effects were something to be likened to a child's school play. I couldn't believe it! She a brilliant musician and the guys she plays with are fab as well but it just didn't do it for me. She played new and old but still it was flat. Ah well. The concert wasn't a total loss as miss H and I marvelled as this woman in the row over from us was crying and singing along feigning what could only be described as an emotional breakdown. Her poor boyfriend sat and cowered, in disbelief of his gf's madness. The highlight was the two young girls in front of us holding hands and jumping up and down holding up their mobile so their friend at home could hear. It was so sweet to see them so excited. That made the night worthwhile.