Death of Shredder (not the one out of TMNT)

Although I mentioned that Tescos have a fine range of spices and sauces, I forgot to mention that they have a shite range of shredders. Just the one, and a "value" one at that. And even if you wanted it, it's on top of some shelves so you couldn't reach it if you tried.

This is relevant because we wanted to buy a new shredder. The old one (a relatively cheap one from Sainsbury's, who do at least stock a choice) died recently. Not sure what caused it but I think it may just have been left turned on for too long and irrevocably overheated. I figured this time we could get a sturdier one. So since Tescos failed me I had a look around town this lunchtime. In the end I got one from Rymans (or whatever it's called now). It does 8 sheets at once and also does credit cards. And it also has a special slot for shredding CDs. I've never felt the need to shred a CD before, but I reckon you could make good Christmas decorations out of the bits.

But most importantly it claims to have an overheating cut-off so that it will last longer than the old one.

I'm going to have a lot of shredding to do tonight - a large stack has built up since the death of Shredder #1. Paper only though.

The main problem I had with the old one (apart from it being rubbish) was that I always used to make a mess when emptying it. When I tipped the basket into a plastic bag I'd always miss a bit. One time I missed completely. But it did occur to me this morning when I gave some though to this matter that you could just put a bin liner or plastic bag in the basket before doing the shredding. It might work. Emptying it would then be as simple as emptying a bin. Anyone got any experience of this?

Good Sauce

The big Tesco in York has a fine range of spices and sauces. A fine range. Better than Sainsburys and smaller Tescos. And I haven't inspected Budgens too closely but I'm guessing it's not as good. If you like spices, sauces and spicy sauces then check it out.

The Year Off Big Brother?

I've watched every (UK) series of Big Brother and have mostly enjoyed it. It has the odd boring patch but I can typically manage to watch it every night. And also watch BBLB and BBBM from time to time too. Series 9 starts later this week.

And at the moment I am intending to not watch it. Not even the first one where we meet the freaks. I'd enjoy it if I did watch, but I'm just figuring how nice it will be to have an extra spare hour each day. I could do useful things in that time like sleep or play Final Fantasy or drink.

I'm not sure how long I'll manage though - it's normally quite unavoidable and I am weak willed.

Late to the G&S Party

I've come late to the Gavin & Stacey party but I'm glad I'm there. Funniest thing I've seen in ages. And dead sweet too. Just watched the first two episodes on dvd and could have quite happily watched the remaining four if it wasn't late at night.

So thanks be to Tim who bought it for me for my birthday. You are a small Welsh work of genius.

It should end with... a BOOOM!

I started wondering today (always a worry) about what would happen if you drop a battery in a glass of water. Would it explode? Would it boil the water? Would it make the water electric like what happens when you put an electric heater in a bath?

But apparently nothing much happens which I think is a bit disappointing and clearly shows a fundamental flaw in the design of batteries.

Rerouting

I spent more time than I expected installing a new router (or router as I normally pronounce it). I'd expected a quick plug and play but forgot I'd have to add ISP and internet settings. And it's always the little one that you'd expect to make no difference that makes the difference. In this case it seemed to be the setting dictating time before disconnecting. Strange.

Anyway, it's working now.

Next thing is to work out whether the old one was actually broken or not. It was definitely a bit intermittent and would often just stop working for a few seconds. And so far (touchwood) the new one isn't doing that. I think it was probably on its last legs. And worse case is that I now have a spare emergency router. For emegencies.

Eurovision Post - Amended

I started writing about Eurovision just now. But then I deleted it all because it was rubbish. So here's a haiku about Eurovision instead:

Foreigners are daft:
Look at their silly outfits;
Hark at their odd sound.

That's much better than the original post. It was just moaning about block-voting.

Rock Band - The Verdict

I've had quite a lot of play on Rock Band now. It's great. But first the downsides. I'm playing an import PS3 version so I'm not sure what the situation is with downloadable content. At the moment I can connect to the internet and see songs to buy but I can't actually download them. I don't know whether this is because I'm connecting to the American store or because I'm connecting to the UK store but it's not properly enabled yet, due to the game not being out until the Autumn. Either way, it's not the end of the world.

More annoyingly there is the known problem about the incompatibility of the PS3 GH3 controller with Rock Band. Maybe there'll be a patch at some point or maybe there won't. In the meantime I've ordered an adaptor which should make the old PS2 guitars work. Better than nothing if it works.

So onto the game. The guitar element is pretty much the same as Guitar Hero. So it's all about the drums and the singing. Singing is fun enough but nothing new for Singstar Veterans like myself. Something is gained by having it at the same time as someone playing an instrument but it feels more like an add-on than a vital component of the game.

Drums are a different kettle of fish. The drum-kit is well made and has actual real wooden drumsticks. Playing it feels like playing real drums, because you essentially are playing real drums. The difficulty level on it seems a lot higher than the other instruments but this is likely just because it's new. It might look on screen like it works the same way as the guitar but playing it is much more about rhythm patterns. At times it's like trying to pat your head whilst rubbing your tummy. But when it clicks it's good fun.

Where the game really seems like it will excel is multi-player. So far I've not been able to play with more than two people but I think with four it will be fantastic. As long as we can all fit in the room!

Final great thing to mention is the character building. We've made a couple of little people who look just like us... here's a pic:

Game Excitement!

I'm quite excited today. Rock Band should be delivered in the next hour or so and I have the morning off work.

Also, Wii Ware has launched. Haven't tried any of the games yet but there is a Final Fantasy, albeit an odd one. Also a quiz game which looks like it could be (limited) fun with others around...

Oooooooohhhh!

Memory Upgrade

I got an extra gigabyte of memory installed in my PC at work which increased the capacity by 400% at a single stroke. The effect was noticeable and very pleasing. I can now switch between applications without having to wait several seconds for the change to happen. This will help me because previously I used to get impatient and try and switch to something else whilst waiting for the first switch. I'd normally end up then getting distracted and forgetting what it was I had wanted to do in the first place. Often whole hours could pass in this way. Switch. Switch. Switch....

But it should be better now. Oh frabjous day.

I wish I could have extra memory put in my actual head. That would be cool.

A Summary Of Today

Put things on shelves.
Eat burger.
Drink cider.
Read newspaper.
Play Trivial Pursuit.
Eat Chinese.
And then from here to....

Rock Band (post 1 of x)

I clearly can't wait until Autumn for PS3 Rock Band so I've bought an import one. I'm excited. It will be great. When it arrives.

Mad Metal

I don't normally buy CDs because of a song I've heard in a videogame but I made an exception the other day. The final song in Guitar Hero 3 is Through The Fire And The Flames by Dragonforce. It's almost impossible to play but that doesn't matter as you encounter it over the end credits and don't actually have to play along unless you want to.

And it's excellent. Fast, mad, stupid metal. Like Meatloaf on speed. And acid. So I bought the album.

I haven't listened to it yet. I expect it'll be great. Better than the Robbie one, anyway.

Something Smelly in York...

There's something very wrong with Lendal at the moment. It smells bad. Maybe it's the heat but it smells like a thousand people have all vomited at once into a big smelly pile in the middle of the road. No such pile exists but maybe it's there in a parallel world smelling bad enough to make its presence felt in this world.

Maybe the smell is actually so bad that it's punched a hole in the very fabric of our reality, creating a gateway that one could pass through. Into a smelly world.

Or maybe it's just The Varsity.

Awful Shopping Trauma

I was forced into doing something today that I really didn't want to do. It was quite an unpleasant experience. I was traumatized.

I was made to buy Rudebox by Robbie Williams.

