Be Excellent To Each Other

As a fellow sufferer, I can confidently say that sinister works in a university

...

I made a promise to myself over Christmas: No more Your Mum jokes in 2011.

*counts the days until 2012*

If I had replied I would have used something along the lines of finishing yours with a double top. Just so you know.

Heh, I think I'll keep this one all to myself

Well, I have got form

In that case, my hypothetical comeback to that would have had something to do with pool, "sinking balls", your Mum knowing how to handle a cue, and possibly everyone putting their 50ps down until it's their turn.

Er... fucking hell.

I work in an office block. The doors require security key fobs for entry. Being the NHS, the ratio of chicks to dudes is ridiculous so there are only like 15 guys on this floor.

Someone took a shit in the urinal.

What the fuck?!

Aside from all of the obvious wrongness and the door thing (it couldn't be a rogue chav from outside, besides we're on the fifth floor) it's also an odd move as the urinals are opposite a mirror so as soon as the door is opened, the very well-used corridor has a perfect view of said toilets so it's a gutsy move.

It's either;

someone in my department but they don't seem the type.

someone in IT but they seem like okay guys, I can't think of a candidate.

young, extremely camp guy who was the one who told me about it.

a cross-dresser who possibly uses the ladies bog.

a weird bodybuilder who does marathons all the time.

Probably him, but he's quite short so it might have been an awkward process.

I'm glad you text her Gazchap, I'd have recommended the same. I cancelled my first date with my girlfriend because I wanted to go out with my friends and I went out with a couple of other girls before we went on our first date, but while we were talking about. We've been together five years in February now though (she was one of the people in my dream last night )

[edit]At Blucey

What I do is very interesting to actually do, because of all the people I get to hear from, and all the details it involves. There are also many lovely people who only come to me frustrated, and I get to help them out and send them away a bit happier, which always makes a job better.

I am sure, however, that it is massively dull to hear about because even the simple things take about two minutes of background to make sense to any third party. I do student admin stuff for a university. A lot of it is fairly major stuff like making sure fees are accurate, awarding PhDs, helping people get visas, and trying to get the dozen or so different faculties and departments I work with to talk to each other, give accurate information to people, and not make mistakes that could cost us several million pounds in funding if an auditing body spots them.

I'm also trying to co-ordinate administration across about 12 different faculties, because the way things are done now is ridiculously patchy, and training in some of them seems to consist largely of throwing people in at the deep end and telling them to call me if they have any questions.

THere is nobody else here who knows how to half of what I do. I'd teach them, but I don't have time - I've asked for overtime so I can train them, and will ask again next week.

I like my job. It's because I like it and care about it that I get immensely frustrated by the staggering uselessness of a tiny, tiny number of people, who just happen to be in exactly the right places to make it about ten times harder than it should be. I just want to do my job, and if trusted to do it, would make things ocosiderably better for everyone, as well as saving us about at least a hundred thousand pounds a year, not counting the indirect benefits of not pissing off most of our students. But the worst thing you can do around an incompetent person is be good at what you do.

And my posting on here during work is directly proportional to how fed up I am of it on any given day

That is weird...was it there this morning, or has it just appeared? Maybe it was a cleaner? Or maybe someone planned it and put a sign on the door saying it was out of order?
The only real option you have is to set up a camera.

Hook me up, bredren.

Spoilsport

This could probably actually be done if I thought about how to do it for long enough. It'd take ages though, and probably a network of bribees.

Also you're intelligent and work hard. You could get a PhD if you did a bit of preparatory study and there was a subject you really wanted to research.

Edit: I should probably add that I can't actually literally award them - that's done by a fancy awarding body. I just make sure everything is in order and that there's no administrative/policy reason why a student shouldn't be awarded. I do get to read through reports on their exams, though, and some of them include details of their research in various reports. One examiner's formal, confidential comment on a PhD examination was on the quality of the sandwiches provided, which always makes me giggle.

I'm a crap student

Right?

I might possibly then have said how I have to lift yours up at one end to get my balls back out, remark about the stains on her tatty baise need a good scrubbing and how she helps me extend my reach up by letting me spread my fingers along her cushions.

"You can tell the professor that I've still got the photos of him and the Dean. I think I'll ask for one of those PhDs next year."

Can I be a Doctor of Drawing?

Not necessarily. You need to prove you understand research methods, and have a solid background of knowledge in a particular field (and usually a specific blade of grass within said field). Typically degrees are required, but there are always exceptions, particularly if you've already done a lot of independent academic work.

Havent you worked it out yet ? , *this* is the mental hospital - we're all patients in here

Me too. It's bloody annoying. I love learning, but hate studying. There doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it either, really.

