Best Laid Schemes...

Round about this time last week, after much humming and hawing I invested in a new wide angle lens for my camera. My justification of its purchase went like this - its something I will use a lot in Utah especially with the magnificance of Zion National Park and Moab just a few hours away from my doorstep, but although its mostly ideal for landscapes it will, if used creatively, allow for some interesting portrait work and in a couple of weeks I will have the ideal practice model for that (shh she doesn't actually know that yet). I was also able to get it at a good price, £40 cheaper than I would be able to get it in the US. But the main reason for getting it now was that with just two weeks left I wanted to take a few more images of Glasgow, Edinburgh and some of my favourite haunts in Scotland in ways that I had been unable to do so until now.
Of course I didn't realise that Monday was going to be the start of a week of hell. I woke today thinking it was Friday, in fact I'm still pretty much convinced it is only the world seems to be trying to tell me its not. Truth is I'm so disorientated after spending 4 days hanging onto the edge of the toilet like it was my best friend holding me back from the abysss I'm not exactly sure of very much at all. The week started so well, I got paid, thats always nice.
I used the proceeds to buy the lens, and I had just over 2 weeks before Vegas. Then I went to work on Sunday and everything just went wrong frome there on in. French fuck ran off home within half an hour of my arrival, leaving me to deal with the customers myself the rest of the night, which turned out to be 65 tables, which tends to be the number we get on a Friday when there is generally 3 of us to deal with it. Not so much fun yourself. Luckily for me the customers were more than understanding that I had been left in the shit and for the most part realised I could only run in one direction at once. But it was still fun, made even more fun when at the end of the night it was discovered that someone had been sick all over the toilet. When I say all over the toilet let me clarify. I mean all over the floor, the walls, the door, underneath the toilet, but not actually in the toilet itself. Now normally I can deal with sick pretty well, I may bitch and moan about but when my collegues can't handle it I tend to just roll up my sleeves and get on with the act of cleaning it up but this time around the smell was particularly vile. I had to keep coming out for air. Finally I got it finished and made it home. On Monday although I didn't feel too great I made it into work and was thankful for the fact that I didn't have any runaway collegues. Especially when although it wasn't a busy night it seemed to be that the residents of Edinburgh Zoo was making a special one off visit.
Tuesday was the day that I discovered the sick on Sunday night must have been the toxic Chenobyl variety because within hours of getting to my bed I was hanging onto the toilet again and again and again. By Thursday I couldn't take anymore. I was having delusions that the toilet had ears. I was in tears, begging for it have mercy and leave me alone.
When you start having conversations with inanimate toilet seats you realise you may have completely lost the plot. As well as losing the plot I have lost a week. I may as well have held off buying that lens because I didn't have the time to take any pictures. och well I can just chalk that one off and quoter Robert Burns "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, gang aft agley."
But I still have items to sell/or otherwise get rid of, hotel tickets to buy and a number of other things to take care of before the 3rd of March and still cannot stand the smell of Polish sausage in the fridge. Finally though, I am no longer trying to reinact the toilet scene in the film Trainspotting. But I did make the mistake of eating some fruit to make up for the 6 days I hadn't. As a result, the toilet is still my friend for a totally new reason. It's fun I tell you.
At least I was able to get out and about and get some fresh air. I just couldn't fathom why a Rangers supporter was decked out in full Rangers gear when there are no football games on a Friday. I might have had a bad week but at least I knew what day it was - someone should tell this guy I thought to myself. And then I saw another one, and another, and another. Ok so its Saturday. But it feels like Friday, how can it be Saturday? Is it not enough I've lost a week, I had to lose a day too?
Anyway the good news just 11 more days until its Feva Las Vegas time. For some reason I have the music Of West Side Story playing in my head now.

Listening to: America - West Side Story....Argh take it away!!!

Sometimes - Ignorance Is Bliss

A good 18 months before falling in love with a beautiful Chilean woman I worked, for a short period, with a Chilean guy. Manuel (his real name was Miguel but for some reason a few of us decided to give him a new nickname and settled on the Spanish waiter from Fawlty Towers as our inspiration) and I, had one thing in common in that we both loved music to such an extent we both had thousands of tracks we could share with one another. I had a large collection of European, African and Antipodean music whilst he had a mostly Spanish speaking music that up until that point I didn't have access to. The job that we were doing together was the most boring job you can imagine but it did have one saving grace in that we able to listen to a lot of music and during that time I discovered that I really liked some of the Puerto Rican, Columbian and Chilean music which seemed upbeat and lively but Mexican music in contrast I just couldn't get into at all. Even as a non Spanish speaking person it just sounded too damn depressing.
It didn't help the case when Manuel described Mexican music mostly being songs where the singer sung about something they had lost whether that was their girlfriend, their wife, their horse, their dog or even a bottle of tequila depened on the song. Now as a non Spanish speaker I had no idea whether he was generalising or just joking but judging by the sound of his Mexican music collection it seemed somewhat plausible.
But they was one Mexican song that I liked (see Below) because to my uneducated ears it sounded like a love song.
Most Spanish music that I like is a little too fast for me to keep up with for me to sing along to but this song is just about slow enough for me to do just that. The fact I didn't really have a clue what was being said didn't do anything to diminish my enjoyment of it. Lately I've found myself trying, and failing badly, to learn Spanish so I thought I would look up the lyrics to Y Me Quede Suspirando by Duelo on babelfish.
Ah. Yeah.
I'm now thinking that even though it is a love song, of sorts, that maybe Manuel wasn't just playing with our ignorance when he described Mexican music. Maybe, just maybe he was telling the truth.

Listening to: Y Me Quede Suspirando - Duelo

Sometimes Winter Just Drags & Drags....

So its nice to see some signs of Spring - even if it is manufactured in a glasshouse.

Listening to: Le Ziguezon Zinzon - La Bottine Souriante. I was once reprimanded for not having enough Canadian acts amongst my music lists. Well, La Bottine Souriante are from Quebec (close enough?) and ever so slightly crazy, cooky and weird in their musical influences but this song is infectious, even if it does take some practice to keep up.

I Can't Help Thinking I Wouldn't Be So Calm...

...If I had a monkey sitting on my groin area.

Would You Get Your Hair Cut At....

As found off Great Western Road. A short 5 minute walk to Glasgow University - hmmm. Although I should say it was me that got the strange look for stopping to take a picture in the dark, cold night.

Listening to Things Come and Go - Mya

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It....Umm Go

Yesterday this was the scene around town
And now after just one day its gone again.