Type.

Out of the blue, while in the pub, FP started talking about CC.

"Does she ever smile?" ask FP. CC and FP have met before and, as far as I can tell, get along quite well.

FP then went on to comment on her physical appearance. He described her as "plain". I showed him her Facebook picture which shows her as being very not plain. FP thought that CC looked like Sandra Bullock. I don't see the resemblance. And she has a great figure, but rarely displays it. I don't mean that in a bad way - just that she tends to dress in black, often with a high neck. Despite having a big chest, you'll rarely get any cleavage on show. She might actually be self-conscious about it.

I mentioned that she was single and told the story of her and S's date. Then FP asked the question that I'd been expecting since the conversation started...

"So how come you and CC haven't?"

"Well, she's really high maintenance" was my reply, "and I don't do high maintenance."

FP nodded.

"And I don't think she's the casual type," I added. "Though I'm fairly sure that KfW2 thought we might get together at one point."

"Shame that, given she only lives nearby."

"Yeah, that would be handy enough!"

I told FP that CC wasn't backwards in asking about blokes. After all, she's asked about both GM and S. She seems interested in plenty of people, but I don't think many actually translate into dates or anything.

I asked FP if he had any single mates. He did, but doesn't think they're a good match for CC.

"That's a fair point, I don't actually know what CC's type is"

"What's that look for?" asked FP.

"What look?" But FP knew I had mischief on the brain.

"Hey, CC, do you have a type?" I tapped into the phone and hit "Send".

That was 12 hours ago - no reply. I've probably scared the poor girl.

WoW!

I'm a member of Reddit - a website that collates all the good, bad and interesting things from the Internet into one place.

Whatever your hobby, lifestyle, or interests, you'll find something on Reddit to interest you. These are called "sub-Reddits" and each sub-Reddit is dedicated to a single topic.

It's like having lots of little forums all dedicated to your favourite topics. Your video game of choice? Yup, there'll be one.  What about my current favourite fitness regimes: DDP Yoga and Freeletics? Yup, they've both got sub-Reddits. Adult film star Jenni Lee? Yup, there's one about her.

Browsing recently and I came across someone claiming to be dressed as Wonder Woman. Women dressed as Wonder Woman are hot (in my experience), so I thought I'd take a look.

Well... all I can say is that lingerie hasn't had this effect on me in a long time. I've always been a fan of a simple, well-made underwear set rather than anything overly lacy or complicated, but this was different. And an entire sub-Reddit where mainly women post pictures of themselves feeling sexy. It can be very adult if you catch my drift.

(This is the same lingerie set, but not the same picture that was originally posted.)

Ho hum.

Meeting requests have come out for our annual performance reviews. Everyone has a 30 minute slot, except me. I get an hour. It's not rocket surgery to predict how the first round of this is going to go, is it?

I've not had a perfect year and mistakes were made. But mistakes were made under difficult circumstances outside of my control. IMO, you can only expect perfection under perfect conditions.

Let's see how this plays out.

Stop the press!

"Women off the telly that you love" is the topic on the (mainly male) forum. All the usual names are there, but someone new popped up.

Scottish TV sports broadcaster Eilidh Barbour

Brunette, short hair, likes sports. Mmmm...

Party on.

Years ago, after K and I had sex back in 2003 (I think?), we continued to converse. K was trying to initiate a relationship while I was trying to see if we could have a friends-with-benefits arrangement instead.

During these conversations, K admitted two things:

1) She had only slept with five people (not including me).
2) She claimed she was "pretty much a nymphomaniac"

Now, it might be just me, but those two claims seem to be at odds with each other.

Contrast that with an old colleague who, forgive my colourful language, couldn't get enough cock. I left that place to start in the company that currently employs me, but by the time I left, she'd slept with pretty much every single guy in the office. I worked there for a year, but the entire department was only 18 months old when I quit.

Work nights out were interesting. She would disappear shortly after hitting the bar and, more often than not, would leave with a bloke. On one occasion, once we'd finished dinner, she took a work colleague into the disabled toilets and didn't come out for over an hour. It was almost like the red mist would descend once she had a few drinks. Or should that be purple? Oh, how I amuse myself sometimes.

We were the only temps in the office, so we often chatted when all the permanent staff were called away for training etc. She was quite open with me - I've always found that people open up to me - and she admitted that it wasn't just work nights out that ended that way.

I'm not judgemental. If she wanted sex, then why not? During one of my last in-depth, one-to-one conversations with E, she admitted to sleeping with nearly 50 people. I'm all for people being upfront with what they want.

Where I was judgemental was the realisation that she was careless. From our chats, I deduced that she wasn't on the pill, nor did she carry condoms and relied on her "conquests" for contraception. If they didn't carry, then I don't know if it stopped her. And I don't think she'd ever been tested for STIs.

