More horror tales from the dentist's chair!

So, Bev was back at the dentist to get her crowns and a filling done, but if she thought that was uncomfortable, she was in for a shock when the dentist cleaned her teeth!  Eeek, it felt like she was doing it with a needle, and poor Bev spent ages spitting out blood afterwards!

So, she is now the proud owner of an air flosser, a gadget to speedily floss her teeth morning and night - no more painful dental cleans for her!  And while the air flosser does its job, it is incredibly messy, with Bev splattering water and mouthwash all over the tiles, mirror and her chin!  Oh dear, Mr Tidy (aka Paul) won't be happy, as he'll have to clean it up (from the tiles and mirror, not her chin - she can manage that herself).  We've been using it too, but not between our sharp little teeth - it's great for cleaning between our toes and to blast dirt from other areas of our furry bodies, but don't tell Bev!

Scary! Be afraid, be very afraid!

We think Bev has rather a scary reputation at work, just like she has at home.  She was introduced to a new person at work today as "This is Bev, but don't worry, her bark is worse than her bite!"  Err, you obviously haven't seen her when she gets *really* angry, though you're probably quite safe at the moment as she can't bite you until she's been back to the dentist!

A Business Case for a Highlighter?

Oh no, we all know that local government departments are trying to cut back these days, but some of these cuts are just silly.  How silly, you ask?  Well, one of Bev's colleagues went to the stationery cupboard for some highlighters, and was told that "not just anyone can have highlighters, you know!  You need a business case for having them!"  What?  This has all the hallmarks of the great post-it note fiasco, where they bought really cheap ones with little or no ink - they stuck to jack shit, fell off desks and stuck to people's shoes, ending up all over the building.  Now people have to sellotape them to documents!

We know that cost savings are important, but when another colleague said he had to wade through the boss's luxurious shag pile carpet just to get to his desk, you have to ask yourself where the real cost savings could be made!

We're dreaming about that luxurious carpet and wondering if we could sneak in during the night, rip it up and bring it home - and of course, we would need to take some highlighters so that we could change its colour :-)

Oh no!

Oh no, as Bev bit into her breakfast yesterday morning, a large filling came out!  Disaster!  Actually, on closer inspection, it was part of the tooth that had been prepared for a crown, but it will need to be fixed before the crown can be put in place.  So, poor nervous Bev has to phone the dentist tomorrow morning to make another appointment and she has to sook (suck) her food until it is fixed!  At least the nerve had been removed from the tooth, so despite half the tooth falling out, Bev is in no pain :-)

Oh no, Bev has been at the dentist!

Having comforted Bev last night and told her not to worry about her 15 minute dental appointment - after all, how much pain can they inflict in 15 minutes - she staggered through the front door an hour later looking as though she had been in a fight!  One side of her face was swollen and lopsided (the Hunchback of Notre Dame sprang to mind but I wasn't daft enough to say it), and the rest of her face looked as though it was covered in bruises!  On closer inspection, the blue colouring flaked off - it was from the stuff they use to take impressions of your teeth.  She is now shell-shocked but recovering, though she is not looking forward to her next appointment on the 20th July. 

So, what did she have done?  Well, she had a huge injection, an old crown removed, root canal treatment and a pin inserted, with a temporary crown until her new crown is ready.  She also had another tooth prepared for a crown, and next time she goes to the dentist she will also have a filling.

Oh dear, I wonder if they let an old teddy bear come and hold her hand while they are poking around Bev's teeth.  If not, we'll need to terrorise some old codger for his supply of temazepam!

Curry's - why is their customer service so awful?

