Tics Tacs - the Inverse of Kit Kats

...okay, sorry for the folks who thought my last post was TL and so DR. Basically, here's a quick catch up over what happened since September:

• I lost my job
• I caught chicken pox
• I then caught a cold, or flu, or some upper respiratory infection
• thus I spent half of September sick
• and I missed out on the company break-up because I was too contagious to go
  
• (oh, and my sister caught the pox as well, and we both almost died apparently)
• my savings started running out at the end of the month
• so I signed up for unemployment benefits
• two days later, my tax refund arrived, which meant I didn't need to go on the Dole (d'oh!)
• I applied for a few jobs, and had my name put down for something else via my employment agency contact
• two weeks into October, I scored an interview at another service station
• I was the best candidate, and I got the job
• so now, I am employed again! :)
  

Weird how it works out like that, isn't it?
So now, I at least have an income again (yay!), but now I have to start worrying about keeping schedules and missing out on important social gatherings all over again (boo).
Still, it beats being on the Dole.

---

I got an email from my old American penpal the other week; she has a much more exciting blog than mine, not neglected or anything, but she is apparently a semi-regular reader of this one. She asked me if I were still posting anything on this thing, and I explained that I didn't have a lot to share about myself these days...

And then I remembered something; back when we first started writing to each other (which was probably waaay back in '98 or so), we used to send each other different types of confectionery. She would send me delicious Hershey's chocolate bars and Jelly Belly beans straight from the United States, and I would represent humble Australia by sending her yummy Tim Tams and Peppermint Aero bars.

Sadly, this Candy Exchange was thwarted by the change in political temperature brought about by September 11 - the US Government shortly implemented new controls on importing food into the USA, such that every food item brought into the country (whether it be a shipment of beef, a crate of oranges, or just a big crazy-looking box full of sugary crap) required lengthy documentation for each unique item, detailing where each product was made, who made it, how it was packaged, what it was made of, how many were in each pack, how tasty it was, how many the postal inspectors were allowed to sample, etc. etc. etc.

I am sorry to say that, because of my enthusiasm for the project, the registration process was ridiculously daunting, and so I failed to honour my part of the exchange.
...but I DID at least buy the candy, so that counts for something, right?

Anyway, while I was cleaning up my room the other day, I found the parcel I'd assembled a couple of years ago, and it still had some confectionery items in it! Now, I know what you're thinking, and yes, a lot of the stuff in the box was spoiled; chocolate does not keep for much longer than two years (trust me on this - ick).

Before I throw all of this stuff out, I'd like to show you some of the interesting stuff we got to sample over the past couple of years, because it's kinda interesting, you know?

First up, the Kit Kat Chunky bars. In Australia, Nestlé has the license to make Kit Kats, and, along with the regular 4-finger packs, they make these over-sized single-finger bars. As many popular snacks do these days, they sometimes come in seasonal "fun" flavours; though they weren't all available at the same time, I managed to assemble a collection of them (click to see close-up):
Left side: Honeycomb; the regular Chunky; Caramel; Cookies and Cream (these last three are the only ones still currently available).
Right Side: Chocolate Strawberry (special fundraising edition for the Pink Ribbon breast cancer charity, it has a pink strawberry wafer inside); Cookie Dough; Chocolate Overload (every element of the bar is chocolate flavoured!); Toffee Crisp.
Not Pictured: Mint Crisp; Peanut Butter (which I thought tasted foul, nothing like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups); and White Chocolate (because they never released that in a Chunky bar!)
If you're at all interested in seeing some other strangely-flavoured Kit Kat bars, click here and here for the Japanese take on them!

And continuing the colourful candy theme, we move on to Tic Tacs:

Top row: Peppermint; Spearmint; Orange; Extra Strong Mint; Apple Sour.
Bottom Row: Peppermint (in a special box for the Pink Ribbon charity); Passionfruit Mint; Lemon Mint; Mango; Tropical Acerola (which I imagine is some kind of berry?).
The first three flavours were pretty much the only variety of Tic Tac available here until about ten years ago; then they released the Extra Strong, and then the Passionfruit flavoured one (which is... an acquired taste). After that they seemed to go a bit mad with flavours. The most recent variety is Citrus Twist, which isn't included here.

I was fascinated to learn that Tic Tacs had vastly different flavours in the States; thanks to my penpal, I got to sample some Wintergreen flavored Tacs, which I was also surprised to learn were actually green - none of the above flavours have any colouring, aside from the actual box. I understand there is also a Cinnamon flavoured Tic Tac?

