Whoever invented tights needs to be shot. I will leave it at that.

Oh, and with a “grrrrrr”

(tights would be pantyhose to you none-brits)

There’s been a few instances lately where the blog is eating comments. I’ve no idea why – they just aren’t showing. It’s also refusing to notify me of new comments (grr). CoComment is doing a sterling job catching comments for me but if you post a comment and it doesn’t show within five minutes, either try again or shoot me an email – cas.brightmeadow[at]gmail.com

*gives the server a swift kick up the pants*

No, I’m not sure why candy pink either.

I was a little bored this evening, got playing with photoshop and… one thing led to another and I had a new header image. So of course I then had to tweak the CSS…

I do like the lighter colours at the top – that last burgundy always felt a little oppressive to me. Then again, it is very pink. I don’t as a rule do pink.

Ah, I’ve got a few days of work (yippee!!!) so I expect I’ll be playing some more. I might try greens next. Greens are meadowy after all.

(You might have to refresh the page to see the changes, or clear your browser cache 🙂 )

*EDIT*

Just moments after posting this I decided that yes, it was just too pink for me, so I’ve gone green for now. My moment of folly is preserved here.

*EDIT 2*

I got bored with the green quickly too – it didn’t survive past the first “hospital green” comment. See the green here.

Ok, so I have a new episode of the Bright Cast for your listening pleasure.

Finally! I hear you cry (or not. Perhaps you had forgotten it even existed. If that’s the case, you might want to familiarise yourself with past episodes).

The story for this one comes from Tristan. Tristan ended up reading Bright Meadow somehow a few weeks back and realised that he actually knew me. Odd how these things happen. Anyway, he seems to have stuck around, so yay! He’s a genius student by day, a crimefighting superhero by night, and he lives in one of my favourite cities (Bath). What more is there to say really, other than that he came up with an installment for Salt and Pepper Chess that quite literally had me falling off my seat in laughter.

Before you press play I should say one thing: I am not an actor. I suck at voices. And I have no idea why Les becomes Northern in the middle of the episode. As I said, I suck at voices.

powered by ODEO

(If you decide to listen to it outside of Odeo on your iPod or something, apparently you’ll have a three second audio intro “to help spread the word about Odeo”. Why use Odeo to host this and not my own server? Because my own server sucks and I’m perilously close to exceeding my bandwidth again)

Now you’ve listened and (hopefully) enjoyed, please comment and let me and my group of dedicated story-writing minions what you think should happen next. If you don’t comment, well… There’s no way of knowing what will happen next 😉

(If you’d like a transcript of this episode, let me know).

I would like to ask you all one thing – be nice to your admin assistant/admin support/admin officer (whatever it is called in your office).

Admin assistants are remarkably overlooked people, yet without us things really would stop working.

Admin assistants aren’t quite PA’s (a job for which I am rapidly gaining respect). Nor are we secretaries. Our job is not to act as gatekeepers (though we often do). Our job is to make things easier for everyone else. We make you look good. We make sure you have the information you need when you need it.

We’re the facilitators.

The little jobs. The jobs our bosses don’t have time to do. We take the crap off their desks so they have time to do the actual work. We compile 40 page reports so our bosses can go to the chief exec. and pretend it was all their own work. At your request we spend a week trying to identify two people out of 10,000 based on just their first name and a two week window when they might have worked somewhere, then when we do identify them get a “Oh… Er, right. And why were you doing that again?”

It’s the admin assistants who have that weird form of telepathy that means we can work out exactly what you want from a mumbled “I need a report on this… No idea how I want it done or what the end result will be… And I need it for next week…”

We can decipher any handwriting (more or less). We can divine what you meant from a cryptic scrawl on a post-it. We get into work early and leave work late just to make sure projects get done in time. We are experts at any and all computer systems. Yes, we know exactly why your computer froze, and yes we are able to get all your data back.

Admin assistants are a remarkably under appreciated bunch I’ve discovered. Be nice to us, really. We have the power to make your life miserable in ways you haven’t even dreamt of yet.

There’s this coven of admin assistants that exist in any organization. At least it does in ours. You start to build up contacts in other departments. You know who to ask when you’ve got a query about one thing. You know where to go when something else goes wrong. The amount of gossip that flies around is astounding. It’s great when you move teams and you suddenly make other connections. What were two disparate parts of your network suddenly overlap and… Ooooh! Lots of new exciting gossip (and worthwhile information of course) is yours for the taking.

If you ever want to know something, ask an admin assistant.

Yes, that’s our job. We don’t expect recognition from on high for the work we did. It’s an understood, even if it isn’t ever really verbalised. We don’t ask for anything special really. Just… Every once in a while, say something nice to your admin assistant. Even a little email that says “U R a star!” goes a long way. Most of us really do like our jobs – it can be quite interesting. But we’re a part of your team. We may be a fair few grades lower down on the pay scale, but we’re the glue that holds everything together.

It’s hard to get enthusiastic about glue but do try.

