I do not take games of pool too seriously. football on the other hand is a different matter, I’ll happily kick players all over the pitch in order to get those points at the end of the game. But pool is just something I play and don’t get upset at losing and am very gracious when victorious.

Last night I played against a rather drunk and obnoxious prick who insisted on trying (and he succeeded almost everytime) in putting me off my shots and when he defeated me instead of shaking my hand he started shouting at the top of his voice and running around the table like a four-year old child would when beating their dad at a game of snap.

I merely smiled and sat down.

He continued to annoy me as he then took Reiss’ full pint of cider and spilt half of it on the floor (we did not know he had taken it until later). He also ordered 8 sambuca shots and dropped two of them on the floor.

When Reiss went to the toilet I almost got into an arguement with the drunk as he wanted to put his bag, that was now covered in stolen cider and sambuca, onto my jacket and got angry when I refused to let him.

He annoyed Reiss as well so much so that his group were ordered to the other side of the pub out of our way to avoid them taking a kicking and me messing up a very nice pub.

We were booted out at about 11pm as there was nobody in the place, we ended up in the Old Queen’s Head where Reiss got talking to an Aussie guy and after years of denial he finally admited that Dani could not stand me!

I knew it, I bloody knew it!

I needed to get out of the house so I made a stupid decision to do a bit of shopping, after all how many people would be out on Christmas Eve? Not many I had argued to myself.

I was walking past a Woolworths when I decided to peak in the door and what I saw was quite a sight. There was practically nothing left on the shelves and what was left was being picked over like vultures picking animal bones clean.

Despite the crowds (and having to spend a whopping 90 minutes in a queue in a shop) I managed to fight the urge to kill by going into several pubs for a swift pint. Go into one shop then head into a pub, I felt this was a fair deal.

One thing I dislike about Christmas is that both my family and my dad’s family (The Maltese Side Of The Family as I call them) come to see us. I spend most of the year avoiding these people so why do they think I want to see them on Christmas Eve?

I decided to seek refuge in The Victory but only had a couple in there before they kicked everyone out at about 4:30pm so I went and camped in The Hare until Reiss came in at about 7pm.

I’d put away quite a few by the time Reiss turned up and he had a combination of jealousy and pride on his face as we headed into Angel. We went to a pub where we had some absolutely scrummy cider (Reiss’ boast about this place serving the best cider in London seemed bang on).

The barmaid took a real shine to Reiss, at one point she came over with a bottle of wine that she wanted him to open but he was on the fruit machine. I offered to do it and she looked at me like I had just asked her to perform a sexual act on me in front of the rest of the pub.

I do not remember much after this as the rest of the night is sort of hazy. I remember going into The Mucky Pup but that is about it. It is weird when you wake up in the morning in your own bed and you can not remember for the live of me how you got home.

These normally scare me as it means I’ve done something the night before but Reiss told me I was my normal self which I’m guessing is a good thing. No scratching women or trying to batter parked cars or random members of the public.

Result!

My brother walked out of work yesterday, our mum is ill and was taken to hospital but to be honest he would have walked out of the job if she was at home with a slight case of the sniffles. Anything to get him out of work.

I got home and found that my flat was absolutely spotless, at first I thought I had been burgled and that the burglars had taken pity on me and cleaned my flat for me. but it turns out that my sister Charlene had come up and done it.

I received a call from Charlene telling me that not only would she be round in this morning (Thursday) to wash my curtains but that I had to take the day off work to look after our dad when he comes home from the hospital.

Why me? My brother is sitting in Reading picking his arse, my two sisters both live 4 minutes walk away and watch telly all day long. Why is it me that has to take a day off work and sit at home and make sure he does not try climbing ladders or break-dancing?

This might sound selfish but taking the day off work today will cost me about £130.00 in wages. (£50.00 for the day plus I won’t hit my targets this month so I’ll lose about £80.00 in bonuses) My sister Charlene gets paid for looking after him!

I thought I had two days holiday left but my boss got her figures wrong and it turns out I have none left. And what about tomorrow? Will I have to take a second day off? Which would mean losing a combined total of almost £200.00!

Since he is coming home in the afternoon I thought it might be an option for me to do half day, but that was knocked on the head when I was phoned by my sister Katrina. She was meant to come to my house to pick up his wheelchair to take up to the hospital, she was pretending to be ill so now I have to take the wheelchair up to him and come back and wait in the flat for him.

I love my family.

As somebody who hates going out into the real world to buy things it is such a huge relief when you can sit in the comfort of your own home and shop online. You have no crowds, no rude people barging into you, no children screaming & shouting, it is simply you sitting in front of your computer – bliss.

If I want to buy something then I normally have a search on a search engine like Google before then going to my little collection of web sites to see if they have what I want at a decent price.

I’ve been buying some presents this week for friends and one web site that I stumbled across (I love you Google!) is called pearlsonly.com. They are one of the top multinational e-commerce companies in world that deal in selling quality jewelry that contain pearls. I guess that is why their slogan is “Worlds Most Beautiful pearls“.

Considering they only seem to sell pieces of jewelry with pearls in they actually have quite a collection to choose from. They even sell loose pearls, I’m guessing so you can make your own jewelry at home.

If you order something from their web site then the good news is that they do offer free shipping on all orders over $99, but I think that only applies if you live in the United States. I’m guessing a quick email to their excellent customer service centre will solve that question.

There are a few pieces on their site that I have ear-marked for possible purchase, when I am paid next week, for some people that live in the United States. I think they will be pleased that someone is buying pearls for them at Christmas.

I won’t be buying my family any pearl jewelry though as to be honest none of them are classy enough to wear pearl earrings but some of them might be classy enough for a pearl necklace.

The pair of eyeglasses that I bought before I started work sadly already need replacing thanks to my dog getting her hands (or should that be paws?) on them and chewing one of the ear pieces at the end.

The chewed piece is not really that noticable unless you are sittign riht next to me and stare at me but I know it is there and it makes me concious about using them in the office.

Now that I work I’m not entitled to free glasses anymore so when I get paid I’ll have to nip to my local opticions and see if I can get a cheap replacement repair. But then again there are some fine online stores selling cheap frames, nothing wrong with the lenses I have.