Things that cheer you up

[deathrey]

56 minutes ago, Wretch said:

On annual leave from tomorrow, but otherwise I would’ve been working on Christmas Day. When I worked in retail, I’d only have Christmas Eve and day off then back in Boxing Day. I’ve never worked in a job where I’ve broken up for a fortnight, or even longer, over Christmas. Do you not get bored after a bit? 

No, not at all. I can't wait. I love my job but would happily not go back at all if I could afford it.

[Lorne Malvo]

1 hour ago, Wretch said:

 Do you not get bored after a bit? 

I could have a year off and not get bored. Roll on retirement!

[BomberPat]

yeah, if I could stop working tomorrow I absolutely would. There's far better uses of my time than pushing buttons in an office.

I'm finishing at lunchtime today, and then that's me until the new year. There's a lot of things to dislike about my job, but getting a decent amount of time off over Christmas is a perk I'll not take for granted after years of not getting it.

I worked for around three years for a mail order company that got super busy at Christmas, and you weren't allowed to take time off in December at all, and worked up until the afternoon of Christmas Eve, and back in on the 27th. Before that I was in a petrol station where, again, you worked til Christmas Eve, and the only reason I never ended up stuck with the Boxing Day shift (on your own the entire day) is because the buses didn't run that day and I lived furthest away - one of my colleagues there told me that he once watched the entire Lord Of The Rings trilogy between customers.

[Tamura]

Heard last night my nemesis at work has just received a letter wishing him well with his future endeavours from 2 January. Normally I wouldn't celebrate anyone losing their job, but this guy was just totally useless. I have to waste at least an hour every day I'm at work documenting his fuck-ups and fixing them. He's got absolutely no organsations skills at all, and the only reason he was still here was to help deal with the xmas rush.

I finish work at 7:30am on Sunday morning then back in xmas eve at 10:00 to work through to 7:00 on xmas day, followed by a couple more days off. There won't be much work to do, and I'm quite happy to take 2.5x the normal hourly rate to go through the motions, as it'll pay for a new tattoo I'm getting in January.

[Devon Malcolm]

Money's Too Tight to Mention just came on in the Co-Op.

"But D-Mal!" I hear you all cry, "Isn't that a song by Simply Red? That can't have cheered you up!"

In isolation, no. But it reminded me of this, and that did:-

 

[Devon Malcolm]

Somebody leaked Charli xcx's Letterboxd and she gave Crank 5 stars.

[Chest Rockwell]

Making different sandwiches every day at the moment with leftover Christmas cheeses. So good! I don't buy random cheeses in nearly enough as I should, is the revelation that I've had..

[SuperBacon]

14 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said:

Making different sandwiches every day at the moment with leftover Christmas cheeses. So good! I don't buy random cheeses in nearly enough as I should, is the revelation that I've had..

I set up the Sarnie thread for a reason. Use it and show pics!

[Carbomb]

During lockdown, I learned to play the mandolin; was gifted a cheap, old one that a musician friend was getting rid of, so I figured I'd take advantage of all that free time to finally get good at a musical instrument.

Four years on, I'm not doing badly - am not a virtuoso or anything, but can play some reels, jigs, and a few accompanied songs. Been messing around with ornamentation recently as well.

Anyway, I've been told by various musician friends (including the one who gave me the original cheapo mandolin) that my playing's got to the point where the quality of the instrument is going to hamper my improvement - I love my old instrument, but I do have to fight it to get a good sound out of it now. Also, I'm left-handed, and it's a right-handed instrument that's just been re-strung to be left-handed, so the sound isn't the best it could be.

Made a decision that, instead of just getting an instrument the next level up and losing value every time I "trade up", I would just pay the money to get a really good, high-quality (and purpose-built left-handed) one instead. So many people recommended a handcrafted one from Paul Hathway (and most of those people have one from him), so I saved up the cash for the past few months.

Went and picked it up from his workshop yesterday, and it's a beautiful instrument.

I've just spent the most of this afternoon practising on it, including some new tunes. Couldn't be more pleased. Tips of my fretting fingers are red-raw, but I don't mind.

[wordsfromlee]

52 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

During lockdown, I learned to play the mandolin; was gifted a cheap, old one that a musician friend was getting rid of, so I figured I'd take advantage of all that free time to finally get good at a musical instrument.

Four years on, I'm not doing badly - am not a virtuoso or anything, but can play some reels, jigs, and a few accompanied songs. Been messing around with ornamentation recently as well.

Anyway, I've been told by various musician friends (including the one who gave me the original cheapo mandolin) that my playing's got to the point where the quality of the instrument is going to hamper my improvement - I love my old instrument, but I do have to fight it to get a good sound out of it now. Also, I'm left-handed, and it's a right-handed instrument that's just been re-strung to be left-handed, so the sound isn't the best it could be.

Made a decision that, instead of just getting an instrument the next level up and losing value every time I "trade up", I would just pay the money to get a really good, high-quality (and purpose-built left-handed) one instead. So many people recommended a handcrafted one from Paul Hathway (and most of those people have one from him), so I saved up the cash for the past few months.

Went and picked it up from his workshop yesterday, and it's a beautiful instrument.

I've just spent the most of this afternoon practising on it, including some new tunes. Couldn't be more pleased. Tips of my fretting fingers are red-raw, but I don't mind.

I've never tried building a mandolin before as I reckon they'd be too small and fiddly for me but it looks like a lovely built instrument. I hope it serves you well.

[Jazzy G]

On 12/21/2024 at 12:37 PM, Devon Malcolm said:

Money's Too Tight to Mention just came on in the Co-Op.

"But D-Mal!" I hear you all cry, "Isn't that a song by Simply Red? That can't have cheered you up!"

In isolation, no. But it reminded me of this, and that did:-

 

"I think you'll find that it is fanny, Mark." 

My favourite one of these is when the song with the missing word is Don't Marry Her by the Beautiful South. 

 

My mum got me a ticket to an evening with Mark & Lard at the Lowry in a couple of weeks and I can't wait. 

I'm also slowly making my way through somebody's 8 hour supercut of all the Lard's Classic Cuts. 

[Carbomb]

5 hours ago, wordsfromlee said:

I've never tried building a mandolin before as I reckon they'd be too small and fiddly for me but it looks like a lovely built instrument. I hope it serves you well.

Thanks! The guy had a regular mandolin and a large-body one - I opted for the latter, as it has a fuller sound.

I also bought an octave mandolin last year (larger and an octave lower than a mandolin, more like a bouzouki), which I got for a discount as it was factory-damaged. Beautiful instrument, but yet another right-hander strung left - but unfortunately, the sound just isn't right. Going to have to pay some cash to get it properly re-worked and set up, so will have to wait to play it properly. In the meantime, I have my gorgeous new instrument to play, and I couldn't be more delighted with it.

[BomberPat]

The missing word in Don't Marry Her is fuck, though. So you can't really do that Blankety Blank double entendre stuff.

It's only the radio edit that has "have me", and "Sandra Bullocks". A rare case of the radio edit being much better than the album track.

[SuperBacon]

13 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

A rare case of the radio edit being much better than the album track.

100%. The original is really jarring.

[johnnyboy]

23 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

100%. The original is really jarring.

My mum liked that song, having heard it on the radio and I think it was played a lot on VH-1 at the time.  I bought her the album as a present, which I obviously didn't break the shrink wrap on to listen to first.  At least she thought being bought a sweary album by her then teenage son was hilarious.