WELL.
As it turns out, the Reservation screen is some sort of little joke played by The Trainline.
It allows you to set your preferences, and says HAHAHA! Seat reservations not confirmed!

But Steven seems to think I will be able to confirm the seat reservation direct with Virgin at the 12 week mark. Bloody hope so.
And after all, I saved Mum £85, which is not to be sneezed at, and got my travel to/ from Kings Cross - Charing Cross as part of the deal.

Wait, Virgin is a train company too?

Virgin is a huge company, with fingers in so many pies it would resemble a Grimm brothers' nightmare creature if the fingers were real.

Is it weird that Richard Branson as a Grim brother's monster somehow doesn't feel surprising?

So... 1st world annoyance (In what is technically a 3rd world country): Ordered groceries online to be delivered in the 17:00-21:00 window, it's now 20:34, and I got an sms saying they might be late by up to an hour... And I need to leave for work before 22:30...

If my ice cream becomes a milkshake, I'm going to be pissed.

Next 48 hours going to be a bit hellish - I have work every other shift, separated by 8 hours each minus commuting time... Leaving very little time for sleep.

Two people were killed on live television in Roanoke, Virginia this morning and right away, people started bringing up gun control. It just seemed wrong to me to start that before the victims' bodies were even cold. I know..."When is the right time then?" Well, it certainly didn't seem right at THAT time.

When they let that guy go, a couple years ago (I think, I may be misremembering), they cleared the office, and had police come in, they were so worried about the guy doing something just like this.

I understand the disgust people have with the politicizing tragedy, but I think it's a very natural fear based reaction. The first basis instinct isn't how sad it is that it happened, it's how do you stop it from happening again. This might seem tasteless and egoistical, and it is, but these are the instincts that help us survive - You mourn after the battle is over.

This gets messy when it comes to politics, because fight & flight responses are often not the wisest of solutions, as is the case here.

No, I get that, traceur. I know we all deal with tragedy differently. And I try to keep that in mind, but...

White people kill black people = racism is responsible

Black people kill black people = society is responsible

White people kill white people = guns are responsible

~ this is where we are now ~

You can help resolve all perspectives regarding all 3 problems in one shot (Too soon?). Utilize the conflict between american gun culture and gun control to social advantage by creating lethal ammo specific gun laws, which means something like Xrep taser bullets remains legal:

Right now these are expensive as hell (160USD a round), the trend isn't growing and there's very little competition because the market is tiny - the number of people who would own a gun but would rather not use real bullets turns out to be pretty small. But if gun control laws allow for this and other non lethal solutions like this even in no gun zones, it would create demand, justify further automation of mass production to meet a higher demand and encourage competition to reduce the cost, and perhaps even finance further improvement and development.

You want a gun to defend yourself and your family when the government isn't around to do it for you? With this, you still can. You want gun control to reduce the numbers of deaths and accidents? This will do it.
You want to generate affordable non lethal weaponry alternatives for law enforcement agencies to use and reduce the problem of police brutality and questionable cases of deaths without due process? This will take some time to do it, but a lot less time then raising a whole new generation of police officers, and in turn you might restore some of the trust between the american black communities and the local authorities which means they might actually get called when there's a problem or risks of violence within black neighborhoods.

...Alternatively, you can blame all 3 on me. Worked for my marriage.

UT, you left out one...

Black people kill white people = Pay-back's a bitch


All 4 are BS

For the standard society/media instinctive reaction? It's generally:

Black people kill white people = white person did something stupid -- "Well it's sad he died from a bullet to the head, but let's face it, he WAS in Kensington at 1 in the morning."

with an exception:

Black people kill white female under age 30 = worst tragedy in the world

Office drama...

It is amazing that an environment where there is only one employee working at a time and people only meet each other for a few minutes between shifts can actually have drama, but somehow it does.

There is a coworker...
Strike one: First time I met her actually - I came into the office early, introduced myself as the new guy... She looks at me making a face of stench, I ask her what's the problem, she complains I smell of cigarettes and asks me if I can wait outside 15 minutes.
Strike two: She comes into the office, I give her the briefing and tell her what's left to do, including getting a hold of someone who didn't answer earlier to see if he wakes up. While I am already on my way out, already a few minutes passed the time, she dials and hands me the phone over the counter to give him the information that is in the computer in front of her.

Later I discover that this is the girl who my predecessor - the girl I replaced - wouldn't speak too, and apparently even our boss doesn't like her and is annoyed by her work... I'd suggest that he'd fire her but his morals making it hard for him to fire people is one of the things I enjoy here - even with how much he says he is pleased with me it helps to know he isn't fast to lay someone off - I function a lot better without looming threats.

So at this point I think it over. To say conflict avoidance isn't my way is an understatement that would make too many people laugh their asses off, but realistically I am not in a position to change her behavior, so I don't see much of a point. I don't want to do like my predecessor and block her completely, but I would like to keep our interaction to the bare minimum - why make unpleasantness last longer then they have too? - so I write down the debriefing in details and tell her to take note of it on my way out. She shouts "Your supposed to do it orally too!"... I ignore her on the way out. To be fair, it doesn't sound like a sexual innuendo in Hebrew.
But that is still confusing - I just assumed our dislike was mutual or she wouldn't have behaved like this in the first place, why would she want to extend our time beyond the necessary? This is already annoying...

But then my boss - who is currently on vacation with his family - messages me that even though I don't like her I still need to transfer the shift professionally with her, I told him I did and explained how, but admitted I was short and to the point with her without hello's or how your doing's. He then asks "ok but try been more polite"...More polite? She hasn't even said hello to me since I joined the staff, not once, even in trying to be brief in the past I still did those. I am guessing this mostly indicates he just doesn't want her to bother him on his vacation and it would help if I don't give her reasons too.

And now I have another exchange with her in an hour and 30 minutes, and then another one 8 hours after. By now the back of my head is pretty much decided that the appropriate response is "Grrrrr".

Truce at shift change.