If you strike me down...

I know that this sort of thing has been done before (and done better), but I fancied a bit of bank holiday fun. Enjoy!


Darth Vader: I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I met you I was but the learner. Now, I am the master.



Obi Wan: Only a master of evil, Darth.



Darth Vader: Your powers are weak, old man.



Obi-Wan: You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.



Darth Vader: Bye bye, time to die!



Obi-Wan: Oh bugger.

Tunnel Vision

Since I've mentioned The Tunnel several times in the past (eg here), I thought it wouldn't hurt to stick a picture of it here. Note the bright new lights running along the ceiling. And no, that is not me that you can see in the distance. I am standing behind the camera.
 

Off on the holiday bus with Cliff

I wrote earlier in the month about how I was intending to take a holiday, but didn't know either where to go, or what form the holiday should take. I'd mentioned that, for example, I felt being stuck on a coach with a bunch of strangers would be like a "mobile version of Big Brother". Having now started to watch the new series of BB, and seen the total weirdos on there this year, I have come to the realisation that it couldn't actually be that bad. Might still have a miserable time, but as I was saying yesterday, if you can't have a miserable time on holiday, when can you have one?

So a coach holiday it is. Next question where to? This turned out to be quite easy. Since I have no huge preference for where to go, I'll go to Lots Of Places! So I've put in a booking on an 18-35 tour that will take me to Amsterdam, Munich, Venice, Rome, Florence, Switzerland and Paris, amongst others. None of which I've ever been to except for Paris. Clearly I won't be staying anywhere for too long, but I can always go back another time if I like somewhere. Best thing is, it starts and finishes in London, so it's dead easy to get to, in fact it'll be a lot easier to get to (and possibly quicker too) than any of the UK airports. Bonus!

So I'm actually finding myself quite looking forward to it at the moment. Meet new people, maybe meet some nice new people, see lots of new places, and sample some European night life. Haven't actually had confirmation of the booking yet, mind, so there's always the possibility that it could all still go belly up. Fingers crossed.

At the very least, I have managed to pull my finger out and attempt to do something - I was starting to doubt I'd ever get round to organising anything! I may come back suffering from cabin fever, I may never want to go on holday alone again, but I will have tried it. And maybe I'll have a good time.

I'm The Invisible Man

Well, since I'm still stuck back on the PC, thought I'd try out the new photoblogging software. Sadly, I have almost zero photos on the PC at the moment, this was the most interesting one I could find. It is me, myself, dressed as The Invisible Man last year. 

New, improved.... Tunnel

I have mentioned in the past that there is a pedestrian tunnel on my way into town, which goes under the railways. The tunnel has been shut to pedestrians for a week or so. But now, it has reopened, new and improved. So much excitement in one week! A new bridge and a revamped tunnel. I am so lucky to live in this time of changes.

I did consider trying out the new bridge this morning. In the end I decided against it - figured I may get bored on Bank Holiday Monday and it would be a shame to have alredy used up my only entertainment.

But back to the tunnel. "What have they done to it?", I can almost hear you asking. Well, I will tell you. What they have done is: Install some really bright lights. It bizzarrely now feels like one of the tunnels in the London Underground. Just without the buskers. Or underground trains, ticket barriers, rats and escalators. Actually I'm not sure about the rats. I'm not quite sure why it's taken so long just to install some extra lighting, so I'm drawn to the conclusion that they must have done something else less obvious too. I'll keep my eyes open.

The tunnel does seem taller than before, but I think that must just be an illusion caused by the brighter lighting. I'm absolutely totally sure that they have not somehow raised the ceiling and/or lowered the floor.

So, I am once more safe from the evil pigeon threat.

A New Bridge Opens!

Some exciting news this week: Shortly a new pedestrian bridge is going to open, leading into the back of York Station (starting from the NRM end of the tunnel). I reckon it should cut my journey time to the station down to just over 5 minutes - excellent! And especially good for those times late at night if I've been out somewhere else, get back to York and just want to get into bed as quickly as possible. Or if I need the toilet.

Askham-Richard (v)

We all worry too much. But how often do you worry that there aren't enough names for all the different types of worry we experience on a day to day basis?

Example. Today I went downstairs to the vending machine. I was at work. I can't go downstairs at home as I live on the ground floor and even if I lived on the next floor up there wouldn't be a vending machine downstairs because that would be on the floor I actually live on and there isn't one there.