Here's what happened:

I was on Amazon and my shopping basket contained three books costing about £14.40 in total. I needed to spend another 60p to qualify for SuperSaver delivery. I wanted to do that because I'm tight and didn't need the books urgently. I've already got loads of books.

I looked around for something else to buy and in the Deals Of The Week section I found the second Magic Numbers album for just 46p. I repeat, it was only 46p.

That is clearly a bargain of unmissable proportions (just like The Magic Numbers.... Ahem. Sorry, I think I was channeling Richard Bacon there). I added it straight away. But unfortunately it still left me about 14p short of free delivery. So I looked to see if there was anything else. The only other album at that price was the Robbie one and that gave me a dilemma. Either buy Robbie and get free delivery or don't buy Robbie and retain my dignity.

Not much of a choice really.

I'm thinking I might be able to sell it on eBay and make a profit, or alternatively it would make a wonderful present for a fried I didn't like much (or possibly for a friend who liked Robbie Williams but didn't actually bother to buy his albums). That's something of a silver lining.

Not enough to prevent my trauma though. I may never be able to use the internet again after an experience like that.

The Wrong Jacket

I went to a wedding yesterday and nearly wore the wrong jacket. My Wee Jimmy Krankie blazer was on the back of a chair in the living room and it looked quite like my suit jacket. I put it on and it felt like my suit jacket. It was only when leaving the flat for the taxi that I had a moment of epiphany and twigged that I was partly in fancy dress. It was enough time to switch to the proper jacket.

But if I'm honest, I really don't think anyone would have noticed. The WJK blazer is actually quite good.

Shower Fixing(s): Part III

So since January the shower in the main bathroom has been non-existent. On Tuesday, I finally arranged for the replacement to be fitted, next Monday morning. This was A Good Thing.

Tuesday night, 4am. We're asleep in bed. I'm woken by the sound of a shower. A loud shower. Which is strange because there shouldn't be anyone using the shower. When I investigate the en-suite, I find that the on/off knob has dropped off the side of the shower meaning it's effectively "on" but that it also has a tonne of water streaming from where the knob used to be. This isn't good. I try to put it back but there's no way that's going to work whilst the water's on so I turn it off at the mains.

Eventually I'm able to get the knob back on but not to stay on. Something seems to have gone wrong that means it just won't stay together any more. This is bad as it means we have to leave the water off.

It's obviously at about this point that we start needing the lavatory...

At first I don't think I'll be able to sleep but eventually I do. And I have bad dreams about showers.

I call the plumber first thing in the morning and he comes straight out to look at it. He deems it irrevocably f**ked and removes the shower and seals the pipes. This is bad because it means we now have no showers. But at least we can turn the water back on and wash and wee and drink tea.

Not happy!

Only silver lining is that I should be able to bring forward the shower they were going to fit on Monday and hopefully have it put in this week. Fingers crossed...

Wee Lint Krankie

It's another Pub Treasure Hunt tomorrow. The theme is TV and against my better judgement (and vote) my team are all going as Wee Jimmy Krankie. Here's a sneak preview of my costume.



Looks more like Lee Evans if you ask me. Or possibly Norman Wisdom.

Old Rome

I was watching the first Episode of I, Claudius tonight, or as I like to call it, Rome Season 3. It was quite enjoyable but also quite dated. The actors all seem to think they're on stage rather than on telly so there's a lot of overacting going on.

But it's hard to be angry with Brian Blessed for long.

Gordon's Alive!

I'm looking forward to seeing the episodes with Jean Luc Picard in.

Painting and Decorating

The back bedroom has been a bit of an untidy mess since I moved in five years ago. It's got a bed and a few random shelves but mostly it's just boxes and piles of rubbish and things that could be given away/thrown out. It's been worse since K moved in as it now has two people's stuff. So we're re-doing it. New coat of paint followed by some big new shelves and a desk. At the same time we're going to try and sort through all the items and get rid of as much as possible.

Being something of a hoarder, this is a little painful. But do I really need to keep all those all VHS videos? I don't even have a VHS player any more. Ok, I do but it's in a cupboard. So the videos are all going to charity. Assuming they'll take them, I'm not sure whether there's even a second hand market for them in these days of Blu-Ray.

And once the videos are gone... I can get rid of the VHS player! No point in having one if I don't have any videos to play on it.

And so it goes.

Also on the way out will be old books, CD singles, some (but not all of my) cassette tapes. And I've already binned a tonne (literally) of magazines. Boy, do those things build up and take up space.

But it is a bit painful - a lot of these things have been with me for so long that they're part of me. Albeit a crap part, like an appendix.

The sorting and tidying is underway but we've had to move most of the bits into other rooms to make room for us to paint. This gives an incentive to finish the job as quickly as possible as I used to quite like it when I could walk through the living room in a straight line.

Yesterday we did some (four) testers on the wall. Today we chose the best... and both agreed! Which makes life much easier. Willow Green it's going to be. And so today we went to B&Q to buy the actual paint (and brushes, rollers etc). But before the main job, there's the prep - sanding, cleaning and all that boring jazz. And also the ceiling needed painting.

In fact, most of the ceiling didn't need painting but the edges did a bit. I hadn't been particularly careful when I painted it years ago and so there were several messy blue splodges on the ceiling where I'd missed the wall a little.

Division of labour - I did the ceiling as I'm much taller. K sanded and cleaned the door frame and skirting boards. I was happy with that as I can never be arsed to sand things off properly.

The paint was a bit odd. It was pure white but the actual paint is pink when wet. It dries to white but the pink is supposed to help you see where you've already painted - potentially useful when you're painting white onto a white surface. I'm not sure it actually works that well in practice - it dries pretty quickly and so it's still hard to see where you've been or if you missed a bit earlier. I expect I have missed several bits but it looks fine so I'm not going to look too closely.

Didn't actually take too long, I'd say we were working for no more than a couple of hours. But tomorrow will be harder work.

Oh well.

That's What I Went To School For

It's a long time since I needed to do any trigonometry, but the other night we were ordering some bookshelves off the internet and I had to use my old skills. The idea was to get some along each wall by a corner and then another one in the corner at 45 degrees. I had to use a picture and some maths to determine whether the whole arrangement would fit in the room or not.

It would.

Or at least it would on paper. The proof will be in the putting (up).

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.

--------------------------------------

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.

The Excellent 1000 Whisky Challenge!

I've decided to set myself a new challenge. It's one I've been thinking of for a while. Here's the challenge:

"I have to drink 1000 different whiskies before I die".

1000 is a little arbitrary but it's a nice round number and I think anything smaller, like 12 would not be enough of a challenge.

Here are the rules:
1. All whiskies count - Scotch, Irish, Bourbon, Japanese, single malts or blended, all are good.
2. Each different whisky can only count once.
3. A 12 year old Glenlivet is different to an 18 year old Glenlivet.
4. A 12 year old Glenlivet in 2008 is not different to a 12 year old Glenlivet in 2010. They are the same.
5. Doubles count as singles.
6. So do trebles.
7. I have to write them in my little notebook once I've tried one. I'll probably set up some kind of online list too.

This is a good challenge because it involves lots of whisky and it is also SMART, apart from possibly the A. In fact, I have no idea whether there are 1000 whiskies or not. It'll be fun to try and find out!

Since I started this on Saturday, I'm now up to 3:
12 yr old Glenlivet
12 yr old Highland Park
Standard Jamiesons

Just 997 to go!

Panic Attack At Sainsburys

I had a dream. I had gone to watch Eurovision at my local Sainsburys and had obviously taken my wooden chopping board with me. Unfortunately, I left it in a plastic bag propped up by the wall in the lobby and forgot to pick it up when I left. This quite upset me and I woke up really worried that I'd lost my chopping board. I was almost having a panic attack - I was really short of breath and had to have a glass of water.

