Plenty of money to burn…

About a week later and a chance to reflect on the things that were exciting me in my last blog post.

I bought the Xbox. I decided to go for the deal that included Call of Duty 4, Fight Night 4 and Tiger Woods 2010. I’d gone in a few days previous to have some over eager employee attempt to convince to wait a while and get the ‘super’ Elite – a 250gb model – that came with the new Call of Duty or the new Forza. I let him down gently by explaining I hadn’t got the money yet, so when it came to going to buy the console I gave that guy a wide berth and just went straight to the till. Apparently Call of Duty was sold out, and the other games in the bundle deal (Halo 3, GTA 4) were of no interest to me, so i threatened to just walk out and go somewhere else, but they offered me the console with just the two games.

The noisiness of the Xbox 360 came flooding back after the almost complete silence I get from my PS3, but otherwise it was as you were. Now when a game comes out for just the one console, I can get it! This of course refers to the Xbox exclusive Grand Theft Auto games, as well as possibly Crackdown 2 when it comes out. On the flipside of the coin, I also won’t miss out when Heavy Rain comes out for the Playstation 3. Oh to have the luxury of choice! The Xbox also sits neatly under my telly, the blackness of the Elite fitting in well with my DVD player.

Aside from the console buying excessiveness, it’s been a good week. I went to Goose Fair with my parents and sister on Wednesday, about half an hour before it was officially open – so it was dead quiet. By the time we left at 7pm, it had got a hell of a lot busier. We also got a glimpse of celebrity weatherman Des Coleman! Yes!

On Thursday, it was the ‘work lunch’. It was a good idea to get to know my team better, though in the month i’ve been working there I feel i’ve got to know everyone pretty well. Even so, anything to feel part of the ‘gang’ is fine by me – and what a place to have dinner. Savai restaurant is across the road from us, in the part of Nottingham that I imagine never gets too busy, nevertheless it seems pretty popular, and my sister seems to know of its popularity. With it being a pizzeria, it had to be a pizza that I ordered. Only £7 and it was massive. A Tropicale (Ham & Pineapple!) was a great choice. Sadly,  I seemed to eating a lot faster than my workmates, it wasn’t a surprise to me – what with my history of being a fat bastard and that – but I didn’t want to look too greedy in front of them! I did manage to slow down towards the end, but it was such good pizza that greed got the better of me…

I mildly annoyed that I seem to have forgotten how to sleep in. I went to bed at 1AM last night, but I still woke up at 7.30 this morning! It seems that i’ve gotten used to being an early riser. Damn my adaptability!!

Joining the Elite

It’s been four weeks since I started my new job at the ILF, i know it’s been that amount of time because I received my payslip the other day!

So, a month of hard work (!) and I get rewarded with £50 short of a grand. It was very pleasing to be given that on Friday, shame I won’t get it deposited into my account until Wednesday – last day of September and that – but i’ve earmarked the money already. Bills are most important, as is board of course, but i’m rewarding myself with a big fat treat. I’m going to buy an Xbox 360 Elite.

Iain is to blame, he showed me a game or two on his Xbox last weekend. There’s also the redesigned Xbox Live and the fact that Iain is planning on getting Call of Duty 4 and playing it online. The best thing about that game is the multiplayer, i’d love to get in on the action! I only ever got rid of my 360 in the first place because of what I believed it did to my games. I had Assassins Creed and was annoyed that the 360 scratched it so badly that it wouldn’t load. I was furious. It also did a similar thing to my copy of Burnout Paradise.

What with the release of Grand Theft Auto 4 just around the corner, I decided to trade it all in for a PS3 and be sure that no disc-scratching antics would happen on my new console. A good while after I’d done all this I found out the reason as to why the 360 scratched up the discs so badly. I’d changed the way I had my 360 standing, from horizontal to vertical. Apparently the 360 has a hard time reading the discs properly when it’s on its side, so it scratches them. I’m not entirely sure how or why, but here I was blaming my console for ruining the games when all along I was to blame.

By this point I’d had my PS3 and was happy with it, and still am! It’s just that I miss the 360, have more friends on Xbox Live than on the PSN, and am now in a position to spunk £200 on a new toy!

Back to my new job, I’m happy that I’ve made a good enough impression on them. My one to one meeting went well, my team (all 5 of them!) seem happy enough with how well i’m doing and how well i have adapted. I just need to keep this up so when it comes to the end of my contract, they renew it rather than pass. The one major obstacle in my path its the likely change of government next year. David Cameron isn’t a great fan of these offshoots of the DWP like us, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens next year. What hasn’t helped the ILF at all is what was reported in the Sunday Times the other week. Oh dear…!

Big week this week, getting paid, Goose Fair is on, a ‘working lunch’ on Thursday where all of our team go to the local Italian restaurant for a bite to eat and the likely purchase of a new console. Yay!