Finally got something together I felt good about submitting. So the song is called "Where the Night Leads", played by me on my Korg Trinity and recorded in Audacity - vote/review as you feel fair. Constructive criticism always welcome and all that.

It'll be good for someone to use in a Halloween flash?

So I got a plus pass on my tae kwon-do grading yesterday...
Go me!

Firstly I didn't write this -before anyone kicks up.
Just thought it was brilliant and decided to share!

Everything was rather quiet in the hundred acrewood. The trees whispered to each other as the wind rustled their leaves. Under a large oak tree, there lived Pooh bear. From inside Pooh's house, there came a steady bang...bang... bang!, that was making his honey jars rattle on the sideboard. The light came through the window, and in the evening sun Pooh raised the axe once more and brought it down on the tattered remains of Christopher Robin.
"Why...won't... he...fit..." puffed Pooh to himself as the axe came down once more. There was a small pile of earth, and a hole next to it, which Pooh had hidden with his favourite rug. Christopher Robin, selfish prat that he was, didn't quite fit in the hole Pooh had dug, so instead of making it wider he had decided to hack Christopher Robin's legs off. "A far more sensibleidea", thought Pooh, and hummed a little song to himself as he cut the last tendon and rammed the rest of the body in the hole, finally covering it up with the rug. "Always too bossy", thought Pooh, "Always too bossy, always grabbing me by the paw and saying 'Come on Pooh let's have an adventure' or 'Pooh you are silly!' in that affected cutesy spoilt brat voice, and his stupid little shorts - "bastard!"
Pooh had waited all afternoon for Christopher Robin to come round, humming a little tuneless song to himself whilst gazing blankly into the fire and fondling the oaken handle of the axe. When C.R. had finally turned up, squeaking in his child-actor voice "Come on Pooh! Open Up!", Pooh that Pooh, lovable Pooh, could do such a thing! Pooh giggled a little and wiped some saliva from his mouth with a shaky paw. Then Pooh, calm as anything, had mopped up the blood, washed the axe and begun to dig the hole.
Piglet had run clear out of tea and biscuits, and so he decided to visit Pooh instead. He admired the evening sun, blood red, and listened to the birds singing. Pooh watched him get nearer and nearer, and plugged in the drill. Piglet had no time to realise what had happened - the drill pierced his skull, sending a beautiful fountain of blood all over Pooh's orange hide. He rubbed the blood in and all over himself, licking, licking, always licking. Then he pulled Piglet inside and put him in the cupboard.
The syringe lay on the sideboard, and Pooh picked it up, paws shaking and sweating, and filled it full of solution of the funny white powder that had been given to him by a strangely spaced-out Rabbit. It was a strange effect at first, and Pooh thought he had seen many strange things, but then experienced a euphoric feeling of power. It made him irritable, and C.R. and Piglet had everything that was coming to them, no doubt at all. When night had fully fallen, Pooh dragged the bodies out and buried them in a makeshift grave.
"Adios, dear 'friends'", Pooh giggled, "Things are going to change around the 100-acre wood now I'm in charge" he laughed hysterically and went indoors.
The next day Tigger and Roo made their way happily to Pooh's house, to see if he knew where C.R. and Piglet were, as no one had seen them since yesterday. They were sure Pooh would know, as he had had tea with Piglet yesterday and was meant to be playing Pooh-sticks with C.R. in the morning. When they reached Pooh's house the door was wide open and Pooh was nowhere to be seen. Tigger and Roo looked inside Pooh's house and noticed a large hole in Pooh's floor and a notice was stuck on the wall with a large blob of congealing honey OWT CHAGIG THE DRAGGN" (spelling had never been one of Pooh's strong points). "That's odd", thought Tigger, "there are no dragons in the 100-acre wood only heffalumps. What is that silly bear up to now?"
Not even Tigger would have imagined what Pooh was up to at that moment. That morning Pooh had woken with a splitting headache and a rather snotty nose. So he had taken a large dose of the white powder and a little while later had a brilliant idea!