If you remember, Bev tried to get a pair of Dr Dre headphones in Curry's but all they would sell her was a sealed box.  She finally bought a pair in HMV after being served by a very competent sales person who let her try the headphones with her iPod.  Anyway, you would think she would know better than to give Curry's a second chance, but that is what she did at the weekend.  They had the Asus Transformer Prime tablet, but when she asked if it was in stock, she was informed that it was not, though if she fancied a drive to Oxford, they would probably have one in that store!
Does Bev look stupid?  Why would she drive to Oxford to get one when she can order one online with no delivery charges?  Do you know how much diesel costs these days?  So, Curry's lost yet another sale - this time to Amazon, who delivered it promptly and for free.
OK Curry's, don't blame the loss of sales on online stores like Amazon - look at the poor service you offer your customers and ask yourselves what you can do to improve it.  It's not rocket science - be knowledgeable about your products and stock, don't just say "if it's not on the shelf, we don't have it", and offer to get product from other branches to satisfy a customer request.  Be proactive!
And is Bev loving her shiny new gadget?  Do bears poo in the woods?  Of course she loves it - it looks gorgeous in its subtle champagne colour, it is functional in that it is a tablet but with a keyboar / docking station, which turns it into a 10-inch notebook, and it is fun!

Could do better!

As you know, Bev has a bee in her bonnet about sloppy writing and poor grammar, and while she's the first to admit that she isn't perfect she does try her best.
She's come across two examples this week - one at work and the other from a company (both of whom should know better):
- the use of "aroused' instead of arisen (from a work colleague) - "this situation has aroused from problems with third-party suppliers"
- a company apologizing for "any incontinence caused by the delay of their product."

They were the worst of a bad bunch of incorrect spellings, use of text speak in a business environment (that really winds Bev up) and incomprehensible comments left as project updates!

Ok, we bears are off to brush up on our English and our grammar - Bev in a grumpy mood is a scary sight!

Dr Dre Studio headphones - in bright orange!

Ok, as I've mentioned before, Bev really is a gadget girl and drools over the latest technologies.  Last Christmas she bought an eReader, and this Christmas she instantly fell in love with nephew Ashley's bright green Dr Dre's Studio headphones.  They looked gorgeous and the sound was to die for.  So, the first opportunity she got, she headed off to the shops to look for a pair of Dr Dre's shiny headphones in a bright colour.  And several hours later she returned from her terrible shopping experience (more of that later) with a pair of beautiful orange headphones.

So, having listened to hours and hours of music through her new headphones, what is Bev's verdict?  Are they an expensive gimmick, as some people suggest or are they as good as Dr Dre says they are?
The good points:

• these headphones have a very punchy bass, with rich overall sound which is ideal for all types of music.  Paul said he felt the headphones were too bassy, but that can be fixed by changing the settings on your iPod.  
• the headphones fold up and fit in a case, which is part of the kit you get when you buy the headphones
• the headphones claim to be noise-cancelling - well, they're not completely noise-cancelling like the Sennheiser portable headphones that Bev already has, but they are not bad
• the colours, which are beautiful - the limited range comes in a bright green, orange, purple, pink, white, silver, black and blue.

The bad points:

• cost - these are not cheap, but we think they are worth the money, especially when you can get them in such groovy colours!
• there is quite a bit of sound leakage, so Bev couldn't listen to them at work unless all her co-workers want to listen to Biffy Clyro too :-)
• batteries - some people might be irritated by the fact that you need 2 x AAA batteries to make these headphones work, but they are needed for amplification and noise cancellation.  Since most noise-cancellation phones use batteries, Bev isn't put off by this at all, though she is off to the shops to bulk-buy AAA batteries!
• the build - some people say they think the build quality is a bit flimsy, however they seem fairly robust to us, but who knows how they'll stand up to use by a group of bears with long claws and no opposable thumbs!

So, to sum up, Bev would give these headphones a 9/10 for sound quality, portability and colour!  She's reserving judgement on the build quality until she's used them more.

Spectacular sunrise!

The sun coming through the clouds, a photo by Bev & Paul Mynott on Flickr.

The sunrises have been amazing recently - this was taken at the end of October on a misty morning. Luckily, the sun is coming up much later these days, so Bev is up and ready with the camera while us little bears snore our heads off and dream of a scrummy brunch :-)

Bizarre Toilet, Part 2

Ok, just as this little cub reporter had worked out that the 6 wash hand basins conveniently worked out at one per working day with one spare, Bev spotted that that workmen were back in the toilet.  So, what was going on and was anything sensible going to be done in there?

It turns out the workmen removed the comfy bed and replaced it with a padded bench-like bed, like the kind you might see in a doctor's surgery.  The sign about soiled sheeting was left on the wall but there was no sheeting of any kind to be seen!