But I think that last part was part of the dream too.

In case you're concerned for me, I checked in the kitchen when I got up and the chopping board is still there. So it's all good.

Tiepinpointing

I can pinpoint the exact moment today at which I realised I wasn't wearing the tie I thought I was.

Ten to three pm

Apprentice Haiku

So the Apprentice
Candidates this year appear
To be a bunch of

Darn ran out of syllables.

Lights, Damned Lights but I've Fixed It

My kitchen is very annoying. It has too many lights. There are four spotlights in the ceiling, four spotlights of a different kind in the top of the cupboard housing and five strip lights under the cupboards (three small, one medium, one long). The actual kitchen itself is only about six foot by six foot. I'm sure a single bulb or fluorescent tube in the ceiling would have been enough light. Damn builders.

The main problem is that because there are so many of them it's really hard to get them all working at once. It's like juggling plates. Little glowing plates, stuck in the roof. Or something. It's not helped by some of them seeming to have loose connections so that I occasionally have to prod them a little to get them going again. It's lucky I'm of a height.

I think at the moment I have them all going (touch wood), as I had a session yesterday where I prodded all the dead ones to see which ones were actually dead and which ones were just pretending. A trip to York's premier hardware store at lunchtime today then enabled me to fill the gaps. So now they're all working and entering the kitchen is like entering the kingdom of Heaven. Except I expect the floor there is both cleaner and fluffier.

And don't get me started on the cost... I reckon it would cost about thirty quid to replace the whole set at once. Though I'd deserve a slap if I left it so long that none of them were working. Maybe I'd have to use a hat with a light in like a miner. Or maybe an apron with a light on. Now there's an idea.

I still can't work out how to get the glass cover off the light inside the oven though. It's been gone for a few years and it's starting to bug me...

Better Use Of Time Whilst Watching Others Play Guitar Hero

I've found a new way to play Guitar Hero. New to me anyway. It's particularly useful if you have a spare GH guitar but can't use it at that time (eg perhaps it's from a different console).

What you do is this:
1. Let someone else play the game in single player, as normal. It helps if they're reasonably competent and also helps if they're using the guitar that works.
2. As they are playing, you pick up the spare guitar.
3. Play along with the song and pretend it's you actually controlling it.

I tried this for the first time last night whilst my girlfriend was playing (she's somewhat better at it than I am).

I appreciate that it might sound a little dumb but it works much better than you'd expect. It feels like you're in control. You get the same tactile feel on the instrument, and the illusion that you're actually playing the game is strong. Obviously it doesn't pick up whether you've got the notes right but you can often feel that yourself anyway.

If nothing else it's a good way to practice some of the harder songs and it beats sitting around waiting for your go!

In other Guitar Hero news it looks like there's a DS version coming out. It has a fret board that clips to the side of the machine and also apparently a stylus shaped like a plectrum (I suspect an actual plectrum would work too!). Haven't seen a track listing before, but after playing Elite Beat Agents for slightly too long I'm confident that the DS will handle the music side of things. I'm just unsure whether the controls will work well.

I guess if they don't I could put it in demo mode and play along with the full size guitar :-)

A Festive Easter

It was confusing to wake up this morning on Easter Day (though possibly not as confusing as it was for Jesus when he woke up on Easter day...) as outside it looked more like Christmas Day. Night time had brought a fair smattering of snow and one could almost hear sleigh-bells.

I probably shouldn't be surprised at the weather. I've lived in England for over thirty years and it's always crap. That's why it's also so great. Snow at Easter!

I'm hoping that this will mark the end of the cold for 2008. I really need some warmer times so I can properly kick-start my exercise regime and practice for the GNR. Or maybe I just need a treadmill.

A Good Friday

It's a Good Friday!

We went to the Vudu Lounge for lunch - the normal downstairs bit was shut so we had to go upstairs. It's much nicer and I can't understand why I've never been up there before. They genuinely do do the best burger in York. Esp if you have the one with jalapenos on.

Afterwards we headed over to Pivo. Where I drank some cider. Or Cyder if you go by their labeling.

Major T(h)om(as)

I've been wondering whether Ashes to Ashes (the excellent BBC Life on Mars spin-off) should have been subtitled "The Chronicles of Alex Drake, Unbeliever". Because it seems to have more than a little in common with the Thomas Covenant books.

Not everything, mind, she's not a leper, she doesn't rape the first person she meets in 1981. But on the other side, she does face a near-death experience (and in fact is possibly dying) and then wakes up in a strange world which she refuses to believe is real.

I think it's similar.

A Lame Excuse For Not Going To The Pub

Colleague: Do you want to come for a couple of pints after work?
Me: Sorry, I can't. I've got to go home and bake cakes.
Colleague: ...?

Cake Verdict

The Delia Chocolate Cakes went down well at work today. Only complaints were

1) They smell funny but taste good (I think the smell was due to the Chinese Fivespice - am I right to use Fivespice that also contains pepper and garlic?)

2) They're a bit rich (ie too chocolatey! Can a chocolate cake be too chocolatey?). This came from someone who shortly afterwards had a second one so I don't think it could have been too much of a problem.

So it's all systems go for the next batch which I'll be making for our team meeting on Thursday. It's been decided that we'll all take it in turns to bake cakes for our monthly team meeting (which pretty much means once a year for each of us). Since 11/13 of us are boys I think this is quite funny. Especially when it gets around to being the turn of boys who've never cooked cakes before (I reckon there are at least six).

Nobody managed today to guess that the secret ingredient in the cakes was frozen mashed potato. I'm still finding the whole concept far too hilarious. I'd love to know how someone ever worked out that it not only could be put in cakes, but that it actually worked if you put it in cakes.

I might try making some chocolate cakes of my own recipe (I don't need Delia!) using other random things from my own freezer:

1. Frozen pizza
2. Frozen trout
3. Frozen southern fried chicken
4. Frozen birds eye potato waffles

The last might actually work as it's basically shaped mashed potato. Maybe I'll just try mixing all of them together and adding some flour, eggs and sugar and seeing what happens, George's Marvellous Medicine stylee. It could be good...

Last Night's Bidding

Some nights end strangely. Last night for example, we had tea (I technically didn't as I'd had a late lunch and wasn't hungry) and then watched Snakes on a Plane. It's pretty dumb but quite good fun.

But later still I find myself on eBay bidding for an Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson CD. That's just not right. I was willing to go up to seven pounds which put me in the overnight lead but it went for seven fifty when the bidding closed this morning. So I didn't get the CD.

Darn.

Delia's Chocolate Cakes

I made the cakes out of the new Delia book today. The ones with the frozen mashed potato in. They came out really well and are very very tasty! I think my workmates will be pleasantly surprised when I take them in on Monday.



I might keep the mash quiet though.

Friday Darts

I've started playing darts a little on Friday nights and have discovered that I am an amazing player. Well, maybe not amazing but pretty good. Well, maybe not pretty good but occasionally fluky. For example, last night I beat my boss in a game of 301. He started much better but we eventually both got down to needing a double one to finish. And we stayed that way for about half an hour. Eventually I decided to use a Jedi Mind Trick to win and as I threw my dart I said out loud "this dart will win" and it went straight into the right little box. It was brilliant.

I then went on to win two (out of three) further games of doubles, each time with me getting the final winning dart. The opposition were quite astonished.

I'm almost tempted to make my way down to Argos and buy my own darts.

I did however manage to get a dart stuck in a strange place: Pointy end up with the fights jammed in behind a dado rail. Impressive!