So anyway, I inserted 50p into the slot to buy a Snickers bar. The little metal coil started to turn and I started to worry that the chocolate would not fall, that it would end up stuck on the shelf, or maybe wedged between the shelf and the glass. I didn't want this to happen. If if did happen, I'd either have to expend physical effort to nudge the machine, or buy the next chocolate bar too in the hope of dislodging the first. A risky enterprise, and I only really wanted one bar. Not two bars. It strikes me this must be nearly the opposite worry you have when you are trying to use your phone in a low reception area and you worry you may not have enough bars to indicate a passable call may be made.

Anyway, the coil spun and after an interminably long moment, the chocolate fell safely to the base receptacle. The moment of worry passed. I retrieved the chocolate, returned to my desk and ate it all up.

But the fleeting worry, the "arrggh I'm very mildly concerned that my vended item may not reach me" thought, it doesn't have a name that I'm a aware of. It needs a name: now that I'm aware of it, it feels like not having a name for "clouds", "cannibalism" or "hippocampus". So in the tradition of "The Meaning of Liff" and "The Deeper Meaning of Liff", I hereby name it after an English Village. I choose Askham-Richard, a small village just outside York.

So next time you're at the checkout and you hear the beep.... no that's not right, try again. So next time you're at the vending machine and you experience weak fear of non-droppage, what you are actually feeling is Askham-Richard. I hope this helps you all.

Title of the year... so far

Mclusky have just released an album with my favourite title of the year so far:

"The difference between me and you is that I'm not on fire"

Decent album too. If anyone has any better titles of albums released this year, I'd like to hear.

I'm thinking... "Bonnie Langford"

A lot can happen in a week.

For example, I had not even considered last Tuesday that Billie Piper would be named as the new assistant to play opposite Christopher Ecclestone in the new series of Dr Who. It just doesn't sound right. Mind, I bet she's a good screamer. Here's how I imagine it might go:

The Dr: Billie, why do you play your music so loud?
Billie: Because I want to! Because I want to!
The Dr: Well can you turn it down a bit? It's really upsetting my concentration. If you want me to finish fixing your hair rollers, I suggest you quieten down somewhat. Now, have you seen my sonic screwdriver?
Billie: So shake it, move it, use it, groove it!
The Dr: I will, once you tell me where it is. Why can't you ever be helpful?
Billie: Don't criticize me 'cause I'm running the show!
The Dr: No, Billie, you're not. I've had enough. I'm going to drop you off at Earth next time we pass by.
Billie: I throw a party for the world and my friends?
The Dr: Well you can try, but I'm not sure they'll be glad to see you...Maybe I'll just take you to Skaro and leave you to the mercy of the Daleks instead.
Billie: We can do anything, Free to be who we want to be?
The Dr: No Billie. You'll be enslaved or killed. Or possibly both. Now where is that screwdriver...

This is not a comfortable place to be in

A few observations I have observed over the past few days. Some are blog related others are not:

1. Lots of blogs seem to look much worse on a PC than a Mac. Maybe it's just my PC, or the fonts or something - It's hard to put my finger on it as I can't compare the two directly.
2. I think I need to pull back and regroup before I get hurt.
3. I really don't enjoy using a keyboard whilst sitting cross legged on the floor. It is uncomfy and really discourages the writing of long posts. Some of you may not feel this is a bad thing.
4. Bloody insects! My hands have been in itchy pain all day and at times they have resembled the hands of a leper. Or at least what I imagine a leper's hands to look like. Thinking about it, mine are potentially much less flaky.
5. It's so uncomfy here on the floor that I can't even think of a proper no 5! Oh just got one: That cute little robot from Short Circuit. I wish he was my friend.

A nice soak

Due to being both a bit tired, and a lot dirty after being out paintballing earlier, I decided to have a bath when I got home. I've not had an actual bath for a long time, and it was certainly the first time I've used the one in this flat, but it was kinda relaxing. Had to use shower gel instead of bubble bath, but it worked fine.

It is a lot more effort to have a bath compared to a shower though. It needs planning and forethought. And you have to move the radio into a different room and remember to also bring a towel (which is as good advice today as it ever was). Best not to use the laptop in the bath, but it wouldn't make much difference in its current state.

So now I am clean again. And pretty tired, so I think I may head off to bed shortly (or before eight o'clock in any case).

More computer woes.

I spent an hour on the phone to Apple this morning before heading out to work. And after trying lots of things, the bloke on the phone came to the same conclusion as me: the hard drive is broken. Probably could have saved both of us a lot of time if he'd just let me tell him that in the first place. So now the laptop is going to be picked up and taken away from me early next week, and will hopefully come back all fixed.

