What have I been up to the past week or so? Well I have got gradually more lazy with each passing day. As someone that thrives on routine, the lack of it is causing me to head in a downward spiral to nowhere. I have had a few interviews but so far little feedback. Aside from this, I get up late, apply for jobs until around 1pm, then head off to watch some television (usually Working Lunch) and have some food. I then tend to have an extended afternoon nap before returning to the PC to apply for more jobs before the day turns into evening. The return of my Mum and sister from school gives me some company in the evening and then it is a case of dinner, television and then wasting away the evening, either blogging (yes the backlog from August is still being worked on) or catching the odd television show. The week began with much promise and I actually found myself back in West Berkshire. Having an interview in the afternoon put me into a strange mood, personally I would prefer to get it out of the way first thing in the morning. I got up early and headed into town to get my haircut and try and post a letter by recorded delivery. The queue at the Post Office, inside the the rather empty Chilterns Shopping Centre was too long so I thought I would come back after getting my haircut. The queue had not reduced as I returned through, so I headed back to the bus stop and caught my bus home, the letter could wait. Back at home, I had some lunch before getting ready. I then went through my notes once again before heading out on the road at 2pm. It felt very strange driving back to Newbury. A surreal feeling, not helped by all the roadworks that had started in The Broadway, by the Clocktower. I had plenty of time to kill, so I headed to Tesco Metro, the place I would buy lunch most days in the week and bought some Extra chewing gum before heading back up Northbrook Street to the office for my interview. It ended almost as soon as it had started and I was making my way back to the car in the afternoon sunshine, wondering where the next opportunity was going to be coming from. When I got home, I realised that the next opportunity was not too far away, I had my next interview for another job on Wednesday morning. You may call me foolish for walking out on a very good job with a highly respected employer but sometimes your happiness has to come first. I have tried to listen to Richard Bacon in the evening as much as possible, although sometimes I am on the computer beyond 1am (every day is a Friday to me!) and miss the show. I listened on Monday evening because I had been pre-warned via his Twitter feed that he was presenting the show from his house. It was onlylater that I realised that there was also another reason from this OB (outside broadcast). If I am honest, I have not caught the show on a regular basis up to 1am (Up All Night) as I have been too tired and the fact that I was hitting the gym from April onwards at an inside hour, meant I was usually dozed off around midnight (if not before). The last show I caught before my current unemployment status was back in mid March. However, even for this prestigious edition of the show, I fell asleep, so promised myself I would download the podcast, which I will listen to later tonight before I head to sleep. Now, if I had my Squeezebox Server sorted out, I could just stream the pod cast using the BBC iPlayer or Alien BBC plugin. However, I have had some technical difficulties. The new version of Squeezebox Centre (now called Squeezebox Server) was released a while back (end of September) but after a discussion with MightyMouse I was advised to wait until the repositories for linux were updated, rather than attempting my own manual installation. Not something for a beginner to attempt blind. Well I thought I would kill two birds with one stone. Upgrade the operating system Ubunutu from 9.04 to 9.10 (code named Karmic Koala) and then remove Squeezecentre and install Squeezebox Server. After reading a rather interesting article by Rory Cellan-Jones (whom I also follow on Twitter). I finally took the plunge on Thursday night but it took a good two hours to download the 337 megabyte update and then a further thirty minutes to apply the update. Once this was done, I had to get on with the next job, installing Squeezebox Server, but I think I will leave that until Saturday evening. Today, after a rather lazy start (I got up around 9.30am) I actually decided to get quite a few jobs done. I went into town with my sister Natalie, in the afternoon (we pulled through the Eden car park barrier at 15:22. The main objective was finally completed. A RTS (Return To Sender). Yes, some would wonder whether it was worth the expense, but for me, it is more the satisfaction. Although Richard at WHSmith was not happy with having to do “another one” and it took a good thirty minutes in the store to get all the paperwork completed and having the package finally locked away for collection tomorrow. I also went to the library and returned the book, In At The Death (the concluding part of the Settling Accounts Tetralogy) by master of Alternative History Harry Turtledove. I only read around thirty pages of the novel but I was not enjoying it. A shame because I really want to get into this genre, perhaps I should start with The Two Georges, a novel I feel I should order from Amazon as I am unlikely to find it in any local library any time soon. I spent a bit of time browsing the shelves, Clive’s 25 book list in hand but with no luck. I then asked a member of staff if they had a classic section. For the record, when I had asked this same question a few days after the library opened in June last year, I was given a negative response. Things had changed in the past fifteen months. A shelf now existing with most of the books I was looking for. I picked Guilvers Travels by Jonathan Swift. (It had been second choice to Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan). Hopefully I will find time to start reading it over the weekend. What are my plans for the weekend? Well there is there little point of a North London derby at 12:45pm, then I will most likely go and meet friends in Reading for the afternoon. I aim to be back in time for Harry Hill’s TV Burp (absolutely compulsive viewing, I am surprised I did not start watching it sooner). Followed by The X Factor of course and then later MOTD. On Sunday, I am finally going to see This Is It. Why so late Teg? Well, due to previous arranged plans, my friend was going to be out of the country until Sunday afternoon and we were going to head to the O2 to watch the movie there. Originally I had been skeptical of going all the way to North Greenwich to watch the movie but my friend convinced with me a few well chosen words, “Teg, if we are going to do it, let’s do it right!”. Yes, I know I could have gone to see the movie, like Pav (or even with Pav) on Wednesday evening at 19:15 to watch it in Screen 4 at Vue Reading. However, is this my average blockbuster? Is this just another popcorn movie that I will forget the following week? No, this is a moment in my life. A moment to enjoy not just the moment but an idea of what could have been.