A bad day to travel.

It's been a bit windy.

I was in Peterborough this morning. Seven o'clock train from York, hour down, bit of time for contingencies, start at nine, finish running my session by half eleven, back on the train at 12:21 and back in the office well before two. Or at least that's how it normally works.

Because of the winds, the trains had been put onto an "emergency timetable". For some reason, rather than this meaning that the same number of trains run, but just go a bit slower, instead what seems to happen is that half the trains are cancelled and the rest break down.

Going down was not too bad (half hour delay due to a broken down train in front at Grantham) but coming back was less of a happy journey. I got on the train at 12:30. Already nine minutes late but on time according to the emergency timetable. Then heading north the train seemed to go at normal speed but stop for half an hour before entering each station. I'd have coped with this. I'd still have been late back to York but not too badly.

Unfortunately, upon hitting Doncaster we had to vacate our National Express train and head over to another platform to join a Virgin. This might have been ok if a) the NX train had been not too full; b) the Virgin was bigger than the NX and c) the Virgin wasn't full either. But neither of those things was true and so it was all a bit busy.

And to make it worse, the reason for changing in the first place was that power lines were down north of Doncaster so we had to go back to York via Leeds. Which isn't particularly direct.

So overall my one hour journey took three and a quarter, and I made it to my desk to start the day's work at 4pm. Grrrr.

But hey, at least I've still got four nights or so before cider prices go up.

Unrealistic Police TV

I've started watching The Shield on DVD. I'm nearly at the end of series 1 (yeah, I know that puts me about twenty seasons behind America) and I'm lovin' it so far.

But I had an issue with episode 3.

It features a (possible) rapist who is a bit mental and keeps jars of his own man-juice in his padlocked fridge. He thinks he is a great guy and needs to preserve his seed to be able to impregnate women in the future after he becomes infertile due to some disease he's got. He ends up being caught after slashing a night-lady a little bit in her neck.

So the cops take him in and in their questioning/research it turns out he's an ex-actuary. The actuaryness doesn't impact the plot of the episode at all. The guy doesn't reference mortality tables at any point. He fails to build any financial models. He's an actuary purely to flesh out his character a little bit.

Now I think this is portrayed really unrealistically. Not because they make out that actuaries are the kind of people who store jars of love-honey in their kitchens. We all do that.

No, it's unrealistic because not one of the police, NOT ONE, asks the obvious question: "Um, what's an actuary?". No way that some lumphead LA policemen would know what an actuary was. It's ridiculous. Lazy scriptwriting.

101 Uses For Frozen Potatoes

I was in WH Smiths on Friday lunchtime and saw that they had Delia Smith's new book, How to Cheat at Cooking reduced from twenty squid to twelve. That in itself would not have been enough to tempt me but I also had in my wallet a voucher for five pounds off any book over ten pounds. That took it down to seven and that was enough - I bought meself a new cookbook.

It's an odd book - it seems to mostly involve recipes that use Aunt Bessie's frozen potatoes. It even has a recipe for cupcakes which includes Aunt Bessie's frozen mashed potato as an ingredient (I'm going to have to try that one). Very odd.

So when I was in Sainsburys today I picked up a few bags of the aforementioned potatoes.

Yes, I am a sucker.

A reason to get out of bed

I didn't get a place in the Great North Run ballot and the lazy part of me had seriously started considering not doing it this year. That would be nice - I wouldn't have to do all that hard time-consuming training. But this afternoon I was having a storming time, clearing up all the jobs I've been putting off and I was doing so well that I phoned up Cancer Research and got one of their places. Darnit.

It should make it easier for me to force myself out of the house now though. The winter has been absolutely foul but now it's getting lighter in the evenings and I can envisage early evening runs not being too tormentous. And I might even do some more of the early morning ones. And I have a goal now.

So that's six months and twenty eight days (ish) and counting...

Sweet Machine!

I found the best machine in a pub ever. Better even than the one in Cambridge years ago that did the rat-shaped condoms that we played Fingerbobs with. It serves little Pringle-like tubs of sweets/nuts for a pound a go. They're great! We had loads:



And once you've bought and eaten you can play fun games like the old three cup swizzler game or any other magic involving cups that you can think of. I discovered an innate talent for making things disappear. As long as they were sweets.

Farewell to the Galaxy

Finally... I've got all 120 stars and then all 120 again... and then the last one! 121! It's over!



Seriously, I can't think of many games where I've been happy to play through the whole bloody thing straight after finishing it the first time.

If you need more detail, after getting all 120 stars, you have to play through the whole thing again but as Luigi. Even the hard annoying levels. And all you really get at the end is... **Spoiler Deleted** and the letter above. But I feel it was worthwhile and that I'm a better person for it.

And I'm looking forward to moving onto something else. I'll miss it though.

Da Da Da Da Da Da Da etc

Apparently there was some earthquake here in England last week. I failed to notice it - not because it was late at night and I was asleep, but because it was late at night and I was asleep in France. I don't know if they have earthquakes in mountains or not. My plate tectology makes me thing that you maybe don't as they're not bits where things slide under other things, but I'm not sure of this and I'm almost more sure that there will be some mountainous regions with quakes somewhere.

But the key thing for me is that there was no earthquake in South France last week.

Which is good as that would have put me right off my sleeping and made me miserable for skiing and probably then fall over, which I must repeat, I did not do.

Apparently the English earthquake was scary. Apparently it was shaky. Apparently it caused all sorts of minor damage and traumas.

But I missed all the fun. Gutted. Best I can do is to lie on the sofa and get someone to shake it a bit. And that's not quite the same because I worry it will break the sofa.

I have been woken by something new this week though: birdsong. At four this morning a load of the little f**kers started tweeting outside my window. I can't remember even seeing a bird round here before, apart from the ducks that used to live in my car-park (I wonder where they went?). They were as loud as. I was most annoyed and awake.

If it happens again tonight I'm tempted to go out there with my stout stick and beat their little birdy heads until the tweeting stops.

An Egg-cellent Apology

The chalet we stayed in Courchevel was called Sabot de Venus and was located down a very steep hill. The hill was the kind of hill that could be deadly in slippy conditions - unfortunate given that we were halfway up a snowy mountain... Luckily there wasn't really any issue given that it was so warm.

Apart from that, I liked the chalet. We had two chalet girls and one chalet boy. The latter was quite excited to find out I'd taken my DS and Pokemon with me. We swapped a few of the little critters and I filled up some of the (many) holes in my Pokedex. He also cooked us lots of nice dinners which were just about sufficient to soak up some of the free chalet wine.

They've developed a very sophisticated mechanism to stop guests fetching their own wine from the kitchen (it's supposed to be only used by staff for H&S reasons). What they do is put the winebox on top of the fridge. This stops short guests getting to it. They then put an open box of eggs on top of the wine box. This means that when a taller person such as myself attempts to access the wine, if the box is tipped a little then all the eggs slide off and onto the floor (or the wine-seeker).

And this is clearly not a good thing to happen.

Needless to say, on the third night or so, the hosts had gone to bed (or possibly to the pub) and we wanted some more wine. They had actually said we could help ourselves to more wine if we needed, they just neglected to mention the egg-trap.

End result was I felt very, very stupid and wrote a note of apology. Unbeknownst to me, my girlfriend had also gone off to write a note in the other room (I think she thought I was too drunk to manage it!). So we left both notes.



Funny thing was that the previous night we'd been woken by another group of guests coming in late from being out drinking. We then heard from the hosts that a lot of eggs had been broken, but they hadn't said why or how. Now I think I know...