He left the house with a container marked 'INSECTICIDE' in big red letters. He took the container and went to Eeyore's favourite patch of thistles. "This will serve that manic depressive donkey right" laughed Pooh aloud, "always cheating at Pooh-sticks, cheats never prosper", Pooh said to himself. Then he hid behind a tree to watch the unsuspecting Eeyore eat himself to death - sheer poetic justice thought Pooh as he dumped the nearly dead body of Eeyore in the same grave as C.R. and Piglet - "Shouldn't cheat should you?", shouted Pooh as Eeyore's eyes stared with disbelief - "You're lucky I didn't chop you up into little bits and feed you to Tigger!", laughed Pooh manically, before he covered the makeshift grave over. Pooh didn't return to the house until dinner time as he was totally spaced out all morning. So when he returned to his house he was in an awful mood and all he needed to make him absolutely mad was the sight of Tigger and Roo bouncing up and down outside his house singing "bouncy, bouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, the wonderful....".
"'Wonderful'?My foot, you'd think the writer of this shitty story could think up better lyrics for a song than that, and to think, they released the soundtrack album on cassette and CD; a lot of people are going to get ripped off." This lightened Pooh's mood somewhat, but the respite was brief.
"What was that you said?", asked Roo. "God does he never stop asking pathetic questions?", Pooh thought furiously, "I'm going to have to deal with these prats as well. Is there no-one in this place with intelligence apart from me?" Pooh asked despairingly." Pooh felt himself extremely lucky as Roo had to go home for his afternoon sleep and that left Tigger at his mercy. Even better, Tigger suggested that himself and Pooh go and play Pooh-sticks; Pooh had smiled slyly as an idea formed in his overactive brain, and agreed - "What an opportunity", Pooh whispered to himself as he followed the innocent Tigger to the bridge.
Once on the bridge, and the rather pointless game of Pooh-sticks was under way, Pooh thought he'd much rather push his stick up Tigger's arse, rather than throwing it into the stream. Tigger was leaning over the side of the bridge looking for his stick. So he did not see Pooh's wide horrific grin as he outstretched his arms and moved toward Tigger with the intent of pushing the stupid cat into the stream - "Cats hate water, tee hee, he'll drown." There was a loud splash as Tigger hit the water and started to struggle as his head was covered by water, he gulped and choked. Pooh was holding on to the rail of the bridge and jumping up and down with excitement and was joyously shouting at the drowning Tigger. "Why?", spluttered Tigger as he slowly started to turn blue with the cold, which Pooh found hysterical, after all a blue Tigger?? How absolutely silly. "I'll tell you why you bastard", screamed Pooh, "It serves you right, hiding behind doors and jumping out, and scaring the shit out of people."
But Tigger did not hear Pooh's answer as he was already floating downstream face down in the water, dead - "Good riddance", laughed Pooh, and looked at his watch, "Still time to get that little dickhead Roo before he wakes up."
Pooh sneaked to the sleeping form of Roo's mum and saw Roo's ear poking out of her pouch - "Now I've got you, you little git", Pooh thought, smiling, as he threaded a needle with extra strong cotton. He was jolly grateful for Piglet's sewing lessons now, because he would be able to sew up Roo nice and tightly, so he would not be able to get out and his mum would not be able to rescue him. So very slowly and carefully Pooh began to sew Roo into his pouch and thereby suffocating the annoying idiotic twit.
After the deed was done Pooh made his way back to his house wondering how Roo's mum would take the death of Roo. Badly, hoped Pooh, as he began to cough uncontrollably and felt general nausea overcome him.
By the time Pooh got home he had puked up several times and was very desperate for some more of the white solution. He trembled as he picked up the syringe an gave himself the remaining amount. An awfully large amount, one might say, for a small little bear like Pooh.
In fact too much, Pooh died of an overdose, but he died with a smile on his face: he was dreaming that he was the only teddy bear made with a willy and dreamed how he surprised Eeyore one day