Learning about this sort of thing is very interesting, I think - things as simple as the food we eat can be vastly different when you travel even a short distance (like interstate), so I can only guess what someone else in another country would think of our old familiar "lollies"!

Okay, enough of the candy comparison! If anyone out there wants to find out more about the local confec., send me a comment, and I'll see what I can put up! For further recommended reading, have a look at the Candy Blog for more sweeties from around the world!

Back soon! :D
(so, how's that Loretta?)

The Past Two Weeks (approximately)

Tuesday 24th August
Got called in to work at the local servo at the last minute. Normally Tuesday was my day off, but my Manager argued me around; he pointed out that it will probably be the last time it will happen before the big changeover to the new fuel company. (And I figured, yeah, why not?)

About an hour later, as I come into the shop, I notice a group of young men who were having a deep conversation with the Manager. I step behind the counter and ask the Assistant Manager if he knew what was going on, and he replies, "It looks like they're the new commission agents for this site, and we've just been told we are no longer required at the end of the month."

REALLY.

Oh-kay, I kinda figured that this might have happened, but I was still trying to work out why they would want to remove everybody from the site, if there's only four or five of them to run it?
The mood among the general day staff (most of whom were also there at the time; the rest found out later) was pretty weird - relieved to find out the truth about what was going to happen with their jobs, but unhappy that it took until the very last week of employment to find out.

The Manager went out to an urgent team-leader meeting at head office. When he came back, it transpired that just about every site in the company had been bought out by commission agents (and was in the same boat as us)... except for one other site - and it happened to be the other one I was working at. "So hey, you're the lucky one, you still managed to keep your job, at least..."

Wednesday 25th August
Went to my regular shift at the above-mentioned site. My co-worker there asked me if I'd heard the news, and I told him what I'd seen the day before. He tells me that the managers are trying to chase up the paperwork so that we can all re-apply for our positions once we change over. I go through my shift, letting my regular customers know that at least some of us will still be working here next month.

That night, I call in to the other servo to see how the night staff have taken the news. They seem well resigned to it - but they also tell me that our company made headline news on the local TV bulletin. I'd missed the 7pm broadcast, but I was still able to catch the Midnight re-screening. The story detailed how the staff had all lost their jobs in the space of a week, and brought up some archival footage of the CEO explaining how "jobs were no more secure than if he hadn't made the sale". They also had a voiceover of a 'disgruntled employee' who had called in to explain their side of the issue, and about how most of the relieved staff had mortgages and families to look after. They disguised his voice, but I still recognised him.

Thursday 26th August
Went back to work at what was apparently my only job now. During the night, and on the way there, I tried to work out how my new situation was going to work - since I only worked at that site 15 hours a week, it was not going to justify the expense of travel there and back, yet having a bit of work going would make my Unemployment benefits go a bit further. (I'd be entitled to Centrelink benefits because I would be getting less than 30 hours a week.)

When I got to work, however, my co-worker told me that they'd "hit a boulder". Apparently, while we'd been assured that all our places would be kept here, the incoming owners had either changed their minds or been misunderstood - because only the full-timers would be kept, not the part-timers. And... guess which one I was?

So...

Friday 27th August
I still went about my business as I normally did; after all, I was still getting paid by the same company (for now), and I still had a good amount of work to do (as per normal). It just felt bad that I had to go back on what I'd told everyone on Wednesday.

As it turned out, a lot of people were very understanding. There were several customers who were previously happy account-holders, but, when they tried to apply for the account card offered by the new company:

• were rejected, because the new system wouldn't allow applicants who didn't have an ABN code (in other words, wanted to use the account for personal reasons, instead of as a business or company)
• baulked when they saw how high the monthly rate was (something like $12 a month, compared to the $2 we used to charge)
• weren't sure if they would be able to freely use it all over the country, like they could with the previous cards (the new company is sort of up-and-coming, whereas we used to be like a licensee of a much bigger brand name)

And a lot of others were just unhappy with the direction the way the company was going in general. There was also a surprising amount of, um, racism... which, intentional or not, made me feel a bit uncomfortable (especially since some of the staff were staying on).

I usually left that site a bit later than most, because I like to make sure I catch everything I missed before I go. I somehow managed to leave the site about an hour and a half after normal closing time, yet I think I left the air-con going all weekend by mistake...

Saturday 28th August
Came in to a workplace that had left us with almost nothing interesting to do, aside from cook food (what's left of it), try to rearrange the shelf stock so it's neat (what's left of it), top-up the drinks (what's left of them) and serve customers (what's left of them).

