Even though I usually resort to them later in the week, today is another random thoughts day. Turns out that my general �I�m back at work after a four day weekend� malaise extends to journal entries as well as actual work.

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Ok, so now I definitely have a problem. This morning I had a series of random thoughts in my head, none of which was big enough to turn into a whole entry, but all of which made nice paragraphs for a random thoughts entry. So I save them to write up over my lunch hour. But before I started writing I had to go out and pick up lunch because I was starving.

So I came back with my salmon don from the Japanese lunch place around the corner, and wrote the first paragraph above while savouring the just right spiciness of the soy dressing. Then came the problem. I had no next paragraph. All the random thoughts have left my head. It�s a total and complete blank. What do I do now?

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I trawl around in the sports pages to get the updates on my favourite teams.

Norwich City won at the weekend, while its closest competitors for the leap up to the Premier League didn�t. West Brom drew and Sunderland lost, and they play each other next, so things are looking pretty solid for being in the Premier League next season, for the first time in a long time. But I say that with my fingers crossed because I remember what happened last year

On the hockey front, I still haven�t settled for a team to support during the play-offs. It usually takes me until the second round to catch up with everyone and settle on one team when my team isn�t involved. At least today�s wins by the Stars, the Devils and the Blues keep all the current match-ups interesting.

Football here at home brought my first heart attack of the season on Saturday when the Roos squandered a 31 point lead to eventually win by 5 points with a kick in the last 30 seconds. I�m not sure we deserved to win given how well Carlton came back and how our game plan seemed to go missing in the second half, but I�m going to take the win anyway. We�re 3-0 now, and I would be relatively confident except that I have a sneaking suspicion that we were in a similar position last year and didn�t make the finals. This Sunday should be a big test.

On the footy tipping front, I�m doing okay. Equal second on the table with big log jams at first, second and third. So far the season has apparently been relatively predictable because 6 and 7 out of 8 has been the norm across all twenty-one people in our competition. The only real crash �n burn so far was by Priscilla in the first round, and that was only because she intended to tip all the home teams but marked the away teams by accident, so wound up with only 1 correct. This weekend she more than made up for that by taking home the prize for getting all 8 correct. $63 aint bad as a three week jackpot. I am waiting for that inevitable mid-season turn around where everyone starts getting 3 and 4 consistently, it usually serves to break-up those top of table log jams (though often not to my benefit).

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Ah, see that worked. A refreshing sports round-up (and my first diet coke of the day) reminds me of some of those random thoughts.

Yesterday I was listening some of the commentaries on the Pirates of the Caribbean DVD, and during the Keira Knightly/Jack Davenport commentary I burst out laughing when they got to the introduction of Geoffrey Rush�s character with the monkey sitting on its shoulder. I�m paraphrasing, but their respective comments were:

Keira: �I want to have that monkey stuffed, it was such a pain.�

Jack: �Is that Marcel from Friends?

I watched the movie for the first time a few weeks ago with a large group of friends. The responses to that same scene from us:

Jane: �That monkey deserves to be stuffed.� (She hates monkeys as she was once attacked by one.)

Rest of the Room: �Is that Marcel from Friends?

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I mentioned some time back that I had christened our new trainee with the nickname �Howdy�. This name was rather an obvious choice in the end because of a strange habit she has of opening every conversation, question or request with either �Hellloo� or �Howdy�.

Not just the first greeting of the day, but any time she comes into any of our offices to ask us something she always begins with a �Hello?� or �Howdy?�, offered in such a tone that it�s clearly intended to replace �Are you busy, can I speak to you for a moment?� or �Can you help me with this?�

This also applies when I�m walking past her desk. It�s not �Uli�, it�s �Hel-llo�.

In fact, I just had to pause in typing this section because she just came in and did it again. It�s odd.

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Kimberlance is in temping for us this week while Priscilla is on holidays. It�s great to have her back in the office and she picked everything up like she�d never been away. But, as if to reinforce how much things have changed and why she left in the first place, she�s left a bit early this afternoon to head off to her first kidney dialysis session. Good luck Kimbo.

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I spent the entire weekend living on white bread toasted sandwiches with cheese and hot English mustard. Yum. Oh, and Easter eggs, of course.