Skiing in Courchevel

I'm safely back home from my fantastic skiing holiday in Courchevel 1650. I'm tired but unbruised as I went through the whole holiday without falling over once! A few wobbles, but all were recovered from before I could hit the ground.

I had lessons booked from Monday to Friday, but since we got in on Saturday, the Sunday was available to do some initial practicing. I was a little rusty as I've only skied once before and that was two years ago. But I soon remembered the basics and was able to ski down Mickey, the short (but steep at the top) beginners' slope without too much trouble.

Unfortunately on the Monday, the lift operators all went on strike for the day and so there were no ski-lifts working anywhere in the Courchevel valley. This makes skiing quite hard. It also meant that my lesson had to be cancelled and so I was left to fend for myself.

In the end, I really was very limited. Best I could manage was to walk to the top of Mickey and ski down. This was very tiring. And since the weather was very hot, I couldn't keep my jacket on for too long - at one point I was skiing in just my t-shirt.



The weather the whole week was very hot (for a ski-resort, anyway!) and I never needed to wear more than a thin shirt and my jacket. Didn't even need a hat. This was especially nice given how bloody cold England had been for weeks previously. It was like going on a summer holiday.

When the strike was resolved the next day, lessons were able to go ahead as planned. I felt that I made some really good progress in the week, though I still have trouble getting out of a snowplough when going round turns. But I can feel it coming. By the end of the week I was going fairly confidently down not only the green runs, but also quite a few of the blue ones too. The two hours of the final lesson were mostly on blues and I wouldn't say that I enjoyed it, but at least I wasn't scared to death like I had been several times on my last holiday!

The instructor was excellent (I'd heartily recommend New Generation) and unusually was English. He'd been skiing for 22 years, since he was four years old - I can't imagine what that must be like. You see the lines of munchkins coming down the slopes but never really imagine that they grow up into ski-instructors.

But they do, and good ones too.

Farewell til they stretcher me from the mount

If I was sensible I'd be catching a nap right now. In two and a half hours, I'm due to get a taxi to Manchester airport, thence onto Chambery, thence onto Courcheval, thnce to go skiing. Most of that journey will be relatively short trips without good sleep opportunity.

And by the time we get there it will be lunchtime Saturday with a good many hours before bedtime.

So am I sleeping? No! Sleep is for the weak.

I'm wondering whether to have another cider or no.

See y'all in a while.

Nearly Ski Time

I've got one more proper sleep until we go skiing for a week. Packing is about 80% complete and I haven't yet got too much fear in me.

Frankly, I'm looking forward to going somewhere where the weather is likely to be a bit warmer than it is here at the moment.

Newrinals

York's Pizza Express has just been reopened after a refurbishment and in the main it's not too different inside. It used to be a nice old building and now it's still the same nice old building just with different tables and chairs.

We ate there last night and the most significant change I noticed was that Peroni is now available in Big bottles as well as regular ones. Saves reordering.

More strangely, they've done an odd thing with the urinals. The gents' ones at least - I can't comment on the ladies' urinals. Because I didn't go in there. I'm a gent not a lady.

But the gents' ones, they used to be these big porcelain jobbies. Clearly quite old as they were a bit cracked and they don't make em like that any more. About 5 feet high from ground to the top, against the wall and with dividers between where different gents would wee.

They're still there now but you can't wee in them because there's kind of a dark glass screen in front of them. You wee on that instead. At first you think the old ones have gone but then you realise you can see a kind of reflection in the glass that looks like the old urinals. And then you realise that it's not a reflection, but a transparency and that the old is still there, behind the new. And then you realise that whilst you've realised all this you've forgotten what you're supposed to be doing and have wee'd all over your shoe.

Probably.

How are you supposed to spell wee'd by the way?

Other than all that it's business as usual. I had a good Diavola, very nicely spicy. And a big aforementioned Peroni.

Also on Tuesday nights at the moment, the Pitcher and Piano are doing two pints for the price of one on all pints after 6pm. That almost makes it criminal to not go there on a Tuesday. I'd have taken more advantage if I hadn't had to get the seven o'clock train to Peterborough this morning.

Various Vegetables

I've discovered a new vegetable that I like - asparagus.

I think I must have somehow avoided it all my life, certainly until last week I don't recall actively eating any. But we got some mini(ish) ones from M&S last week and I fried them up and they were delicious. So at Sainsburys we bought some normal size ones and fried them and they were delicious too!

I think they are perhaps the single vegetable best suited for the frying pan.

Apart possibly from Onions.

I wonder if there are other common vegetables out there that I've never given any of my time to but that would reward me if I did? For the record, the following is a list of vegetables I know I've had. I've had a couple of ciders so I may forget a few. And I may or may not include several so-called salad-vegetables.

Here we go:

Potato, Leek, Onion, Asparagus, Mange Tout, Pea, Swede, Carrot, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Runner Bean, Misc. Other Beans, Broccolli, Baby Cabbage, Sprout, Bean Sprout, Baby Carrot, Red Onion, Red Cabbage, Sweet Potato, Parsnip, Tomato (don't even think it!), Lettuce, Cucumber, Radish, Spinach, Okra, Celery, Celeriac, Fennel, Sugar Snap Peas... I'm out.

Maybe a good challenge would be to eat ten new vegetables....?

Ballot Failure 2008

The entry ballot for the 2008 Great North Run has now taken place, and I haven't got in. This doesn't mean that I won't be doing it, it just means I'll have to do it for charity. I was planning to do it for charity anyway so this isn't a huge hardship but it does mean that I have a slightly more limited choice as I can only run with one that will give me one of their guaranteed places.

And then I have to raise money again.

And actually start training properly. I've been quite lazy recently, not really getting out more than once a week (apart from the mental week where I went out before work twice).

But it's good for me. That's what I keep telling myself.

Return Of The Trolley

Today was the start of potentially a new (yet old) era at work... the return of The Tea Trolley! Yes, that's right, as a pioneering move, we're having a trial run of an at desk trolley service like what you'd get on a train or in the 1950s.

It's only a trial so initially they're not going to have much of a schedule and are just going to wonder round and try and see where the demand is. Future schedules will then be built to go more often to places where they'll sell more.

So when I spied the lady this morning I made damned sure I bought a coffee. I want them to come round my area lots, as I want coffee! And chocolate!

And was it my imagination or did it taste better than the stuff I normally get from the work cafe?

Downsides to this idea:
- I can go to the cafe any time I want, whilst the trolley is only intermittent.
- I don't get stamps on my loyalty card from the trolley.

and most importantly...

- I sit 20 seconds walk from the cafe, so it's not like it's an effort.

But still, it's good stuff. I'm hoping that next week they reintroduce the use of small boys as "chimney sweeps".

Capitalist Pizza Scum

They say hard times are coming. They say standards of living are going to fall. They say recession. They say inflation. They say lots of hard things I don't understand.

But today I found hard evidence that we're going to need to tighten our belts. We ordered a couple of pizzas from Dominos and their prices seem to have jumped by over 10%-15%! Large pizzas are now about two pounds more than they were a couple of weeks ago. I could barely believe my wallet.

Apparently it's linked to unprecedented rises in the world price of Mozzarella or something. Bollocks more like.

Didn't stop me ordering the yummy pizza though ;-)

See You Another Night

I went into HMV yesterday lunchtime and bought the new album by One Night Only. As far as I can tell (from what I've heard) they are a bit overrated - a good band but nothing out of the ordinary.

In the evening, in that same store, they were going to be doing an in-store appearance involving (probably) a short set and a signing session. Entry would be by pre-obtained wristband only.