You see, prior to last Tuesday's bombshell, the staff had kept the incoming orders low, so that when the big interchange happened, the shop-wide stocktake that would then take place would be a lot easier. This meant that, by the last weekend, the entire back-storeroom was EMPTY. It gave me a complete shock when I walked out there the first time, because for the six years I've been working there, I've NEVER seen the storeroom that bare before!

So yeah. Apart from the usual site-checks and things, it was business as normal.
...Oh, and I also heard from a lot of customers that they "weren't coming back to this shop next week" either. I suspected a few of the staff members had been telling the customers a few home truths too... ;)

Sunday 29th August
Last day at work, hooray! I wasn't hugely unhappy, because I knew that the Manager had organised a big event for the Last Tuesday (a big yummy BBQ to which everyone was invited!) and so I'd get to say a proper goodbye to everybody before we broke up.

It was strangely awesome just doing your job, not having to worry about doing it all over again tomorrow, and the next... knowing that you can just get stuff done, even though in a few days' time it wouldn't matter for shit. I didn't care what my co-worker did - I just left him to watch the front if he wanted to, and to cover the register if he felt like a break.

It felt great.

I ate dinner - and then I didn't feel so great.
Not totally AWFUL, mind - just like, you know, when you feel you've eaten a bit too much, or ate something that didn't agree with you.

Nah, I felt fine.

Feeling AWFUL... no, that came later.

Monday 30th August
First day as a FREE MAN, man! I'd planned to use today as a chance to say goodbye to the other folks I'd worked with at the other sites, drop off a few uniforms and keys and things, take some photos, share some memories, and generally tie things off until Tuesday, but...

Wait, what? Why do I still feel funny?

Why the hell did I sleep through three alarm clocks?!

WHY THE HELL IS IT 3PM?!?

I get up, take some paracetamol, and feel a bit better. Take a shower. Gather up the stuff I needed to take, open the mailbox, and discover -
Hey! Phone bill, I'll pay that too.
Hey! Letter from Real Estate, we're getting a house inspection in HOW MANY DAYS?!?
Okay, have to go into Estate Agent's and re-negotiate an extension on the inspection date too. (sigh)

I eventually manage to catch up with some of the folks I worked with, and drop off all of the old work-clothes I had, not that anyone else will be needing those for a while (heh-heh). I manage to pay the phone bill with interest, and get the necessary extension time to the inspection.

I am relieved...

I also discovered that the EFTPOS system went down during the day, and a lot of the sites were forced to use those old-fashioned paper vouchers (the triplicate card-swipey type)... and of course, all OUR sites were just the same (to add insult to injury, I guess). I feel bad for all the staff who couldn't care any less about explaining to customers, over and over again, "Um, they system's gone down, I'm gonna have to get some details... Oh, wait, I'm gonna have to get an authorisation code..."

Tuesday 31st August
Tuesday morning, I had trouble getting out of bed.

Around noon, I had slightly less trouble getting out of bed.

Around 2pm, I managed to get out of bed - but only just, and with pharmaceutical help.

Something was WRONG...

[psst. there's more to come, but I ran outta room - stay tuned]

One More Shift To Go

...and I'll formally be out of a job.

yes, you read that right. Drama has been afoot since last Tuesday, when we finally found out where we stood at our place of employment. After months of speculation, we have learned that the sale of our workplace to a multi-national fuel company has resulted in most of us (including myself) becoming redundant.

This Tuesday is the last day we will be trading under the current arrangement. There will be a big send-off for all the staff and regular customers to come down and see the last hours out, and I will definitely be down there to have some fun!

I know, I know, being unemployed is going to be a drag... and yet, I feel a strange sense of liberation out of this. Like I have a lot more options than I did a couple of weeks ago. yes, being job-free will be hard to get used to (again) but at least now I'll have some more time to catch up on all the stuff I missed because I was at work, like catching up with friends on the weekend, and doing more stuff around the house... and oh, I don't know, updating this sad neglected old blog, perhaps.

Yeah, let's see what happens. :)

It's been a pretty busy month so far (and I'm only a week into it).

I've managed to score a nice new (second-hand) car off my cousin - which means that now I'll be able to drive a car that I actually OWN... and give back the Volvo that I've been borrowing for the past two years. really? Two years?!

I'm also hoping to help my friend fly overseas, because she needs to renew her citizenship. Unfortunately, plane trips cost $$$$ and she don't have a lot of cash on hand at the moment...

