Five Random Thoughts: Wednesday 30th April

1. I'm not sure I like Amazon's new look.

2. I love Guitar Hero. But it's a shame lots of the tunes are rubbish. The DS version looks like it should be better in that respect... but will it actually work ok?

3. There's a man who regrew a finger?. That's odd.

4. At the moment I enjoy the jogging on Wii Fit more than any other event even though it doesn't use the balance board. It's pretty and you see your friends running around too.

5. I can't decide whether to watch the final series of Battlestar Galactica now or wait for the DVD release and watch all at once.

Poo Time

It's occurred to me that Wii Fit is the first game to (if not reward) make you feel better for having done a big poo before playing it.

If you don't understand, have a go and then play. I'm right.

A Fish A Day...

I don't think I've ever had sardines before. I may have played sardines when I was a kid but I don't recall trying the fish. Tonight I had sardines.

I found them crunchier than I expected. And then K told me I didn't have to eat the bones, especially the spines. That helped.

A pleasant taste. Just not what I expected.

I also have herring to try later in the week. It's new fish week.

The Excellent 1000 Whisky Challenge! - Update

An update on the 1000 Whisky Challenge is in order. I got up to about 8 and then bought a new, nicer, notebook and decided to start again. So now I'm back to 2. Slightly less than when I wrote about it for the first time. But there's still plenty of time.

More encouragingly I've bought a book and it has details of over 3,500 different drinks in it so I now feel it is actually an achievable challenger and not just a flight of fancy.

Just 998 to go!

A New Way To Be An Idiot

I did a particularly stupid thing today. It's my dad's 60th birthday tomorrow and I decided to buy a present off of Amazon. Last minute a bit, but still in time. I went for the Express Delivery (£8) and all would have been fine if I'd remembered to change the delivery address. I noticed the error as soon as I clicked the final button. But sadly because of the expressness it got processed straight away. No changes allowed. It's coming to my house. Not Dad's house.

Doh!

So now I have to hope it arrives before we have to leave for the train tomorrow at ten.

I am an idiot.

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Postscript: It arrived at 0815 this morning. Yay!

Postscript2: It's a Wii! But don't tell Dad!

Been Caught Stealing

I saw a particularly inept shoplifter in HMV yesterday.

First I knew was the beeps. Then, very shortly after, the security man running outside also. The beeps were the cause of the security running.

It turned out (about 5 seconds later) that a man had been stealing! Because the security man caught the beepy man just outside the front door with between ten and twenty Xbox games under his coat. Too many to even hide subtlely. Idiot.

Not sure what he was doing as I reckon they keep the game discs behind the counter and I don't think he'd checked them out library style.

One game you might get away with under your coat. They are small and easy to hide. But ten to twenty? No way! They slip and slide against one another. He was a slim guy when he entered the shop and a fat guy when he left.

Idiot. Should be shot. I'm pretty sure they keep the actual games behind the counter.

Dreams Do Come True

I was just saying to K this morning about how I wanted to do my short-form tax return but couldn't because I hadn't received my interest statement from my bank. I was really saying that. I have a witness.

And then, that same morning, the dream comes true and the figures I need arrive in the post.

Amazing!

A Load of Plastic Tat

I'm rapidly acquiring too much plastic stuff under the telly. It's not been this bad since the old Dreamcast days (I don't think I'll ever need to get another fishing rod though). A quick audit finds the following controllers:

2 x Wii Remotes
2 x Wii Nunchucks
1 x Wii Classic Controller
1 x Mario Kart Wheel
1 x Wii Zapper
1 x Fake Wii Zapper
1 x Xbox 360 controller
2 x PS3 controller
2 x Guitar Hero wired guitars
1 x Guitar Hero wireless guitar
2 x Singstar Microphones
1 x Gcon3
1 x silly headphones thing for Xbox Live

And then there's Wii Fit out later in the week, so that will add a Balance Board. And then... soon... Rock Band!

I think I need help.

Leeds Parking Warning

We went to see Supergrass at Leeds Met last night. As always they were great. I had intended for us to park in the big car park just outside the venue. It’s free in the evenings and easy enough to get a space in if you get there early enough. Unfortunately, it was worse than full. I was shocked to find that… it no longer existed! They’ve built a ruddy great building over the top of it! Grrr! So it meant some emergency route rethinking and we ended up in The Light. Just like so many other times.

Consider this a warning if you’re planning to park outside The Met anytime soon!

A Secret Visit to Nottingham

It was my birthday yesterday and so K had layed on a surprise overnight trip for me in the evening. Although I knew it was some kind of event (ie something where tickets are needed) I didn't know anything more. It could have been music, comedy, theatre, vaudeville or an execution. I'd deliberately avoided looking at listings as I thought it would be nice to have an actual surprise for once.

So on Monday morning I packed an overnight bag and headed into work. At four o'clock it was time to go to the station (leaving work early is always a good start to an evening!) and because it's quite hard to hide a destination when you board a train, I was told we were heading to... Nottingham! This in itself was quite surprising as I'd more or less forgotten Nottingham existed. I was pretty much at a loss to work out what would be on there but as long as one of us knew then everything would work.

After an uneventful journey we checked into the hotel (Jury's Inn, conveniently close to the rail station) and headed straight out to get some pre-event dinner. The taxi driver didn't really understand K's accent and this led to a bit of a mix-up where he started heading in completely the wrong direction. I was able to spot this (I knew which road we were going to) by judicious use of my watch-mounted compass and Google Maps on the phone. You all mock but these are life-saving things. Especially the compass! So I showed him the map on the phone and the journey was corrected.

We had a thai meal (a bit too hot for me!) near the venue and it was at this point I found out why I'd been taken to Nottingham... It was to see Ben's Brother!