Since I was buying the album, the shop-lady asked me if I wanted a wristband. I said no-thanks. She seemed a little surprised by this and must clearly have assumed that I was a fan since I was buying the album (with cash) on the day of release. Even though I was wearing a tie, which isn't very rock and roll.

She checked what I'd said - "You don't want to see them play?". I said, no thanks, not tonight. She still looked puzzled but let me be. She must have assumed I was just a misery-guts. My reasons for refusal were two-fold. Firstly, I had planned to go running after work. Secondly, I have tickets to see them in a couple of weeks at Fibbers and so I figured I could wait until then. I didn't want to have to explain all this to the shop-lady as I had a sandwich in my other hand and I wanted to return to my office desk so I could munch on it.

It was lucky she didn't push the subject and I'm happy for her to consider me a misery-guts if she wishes.

57 Channels....

Having only got satellite TV relatively recently, it's taken me a while to start remembering I have it and to turn it on from time to time. It's amazing how much old telly is on there, repeated over and over. But I don't think the repetition is necessarily a barrier to enjoyment. The key is to only ever watch it whilst you are slightly drunk and doing something else. That way it always seems fresh.

Hence I'm currently enjoying Shooting Stars whilst writing this.

Pokemon Swearing

It's no wonder that today's kids are nightmares. I was playing Pokemon this morning and was SHOCKED to see the following dialogue:



I wouldn't be surprised now if Mario turned out to head of the Mafia.

The following post may give you nightmares...

There's an advert for Radio 2 on the telly at the moment in which Terry Wogan goes up into a loft, finds an old fiddle, plays a bit of The Verve on it, gets excited, knocks the light out and then falls through the loft floor into the house below. The advert then says "Amazing music. Played by an amazing line-up".

I started to imagine what it would be like if all music on Radio 2 was actually played by Terry Wogan. And I got scared because the clip below is what it would be like.



Gotta love the 70s.

Early Run? Yes.

I did go out for a run this morning. I was out of bed at half six and out of the house at ten to seven for a three miler (with bits of walking cos I'm starting from a low base). I think I'm converted - it's much better than going in the evening.

Five reasons why running in the morning is better than going in the evening:

1. The roads are quieter - it's much easier to cross them when you need to.
2. It gets it out of the way so you don't have to worry about it all day.
3. You can work late if you want to.
4. It's better preparation for the Great North Run when you have to get up earlier.
5. It's better for the world - you don't need to have an extra shower.

I suspect it's crap if one has been drinking the night before though.

Early Run?

I've been finding it hard to find time to go running recently. The weather has been pretty awful (either cold, wet or Cold & Wet) and I've been working lateish quite a lot. I'm therefore seriously contemplating going out for an early morning run before work tomorrow. I reckon if I get up at half six I can go out for three miles with loads of time to spare and even get in to work early.

But at the same time, I'm not sure I want to be one of those people who does exercise first thing in the morning. I quite like being the sort of person who gets up early to watch Prison Break before work. That feels like me. But not running.

I'll see how I feel when the alarm goes off and take it from there.

Strange places for gigs

We went to Liversedge last night for a gig. Four Day Hombre were playing a low-key show in an old church crypt, the same one where they've been recording the new album. An excellent show and it was good they had installed a (can) bar and portaloo in there! Most of the new songs sound excellent, and I especially liked Red Red Rose and San Francisco. I am looking forward to the album when it's ready.

I don't think it was the strangest place I've ever seen a gig. To my mind that crown is still held by Ash playing in the entrance to Castle Mall in Norwich. That was just odd Anyone seen anything stranger than in a church crypt or a shopping mall entrance?

How to spot a stupid person

It's always entertaining to find particularly stupid people. For example a guy was prosecuted today because he did 130mph and filmed himself doing it. Then he posted the video on YouTube.

The police are apparently pushing for this practice (the posting, not the speeding - thats' already bad!) to be banned - they don't want this sort of thing posted online. But I don't understand why.

I would have thought that the first thing police would want would be for them to post a video of the crime being committed in a public place like the internet. Imagine if Jack the Ripper had filmed himself killing Victorian "Gentleman's Ladies" and then mugged to camera afterwards. it would have been an open and shut case.

Every person who posts a video of them doing something stupidly stupid on the internet is stupendously stupidly stupid and should be locked up as soon as possible. They are lighting a big neon sign above their heads saying "arrest me now" and we should help this process along, not hinder it.

I minus plus-deltas

Early morning for me this morning as I had to head down to Peterborough to help conduct some training for HR. Whilst my bit was solidly financial, it seemed like the course was a bit fluffy as the attendees kept having to wander off to do "plus-deltas", which as far as I could tell seemed to be where they talked about what was going well and what they'd like to change.

I liked it better in the old days when people were allowed to properly whinge and moan about things. Sod plus-delta. I want minus. I'd love to go on a course where everyone was officially encouraged to complain about the sessions they'd just experienced immediatley after the experience. Whilst it was fresh in minds.

And sod "learning logs" too.

Handheld Gyroscopes

I was wandering around Amazon the other night and I came across Powerballs. They are tennis ball sized balls with a gyroscope inside, and once you spin up the gyroscope the thing generates a lot of force. At max speed of around 15,000 rpm it's equivalent to around 18kg of force.

It looked like fun so I bought one.

It arrived today and I've had a good play with it. My arms ache now. It's a bit tricky to get it started spinning, but the websites and so on assure me that it gets easier with practice. So far I've managed to get it to around 6,000 rpm which already feels pretty powerful.

It lights up nicely too :-)

I still believe that gyroscopes are powered by magic though and I'll always believe this whatever anyone tells me or proves to me with stupid equations.

Never Trust My Glossary

My boss has asked me to review the glossary that forms part of the reading for the Actuarial Fellowship exam. I'm allowed to add any definitions as I see fit (though there's no guarantee they'll be used).

I'm tempted to try and sneak in some absurd ones and see if anyone notices. I like the idea of warping little actuary minds by making them believe things that are false.

That's probably why I'm not allowed to work with children.

A Late Burns Supper

We had Burns Night last night. It was a day late but it fitted better for us. We had all the proper stuff and I got to pipe the haggis in. But I obviously don't know how to play the bagpipes so I used a Harmonica instead. And the only thing I can play is the theme from Last of the Summer Wine. But I think it worked.

I also read some Scottish poetry to the haggis. I think it was impressed.

And we had some Scotch too.

Out of Time

One of the lifts at work is broken. In apparently a very odd way...:



"This lift is temporally out of order".

Is this right?

Tonight I went Dancing.

And then I went to the pub and had a Salad for my tea.

Hmmmm...

A DS Emergency Resolved

After approximately eighteen years of fruitless searching, I have finally found myself a replacement white DS Lite. Okay, it was only a week and a half but it's felt longer due to the amount of internet searching and shop searching I've been doing. Yes, I should get out more.

It was York HMV that came up trumps today. The last weeks have taught me one thing - HMV have DS Lites delivered on Tuesday morning. The first week I was too late. The second they only had pinks. This week I was in early at lunchtime and they had about 16 white ones in. Jackpot!

The downside was that the greedy b**stards wouldn't sell me one on its own, only as part of a "Mega Deal" which meant I had to buy two games and get a free accessory pack filled with things I don't need. Combined with my old ones, I now have five spare styli. That is too many. I've never lost one yet. Touch wood. Not that I need to touch wood when I have five spare ones.

I'll take better care of this new machine. The pack contained a case which I may use. It won't help if I drop it when it's not in the case though.

It also contained an "Emergency Battery Charger". Now, I love playing on the DS as much as the next small child but I find it hard to envisage any kind of real emergency where being able to charge a handheld games console would be some kind of solution.

