Even I Spy gets boring

It was almost embarrassingly dead at work today. A lot of the time was spent doing filler activities like cleaning and washing, issue being that after we did a pair of deep cleans there was nothing left to clean! This resulted in a handful of games of 'I Spy' and word association in between serving the 1 of 5 customers we had at any one time.

Another long ol' day

Another long 12 hour shift, 1/3rd of which was spent cleaning and re-arranging our kitchen, funnily enough it just looks like how we used to have it arranged 8 months ago. At least everything is finally clean! Came home shattered again so I just sat up in my room with a re-heated shepherds pie and some chocolate milk; I am living the high-life.

Manic Monday (Once again)

As it was the final day of Half Term today I'm sure that every single mother in Newbury decided that Eddie Catz was the place to be, much to the dismay of most of the staff members who have had enough of the Half Term madness (myself included.) After the dust settled and all the customers went home, more dust was spread, brushed and hoovered away in our epic deep clean. I use the word 'Epic' because it was a huge job and it took the same amount of time as an old fashioned 'Epic.' Absolutely shattered as a result, coming out of work I had never felt so hungry. Just as well, as a co-worker turned to me and just said 'McDonalds?' Music to my ears. 

Mopping Merit

Oddly quiet day at work today... In order to prepare ourselves for the deep cleans within the next few days we have been doing some bigger jobs that don't typically get done. Today I got to mop the floor of possibly the biggest room in the building, or Party room 1 we like to call it. This room gets used for parties, clubs and is just generally a disco room. Most of the time the lights are off or the floor is covered in mats, but looking upon it today we saw nothing but muddy footprints and cake crumbs everywhere. It was a little embarissing to say the least.

40 Minutes of mopping later my Boss came into the room and screamed with delight and awe over how clean the floor was. I couldn't even believe how nicely it came up and what a satisfying experience it was. It did make me jolly hungry though, just as well because I went out for a very nice Chinese meal for my Granny's Birthday meal, where I saw Dan on a whim, having a meal on the other side of the restaurant. Small world it seems

Call of Depedency

I caved. Call of Duty had a free weekend for Black Ops 2 with a 33% off deal. I caved and I bought into the franchise for what I told myself would be the last time. I've been saying that now for 2 years in a row.

The multiplayer is essentially video game crack cocaine. It starts off with a plethora of nice rewards you get for each kill, flashing lights and makes you feel really good about yourself. Then you gotta work harder to get those flashy things to happen, you get into a dependency cycle where you gotta level up in order to feel just as good as you did when you first started playing. Damn it's addictive nature. I said I would do something good with my day and I spent most of it leveling up on CoD and Guild Wars 2. 

Can't believe it was Friday

Sadly today was rather unremarkable. Just another mildly busy day with a bit of editing in the evening. My days this week have almost blurred into one, same thing day in, day out. But tomorrow I get to celebrate with a small day off dedicated to me. Might play some Guild Wars 2 with Louis, might do some editing if I'm needed, might see my girlfriend to see how she's feeling (She was a tad ill today.) The world is my metaphorical oyster tomorrow and I will put it to best use!

A tribute: My old trainers

Another standard day at work with some more Eddie Dances! For the final dance of the evening I got to be Eddie! After seeing Daniel come and after dancing in the suit dripping with sweat I started to get concerns about how hot I would get while dancing.

I got pretty damn hot.

I got so hot I just had to take off the big head as soon as I was back upstairs, but I accidentally un-masked myself in front of two children! So embarrassing, luckily they were older kids so they didn't mind too much but the little ones starting coming back into the room so I was shoved into the office to avoid being seen. I had never been so quick on my feet.

Speaking of feet, I got a new pair of trainers today! So before Mum got the chance to throw away my old ones, here is a tribute to the most comfortable pair of shoes I have ever owned :

Here they are in their full glory. I can still remember the day I bought them, it really was love at first sight. 2 Years later though, they have been through hell and back, treading the sma eroute to and from work and generally being abused in every instance.

Paint stains when we painted the party room

Heel seemed to be coming off the sole here

This hole doesn't look to bad...

...Oh deary me!

Despite their derelict appearance they are still immensely comfortable and have been put to great use over the years. They have actually since been replaced by an identical pair! Like how a phoenix rises from the ashes, my trainers will do the same!  