It's kind of ironic, too, given that I've done jobs that require a degree, where I've learned more on the job than I would have learned in years of studying the same subject. Doing actual original history research was loads of fun. Studying research and archiving methods academically would have bored the tits off me.

If anybody wants to see the piece, it's now up online.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12134402

I don't suppose anyone has a FLV downloader they could fire up, grab the vid and send me the file, do they? There doesn't appear to be a free one available for OSX and none of the website versions I have tried work on the BBC site.

Well hello!

Hang on...

What about honorary PhDs, how do you get one of them?

Ask Gillian McKeith.

EDIt - oh, honorary, not fake. Right.

Do something worthy.

Or be a celebrity (all graduations have at least one headliner)

It's usually a combination of nobbing up to the right people and being politically expedient.

When I sold my Yaris I got a quote from the supplying garage, and WeBuyAnyCar. WeBuyAnyCar was £100 more, so I haggled the dealer up to that as I just wanted it offloaded quickly.

I have heard though that when you actually take it to a WeBuyAnyCar dealer that they start chaging their offer straight away. "ooh, there's a ding you didn't tell us about - minus £500. This car hasn't been washed - minus £500"

All the bananas

I've been quoted £3700 for the M5 from webuyanycar, £5k from a garage and I could probably get £6.5k private. It's entirely dependent on the car

Jen's parents sold their old car through We Buy Any Car or something like that, because the garage wouldn't give them as much as the website! Sure enough though, the guy turned up and started walking around the car, tutting and stating he'd need to deduct £100 here and another £100 here for various things. Jen's mum stood and let him do his whole act, taking notes and finally announcing he could only give them x amount of the actual offer. So Jen's mum said "Right, thanks for coming, we'll just keep it."
He'd travelled up on the train from Middlesborough or somewhere with the aim the drive their car back down and as soon as he realised she wasn't kidding he made a show of calling his boss and then came back and told them they'd get what they were originally offered.

Webuyanycar relies on people who NEED TO SELL QUICKLY to liquidise their asset. Same deal with the we buy your house for cash guys.

Vultures, basically.

Anyone know any good deals for Xbox Live subscription codes? I've decided I'm not paying £39.99 a year for it and will just let it revert to Silver when it runs out.

I have it now, resorted into firing up the windows box. I feel dirty.

£30 on amazon if you want a physical card to scratch. You might be able to get it a couple of quid cheaper on some of those sites that email you the code, but I don't know any off the top of my head
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000 ... ukdeals-21

I was about to start talking about that in the other bits and bobs but I forgot after I didn't get a reply, I think it got lost when the thread changed. There was a deal on the dashboard offering 12 months for £29.99 including a free Snoopy(?) game but I don't know if that's the best...?

Yeah, an emailed code is what I'm after.

Last time I needed one I did a search on the forum and found a result where someone said they had bought the code and got the email almost immediatly. I used them and got the same service but I didn't save the name. Oops.

Then could you examine that jobby in Blucey's karzi and see if you can tell us anything about the perpetrator?

The number of bananas awarded is two.

(OK, 802).

Send me £12.

Yeah, I'm not quite desperate enough to consider going down that avenue just yet. I've actually got the weekend of 22/23 entirely to myself, since the ex is taking Zioette on holiday and I *think* the missus is heading up to Wales to see her family, so I'll use that to borrow my parents pressure washer and steam cleaner and clean my car like it's never been cleaned before. Then get advertising it.

I'm quite pleased about this idea of doing this sooner rather than later, much as I'll miss my motor, since if I can sell it in time I won't need to put it through another service or renew the tax on it.

Might offer buyer some haggle room, mind you, depending on how much the VED is pa.


In other news: Stag weekend activities are paid for so all I need now is cash for beers, foods and wimmins.

So it turns out a tin of tuna mixed in with a tin of baked beans, a few choice herbs and a bit of chilli powder makes for a not entirely awful snack. Not entirely awful.

FTFM

All the "Live codes by email" seem to be around £30. That's a bit better.

Losers! Beans and tuna FTW! Have you never had it on a jacket potato? Next time you're buying a jacket potato from a shady street vendor, get one with beans on top. Then ask for a dollop of their tuna on top of that. They'll look at you like you've just slipped a turd into their breast pocket, but give it a try, it's amazing.

Jacket potatoes bought from anywhere are, without fail, fucking vile.

Also, you're incredibly likely to get sick from potatoes as minor knocks cause them to create what are, in effect, poisons, and the potatoes used at greasy spoons and such are never top notch.