I'm also dying to play Super Mario Galaxy 2, which isn't released until next month... (or three weeks, but who's counting?) And I'm currently playing WarioWare: DIY, which is all sorts of crazy fun - all those years of mucking around with Games Factory have paid off!

...I dreamed last night that I went up to the city with my friends, and hung about having fun in the big smoke. I think I'm about due for another Grand Day Out with my mates - who's with me?

And yes, I'm still alive.

Oh Dear

Dearie me... I think things are getting to me, because I just spent the past half hour trying to remember what my Google password was.

Don't get me wrong, I knew what it WAS, but I spelled it with a bunch of strange characters to make it harder to guess. Unfortunately, I haven't used it in a while, and I'm a little tired at the moment, so I kept getting the sequence wrong. And did you know that passwords are case sensitive too?

I think I'm going a little mad. Goodle woodle blop blip!

A Rare Sunday

...is one where I get the day work-free! Like today!

Seriously, though, I've been quite busy the past couple of months. Mostly related to worky-work, though I promised I wouldn't keep yammering about how busy I've been (I should be grateful I have a job in this economic environment, etc. etc.).

In between gigs, I've been slowly trying to re-establish contact with all my friends. I managed to sneak in another visit to my Warragul-based friend and her husband today, and I brought my sister along for the ride too - if that's technically the case when she's the one driving.

It's really good to get in touch with friends, and by that I mean actual social contact, not the plugged-in Internetty type, but the come-over-and-we'll-have-drinks-and-ANZAC-biscuits-and-talk-about-all-sorts-of-crap visit. Chat programs and Facebook do have their uses, but it's hardly as good as the real thing, is it?

I've also been working on-and-off on one of my old games that I sorta-got-finished. Will post more details when it's progressed enough to start generating interest. (though I wish I'd bothered to learn about all this Flash dealie, because people don't seem to like downloading and installing games any more... :/ )

...I hope everyone had a good ANZAC Day. Did you observe the minute of silence?

Sorry, You're Wrong!

I've been thinking about my job a lot lately.
Mostly because, though work is remarkably thin across the ground (thanks to the GFC, cheap overseas labour, competition in the field, etc.), I'm really not sure if I'm suited for the task.

I've always considered myself to be reasonably good at my job - retail work is hard, but it's not that hard, after all - but recent events have made me wonder if I'm actually suited to it. I've always been super nice to the customers, I don't steal cash or stock, I show up to all of my shifts... eventually... (blush)

My major concern here is where my loyalties lie. In the past, I've been inclined to give the customers the benefit of the doubt, but is that necessarily the best way to go about my job? The motto "The Customer is Always Right" may have held sway once upon a time, but there are some patrons who take that idea to an extreme, and assume that because you wear a polo shirt with your name on it, you become their serf, or at the very least someone of lower standing.
Should I really be giving people like this the advantage? I really ought to be giving my employers support, since they are the ones who hired me and are giving me paid employment! The fact that people are giving us money for a service doesn't mean we should be letting them get away with arrogance.

Yeah, okay. Not everyone I serve is nasty - in fact the vast majority of people I serve are civil if not kind- and I'm sure there are a few customers who could raise valid complains against me (hey, after five years I doubt anyone would have a perfect track record).

Anyway, I make this post to share another link I found: (The Customer Is) Not Always Right - which is a blog dedicated to the admittedly bizarre part of standing behind a counter... namely, the freaking weird folks you get every now and then. I could add a few interesting stories, like for instance:

• the customer who refused to buy an ice cream because I'd have to touch it to do the sale (mind you, the ice cream was fully wrapped and otherwise untouched by human hands)
• the woman who called me up to make a complaint about an incident that had occurred at a totally unrelated shop
• the two stray dogs who came and hung around the petrol pumps, and sat underneath the customers' cars
• the regular customer who stopped coming because I didn't give him a piece of battered fish
  
• the person who moved their hired truck across the forecourt because they didn't know that Distillate and Diesel were the same fuel, and wound up running into another bowser
• the patron who asked us if we stocked a brand of catfood - while we were dealing with a fire on the forecourt (just don't ask...)

There are many more, but I'm sure anyone with a few years' retail experience could share a few golden stories about the weird people they get to meet.

I could use this post to complain about the busy two weeks I have coming up... but I won't because that's just petty and immature. (And no, that statement doesn't count as a complaint. IT DOESN'T.)

Look what I found!

