yours-truly.net

I was on Twitter last night when the news broke about Michael Jackson and stayed up late waiting for confirmation of his death when most of the major sites crashed under the strain. The internet never ceases to amaze me when major news stories break and while the big news sites were hesitant to say anything without confirmation, the sad news had already broken out on respected fan sites.

I’ve never been a fan of Michael’s music but I did really appreciate his talent, especially in regard to his dancing which was just amazing. It’s just a shame his image was tarnished so badly with the strange behaviour and the allegations of child abuse. I never believed he touched those kids, I just think he put himself into a lot of inappropriate situations when he really should have known better.

It’s a sad fact of life these days that you have to protect yourself against allegations of untoward behaviour and I’ve experienced that on a professional level. There are some things you just can’t say or do anymore, even down to a simple hug. Hell, you can’t even take pictures of your kids in a bath without being accused of kiddie porn.

One of my abiding memories will be standing in John Menzies when I was a kid and watching the Thriller video being played on a continuous loop. There was never a moment when the monitor wasn’t surrounded by a crowd of spellbound people.

It’s no secret that I’ve become increasingly unhappy with my job over the past few months but things have been changing so quickly over the past few weeks, I can barely keep up. There are a few pilot schemes underway at the moment to improve our services by taking advantage of new technology and if they are successful, it could completely change how the office operates as a whole. We are so far behind in technology, we are practically in the dark ages, for example, we’ve only just started taking credit or debit card payments! We rely heavily on payments by cheque and since they are slowly being phased out, it was about time we did something. I reckon we will still be taking cheques for a long time but things are moving in a positive direction.

My line manager is also leaving and that means her post is up for grabs. I’m quite excited about this because I have a pretty good idea who will be replacing her and I think he will be really good for our team. A few people will be very unhappy since their easy ride will be over and to be honest, their days are numbered anyway. I will be one happy camper when karma finally bites ass!

My own job may be changing in the future too because the new procedures will increase the financial side of my role and it may not be possible for me to do a lot of the other stuff I currently do. I may end up being removed from the frontline to compensate. To be honest, I did see this coming because the changes are so immense, I knew it would have a major impact on our team. I’m so ready for a change though so will be looking forward to it. The proposed changes are the only thing that has really held me back from looking for another job and at least I know they are on the horizon.

The chat with my boss has really given me a spring my step today and I haven’t felt this good about my job in a long time.

I attempted to change my name in Twitter at the weekend and my whole account is borked. I’ve no idea if it was due to something I did or a bug over there. Either way, I got fed up waiting on the issues resolving themselves so created a new account. You can find me by clicking on the Tweets in the sidebar. I’m trying to add everyone back to my account but I can’t seem to find some of you, so feel free to hit the Follow button if you aren’t there anymore. Not that you are missing much…. Where do people find the time to keep up with social networks??

I was a total grump all weekend but fortunately for me I was alone so could wallow in it! Sometimes you need to go with the flow. I suspect it is probably the old PMS but I’m also feeling a tad restless. There are days when I just get so bored with the same old same old but there’s not much I can do to change it really. Those are the days when I want to be one of those wealthy ladies who dabbles in charity work before hitting the salon in the afternoons. I could do with some pampering! Sad thing is that kind of life would really bore me stupid!

It’s so darn hot here just now. Not liking it one bit. A lot of my colleagues are complaining about being sunburned but I really can’t muster any sympathy for them because it’s not like they haven’t heard about the dangers of sunbathing. I’m one of those pale skinned types in the “at risk” category so I stay out of the sun as much as I can. Besides, I don’t like the boiled lobster look.

I’ve decided to delete two of my most used email addresses because they are being spammed pretty heavily. One is my Gmail address and the other is my personal Blueyonder one which I tend not to use online anyway. Most of you will probably have a note of the ladycaledonia one at Gmail. I’m trying to update the address around the web but I’ll probably end up missing someone!

I’m not going to post my new address for obvious reasons but you will be able to pick it up when I leave comments on your blogs. In the meantime, if you send an email and you get no reply or it bounces, you’ll know why!