Harlem Shake

Another pleasant day at work with a steady stream of customers. After close however we all had to wait an hour until our specially booked party arrived. With a bit of time to kill our staff collectively decided that it was the perfect opportunity to practice the new Eddie Cat dance routine. In essence, Eddie will come into the centre and several staff members would perform a choreographed dance with him to a samba version of 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.'

My boss was also very conscious of the recent internet fad: The Harlem Shake. We made a video where I accidentally went all out much to the mirth of my co-workers. I figure If there is a good reason to embarrass yourself once in a while, you should do it.

The video can be found here.

There might be a little difficulty opening it if your not a friend of mine on Facebook, I'll try to get a more open source one for later though!

In other personally exciting news. That 'Top 5 Video Game Noses' List I made made it to the front page of Screwattack.com this evening! I found that quite humbling and it has encouraged me to do some more lists featured on the site. 

 

Count your blessings

You my fellow readers, are very lucky people. Very lucky I didn't take a photograph of what happened at work today, and equally lucky that some kind of 'smell-O-vision' thing doesn't quite exist yet.

After all the customers at work left our boss decided to pump the urinals at work (you can already see where this is going.) 5 minutes into the job we could hear a distant screaming for the tallest person working to come and help very, very loudly from down the hall. My co-worker responded but I followed along for good measure and in case they needed me. A large bolt above the urinals desperately needed to be tightened in order to cease the spray of stale urine coming from the pipes. As if this wasn't bad enough, a small deposit (roughly the size of an anthill) of crystallized wee had piled up onto the floor and the stench was simply atrocious. A fellow co-worker believed that we were all over-reacting to the situation, after seeing the carnage in the bathroom though he had to just sit down for a few minutes in order to process what had happened; I think it spoiled his day.

In fairness it needed doing and the whole system works a hell of a lot better than it did after cleaning it through, it was just a very smelly and unpleasant 30 minutes,  

Band of Brothers

Checked my work rota first thing today. Since it's half term week I asked to work a few extra days in the week. Today and Saturday being my only free days I wanted to do something special today so I finished off Band of Brothers by blitzing the final 3 episodes. And it was phenomenally good. If every TV series like this I would watch a hell of a lot more television. Everything was exceptional, character, cinematography, sound, music, it was all incredible. As I sat there watching the ending I felt like I had spent some real time with those men and had fought along side them. The final 5 minutes are beautifully poignant as it ends with the real survivors of Easy Company, a uncontrollable wave of emotion overcame me and I shed some tears as the credit music begun; it was a perfect moment.






4 Seconds later Louis came in and did this on the floor:

And the moment was ruined.

Private function

Long ol' day today. While we weren't generally very busy on account of the glorious weather we had a private hire party booked between 4:30 until 8. This meant that we shut down the centre, tidied it all up, replaced all the displays with soft drinks and wine and moved all the furniture around; which we had to reverse afterwards as well. Throughout the party I had the really nice job of pouring peoples drinks. It was a great bunch of people though and they all looked like they were having a great time, especially since a friend of the family set up his own noodle bar. All the staff got a £14 tip as well which I was very humbled by.

Random acts of vandalism

It was waiting for me. I got into work and it was waiting for me. Every Saturday for the past 3 weeks I have been asked to walk around with the goodies trolley, offering people snacks and cups of tea. While a very nice idea in theory, I tied with last week for 'Worst sales in the history of the trolley' by earning a measly £3.40 in 45 minutes (a whooping 7.5p a minute!) Problem is that people just don't like being harassed by anyone, let alone my lovely self, for treats so early in the morning and while watching their children play football indoors. After asking everyone if they wanted something twice I parked myself in plain sight and stood like a lemon for a while in the vain hope that someone would change their mind; it was not to be.

Rest of the day was a nice change of pace from previous, blisteringly busy Saturdays as we had some  consistent breathing time. I actually had quite a nice day as I got chatting to some party parents who were really impressed with our staff and what a nice team we all made; I was flattered. Sadly after all the compliments about how nice the centre was this had to happen:

Someone thought it would be hilarious to smash in someone's car window in our car park right as the party ended. Thank goodness it didn't belong to a customer though. We called the police shortly after and they arrived to ask us about what had happened and check the CCTV footage. Rather embarrassingly I was emptying the bins outside just before it happened, and while I saw that there were people outside, I couldn't tell the police any details because I just didn't think about getting a good look at them, at this point I had no reason to.