So, Bev is still left with one disabled toilet, a single cubicle and 6 wash hand basins!  The mystery continues......

OMG, What a Week!

This was supposed to be the humans' last week off before winter - time for them to chill out, calm down and build up their resistence to bugs, viruses and colds.  But instead of relaxing, everything has been an uphill struggle which has made them very tired and stressed indeed!
The alarm - this was removed while the house was being replumbed, but getting it reinstalled has been like an Icelandic saga lasting hundreds of years!   It has taken 4 visits (two visits where the wrong engineer or no engineer turned up), one visit where the alarm was reinstalled but couldn't be switched on and a final visit to actually make it work!   We've been back in the house since April, but it's taken another 4 and a half months to get the alarm reinstalled and working!
The car - this was serviced at the beginning of the week but the garage didn't spot that one of the tyres was the wrong type for the car.  When Paul took it to Kwik Fit in April, they wrecked the punctured tyre, told us we needed a new one and then fitted the wrong tyre!   That's one garage that won't be getting any repeat business from us, though Tony will be making a visit in his big boots and kicking the crap out of anyone he finds there.
The car - we've just discovered that we have to get the garage to fit new day running lamps at a cost £38 each!  Fitting of light bulbs must be done by a Peugeot dealer, which came as a surprise to our dealer as well as ourselves!   It took 3 "technicians" (mechanics to you and me) to get the front panel off the car, at which point they discovered they didn't have any bulbs in stock!
And our trip to The Natural History Museum on Tuesday was spoiled firstly by a lack of sensible directions to the disabled parking area which meant we drove round the building 3 times before finding a place to park, and secondly by receiving a call at 5pm to tell us our newly reinstalled alarm had been ringing since 11am but we weren't answering the home phone number!  Well we couldn't answer it coz we were in London, but no-one contacted us on our mobile phones!  What a bunch of muppets the alarm people are, but they are Group4 / G4, the people who excel in letting prisoners escape!

Is it us or has the world gone mad?   Are there no sensible people to talk to?   And where are the people who can do a professional job?   Everything seems thrown together, people appear to take no pride in their work and customer service is a dirty word these days!

At this rate, our humans will be going back to work for a rest!

Bizarre Toilet

Bev has recently moved offices at work, and the ladies' toilet next to the new office was being refurbished (not just for Bev, though it seemed like a nice welcoming gesture).
The newly refurbished toilets opened yesterday.  So, were they impressive?   Were they an improvement on the dark, dank, smelly toilets that Bev had been frequenting over the last few weeks?  Sadly not.  But they did provide some amusement and consternation - why do they have 6 wash hand basins but only 2 cubicles, and why is there a bedroom in the toilet?
Hamish MacBear, cub reporter, will be investigating these and other questions!

Bev's Contract

Oops, I forgot to say that Bev's fixed-term contract at work has now been made permanent.  She had to apply for her existing job and have an interview with her boss, but the paperwork is all signed, so she is now a permanent employee! Yipee!

Bizarre interview

Bev has heard of a company where there were two candidates with the same name, and the agency sent the wrong one to be interviewed.  Ok, so which is more worrying - the agency sending the wrong candidate, or the company taking 30 minutes to spot that they were interviewing someone with no technical background for an IT job?

Apologies for the lack of posts!

Apologies for the lack of posts recently, but things have been so hectic - we have moved back into our house (more of that later), Bev is studying for an exam, and on top of all of that Bev discovered she had to apply for her current job!  My poor pet is totally stressed out so I have been comforting her and haven't had time to blog about what we have been getting up to.

Moving back into the house was much better than the move to the farm (Bev still hasn't recovered from that move!), but there was still lots of work to be done on the house - new kitchen work surface, fixing a leak in the ceiling, replacing missing tiles in the downstairs loo, poor painting (we said we didn't want the the blind painter working on our house, but they didn't listen!).

The house is mostly in order, but poor Bev and Paul still face a mountain of boxes to empty.  The took a holiday recently to do just that, but both agreed that going out and about (even in the rain) was much more fun than emptying boxes :-)  We agree!

