I remember when...I remember, I remember when I lost my mind.

Friday:
Apparently, I'm quite a scary person when I'm trying to book tickets.
Here's the scene....
At 8.30am, I ask my Sales Manager if I can use his office from 8.55am. He says it's fine, but when the time comes, he gives me that "I'm on an important call, bugger off" kinda look. It's time to put into effect....back up plan number one. I tell the receptionist that I can't take any calls until further notice, get myself a coffee from the machine and plant myself down at my desk.
What follows, so I'm told, isn't a pretty sight. Me, with 2 phones, both on speakerphone and both being frantically jabbed on the 'redial' button. Whilst I was sat there being pelted with the same message, "Bleep bleep bleep...This is a BT announcement. This line is experiencing high demand, please try again later....You have not been charged for this call", I decided it was time to put into action back up plan number two. This involved me trying to log onto various websites that I could buy tickets from. At one point, I had both phones constantly telling me the "lines were experiencing high demand..." (No shit Sherlock!) and four, count them, four different websites open on my pc searching for tickets.
During this 35 minute fiasco, The Blagger strolled by and asked me how things were going. He didn't seem too pleased when I responded, "Leave me alone...No seriously....Leave me alone!"

Every year, I put myself through this stress.
Every year, I sit there thinking that there must be a better way of the Festivals selling the tickets.

I've heard several different reports of how fast the tickets sold out, varying from 90 minutes to 3 hours. Between the 2 sites, I think it must be close to 130,000 tickets in total. That's a shit load of money for the promoters, considering they take our money in March and the Festival isn't until August and at £120 a shot, it doesn't take a genius to figure out they must make a fair whack out of the interest gained from our well earned money for the 5 months we wait...and wait....and wait....

Success anyway. My bollocks are safe from harm because I got all the tickets I needed!
Joe, I'll see you there!

Friday evening, after a quickie in the pub (let's not go there again), I found myself back at The Blagger's house. His girlfriend, Krusty sat there flicking through the channels, whilst I accepted drinks from The Blagger with a cheeky smile.

He kept bringing in something he called a Turbo Shandy. I had no idea what it was as it's not the first time he's put a drink in my hand, called it something and then admitted no such drink exists and he just threw a few drinks together. "The Death Penalty" being one of them and let's not even go there!

He tells me a Turbo Shandy is beer and Smirnoff Ice, half and half. It doesn't sound nice, but it was quite drinkable. A few of those and I was beyond tipsy and fast approaching pissed.
When I woke the following morning, I felt like my head had been repeatedly run over with an 18 wheeler truck. Luckily this didn't last very long, but on arrival at work, The Blagger then decided to tell me a Turbo Shandy is in fact a quarter beer, a quarter Smirnoff Ice and a half vodka!

Saturday was a busy day at work, which on the plus side meant that the time went quickly. The evening was spent with some good friends and the usual quirky conversations we all tend to have after a few.

Today, I was supposed to be going Karting. I had phoned the Karting centre on Wednesday to be told we couldn't book a place and should just turn up on the day. It's something called "Arrive and drive" and is common in most Karting centres. I repeatedly expressed concern of us not being able to drive because there were too many others there, only to be told by the guy on the phone (several times) that I shouldn't worry about it, because he's never known people to turn up and not get to drive.
The only thing he mentioned was not to arrive before 2pm because they had a 'party' in there until that time and we definately wouldn't be able to drive during that time.
Fine.

What happens earlier today?
We turn up at 2.30pm and go to the desk to check in, sign the disclaimer and pay our money, only to be told there is another party just about to kick off.
I was restrained.
I remained calm.
We didn't get to drive.

There will be a telephone conversation tomorrow morning with the Manager of the Karting Centre consisting of me moaning, then repeating what the guy said to me about not having a problem to get on the track, followed by me moaning some more, followed by some swearing, followed by me asking (very nicely) for some compensation in the form of half price entrance or free return passes.

So, in summary:

Tickets....drink....ouch....strange conversations....a little more drink....excitement....frustration....being pissed off....getting over it....back here....bath....chillin'

Oh, and over the weekend, I had a dream that I was the UK's entrant for The Eurovision Song Contest.

New songs available for download on the jukebox, to the right.