All work and some play makes a dull, dull month

January is the pits of a month. It's probably the first time in my life when the time of the year has affected my mood as much. Work is starting to pick up a bit with changes to the department. My patience will be rewarded when I'll no longer have to do the helpdesk duties. Still no word on those jobs I applied for but saw they'd advertised in the Guardian last week so more depression.

Our house DIY is progressing slowly with all necessary walls prepared. Shame the f*cking builders can't give us a simple quote in good time. Received a quote for the halls/stairs and bedroom flooring. Sea-grass is expensive but didn't think it would be that expensive.

With DIY in full flow and everybody avoiding going out we've been buying, renting and playing alot of stuff. Bought Battalion Wars (Gamecube) a few weeks ago which is great fun. Not as good as Advanced Wars (GBDS) which is as addictive as honey-roasted crack. Also bought Taito Legends (PS2) which has some great classic arcade games including: Bubble Bobble, Continental Circus (a right pocket-money stealer that one), New Zealand Story, Rainbow Islands, Operation Wolf and Space Invaders (3 versions). There's also some strange games I never saw in the arcades when I was a teenager which are fantastic especially being 2 player: Plotting, Super Qix, Tube It, Volfied and Zoo Keeper. The last one has crap graphics as early 80's design but just as exciting as Chucky Egg!

Loaded with a few double vodka and Redbulls we tried out Buzz, the music quiz with special gamepads, and SingStar with the Popworld and 80's Song packages and special microphones. Buzz was great fun using the large red button whenever you want to answer the question then 4 colours for the multi-choice stuff. Fact: Jason Donovan did the voice for Buzz. It was presented just like a TV quiz show and you could choose whatever character you wanted.

SingStar was even more funnier though the microphones were rubbish as only one worked so no duets and, according to Choices Video, kept failing. 80's songs favourites were Erasure 'Respect' and Foreigner 'I wanna know what love is'.
Run DMC 'Tricky' proved a new found respect for rappers as saying 20 words in a second isn't natural to do, Culture Club: Karma Chameleon was my first song to sing and kept us laughing how funny I sounded, Simple Minds: Don't You (Forget About Me) was class (now getting used to making a prat out of myself), should have done Europe: The Final Countdown but somehow we avoided that one, Kerry did Vanilla Ice like a pro as she knew the words by heart, Dexy's Midnight Runners: Come On Eileen was a nightmare in dungarees to sing so fluffed that one up big time. Robbie Williams - Let Me Entertain You was my favourite to sing on the other disk though Outkast - Roses was near impossible though shouting 'craaash, craaash, craaaaaaaaaaaaaaash...into a ditch' rounded off the night nicely.

Saturday we had to call the Gas board out after smelling a leak. After that I decided to clear the cupboard out of all our old videos revealing some strange programmes recorded. Discovered a show from a few years ago starring the Poet stooge from Space Cadets! Hired ‘40 Year Old Virgin’ which turned out to be quite funny. Sunday was some retail therapy which I bought the Glimmer Twins DJ Kicks CD, Etienne de Crecy CD from Habitat plus a couple of books: 101 things to do before you die and one about survival tips when robots turn against humanity - could be useful in 20 years time when AIBO puppies start biting your ankles and Robocop gets a death-wish for forgetting his favourite baby food. Just you wait and see!