Inside the Head of a TV Junkie

Leon Jackson is the winner of X Factor 4.  He’s from Scotland and I have included two video clips for your enjoyment.

His single in the UK now…

A coworker passed the citizenship test on Monday. Today we had a “It’s great to be an American” party at work. Does that violate some sort of law? Hmmm.

I’ve only known one other person to take the test, and that was back in college. He was from England and took it along with everyone in his family. He told us that they used to have quiz nights at home on all the types of questions they would ask on the test. A completely different take on family game night.

Congratulations to all the new Americans out there.

According to Google, the temperature in PHX at 1:30pm on 4/29/08 was 104F! WHAT!? Where are they getting this temperature reading? I will have to watch the news this evening to see what the official reading is from the airport. If this holds true, yikes!!

Today, Starbucks and my iPhone saved the day. I was at lunch when my friend Erin called me from the airport. It seems that she left her itinerary information for her business trip at the office. She was left with a dead battery in her work notebook and needed some assistance gaining access to her Expedia account.

Lucky for her, I was making a pit stop on my way back to the office at Starbucks. I was sitting using my iPhone on my T-Mobile HotSpot account. Had I been using the EDGE network, I wouldn’t have been able to chat and surf at the same time. A few mins after she called, I has retrieved the information she needed and the day was saved.

**By the way, this is post #400 for this blog. Thanks for reading!

Two things that are driving me crazy at work right now…

We got a new phone system and now people are able to choose how they want their phones to ring. Instead of having a uniform ringer sound throughout the office and all around me, I have to deal with 8 or 10 different rings now. I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal, but wow! Slightly annoyed.

People go to meetings that can last 2 hours or longer here. This is not uncommon. These people also own cell phones. They have them on vibrate at their desks because it’s not allowed to ring while at the office. That’s the good part. The bad part? They leave these phones on their desks or in their metal drawers when they go to these meetings. I’m constantly berated by loud vibration sounds in the metal drawer or on the top of the desk as the phone dances about. It wouldn’t be so bad if some of these people weren’t uber popular or had significant others/friends that can’t take the hint that they may be working at work and call every 10 minutes. Yikes!

Okay, here’s the one thing that I hate coming back from vacation… going back to work! Now, I know you are probably thinking, “of course, who wants to ever go back to work.” The problem isn’t actually going to work, it’s the email! Oh the emails I had waiting… out of control! I had over 200 emails waiting for me. My biggest issue with vacation emails is that I’m never cc’d on the follow up email that someone sends to my backup when they realize that I’m out of the office. I spend half my day trying to find out if the issue that was first presented to me was taken care of or not. Anyway, next time I go on vacation I am going to make sure that I request to be cc’d on any communication with my backup. Hopefully people will remember and coming back from vacation will be just a bit less painful.

Other than my emails, coming back to work hasn’t been so bad. I’m glad that I had a break from the daily grind. Now, let’s just hope this week ends quickly.

So let me just preface this post by saying that we were SHOCKED when we first saw this ad on Irish TV. This came on after 9pm on the free basic TV station. I’m sure young children would not be watching at that time but still, yikes! In my opinion, this is how PSAs should be made. If they aren’t shocking and memorable, what’s the point?!

So the town that I’m staying at here in Ireland doesn’t have many free internet places or even an internet cafe. I have been relegated to only using the internet at my friend Marcella’s parent’s house. I don’t want to sit there being anti-social so I’ve done no emailing or blogging! I’ve been going through massive withdrawal symptoms. Last night, Paula and I were at one of the “cheeriest pubs in all of Mullingar” named Canton Casey’s. We met this Scot and his Irish friend and I mentioned my internet issues. They both suggested that we head on over to the Annebrook House Hotel, sit in their lounge and order a drink. The hotel offers free internet. This is where I’m writing this post now. It’s 1:06 in the afternoon. Paula’s writing her postcards that we’ll post on our way to lunch drinking a coffee. I’m sitting here, going through my important emails, writing this blog post and drinking a Guinness. OMG, the Guinness is so good and I’m going to be missing it something horrible when I get back to the states.

There will be a few more posts about my trips here in Ireland in the coming days. Pictures galore and more stories than you can shake a stick at. If you’re interested, please return and to read them. We leave for home tomorrow and I’m kind of bummed. We’ve had great luck with the weather and I’m most definitely not looking forward to going back to work. For now, enjoy the three photos below. Slán agat (Irish for goodbye).

Since I’m on my way to Ireland today, I thought it was appropriate to make this Friday’s song an Irish band.  Maybe you’ve heard of them?

Beautiful Day - U218 Singles - U2

Last night was the CMT Music Video Awards.  I love country music award shows.  They do a hell of a lot more singing than any other music award show.  I love that.  Stop talking.  It’s a music award show for crying out loud.  Anyway, the winner for Video of the Year was Taylor Swift for “Our Song.”  See the video below.

Below, you can see my favorite video of the evening.  This is Sugarland’s “Stay.”