Just so all the viewers, stalkers and searchbots can get to know me a little better, here are some sites that I've stumbled over in the past few days.

Judge A Book By Its Cover and Awful Library Books do exactly what it says on the tin. My mother works at a library, and I'm sure she would find these two blogs absolutely hilarious - and then she would immediately go to work and rip off half the shelf stock.
Pop Sensation takes a look at covers and blurbs of various pulp fiction paperbacks from the 20th Century. I recall my folks having a few books like this on the shelf (well, perhaps not quite as racy as some of the one shown here- I hope).
PhotoShop Disasters - I mean, really. Do we still hold any illusions about what we see in the media any more? Pictures don't lie anymore, they Blur with added Lens Flare!

I also received the books I'd ordered off Amazon last week (early, in fact) so that makes me happy. I'll try to find some other books I've been hunting down, but not just yet - I still have other important things to spend money on and save up for.
I ordered Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid and I Am A Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter (spelled that without checking ;D ), the first of which I'd already read but really liked; the second one is what I'm reading now. The other book was the paperback version of Unicorn Jelly, which I've been trying to order for a while - I have an eye for weird stories like this, and wanted to check out the hard copy version. It's a very nice book!

Oh, and also, I'm waiting for this to buffer, download, install - whatever:

I'm sorry, what? The Bee Gees? Aerosmith? Alice Cooper?! Doing The Beatles' back catalogue?!? What is this I don't even

So Much For The Weekend

NB. I changed the blog colour scheme again, in case people found the bright letters on dark a bit too hard to read. Is this current setup any better? Please let me know!

Well, what a weird week it's been. Actually, I refer to the past seven days, not the Sunday-to-Saturday.
I started off having three days off in a row, and by the end of it, I only had ONE. =(

I worked Saturday morning, and after only getting about two hours of sleep and working for about nine hours, I was pretty much ready for bed - unfortunately, Saturday night was also the night we had set aside for our second Games Night for the year.
Setting up the LAN was a little more complicated than last time, since we now had four PCs to hook up. One of the guests forgot to bring his network cable, which would have left him a spectator to the proceedings; luckily, we had one to spare, so he wasn't left on the sidelines.

Note to self: look for other games suitable for multi-player than Quake III. Shooting up my friends with heavy artillery is not something that makes me comfortable, even if they are disguised as pop-culture icons and running around a giant house!

I managed to stay up until 5am Sunday morning, when I suddenly remembered that I was incredibly effing tired. I shuffled off to bed and slept for about twelve hours. It is remarkably poor form to sleep through the productive hours of a day, even if it is the weekend. "Never mind," I thought, "I still have Monday and Tuesday free."

Now hang on, it gets better.

I got a phonecall at about 12pm Monday, asking me if so-and-so had got in touch with me about working that afternoon... did they happen to call? No? Would I be able to do it? Especially since absolutely no-one else can do it without somehow violating the law of physics (you know, the one that prevents an object from being in two places at once)? You will? Cool! Be here by 3.30!

"Never mind," I thought, "I still have Tuesday free."

I spent most of Monday night playing Ico, but I started getting sleepy around 4am. It was a reasonably warm night, so I tried to sleep with the fan going on beside me. Sadly, the only air conditioner in this house is in the living room, so I have to make do.
At around 4.30, the fan suddenly turned off. I tried to switch on the light to see what had happened - and when that didn't come on either, I realised that we'd had a blackout! (cue scrabbling around my room with my mobile phone, trying to find a reliable torch)

As it turned out, the power failure only lasted an hour, but it blacked out half the town; a couple of other nearby cities also lost partial power. I spoke to someone about it the next day, who said that it was strange driving through brightly-lit streets, only to enter darkness one street over.

Unfortunately, one of the places affected by the power loss was the shop where I work, and clearly the register did not handle the power failure very well.
The next day, when my co-worker came in to set everything up for the morning, he discovered that the register was completely non-cooperative. Apparently, the register's circuits must have either received a shock or not liked the forced shutdown, since nothing he did could coax life back into the thing. After several calls to the tech support, and in between attempts to actually serve people fuel and whatnot, he and the head office staff managed to scrabble together a workable system; basically, everything had to be done manually, just like in the old days before computers were thrown into the mix.

The problem with doing things manually is that they take a lot longer, and it is far easier to make a mistake. Unfortunately, customers have become used to receiving prompt and efficient service, and as such are no longer content to stand around and wait for paperwork to get filled out. So, in order to not inconvenience the customers too much, it would be necessary to have all the staff on site as possible, to make sure evrything went smoothly.