Perhaps if you were trapped down a mountain crevasse and used up your whole battery playing Pokemon, and then suddenly realised that you had the internet browser cartridge with you. And then realised that, doh, you had used up all the battery. But then you realised you'd remembered the emergency battery charger and so you can charge the battery enough to connect to the internet and use email to send for help. And luckily, the crevasse you're in has wi-fi. In that sort of emergency I can see a real benefit. But not in any other.

Except even in that scenario, you'd probably have forgotten to put batteries in the emergency charger. So you'd die cold and alone.

Super Luigi!

I got the 120th star in Super Mario Galaxy yesterday. Some of the final few are right b**tards to get, especially the evil Toy-Time purple coin challenge. Took me ages, that one did. But perseverance pays off and I find myself with a dilemma.

Because there aren't 120 stars, there are 121. But to get the final one takes a little longer than the others. As it stands, I've unlocked a new game: Super Luigi Galaxy. It's exactly the same but you play Luigi who is faster and jumpier, but skiddier. To get access to the final final star I have to get all 120 main stars again, but with Luigi.

That's going to take ages... Can I be arsed? Maybe. It'll probably depend on whether anything comes along to distract me in the meantime.

Damn good game though. Damn good.

Songs for the Road... in York

The David Ford gig at Fibbers on Thursday was truly fantastic.

During some of the support acts, we spotted him sitting at the merch stall. We could tell it was him because he was wearing David Ford's hat and I'm not sure he ever takes it off. It was tempting to go over and say hello but we didn't due to not wanting to look like stalkers.

He started the gig with State of the Union. He used a looping pedal to build up layers and layers of looped sound. I haven't seen anyone do that live before and it's very impressive technically. It looks like it must be really hard to get the timing right on it, but maybe it's just one of those things that looks harder than it really is. The sound was spot on throughout the evening - you could really hear every word.

After that he played loads of other songs from his two solo albums, and also a random cover of Leonard Cohen's Everybody Knows. I personally would have liked a few old Easyworld songs in there too but I wonder if he's trying to leave those days behind a little.

I spent a lot of the gig with a big smile on my face because it was just so damn good. A real master was at work.

Afterwards I bought copy of the second album on CD (I'd previously bought it off of iTunes but the CD has a couple of extra tracks on it including a cover of There Is A Light That Never Goes Out). David was still around and the man running the stall said he'd sign the CD for me if I wanted. Of course I wanted! And so we wondered over to where he was trying to have a quiet chat to some people and shyly asked if he could do the honours... he was very nice about it! Even though we probably looked like stalkers.

If you get chance to see him (the tour is proceeding at this very minute) then please check him out. Easily one of the best singer songwriters in the UK.

In other Fibbers news, it's good to see that they have reverted back to selling Guinness there.

One Night Only?

I went to Fibbers tonight (for the first time this year) to see David Ford. He was incredible. I'll write more about him tomorrow. Maybe.

I looked at the schedule of upcoming gigs. The band One Night Only were playing at the start of February. Sadly it was sold out. Darn.

But...

But...

They'd added an extra date. The night after. Is someone taking the piss here? The band One Night Only are playing two nights.

I don't like it when bands lie to me through their names.

We bought tickets for the second night, but I'm kind of hoping it's an elaborate wind up...

Carving A Fat Man

Tonight on TV, Jamie Oliver presided over a programme where that odd German hat-freak who does the live autopsies disected a dead 25 stone man to show why it's bad to get fat. It was quite unpleasant. And so was the disection! Boom Boom.

But also a bit wrong.

I joked the other day about Hugh Fiddly-Whatsisface cooking a (free-range) Jamie Oliver pie, little realising that only a few days later Jamie would be on a programme where an actual man was carved like a turkey.

Actual TV is often stranger than the things I make up.

Ghost Tunnel

The lights in the Leeman Road railway tunnel have been totally screwed for three days now. The tunnel is 100m-200m long and so in daylight it's pretty dark. At night and in the morning, the times when I tend to be in it at the moment, it's hard to see your hand in front of your face. Luckily it's a straight tunnel and so as long as you keep going in a straight line you can't go far wrong.

In fact, rather than be annoyed or scared about the darkness, I like to think of it as a fairground ride. With free entry! Like a ghost train without the train. So thank you York Council for the extra joy you are currently bringing me twice a day.

I did wonder whether it was an intentional thing by the council to reduce graffiti. It's hard to graffiti in the dark, and even if you took a torch to do it, nobody else would be able to see it. Is graffiti that nobody reads just as unfunny?

Or perhaps the lights are back on but I've started some kind of Pavlovian reaction and now automatically close my eyes every time I enter the tunnel.

Or perhaps there is no tunnel any more... the blackness I perceive as a lack of lights is merely the surrounding empty void.

Or perhaps the fuse has blown.

I blame the parents

So my DS Lite is a little broken. Luckily, I still have my old DS original so I can continue to play Pokemon on its slightly dull rubbish screen(s) and unattractive case.

I intend to buy a new Lite asap but unfortunately this just isn't possible in the shops of York at the moment. Everywhere is sold out, even of pink ones. Obviously I'd never buy a pink one but I'd at least be mildly tempted if it was the only option. But its not even an option. That's probably a good thing as it removes the temptation to go pink.

It's been extremely hard to track the machines down round here for several months now. If anything, they were harder to find than Wiis before Christmas, and since then it hasn't got any better. I had reports from friends over the festive period that in other towns Wiis were gold-dust and DSs were ten-a-penny. But in York it seems the other way round.

The reason for the shortage is pretty obvious - it's f**king parents buying DS Lites for their f**king kids. In their thousands. I mean how dare they. I, as an adult, should be able to buy what I want when I want. If adults were going out and buying all the gin off supermarket shelves for their little darlings, leaving none for the actual grown-ups, there'd be outrage. If parents went out and bought all the jazz mags from newsagents for their tiny babies, there would be marches on the street from jazz aficionados like myself. And if they went out and purchased every single dirty magazine from the top shelf of all the newsagents (two shelves above the jazz mags) the grey mac brigade would be chaining themselves outside parliament and setting fire to their boxes of hankies.

But somehow it's alright for the idiots who have children, most of whom probably didn't even bother to go out and get a f***ing license, to snap up every bloody DS Lite off York's shelves (even the pink ones) leaving me, a tax paying man, deprived of what I deserve and NEED.

Arseholes. I hope they all die. And the kids too. And that the kids think of me in their wills and leave me an unbroken DS Lite. In white preferably.

TV eats itself

"Reality TV" (stupid name) continues to eat itself apace. ITV's celebrity ice dancing show, itself a blatant rip-off of Strictly Come Dancing, started again tonight. I like the real dancing show, but ice-dancing just doesn't do it for me. It's all technically very impressive (probably) but there seems to be much less variety in it. Maybe it's just personal preference.

But anyway, on the show tonight were two people who were only famous because they were on other reality shows first: Gareth Gates off of English American Idol and Suzanne Shaw off of whatever that thing that made Hearsay was called. Neither have exactly become huge stars since. The only way they are able to continue their screen time is by appearing on similar "talent" shows to the ones they made their name on.

It seems to me like this is a bit like having the news where all the news stories are about other news readers (back like it was when that white jacket man became an MP). Or possibly a cookery programme where the chefs cook foods out of celebrity chefs. Perhaps Hugh Fiddly-Whatsisface could cook a (free-range) Jamie Oliver pie.

I'd actually happily watch that one. TV literally eating itself.

Whoops

This probably isn't the cleverest thing I did yesterday:

End of an Era

It's a sad day for the City of York.