Look at it this way – you never know when your admin assistant might have a blog. Who knows what they’re saying about you behind your back 😉

Before you say anything, yes I know this isn’t actually a podcast. I did try to record something, but I’ve drunk a glass of wine and the first thing to go is always my diction. You try saying “obligatory bigging-up of your blog” when you’ve downed a decent quantity of fine rose. So, because all appearances to the contrary I am quite easily embarrassed, I bring you the BrightCast in text form.

Well I was sitting here with a glass of wine, wondering what I would blog about this evening, when all of a sudden…

Hell no! I just realised it’s been 79 days since I brought you a new installment of the BrightCast. So much for my 2 weekly schedule… Um, sorry? I’d give you the usual excuses about how it’s time consuming to record and all that crap, but basically I’m lazy. I don’t like hearing my own voice so I record something ten times over till it is ‘perfect’, and I’m as uninspired as all mercy.

Any road, just the fact that a long period of time has passed should clue you in to one little thing – I haven’t the foggiest of an idea where to go next. Poor Colin has been left standing on the side of the road doing his best drowned rat impression for the past three months.

It’s time to admit it: I need help.

The idea always was that I’d write what happened next based on your comments and input. So far the comments and input have been… Slim on the ground. I do know that the limousine driver is called Les, and that he might, or might not, be a secret agent investigating global warming. This was Moose’s contribution. I seem to remember we were being very silly that evening. She did get penguins into her story-line though, so kudos.

Either way, lack of input from my readers means lack of ideas for Cas, and lack of ideas for Cas means nothing gets written.

So time for a change of tack. I’m throwing down the gauntlet to y’all – I’m looking for people to collaborate with me on this one. It could be you were providing the ideas. Might be you fancied writing an installment yourself. Maybe you’ve got a hankering to do some artwork that will inspire me. Something, anything, so long as I can get the BrightCast back into the ring for the next round.

What do you get for helping? Minionhood (if you aren’t a Minion already) of course. My undying love and devotion goes without saying. The honour of working with me and guesting on Bright Meadow should be a bit of a draw. I might even throw a surprise sweetener into the mix in the form of iTunes vouchers (or something) if it all works out. Oh, and there would be the obligatory bigging-up of your own blog as well. If you haven’t got a blog, well, tough – even I can’t big up what doesn’t exist!

So there you have it. Cas needs you. If you’re interested, drop me a line via the contact form, or on cas-at-brightmeadow.co.uk

And I’m not just looking for one person to help here either – this might be one of those times where the more is the merrier. At least till I work out if this whole playing with other people really works for me. I am honestly seeking your help here as I want Colin to have a story worthy of him, but I am doubting my ability to write that story on my own.

Please, I need some body. Not just any body. Help me get this story back off the ground?

Let the games begin…

So the day is finally here. Bright Meadow is nestling happily in it’s appropriate communities and I’ve been formally introduced on the 9rules blog. Seems like it’s as good a time as any to introduce myself to any new readers who might stray this way.

Firstly, hello new people
*waves*
Welcome to Bright Meadow.

What can you expect to find here?

A lovely community of people.
Wonderful blog minions.
Um, other fun stuff.

I could go into depth but that would just spoil the fun of you getting to know me, and me getting to know you. Take yourself over to the about page for a bit more of the boring bio stuff.

It’s all fairly relaxed around here. I try and post at least once every two days – sometimes it’s more than that, sometimes it is a little less (life has a nasty habit of getting in the way) – but you are always guaranteed a Sunday Roast on, not surprisingly, Sunday around midday (UK time). In the past year I think I’ve missed like one, maybe two, and that was Christmas-time and right after I split up with the then-BF. Both good excuses I think 😉 I talk about whatever comes off the top of my head. That includes, but is not limited to, my life, my friends, and my job. I’ve yet to talk about my pets… no, wait, I have talked about my pets (houseplants anyway. I have no pets at the moment due to evil landlord issues). I also talk about all kinds of stuff that are only tenuously related in my febrile imagination. You know those long rambling conversations you have with mates on lazy summer afternoons where you start talking about how you like your burgers cooked, then end up by solving the drought in Ethiopia, with a detour in the middle to work out what is the coolest superpower? Yeah, Bright Meadow’s kinda like that. Fun, but I haven’t got a frelling clue what’s going to happen next.

And I have a tendency to ramble. Never been concise in my life.

Before I scare you off for good, I will just say Scrivs was right when he said I write for the passion. I love it. I’ve made stories up and played with words literally since I can remember. The first one I ever wrote down was when I was six and it was about a big blue sea serpent who was very nice and rescued the princess of the pirates from a horrible fate. And found lots of treasure. I said I enjoyed doing it, not that I was any good at doing it. You’re just the poor unfortunates who are on the receiving end – things were so much easier before the internet, weren’t they? 😉

I will leave you with what have been some of the most popular posts here on the site (list a mix of personal favourites, those with lots of comments, and what my stats package thinks lots of people have read).

• Together we will upgrade the universe
• Happy New Year!
• Why d’ya have to be so cute?
• Smile for me
• 9rules has eaten my content
• Never explain – your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway with the follow-up post of My Cas, what shiny teeth you have
• Me and my high-heeled pink wolf-whistle shoes

Watch out for the penguins now!