January - National Organising Month!

January is National Organising Month, so Bev has been busily filling in her Filofax and To-Do list each day, making sure she keeps on top of everything.  Paul, on the other paw, has managed to lose his diary!  Doh!

So, a star to the woman with the Filofax and a dunce's hat to the man with the missing diary!

We're almost a bug-free house at last! Yipee!

Well, it looks as though that pesky 'flu bug has packed its bags and gone as Bev & Paul are beginning to feel a little bit better.  They are still very tired, but the chest infection (Paul) and ear and throat infection (Bev) have mostly gone, meaning that everyone is getting a good night's sleep at last - Thursday was declared to be the best night's sleep of the year so far!.  Even Kitty isn't sneezing any more!  Yipee! 

But after four weeks of nursing sickly humans and a cat, we bears are exhausted and in need of a long rest!  So, it's back to bed for us, with frequent deliveries of pepperoni pizzas and honey cider!  We bears know how to party, but don't tell the humans as we're not allowed to eat in bed coz we leave crumbs and greasy pawprints :-)

Sardine Parking - the sequel

Yup, poor Bev has been the victim of more sardine parking at work.  Picture an empty car park at 8am on a frosty morning.  Bev parks neatly within her parking bay - she is hundreds of yards from the nearest car.  No sooner does she switch off the engine than another car parks right beside the passenger side of the car - so close, in fact, that Bev doubted the skinny woman could get out of her car!  The stupid woman got two shocks - the first when she found she couldn't open her door and the second when she suddenly spotted Bev staring at her.  The woman squeezed, wriggled and limbo-danced her way out of the car, successfully managing to get out without hitting Bev's car.  Bev let her struggle to get out the door, then started up the engine and moved her car to another empty part of the car park - the stupid woman had the nerve to look surprised!

What is it with these people?  Are they lonely or are they shit drivers?  Having already had a fight with one man who hit her car, Bev is taking no chances - she is going to photograph every idiot who parks beside her and scare / shame them into parking somewhere else or just parking properly!

You have been warned - she is feeling particularly grumpy at the moment, so don't cross her path or park near her car!  She's been muttering about making people gargle concrete, or ripping their arms off and beating them to death with them, and if you are really unlucky, she will give you 'flu as well!  Oh dear, you have been warned!

Mrs MacGadget does it again!

Yup, Mrs MacGadget strikes again - with the VAT increase due to hit in January 2011, she decided to outfox the government and purchase a Sony eReader.  Not only did the she get a great gadget, but she is getting all her VAT back courtesy of Sony.

So, what is an eReader?  Well, it's like an iPod for books - you download ebooks in various formats and store them on the Reader.  The eReader is about the size of a slim paperback, and displays the text (and pictures) on a clear, non-reflective screen.  The beauty of using the eReader is that you can change the size of the text and it bookmarks the last page you were reading.  It also does fancy stuff like having embedded dictionaries in different languages - if you come across a word you don't understand, you can tap on the word and the dictionary pops up with the definition. 

Of the two models available, Bev chose the one with the larger, touch screen and the expandable memory.

Bev has added lots of her favourite books to her eReader, along with a PDF copy of the latest Prince2 manual to help her study for her exam.  So, if you see someone with their head buried in an eReader, you know it will be Bev!  All we ask is that she add Winnie the Pooh stories for us to read.

Sardine Parking - Doh!

Picture the scene - big car park at work, lots of empty spaces, Bev parks beautifully in a space with no other cars around her.  By the time she is ready to get out of the car, she has been surrounded by badly parked cars, and someone has parked so close to her that they cannot get out of their car.  They stare at her, willing her to go into the office so that they can struggle out their door and probably dent the passengert door of Bev's beautiful car.

Bev stares back, the piss-poor parker eventually gives up and drives to a space where they can park!

What is it with these people?  This only happens in the spaces close to the office - the further away from the office you park, the better the parking and the less chance you have of seeing sardine parking!

So, to any potential sardine parkers out there - LEARN TO PARK PROPERLY OR WE WILL SEND TONY ROUND TO KICK YOUR LIGHTS IN!