You know where I'm going with this. Phonecall at 9am: "Ben, you're not going to believe this... can you please come in?"

Of course, I couldn't leave people in the lurch; it would have been far worse NOT to go in. It's just annoying that, of the supposed "three-day weekend" that I had lined up, the only actual day I had free I practically slept through (though I did get to play a bunch of cool games with friends, so it wasn't a total washout).

Here's hoping next week works out a little better!

Spend A Little Time With Friends

I'll be working a fair bit over the next two weeks thanks to the Australia Day public holiday (which falls on a Tuesday this year, so most people will also take Monday off as well dammit), so I've made the most of the time at hand and spent it wisely for a change. That is, I've done things that were more productive than just sleeping or sitting around at home.

Yesterday, I had the gaping hole in my back wisdom tooth filled, after having the wind whistle through it for the past four months. Fortunately it wasn't a very deep hole, but it must have been a fairly extensive repair because I'm still a little tender on that side...
Because I don't have any private health insurance, I paid the whole amount out of pocket, for the privilege of having my mouth numbed and my tooth drilled. $140~ is a fair bit to pay for dental peace of mind, but it's worth it.

Today, I went to visit my friends in Warragul. I hadn't seen them since they moved back from the US, and I figured I was overdue.
We stopped for lunch; my friend insisted on paying for the meal, since she felt she owed me for the tickets to Dali I bought for her a few months ago. Unfortunately, she didn't seem to agree that paying $30 for three six-inch subs, plus drinks and snacks, was a fair price... slightly awkward scene in a queue as she negotiated something cheaper...
We then went back to her place, where her and her husband's cats decorated me with hair - I was wearing head-to-toe black, what the hell was I thinking?! - and we watched The Black Balloon:

The movie is excellent, and very confronting - and there were several scenes in it that I could relate to, and no, no-one in my family is autistic. My friend's husband pondered how Toni Collette manages to be in just about every Australian cinema release, and I said "She probably just has a good agent." j.k. she's awesome

We spent most of the afternoon discussing things, like how our jobs were going (not great, but it could always be worse) and what we were planning on doing with our lives. You know, the usual. But the best thing about spending time with them was that it gave me a chance to stop worrying about my own problems, and listen to others' - and of course offer support.

Then my friends had to go into town to chase up some homewares and do their grocery shopping; while they were checking out electrical goods, I snuck across to the Home Entertainment shop across the road and picked up some more music. I'm such a junkie for tunes, now that I have a half-dozen different MP3 players. Music Is Always Good.

Tonight, I'm going to give this on-line shopping thing a try... There are a few books that I'm having trouble getting through the usual channels - most of the bookshops I've asked have looked at me and gone, "Duh...?" but I suspect that's mostly due to the books being out-of-print or hard-to-find.

And I really ought to curb my spending, even though I've been doing just fine over the past few (busy, work-filled) weeks. Christmas seems to start a strange spending momentum in me; of course, having the stores reduce all of their stock after Christmas does not help much. ;)

I'll be good, I promise! In the meantime, thank you Katie and Randy for an awesome afternoon! Next time I'll bring the others with me (if they're available)!

Games Night

As I write this, my friend Andrew is playing with my sister's PS2... We have tidied up the house after an inspection, and we used the opportunity to have company over, so naturally we made it a bit of a games night.
We had a few rounds of Buzz!, which was one of the gifts Santa brought my sister last month. The game is itself loaded with innuendo, but it makes for a much more surreal game if you give your character a suggestive name, and have the game announce "NIPPLES is the Winner!"
Then, we had a play at SingStar for my sister's benefit, because she hardly gets the chance to bring out the mikes; sadly, I'm the only other one game enough to play along with her, and my singing is not the best.

We also tried to get a LAN thing going, but it took a few hours before all the bugs got sorted out. There were more than a few swear words flying back and forth before the system was set up properly, but in the end it all worked out, and a few rounds of Quake 3 were had.

I managed to finish M&L: Bowser's Inside Story yesterday, and now my sister is having a go at it after bugging me for the past week. Now, I begin the journey into LoZ: Spirit Tracks, which is a very strange game indeed. Most of the Zelda series have been based in a "middle ages" environment, but this one features, of all things, a train as the central plot device. What next, a motorcycle?

I go to the dentist on Monday, and hopefully go to visit my friend on Tuesday (assuming my car is up to the task); and then I'm back at work for another few days. Oh, rapture. Well, guess I'd better make the most of my free time!