Things aren't quite as bad as they looked yesterday though. A friend gave me a Linux boot-up disk, and weirdly I managed to get this to temporarily fix the machine - I was able to boot it up and access the hard drive fine! First thing I did was back-up all the important stuff. Thankfully I was able to do this. So I should no longer be suffering any major data loss, though there are bound to be some things I forgot to move.

So I thought for a while that it was fixed. Sadly that wasn't the case, and it is now back in it's useless state. And the trick with the Linux disk didn't work a second time. So I shall stick to plan A and let the trained people sort it out. Hopefully they won't need to swap the hard disk for a new one...

Bad computer

I am not a happy bunny. And it's not the usual girl rubbish.

My lovely laptop has entered a comatose state. It won't start up and let me do things, and the limited diagnostics I have been able to perform gives me the impression that it may be the hard drive that has gone. If so, that would be the second one in 2 years. Last time it was an utter pain in the ass as I had only a total minimum of stuff backed up. This time, clearly I have learnt my lesson and so will have performed regular backups? Don't be daft. I nearly bought a second hard drive earlier this year, but ended up buying the laptop instead. And then because networking the mac to the PC proved very fiddly and intermittent, I never really bothered backing stuff up to the PC.

So potentially I may have lost a load of irreplaceable stuff. Again. Photos, writings, tunes, spreadsheets, and things that I won't realise I've lost for a while. At least I should be able to rip the tunes back off the iPod once I'm up and running again. But most of the other stuff will be gone.

So until I manage to get things fixed, I'm stuck back on the PC. Maybe I'll be lucky and it won't be the hard drive after all.

I am going to go and flagellate myself for being an idiot.

Take it back. Please, it's a horrid hat.

I am going to head into town shortly and attempt to hand back two of the items I "stole" off my friends at the weekend. If he's turned up... The item will be "the Hat and Pen". I've already returned the sunglasses, so it'll just be the frisbee left.

Cakes

Sometimes you feel like having some cake, but there isn't any cake. And then after a while you get a little taste, perhaps a slice, and it's great. Good cake. With fruity bits. And then someone takes the cake away and you're hungry again. Possibly it has been locked in a cupboard, or maybe just taken away. Or maybe it's gone stale and has to be thrown away, or fed to the birds (sparrows). It's hard to tell with cakes.

Another note to self...

It's a really bad idea to put a six inch chocolate medallion in your pocket and forget about it. This morning I woke with a chocolate coated wallet.

Suedehat

This is the first time I can remember that what is essentially the same song has been at both no 1 and no 2 in the singles chart. Yes, Frankee is on top, with Eamon just below. I will personally eat my hat if she actually is his ex-girlfriend. The worst thing is that if they were both somewhere else (or dead or non-existent), Lord Morrissey would have been Top Of The Pops, potentially for the first time ever. I could look it up and be sure, but I think I'll rely on my instincts here.

In other news this morning, I have been doing a good job of stealing my friends things over the weekend. I have: 1 hat, 1 pair of sunglasses, 1 pen and 1 frisbee. If you want them back guys, click here.

Catch that frisbee, now

Two things I have learnt today:
1. There is a big field five minutes away from the flat where it is fun to throw frisbees when it's hot.
2. I have a pocket which if you put a pen in it, the pocket is capable of completely dismantling and breaking the pen without my knowledge.

Also, the pub near the field smells of sick a little bit. After a while, you don't notice it any more.

Post-shower Addendum: After seeing myself without the t-shirt I was wearing earlier, I have also learnt that I am now very red around the neck and face region.

Three for two

The bookshop has a three for two offer. I made some use of it today, by purchasing three copies of the same book. One of these I intend to keep and read myself, the others are for other people who also wanted a copy. I was mildly disappointed by the reaction of the bookseller - he just sold them to me like he would have sold me three books that weren't the same. Far too professional. I had hoped to have the opportunity to use some comedy lines. Something along the lines of:

"You do realise these three books are all the same, sir?"
"They are? How stupid of me!"

That kind of thing (booksellers are very polite in my head). Or maybe "Oh! I thought the offer meant that if you bought two of the same book then I got a third copy free. I hadn't realised I could have three different ones! I am so blonde."

But I was not offered the chance to say these things. I paid my money and left.

Wake up, it's a beautiful morning

It's a strange feeling to wake up in the morning and not want to stay in bed. I haven't pressed the snooze button once this week, and the I've had the alarm set half an hour earlier than normal.