Now Ben's Brother are a mighty fine band and produced some of the best singles of last year. They made number five in my top twenty but it could have been higher as the ordering is a little arbitrary at times. I have never seen them live and so I was quite excited when I saw the tickets. Not jumping up in the air or anything, I'm not really that dramatic, but very happy. I definitely have an excellent girlfriend!

The gig itself was fantastic (apart from the absence of draft cider). Small venue (The Bodega Club, I think) but great views and great sound. And I would say it was worth making the trek to Nottingham for!

The only drawback was that because we stayed up late and then had to get up early to get the train back, and because I'm a little run down at the moment due to a stinky case of man-flu, I'm now extra tired. I'm planning for a very early night tonight!

Drew + Cellist

I've been next door to see Drew playing at The Junction tonight. He's still obsessed with monkeys and death, but mainly monkeys. Great gig and the first time I've seen him non-alone for a while - he has acquired a cellist. With a comedy name :-)

But the best thing was the sheer convenience. Leaving a gig and then being home approximately 60s later. Can't be beaten.

A Theory On The Odour Of Asparagus

I've been wondering about asparagus. Everyone knows that when you eat asparagus it makes your wee smell. Specifically it makes your wee smell like drains. But is that the way it really is?

Perhaps (and by "perhaps" I mean "almost certainly") there are a lot more people eating asparagus than is commonly realised. And when all those people do wees at the end of the night all the wee goes into the sewers and makes the drains smell like asparagus wee. The smell that some people think of as "The Smell Of Drains".

Asparagus wee doesn't smell of drains. Drains smell of asparagus wee.

You know it's true.

eBay Update

I mentioned a few weeks back that I'd been bidding for an EP & BD CD on eBay. I didn't win it.

I didn't get the one that came up the following week either.

Yesterday I had success. In my third attempt to win an auction I got it, for the princely sum of five English pounds.

I was so happy.

Although I don't know what I'll do with my free time now.

How to mess up my bookshelf

I've been a big fan of Alistair Reynolds since Revelation Space came out several years back. Great Big stories full of Great Big spaceships. And only sometimes slightly marred by tiny little endings.

But the main problem for me initially was the size of the books. They were roughly normal paperback size but slightly wider and slightly squatter. It meant that when you put them on your shelf they didn't sit there neatly like a nice book. No, they stuck out aways and shouted "Look at me! I'm annoying". A bit like me in the pub which is maybe why I initially put up with it. After a while though you get more and more of the books and when you have five or six, they all sit, oddly-sized but oddly-sized together, on your bookshelf. And the oddness becomes normality.

Today I visited the bookshop and became highly irritated. His new paperback (The Prefect) has changed shape a little. It's taller than the other books. By about a centimetre.

What were his publishers thinking? Are they deliberately trying to deter his existing readers? Or are they simply trying to attract a new audience? An audience who only reads books that are slightly taller than an author's previous books? Insanity!

I for one shan't be buying any more. I'm going to only read Ladybird books instead. You know where you are with Ladybird books. They've been the same size since I was a lad and they'll be same size when I'm a wizened old man.

Sod Reynolds. Book-size-changing-bastard.

More Donkeys

The Grand National went badly for me again this year. I had three horses in two separate office sweepstakes. One of them came third ("Snowy Morning" - prescient but too slow), no good for me since both sweeps were winner takes all. The other two were complete donkeys. One wasn't even running.

We also went to the pub after work on Friday and they were running a sweep in there too. That was my fourth donkey.

Moral of the story is to only spend money on beer in pubs.

Still, at least none of my horses got shot this year. Not that I know of, anyhows.

April Showers

Nasty weather today. Snow, Hail, Rain etc. Not good considering that it's the sixth of April. That nonsenses supposed to be over months ago. It should be sun and jollity at this point in the year.

I Am The News

My last two post seems to have been strangely topical and they have both been picked up by today's The Press:



Main headline is yesterday's Jumper (turns out from a ruined tower rather than the from the bridge. Didn't do it) and on the bottom left is the fire place.

It feels like my finger is on the pulse. And it's beating.

Wet Jumpers

I went out for a couple of pints of cider after work tonight and decided to get a taxi home since I was running slightly late compared to when I said I'd be home by. I went to the taxi rank near the Minster and it was clear that there was some kind of kerfuffle going on down towards Lendal Bridge. The road was closed off from the crossroads near the theatre, right down to the one on the other side of the Bridge. There were police cars and a few milling people.

The closed off road was right on my way home. When I got in the taxi, the driver said he'd heard that there was someone trying to do some jumping, presumably off of the bridge. Now that's a pretty daft place to jump from. It's not particularly high and at the moment is less high than normal because the river's up. If you want to jump it would be better to go up the Minster Tower or the Yorkshire Wheel or similar. From Lendal Bridge the worst you're likely to get is wet.

But the main problem was that the taxi had to go the long way round. This cost me at least an extra pound. I was quite upset. The blame here is obviously on the Jumper rather than the taxi driver so I'm considering going through the small claims court. I just need to identify the right person... maybe I'll get the local paper tomorrow and see if anyone is named. Even if they're dead rather than just slightly wet, presumably I can still sue their estate...

When you play with fire...

There's a shop opposite me that sells fireplaces, the things you have in your house designed to keep fire in one place. Slightly ironically it seems to be on fire at the moment... or at the very least it's full of smoke and has two big fire engines outside it. I'm hoping that they can keep it in control as I'd rather not get evacuated tonight. It's far too wet and windy.

I suppose I should be grateful it's not an earthquakeplace shop - that would be a much harder thing to keep localised than a fire.