We lost touch after I left until I bumped into her in a bar about three years later. She was heavily pregnant and had no contact with the bump's father. A short while later, she added me on Facebook. She had found religion and had gotten engaged to a bloke from her new church. There was no trace of the party girl of old.

The reason for this trip down memory lane? The ex-party girl in question lives at the end of my street, as I only found out this morning.

No surprises.

Unsurprisingly, I never matched with Orlaith on the dating app (from this post). I am trying to remember which one it was. Tinder? Bumble? It doesn't matter.

Imagine my surprise when I saw the trailer for this programme, though: Beauty Queen and Single. Hmmm... I pondered. Was the dating app thing actually research for the programme or had she been unsuccessful and was actually trying the app for real?

Having done some further investigation, this might be an old programme? I can't tell. I rarely watch live TV these days - it's all Netflix for me.

But have some more Orlaith pictures anyway.

Small talk.

Years ago, long before I introduced them, KfW2 and S met at a wedding. I don't know how S knew the couple, but KfW2 worked with both of them.

By all accounts the wedding was a multi-day affair that was a complete party.

KfW2 has remained friendly with both people, though the female half of the couple has moved on, from an employment perspective.

This is all preamble to what happened today. I was collecting my niece from school today and collecting a smile from her teacher, but who was standing a few feet to my left? KfW2's (female) friend. We've only met once, and briefly (I'm more friendly with her husband), so she has no idea who I am/was. However, it appears that her son is in the same class as my niece.

Not the world's most shocking news, but an interesting coincidence nonetheless.

When KfW2 popped in earlier for tea and biscuits, I thought I'd share that story. She was nonplussed.

"I thought it'd be more interesting than that!" she explained.

"I thought it was. People usually complain when I don't share stuff like that cos I think it's unimportant."

And it was true. I often don't share small stories like that because I don't attach importance to them. Small talk is a weakness of mine. It's definitely something I need to work on.

Daydream

If it were one of those Disney movies that starred Lindsay Lohan from around 2003-ish, you might raise an eyebrow. For reasons that I might yet get into (I haven't decided if I am going to post about other goings on this past week), I wasn't in work today. As a result, I volunteered to go with my sister to pick up my niece from school.

She was delighted to see me. While she has always enjoyed my company, I sometimes got the feeling that I was a stopgap if her mum, or either of my parents weren't available. That's changed over the past few months though and she has been more willing to engage with me.

Today, when collecting my niece, she suddenly decided that it was VERY important that I met her teacher. Off we went, prancing around the playground while her teacher spoke to another parent. Eventually her teacher became free and I was introduced. It wasn't as awkward as I'd thought and the teacher is cute (though married), but I did immediately think back to those Lindsay Lohan Disney movies where kids set up their parents on dates etc.

My niece is too young to understand the dynamic of dating etc. so it wasn't remotely likely... it was just a little daydream.

Oh, hello!

I was reading through a forum of which I am a member, trying to summon the energy to tidy the house and jump in the shower, when I stumbled across a mention of Nina Nesbitt. I've never heard of her nor have I heard her songs before, but she is stunning!

And in the pictures below, rocks the wavy, short haircut I love on women.

Touchdown.

D was in contact on Friday morning with news.

His team and my team are due to play in the NFL in the UK later this year. My interest in the NFL has waned over the years, though I still nominally support the team from my youth. D's interest is more active.

This year, the annual Superbowl party is probably going to be cancelled for the first time in nearly 25 years because D is starting a new job and will be in the middle of training.

If we can get the tickets for the UK game, then that's something I definitely want to aim for.

Oh la la!

As I sat down earlier, I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. Someone new was going to sit near me.

It's a girl. A brunette. Slim... Oh! Nice bum!

Hang on, I recognise that haircut.

Quiet Girl!

She spent the past few hours presumably packing up her old desk and moving to her new desk which is about 3 metres away from me.

In a team meeting, we were told that she'd kinda be joining our team, but we never found out if I'd have direct interaction with her.

Regardless, she sits three metres away. I daresay that I can strike up a conversation with her. She's married, I think, but why not get to know her?

Sigh (part 3).

In a meeting about Friday's issue, someone piped up to say that the issue found was "untestable". That alone should be enough to get my manager off my back... if he's even going to get on my back. After all, if it can't be tested, it must be awkward to program, right?

Well, wrong. Kinda. The error is still mine, but it should have been caught by the testing department. Their assertion that the issue was untestable is nonsense. Had they done their job properly, then my mistake would (probably) have been found and everyone would be much happier.

My manager, while well aware of what's going on, has yet to say anything. I expect some kind of chat to happen sooner rather than later, and for the Finger of Blame to be pointed firmly at me before I need to put him in his place. Again.