News just in that Woolworths on Coney St is closing down a week on Saturday. After that, there will be no Woolworths in York. The one in Monks Cross closed a year or so ago and now the city centre branch is closing down.

York will be a nowhere-ville.

Desolate.

Any town worth its salt has a Woolworths. I was in Abingdon recently. It has a Woolworths. Even f**king Knaresborough has a Woolworths. But York now won't.

I don't even like Woolworths, especially the way they always put fake cases out on the shelves for DVDs, CDs, games and so on. That's pissed me off since I was a kid. But losing it is like losing a veruca you've grown fond of.

A sad day.

Back To Normal

After the leakage of Sunday night, we let the floor, carpet and underlay dry off and everything is now back in place. Apart from the new shower that doesn't exist yet. We've taken the opportunity to move a few things around a bit too and to make things a little tidier. Although the back bedroom seems to have got even more junk filled. I think I might have a big chucking out/charity shop session one weekend soon.

It's very stressful having house crises. They should warn you about that when you buy one.

Shower Fixing(s) - Reprise

An old problem resurfaced today and has made me most annoyed.

We'd been out for lunch in town at Nineteen (previously known as 19 Grape Lane). Upon return to the flat, K noticed a couple of problems - namely wet patches under the carpet in various places. It looked familiar and it didn't take me long to trace the source of the water - it was the shower in the main bathroom again. The work that had been done eighteen months ago had come undone and so again water was leaking into the wall behind the shower and thence to the floor.

Bugger!

First thing to do was to move all the furniture away from the affected areas and then get the carpet up - there was a lot of water underneath. Next, take up the kitchen lino. Lots of water under there too. Next mop up all the water with old towels. Next call the plumber!

Since it was teatime on Sunday, I wasn't sure whether they'd be able to send anyone out to me or not but I needn't have worried - they sent someone round within an hour or so. He was very helpful but unfortunately wasn't able to fix the shower. It seems to be one of those problems where a small fixing breaks and the whole unit needs replacing. Darn.

He took the old unit off and then put some stoppers over the pipes. This has (hopefully, touch wood) solved the leak. But they are going to have to come back and install a new one for me. If I'm really unlucky this may involve them having to cut a hole in the living room wall, but that would be preferable to the alternative of having to retile the bathroom!

So in the short term we are down to being a single shower household. And for the next couple of days (until things are proper dry) all the living room furniture is squashed in an area half of the normal size. This makes watching television quite challenging. And we're also having to use the laptop as I had to move the big computer and can't be arsed to set it up somewhere else.

And so I'm somewhat annoyed and pissed off this evening.

But every cloud does have a silver lining. After nearly five years I have conclusively found where my stopcock is.

Taxi!

I did something today that I've never done before - I went to the supermarket and got a taxi home. In the past I've always either walked there and back (and used internet for beer shopping) or (been) driven there and back when a car is available.

It's K's birthday today and she's having a minor party this evening so we needed to get food and drink. Unfortunately the car is currently in a garage for its MOT and to fix an oil leak. We therefore had no transport and due to poor planning, no time to use the internet for heavy stuff. Therefore we were left with the taxi option, or go hungry/thirsty.

It works really well. There's a little phone in the supermarket lobby. You pick it up, press a button, speak to a little man and a taxi comes for you about five minutes later. Magic. The taxi man even helps you put your shopping in the boot.

It cost about six quid. So I've worked out that if you do a shopping trip once a week and get a taxi back, total annual costs are about £300 (I used a calculator for that one). If the supermarket is the main thing a car is used for then this feels like a much cheaper number than running a car - the garage bill alone will probably be several hundred pounds.

The only other thing we could thing of that a car would be needed for would be going to dancing class. So this means we're in a slightly surreal situation of only being able to justify having a car so that we can go dancing. Doesn't feel right to me :-)

But I've now thought of some other things we use it for:
1. Buying Christmas trees
2. Taking Christmas trees to the Christmas tree recycling place (somewhere...)
3. Ram raiding the local shop
4. Moving belongings
5. Visiting places that don't have trains (none spring to mind but I'm sure they exist)

But I reckon with judicious use of further taxis and car hire, we could get around these things too.

Message and moral is therefore "Kill All Cars". Nasty smelly things, they are.

Festive 20 - 2007

Lazily I'll just copy last year's brief preamble.

Every year, I compile a list of the top 20 songs of the year as voted for by me, the only person that counts. Rules for eligibility for inclusion in the list are flexible, but I think all on this year's list were released either as a single, or on an album during the year.

Let the countdown commence. In reverse order:

20: Wasted little DJs - The View
19: Elvis ain't dead - Scouting for girls
18: O Valencia - The Decemberists
17: Going to a town - Rufus Wainwright
16: All the love in your hands - Thirteen Senses
15: Our love goes deeper than this - Duke Special
14: Smokers outside the hospital doors - Editors
13: The world is outside - Ghosts
12: Australia - The Shins
11: The Prayer - Bloc Party
10: Home - Amsterdam
9: No emotion - Idlewild
8: Had enough - The Enemy
7: Mathematics - Cherry Ghost
6: Decimate - David Ford
5: Carry on - Ben's Brother
4: Better - Tom Baxter
3: Rule the world - Take That
2: People help the people - Cherry Ghost
1: Tranquilize - The Killers (feat Lou Reed)

The ranking is slightly arbitrary in places but there you go.

Cherry Ghost have managed a double placing this year through having two mighty fine singles. The Killers single is an excellent one. More downbeat than most of their output but it just sounds different to anything else I've heard this year. I nearly included their Christmas single, Don't shoot me Santa but eventually left it out as a) it wasn't as good as Tranquilize and b) it was too silly.

See you next Jan for the 2008 list! I have no idea what it will look like. Will Take That make the list for a third year running?...

Books Read in 2007

I got through a reasonable amount of books again this year but still (again) failed to meet my annual internal target of two per month. Just like last year I've only managed 22 again.

* Pushing Ice - Alastair Reynolds
* Pandora's Star - Peter F Hamilton
* Judas Unchained - Peter F Hamilton
* Learning The World - Ken Macleod
* Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
* Unspeak - Stephen Poole
* Sunstorm - Arthur C Clarke & Stephen Baxter
* Lint - Steve Aylett
* Marvel: 1602 - Neil Gaiman
* Iron Council - China Meiville
* Ancient Shores - Jack McDevitt
* The Meaning of the 21st Century - James Martin
* Watchmen - Alan Moore
* Black Jade - David Zindell
* Lisey's Story - Stephen King
* Dead Air - Iain Banks
* Making Money - Terry Pratchett
* Eternals - Neil Gaiman
* Illium - Dan Simmons
* The Big Over Easy - Jasper Fforde
* Olympos - Dan Simmons
* Resplendent - Stephen Baxter

Eagle eyed readers will spot a couple of graphic novels in there. They do count. My rules.

Best of the year were probably Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained (they're all one story and only split into two books as it would be 2000 pages long if they weren't). Very long but complex and good fun.

Dan Simmons' pair, Illium and Olympos were also a lot of fun, but also completely bonkers, mixing the Trojan War with spaceships, robots, monsters and quantum physics. I would have put it as favourite except that the plot never quite all comes together in the way I'd have liked and a lot of elements are left unexplained (or maybe they just don't make sense).

Hello 2008!

So New Year was a bit anti-climactic despite being in Scotland. Not a bad night, just nothing amazing. And there was no coal. But the cider was tasty.

I'm now safely ensconced back in York and looking forward to having the remainder of the week off work.

I haven't made any New Year resolutions yet (and indeed am unlikely to) but I do intend to start running again. Soon. And I think this year, the girl's coming too!