Service Boy

09:00 pm: There be activity in this here keyboard
Oh yes. I'm back. With a post that is 2 weeks later than planned, but let's just say I got pretty depressed about having to go back to work and couldn't really be arsed to do anything other than listen to the Final Fantasy X-2 OST and the Magic Numbers album (which in truth is excellent, and I'll be putting a review of it up on digi-blog.com as the next article).

So, Digi-Blog.com is live, at last. I haven't actively started advertising it, but I should have a nice steady stream of content for it since the higher-ups have green lighted me to post my own content there. Only fair, I feel, it's not like I'm getting paid to contribute there. On top of both of those, beastandshlong and bellzie have proposed a new "old-skool" site using recycled content from Segalife as a basis and I'm more than happy to jump in there too. After so much inactivity it's nice to have things like this back in my life.

I am fully intending to tell you all about the Great American Bash, but such a lot happened that it would both take all bloody night to write up, as well as a huge wall of text to read. I'll stretch it across a few posts next week. Sadly until I get the negatives from the disposable cameras/turn my video camera footage into DVD, there's not a whole lot I can "show" you... but in my OH SO UNTRUSTWORTHY WORDS... soon ^_^;

Oh, sidenote - Josh Williams is finishing Avalon after an almost 2 year hiatus. I beg you to go and read it. From the start. Go on. Go on. Go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on...

07:08 pm: Living in a snow covered palace
Hi peeps. I'm sat here paying 49cents a minute for Interweb access just to check up on everything so forgive me if I don't get the chance to take a look at everyone's LJ and run the comments game. I would say things have gone 70% well and it's been a reasonable trip so far (apart from the mental injury to my right shoulder...)

Speak to you all soon!

02:54 pm: Falling on snow still hurts
Oops. Dropped the ball again, both here and on digi-blog.com. I can't blame anyone but myself; I've just become real slack ever since I killed off hank-wangford.net. As long as I can motivate myself to, you know, actually update regulary I'll always be able to find time to write. It's just getting myself to think a site filled with content is better than a site filled with white space.

Organising the trip over to sunny (read: FREEZING) Lake Tahoe on the California-Nevada state border hasn't given me a whole lot of time, mind. The entire trip is in my name, which has left me with the responsbility of making sure that we have everything we need and that no one is trying to stiff us. And there have been problems. If it wasn't the wrong car being assigned to us, it was the plane tickets getting lost in the post. If it wasn't the plane tickets getting lost in the post, it was lack of ski carriage being added to our invoice. If it wasn't the lack of ski carriage, it was the hotel booking not showing up. The list goes on.

Never mind, got it all sorted now and all that remains is to get to Heathrow on Friday, pick up the lift passes before we get on the plane and up, up and away! I largely suspect I'm going to smash my spinal column into little pieces doing some stupid jump but oh well, at least I'll be in the most medically advanced country in the world (even if they do charge $100000000000000000000 for operations).

10:44 pm: I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack...
Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

And this time it's for keeps. One of my many, MANY New Years Resolutions was to get a website and LiveJournal up, running and consistantly updated because, let's face it, EVERYONE needs a blog. What better outlet serves the angst of a jaded customer service representative?

I guess I should try to make some kind of sense of the last 6 months to update you all on what's been going on. To type it all out in detail would be long, boring and really not worth your reading time so I'll try to do it in some kind of bulletpoint form...

- New car! A gorgeous Ford Escort Cabriolet, perfect for all those summer days
- Discovering Eyeshield 21 anime and manga
- Racked up tons of debt
- Applying for X-Factor Series 3 (oh hell yes)
- Getting an Xbox 360
- Booked snowboarding holiday (Tahoe!!!)

Back to work tomorrow. I've had the last 2 weeks off because I was smart enough to save up a week earlier in the year specifically to get extended time sitting on my ass around my family and enjoying the Christmas spirit (which is one of the few occasions I actually enjoy). Seems that's bitten me on the behind because I'm positively baulking at the thought of crossing the threshold back into corporate hell.

Hating a job isn't a rare thing for anyone, I know. I think there was a study not long ago, which pointed that something like 80-90% of people loathed their chosen vocation. But, we all get by doing something we don't like. Maybe it's specific parts of the work that are enjoyable, or the collegues around you make the 8 hour slog just about bearable, but the truth is I have to work without that kind of support.

I'm not trying to make my problems more significant than anyone else's - God knows I'm just being an easily wound up irritable monkey - but it becomes pretty draining to work under a boss who doesn't understand the industry, let alone the poor saps tapping away at the antique equipment installed in the office.

Gah, I should have stayed at Uni.

...Actually, no, scratch that.

Never mind. I'm out of there if things don't change in the next 6 months (hah, how many times have I said that). 2006 is going to be my year to make it big freelancing. One of the purposes of my new site is to build up a portfolio of conventional and unconvential scribblings that I can show off to editors all over the spectrum. Fingers crossed I'll have my name in print before long.

Anyway, take a look at my new website, www.digi-blog.com. The first article from myself will be up sometime this week, and hopefully the others will start producing content soon. Cheers all,

Hank