- but that's a story for another day.
Kudos to the guy who wrote this, though I know not who you are.

is my birthday.

I'm old :(

Chicken Pox is spreading like wildfire through my workplace at the moment. Just today, we sent 14 kids home with the tell-tale blistering rash associated with the condition...
I didn't catch it as a child.
I told my work this, and was met with the initial response of "Go into your unit - none of your kids have it yet! Lock the door!". This later turned to "Oh well, better you catch it now than be at risk during future pregnancy. Go and do some lunch covers in there".
See, I've been exposed to it for the past fortnight or so, judging by the frequency these kids are going down with it. There's no point staying away from the kids now, because it's too late.

I have a few rogue, suspicious looking spots on my torso... which is how it starts. I noticed these yesterday, and think there are more since then. They aren't blistering... yet. I'm keeping a watchful eye. When the kids went down with it, I'm sure they came out quite a bit faster than over the course of a couple of daysd, but that could be because they generally sleep at a higher temperature than adults, which causes it to spread far quicker.

So, I've got everyone at work saying "Better to catch it now", with a couple saying it's not so nice in adulthood.

(Navigate away from my profile NOW if you don't want to read the latest Cally-rant ;)

Damn recruitment agencies, wasting my time, grrr. I signed up with an agency last week, in the hope of getting a better paid job in a place that will treat me with the respect I deserve. My requirements were that I wanted my salary to be at least this much, that I was ideally looking for a permanent position or at least a long contract, within a 15 mile radius of my home and NOT for a charity (because I've worked for a charity before, and there's the extra pressure of "I'm sorry, we don't have the budget for phone pads this month....").

So, I got a call about an hour ago from the consultant with my file - I've had a great position come up, would you like to go for it. I ask her to tell me a bit about it. All looks pretty straight forward and well within my abilities - meetings,customer service, reception duties, booking travel arrangements and courses, data manipulation, inventories. A bit pressurised, but I'm good with that.

Well, that all sounds pretty good, I said. Seems a varied and interesting role.
I asked the salary range, and it's a bit less than I was hoping for, but a pay review was pending so it was likely to go up to what I wanted.
Who is it working for?
A charity. For deaf/hard of hearing people. Not that I have anything against that - but I don't know sign language or anything beyond Makaton (a simplified version of British Sign Language, designed for babies and young children). I explained this, and she said that was fine, that I wouldn't be expected to communicate with the deaf people themselves (So I'd be on reception in the HQ of Britain's main deaf charity and *not* be expected to know sign language - O-kaaay....).
I though, oh, what the hell... Okay, put me forward for it. Sounds fun.

Okay, I'll put you forward for it. They're looking to interview next week and have someone in post the following week - would you be available to interview on tuesday or thursday?
No. Those are my two long shifts where I'm working now. But I have a two-week notice period on my current job anyway (which they know about) so couldn't be in that role so soon if I got it.
She said, well, if you're the right person for the job, they'll be happy to wait for you.
Okay, cool. Put me forward.
THEN she decides to tell me that it's a temp to perm contract. I get a one month temporary contract, and if we're both happy after a month, it becomes permanent.

.................................

So, I asked not to be put forward for it in the end. I want the stability of knowing if I get the job I've *got* the job, and that I can still pay my bills and put food on the table.

They basically ignored all my pre-requisites..... GRRRR.

Annoyed now. Feel like putting myself through a tae kwon-do class to de-stress, but that was last night. The next class I could go to is tomorrow, which is no bloody good.

DDR it is.

************ 8/02/08, 6pm UPDATE************
I got an email from another agency about half an hour ago, one I'd applied to a while back. Please send your updated CV (resume) along with what type of work you are looking for, salary expectations and location.
So, I updated my CV and wrote the following cover email to accompany it:
Thanks for your email. I've attached my CV for review.
I'm looking to return to office work, and would be interested in administrator, reception and customer service roles. I am hoping for a salary or around £XXXXX. I would like to work full-time, either permanently or on a long contract (for example, a year or longer).
I look forward to hearing from you soon with roles you feel may be suitable! I live in XXXX at the moment, but I'm working in XXXX and have my own car so the location isn't really an issue.

A few minutes ago, I got another email back, from someone else at the same place. (this is an exact copy-paste, errors and all):

thanks for your unto date cv

What sort of role are you locking for?
what salary?
temp or perm?
Do you drive?

I wrote back, saying I'd already given them that information in the email they had replied to, but copied it in again anyway. They got back to me with something also totally unsuitable - starting immediately, and only a two month contract.

May I please be excused so I can go get cryogenically frozen and hopefully bypass the idiocy?

Facepalm.

Edited as no longer relevent.
Seeking the answer. I thought it was 42.
It was actually 45, but the remaining 3 are elusive :)

I am a Lefty. I write with my left hand, I do most things with my left hand, the left side of my body is my stronger, dominant side.
As a child, my teachers just about acknowledged that I "wrote with the other hand", but that was as far as it went - I was still expected to use all the same equipment as my right-handed peers, as they could not justify providing special lefty-adapted things - I even had to use a right-handed rubber gripper thing that encouraged the correct (or in my case, incorrect) grip on a pencil.
I have struggled since the age of four (some 22 years) to adapt right handed tools so I can use them in my left, and flipping them over really is not the answer.
Yesterday, I got into quite a heated discussion with a friend over Messenger about how flipping tools over doesn't make a blind bit of difference, in the end I gave up trying to explain as he just wasn't getting it. I think the bit that threw him the most was the concept of left-handed kitchen knives.
It's International Left-handers Day on Monday, 13th August, so I'm writing of the difficulties faced by us Leftie trying to explain them to the rightie(who have never encountered these problems, because - let's face it - everything is designed by rightiefor righties)and encourage any of my fellow Lefties to add their own stories!
So, here goes:

Pens/writing with
An everyday occurance for most, but writing is a very tricky thing for a lefty to do without initial supervision and training to counteract the obvious difficulties in pushing the pen across the paper, instead of pulling it as rightys do. The biggest problem I've had with writing is that I have a tendency to pull my hand over the writing just laid down, smudging it to an often unreadable state. It's not just with obvious wet ink pens (ie fountain pens) that this occurs, though we'll get to those in a moment. I manage to smudge rollerball and even ball point (biros) pens, unless I have desk space enough to rotate the paper to somewhere between 45 and 90 degrees to the right. Often I find that ink flow is a problem, as the angle of the pen nib is designed to be pulled, not pushed (you'll be surprised how many pens have an angled nib, however subtle the angle) - I have ruined many nice pens given to me as a gift this way. I have a beautiful set of Copic markers that I have only ever tried once, then replaced in the box - as on the first stroke I heard a tell-tale scratching sound that warns me that if I continue to use them in this manner, the nibs will get damaged. Fountain pens are a big no-no, just wrong on so many levels - the nibs are angled totally the wrong way. Problems I have are that the ink refuses to flow for me, the nib threatens to split in two every time I push the pen to form a letter, and that's only if the nib hasn't speared the paper first. If by some miracle I manage to get the ink flowing, and the letter formed on the paper and not the desk beneath it, I only go and smudge the writing beyond all comprehension with my pinky and the side of my hand.
Thankfully, since school, some pen manufacturers have recognised the difficulties in what is essentially holding the pen in an exact mirror image of how it is supposed to be held, yet writing in the same direction. Yesterday I picked up a Stabilo S' move lefty, in the hope of alleviating hand cramps and smudging of valuable lecture notes at university - another disadvantage of leftyness is the tendency to grip the pen too tightly and to write more slowly.

Corkscrews
Obvious reasons really - a right handed person turns a corkscrew in a clockwise direction to drive the screw into the cork. A lefty will naturally turn anti-clockwise (natural motion - see what I said about mirrors?), which of course does nothing at all. If a left-handed person has to use a righty corkscrew, they have to also turn it clockwise, a very difficult, awkward and unnatural motion leading to strain on the hand and wrists. A left-handed corkscrew has the screw thread set in the other direction, making it much easier for a lefty to get their (now well deserved!) booze.

Scissors
Well known - scissor handles are moulded - one for the thumb, one for fingers. A lefty forced to use right handed scissors must force three fingers into a space intended for a thumb, whilst the thumb has all the space in the world in the space designed for the fingers. In models with similar sized handles (often wrongly labelled as ambidextrous), the main cutting blade is still designed for a right handed person - if held in the wrong hand, one cannot see the cutting line, leading to inaccurate cutting and often tearing of the paper. Left handed scisssors reverse the cutting blades and swop the handles, making cutting a much more comfortable experience.

Knives
The bane of what is normally a pleasant conversation with my friend! A knife for the right handed person, when held in the right hand, has the serrations on the left side, sort of in this shape: \|
If a loaf of bread/block of cheese is held in the left hand and cut by knife with the right, the result is a neat, accurate cut. If, however, the loaf/cheese is held in the right and cut using a right-handed knife with the left hand, between the natural inclination for the left hand to turn outwards, the inability to see where you're actually cutting and the \| blade, the result is a wedge shaped cut with an overhang on the remainder of the loaf. A left handed blade simply has the serrations the opposite side, counteracting the twisting motion of the hand and allowing a straight cut.

So anyway, must get some sunlight and cool off - /end rant.
I put it to fellow lefties to share their experiences and to righties to try using some lefty tools in their right hands, or use a righty tool in their left, to experience what we go through.

I'm loving these new tools, I really am. I can see the resemblence to many different sites, of course, like being able to customise so much is reminiscent of Myspace or Bebo. This blog-like tool I'm using right now to make this post - it's like your own personal forum almost, just waiting for someone to come along and abuse it...
Ah well. For those who were looking for the old (now unofficial) Newgrounds chatroom, it can be found on irc
/server irc.webmaster.com
/join #newgrounds.com

Similarly, the Radiogrounds chatroom (for those with mIRC) can be found:
/server irc.webmaster.com
/join #radiogrounds

I'll probably use this handy new tool to inform folk of Radiogrounds live shows... *ponders*... Yeah, that might work.
Ciao for now.