Ah well, got home after a co-worker very kindly gave me a lift home, they were anxious about letting walk alone after the act of vandalism. Had a steak pie and some beer (Wehey!) Headed off to Chris' for a bit of editing. Mark's going away next week on holiday so he has left me in charge of editing a very important bit of work and I am happy to take the challenge!

First Uni Choice

Set my alarm for quite early but got up quite late. I just about gave myself time to eat breakfast and get dressed before getting to school in the morning. Then an email came through. An Email from UCAS to tell me that my choices had been updated. I had to choose between eating breakfast and checking that update. Glad I chose the latter as I found out I got into my first choice University! That's right, I'm going to do TV production at Bournemouth!

The afternoon was spent doing our new sketch. A few weeks prior we picked our filming location at the Regency Hotel and successfully booked a room for the discounted price of £50! While not a still from the sketch, this is what the room looked like:

Mark looking very depressed to find a distinct lack of pizza in his box

Actual filming was twice as fast as expected. Initially we planned to film the stuff in the night for our film but we underestimated the power of hotel curtains and actually managed to finish all our night shots before it was night time. Record time filming and morale was very high throughout! Especially with Tom Norman on set, such a funny guy. We finished so quickly that we got to watch all of Don't tell the Bride while waiting for Mark and Chris to pick up our dinner! We hope to get that sketch finished within a few weeks, I'll keep you posted as always!

Filmcast Episode Three!

Happy Valentines day 2013

My sole goal for today was to go out and get my Girlfriend a card and some flowers. I should have done it in town yesterday but it completely skipped my mind. So instead I walked down to Tesco, or tried to, it was way further away than I remembered and I had to cross a half dozen roads but I got there in the end. Picked up my stuff along with some ingredients for cooking with (I was cooking her dinner as she couldn't get enough time off work for us to go somewhere.)

I made her Puttanesca (my specialty.) At first I was worried that she didn't like olives or anchovies or something along those lines, she took one look at the mixture and said that all her favorite things are in it! Lucky me.

After she left me at about 7 I just geeked over the recent Nintendo Direct which had all the best new games mentioned and I got very excited. They even said there would be a free pinball app for the Wii U. No such thing as free pinball though it seems as every table was locked behind a price tag. Back to the Windows XP 3D Space Pinball it seems.

Wreck-It Ralph!

Many, many months of waiting have finally passed. Had to sit and watch the Yanks enjoy it before it finally made it's way over to the UK and it was worth the wait in some respects. Jamie and I agreed to meet up and watch Wreck-it Ralph today (it being Orange Wednesdays and all) so we found each other in the high street, got our tickets and 3D glasses and walked into this:

Sorry for the low quality image but what you can see here is an empty cinema! Clearly the rest of Newbury was just as excited to see the film as we were. A little while later about 10 other patrons came in and that was when it struck me, I was watching a kids movie as a fully grown adult. It was quite painful to listen to children laugh at the naff slapstick in the trailers before the film and there were a handful of toilet humour jokes that the children just made a lot of noise over. Film was pretty good though, glad I saw it. Jamie and I must've looked like absolute lemons in the eyes of the kids though.

Pancake Day 2013

Almost totally forgot about it today, but it was Pancake Day! Louis couldn't be bothered to make any so I picked up the slack and made my own. Now, at home we have this fail-safe pancake recipe that replaces milk with orange juice and water (sounds strange but it really can work). Without sounding unprofessional, I solely blame the mixture on the quality of the pancakes above my inability to cook them due to one simple fact. The orange juice we had was the 'With Bits' type. Cooked weirdly but tasted just as good.

As usual, I gave up nothing for Lent as I am not a religious person, but I do agree with a time to improve your life through sacrifices. I just wished that it wouldn't be the sole ice-breaker and topic of conversation for the next few weeks because it get very boring.

Serenity deserved a re-watch for Mark and I, him especially after he just finished Firefly and we both enjoyed the film more the second time around. He even bought some tunes from the film's soundtrack he liked it so much.

Top 5 Noses

Woke up with a single objective: do something mildly productive. So after watching another episode of Band of Brothers and having a late breakfast I settled down to write the Top 5 Noses in Video Games in a blog post on Screwattack.com. If you want to have a quick read to yourself you can find it here. Only afterwards will you be thinking about what I was thinking while writing it, in all honesty I don't have a real answer for the list's genesis aside from the fact I had difficulty sleeping thanks to my blocked nose.