I shouldn't have to. Nor do I want to. I work better with a manager who has my back, with whom I have a good relationship, who I feel listens to me and empathises with me. This is not the case currently.

Sigh (cont'd)

While the associated insomnia from the events detailed in Friday's post hasn't kicked in yet, they've  been on my mind pretty much all weekend.

I was able to put them aside briefly on Friday night because I did decide to meet GM, S etc. And a couple of hours yesterday as I concentrated on a video game, but other than that, I've been thinking about how to fix the problem and my bosses' reaction almost constantly.

I went to bed at 1 AM last night and awoke at 6 AM this morning. This was after a heavy night of booze on Friday, which always leaves me tired the next day. I'm expecting a serious night of insomnia despite being already sleep deprived.

That's a problem I've always had. I can't turn it off if it bothers* me. I'm bothered that this error was made and not found during the testing. I'm bothered that my manager is a very blame-y type of guy (and I have the impression that, despite having never met me, he doesn't like me).

As I said in the other post, there were a few errors that he tried to pin on me last year that had no right being attributed to me. But he did try. And when I refuted his claims with facts, he went silent. Does he still think they're my fault? I don't know. We're meant to have a monthly feedback session where he's meant to keep me appraised of my performance, but he's not done that at all this year, even when I've given him status updates.

I need a change of scenery. Whether that's time to move into a new role or take up something different, I've yet to figure out. Either way is not going to be a quick solution and will be hard work for several months. This current thought is purely down to my manager - the rest of my working life is mostly great.

*I say "bothers" because it does. I take pride in my work and I want to avoid as many mistakes as I possibly can, but any reasonable manager will know you can't expect perfection all of the time, especially with humans being involved. I am concerned about my manager's reaction given his tendency to over-react, but it's hardly job threatening.

Sigh.

While the timing of these things is never great, over the past twelve months, the amount of work "mistakes" that are reported to me as I'm leaving the office for the weekend or a few days' holiday is annoying.

It's not like I have lot of work mistakes - five over the past year, of which none are attributable solely to me - but my manager always makes a big deal of these, and his manager does likewise. This is the first, not just of 2017, but probably in the past five years, that can be reasonably attributed to me.

They're not a big deal - the nature of being a software developer these days means that you're likely to break something, but if you fix it quickly, then great. It's low impact (doesn't stop anything from working fully), can be worked around and doesn't happen often.

My manager will still act like I've burned down his house and I'll have to deal with this on Monday.

This week wasn't great, work-wise, but this is a terrible end to it.

Building momentum

It's been a slow week back at work and starting the year.

I've been busy in work without being productive due to fire-fighting a lot of ad-hoc issues. I'm still very sluggish at trying to shift this cold, and the cupboards are still full of Christmas treats that need to be eaten errr... disposed of before I can look into a more healthy eating plan. I'll have eaten, errr... disposed of the last of them by the weekend though.

So. Deep breath. Next week I'm hoping to at least take the first steps in losing weight and eating slightly better.

Socially, I was out for dinner last night with CC who's convinced that the soup, dumplings and sushi we had is "healthy". I mean, it's certainly probably better for you than my suggestion which was a chicken wing restaurant, but healthy per se? Plus chicken wings are great comfort food.

There was chat about heading out tonight for pints with GM, SG, FC and S. I don't know if I can be bothered - there's some sport on the telly I want to watch and I'm trying to shift this cold as well - but at the same time, I'd like to catch up with the guys. I'll undoubtedly feel better after I get home and have a shower. I'll decide then.

KfW2 is still ill. I've not seen her in over three weeks which, pregnancy aside, is probably the longest we've gone since we became friends. We've spoken on the phone and swapped text messages, but it's not the same and I kinda miss her a little.

Last night.

OK, so by the time midnight rolled round, I was kinda regretting turning down SG and GM. Not hugely so, mind you, far less than I was expecting.

But I guess it would have been nice to have been more social over the Christmas period, but my own illness, as well as KfW2's meant that we didn't get to see each other. There was only one night out with FP.

In Whatsapp messages earlier, either GM or SG admitted that they were tucked up in bed at 10 PM. So I wonder if I dodged a SG flaky bullet there?

Still New Year and all that, time to make new plans. I'm meeting CC later this week for dinner. She offered last week, but I was still feeling sorry for myself with the cold and was hibernating to try and get rid of it ASAP.

I'm overdue a night out with KfW2. We've not had one in nearly nine months though she's managed to find time to be out with CC, amongst others, for dinner, spa days etc. Sometimes I feel that because her kids love me and we get along, she keeps me aside for kiddy play dates. CC, for example, "does not do kids".

That's something to arrange, starting within the next few days.

It's 2018

Happy New Year, all!

Nothing more to say right now. More to come...