I went to see Nickelback last night and I enjoyed it more than I expected, although I had sore ears afterwards because there seemed to be a lot of distortion, especially from the the mics, and that just hurts my ears. I spent quite a few times with fingers pressed into my ears. It’s ages since I’ve been to the SECC and the last time I was there, I had standing tickets. Because of the whole ear trouble I have, I prefer seated areas so at least I know I will enjoy myself without feeling crowded in and without receiving a beer shower from twats.

The support band Black Stone Cherry started promptly at 7:30 and just seemed to be one big long noise for 40 minutes. They were definitely from the “we’ve got long hair so we’re going to throw our heads around so you can see how pretty it is” brigade. All their songs sounded the same to me and I couldn’t really make out what they were singing about so it was a relief when they finished. To be fair, the lead singer came back to sing Highway To Hell with Chad Kroeger later on and he was really good so maybe they just weren’t my cup of tea.

A round of pyrotechnics signalled the arrival of Nickelback at 8:30 and had us all jumping out of our seats with fright because the lights hadn’t even gone down. My introduction to the band happened at the first Bon Jovi gig I went to so I knew they were pretty good live even if I only knew one song. This time, I knew most of their songs but not well enough to sing along even if I had wanted to. Again, the mic distortion really spoiled it for me and what is with making the music so loud you drown out the singer? Not good.

The crowd down the front seemed to be really enjoying themselves and Chad was quite good at telling stories, although I felt his constant talk about getting laid and drunk was tiresome. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. You are a grown man, Chad, not a fourteen year old boy. (Actually that sort of describes the whole Dark Horse album.) He got away with a lot because his accent was so divine. Love me, some Canadian!

There was a walkway down the middle of the crowd and the guys performed a few songs there but the speakers were all down the front and it just seemed to sound so weird from the side where we were. I spent more time watching the slide show on the main stage than looking at the band. I’ve been to a few concerts where small stages are used for more intimate songs but I don’t think it works with Nickelback’s material and certainly not with Rockstar which probably got the biggest response of the night.

Chad did his best to get the crowd singing along, and the diehard fans probably were, but there was no huge effort to get everyone in the crowd to sing the songs back to them the way bigger bands do. I was surprised the majority of people stayed seated throughout the concert because I was expecting everyone to stand as soon as the band came on. You sorta felt obliged to stay seated out of courtesy to the people sitting behind you. Nearer the end, Chad finally got everyone in the seated areas to stand up but I felt it was a little too late and he should have had them out of their seats from the beginning.

The concert ended just shy of two hours but by the time you cut out all the chit chat, it was probably down to one hour and a half. My brother and I both thought it was quite short but then we are used to longer Bon Jovi concerts. While it wasn’t the worst concert I’ve ever been too, it wasn’t the best either but my brother really enjoyed it which is the main thing because he is a bigger fan that I am. In fact, I was sitting there wishing it was 30 Seconds To Mars who were about to come on!

As usual, no concert in Glasgow is complete without the “getting home” adventure and this was no exception. This time, there were no 3 mile hikes in the pouring rain but we did get trapped in the car park for nearly an hour. It is always, always a nightmare getting out of the SECC car park but last night just really took the biscuit. We were in the middle of the car park so we had a gridlock in front of us and behind us most of the hour. Once cars managed to get in the main flow of traffic, courtesy went out of the window, and no one would let any of the cars stuck in middle aisles out. Of course, you have to pay £5 for parking and there were only two ticket booths for hundreds of cars to pass through. Why the hell you can’t pay as you go in is beyond me! At the very least, there should have been officials directing traffic and making sure there was no gridlock but I guess that would’ve been too easy.

It was entertaining watching people wandering around the car park with the “where the hell is my car” look on their faces though.

So, another concert over. I told my brother last night that in a few years time, he won’t be able to go to concerts without taking the kids along. He started laughing since he was already dreading Miley Cyrus coming over. My niece is a huge Hannah Montana fan. We so need to work on the Bon Jovi brainwashing!