Have a video

Miserable weather today = lots of customers at Eddie Catz. So it was another tough one at work but we got through it ok. This coming Friday we will be filming our latest sketch, we have booked the necessary hotel room (location hint) and finished scripting what will be a jolly funny short.

As nothing of interest has truly occurred to me today, I will leave you with a cool little video about how to fold shirts in a quick and cool way! Try it for yourself:

Felt rough at work too...

My cold is starting to give way. Just as well because we had a very busy day today which really isn't much fun when you feel like I do. The only thought keeping me going was 'When I get home, I will have a beer and watch 'Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog.' Got home and it was glorious. Not hugely excited about going in tomorrow now, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

Board meeting filming

Mark and I did a filming job for Gardner Leader this morning. Basically we filmed a board meeting using a range of our cameras in a similar manner when we'd film a play. Slider Cam was my job as I was given our meter long slider and a tripod to work with, this gave me a great degree of smoothness when moving around my camera and all of my footage looked awesome... Until we watched it back and saw the camera wasn't sent in HD mode. This wasn't really anyone's fault and we can work around it for the final edit, but it would be a shame to see all my clips wasted.

Mark also inherited two very large crates of old film magazines. These things date back from 1971, in other words, a time before Star Wars. Now that's a crazy thought. We had a root through most of them and picked out our favorite front covers, popular recurring actors on the covers were Clint Eastwood, Michael Caine and Burt Reynolds all looking very, very young. These relics were absolutely amazing to flick through, we got magazines ranging from Photoplay to Films Illustrated, might even post a few more pictures of any cool stuff we find within.

Bruce Willis back when he was well know for Rom-Coms! And when he still had a bit of hair.

Groggy

My condition has gone from bad to worse as I was hacking up pieces of phlegm the size of peas in the morning. My girlfriend made a much welcome surprise appearance last night and was very supportive of bunged up me, especially when I had to do charades to communicate because it hurt to talk.About to down some Night Nurse, here's to a good nights sleep at last.

AUCB loves me unconditionally

Had one of the worst ever nights sleep, my throat was so sore it felt like I was swallowing a porcupine every time I breathed and the rain suddenly came down really hard putting me on high alert for a good 20 minutes. My woes were significantly squandered after a dose on Night Nurse and comparing my situation with that of Easy Company in Band of Brothers. Those men went through hell and I have a little cough? Sounds like I have to man up!

Louis was a frequent visitor in my room today since he had he blessing of an inset day. Mostly it he came in to ironically over-perform power ballads or to probe fun at the fact I was still in my pajamas at 1pm. So yes, it was a lazy day. At least I managed to finish season one of Life on Mars and celebrate my unconditional offer from AUCB. Can't image how I ever got that offer, I thought my interview there was crap. Hopefully this bodes well for my other choices.       

Quite ill, good day

Woke up feeling a little bit under the weather due to a heavy head and a sore throat that only got worse as the day went on. That said, I had a lovely day with Jamie, playing games and even started watching Band of Brothers which was really spectacular, will certainly be watching some more of that. Mark texted me to let me know that he had watched the pilot of Firefly, last time we spoke he was halfway through the entire show; that is absolutely mental.

Media quiz woes

Had a slightly more busy day then expected as I forgot there would be an evening party at work, least I didn't have to clean up sick today though. Just finished another media quiz for school which are actually pretty tough to write sometimes. I love novelty news but the kids probably don't go on the same websites as I do so it'll be far too niche, I was also told to make it a bit easier as no one got more than half marks last week. Hope this time it has been sufficiently dumbed down though and as always, feel free to have a go yourself.

Our showreel!

Yesterday evening we kitted out my room with some very badass speakers, especially when we consider how crappy my old ones were. Spent all day at work dreaming about which games to play to experience the new and awesome sound quality I could expect, didn't get much of a chance though as we had guests over for dinner but I had a fun time reminiscing about older games on the megadrive and the like. Working again tomorrow, in case you didn't get a chance to see it, here is our Cafe Studios showreel that Mark and Chris have worked very hard on, and it shows because it is absolutly amazing!

Filmcast Episode 2!

Café Studios Showreel 2013