What Is Los!?

Pooh-San

2006-09-06T14:39:00.000Z

Gotta get up, I gotta get goin'
I'm gonna see a friend of mine
He's round and he's fuzzy
I love him because
He's just Pooh Bear, Winnie the Pooh Bear

Lookin' for fun, chasin' some hunny bees
Pooh Bear I know he's out there
Rumblee tumblee, climbin' a hunny tree
Fun never ends for us, we're so adventurous
Least every now and again

And when we're alone and there's nobody home
It's nice to be able to count on a friend
Like Pooh Bear, Winnie the Pooh Bear
Wherever you go, oh won't you take me please
Pooh Bear, I gotta be there

It's me and it's you
Silly old Winnie the Pooh . . .

Well, that's quite enough of that. I just wanted to get that out there though, which I am sure will be greatly appreciated by those of you that loved The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh as kids. Then again, I may have totally misjudged this. Anyway...

This is going to be a post about a night out in Japan, but it is going on this blog as this blog is still the true home of all my stories of misfortune and ranting about stuff, of which this post is likely to contain a great amount. Hmm I'm not sure that last sentence was grammatically correct and now that has got me thinking about spelling mistakes. Lame. I really should get MS Word reinstalled so I can check this stuff. Once again I see I have gone fantastically off topic. So now, without further ado, I shall get to the meat off this post - which is to be the disaster that has been the last few days.

Firstly - Tuesday. Tuesday I finished my 1-9pm shift at work and then trekked over to Yokohama with some friends (Sam and Sophie) knowing that Nova would have paid me my salary advance (good thing too as I was utterly broke, save for about £12), to get some cash out and go for food and drinks. I went to my bank and was greeted by a bank balance of 0 yen. Needless to say, I was a long way from impressed. I forgot about it and went for a couple of beers and food regardless and then went home knowing that I now had 2 days off to enjoy.

Wednesday. On wednesday I met up with Yimin and went back to the cash machine again. Once again I was met with a distinctly empty bank account. This posed me with quite a dilemma as I only had about £5 left and I don't get paid until September 15th. I rang Nova and after much confusion it transpired that after an administration error, that I was out of pocket and that I would not be able to get my advance until the following tuesday. This meant that I somehow was supposed to live for 1 week on £5. Now given that I spend £2.50 every day just going to work and back, this clearly wasn't going to happen. Yimin came back to mine and we watched Silent Hill and I educated him in the ways of British comedy. He was then kind enough to lend me 10,000 yen (about £50) to tide me over till tuesday. This could be added onto the £20 I already owed Sam from a previous night out.

Later in the day I was then contacted by Sophie who convinced me that inspite of my financial crisis, that I should totally go for a night out and that she would lend me the money. Now even though I knew this was a bad idea, I agreed anyway. Yimin and myself met Sophie in Yokohama and got the train to Shibuya in Tokyo. Sophie lent me another 10,000 yen putting my current debts to about £120. We went to a 200yen bar where all the beers are (guess what) 200 yen. The glasses are about 2/3 pint size and you usually get a good inch of head, so the beers are actually about £1 (more like 80p with current exchange rates I suppose) for a half pint. This really is very very cheap for Japan, or atleast for the area where I live and certainly for Tokyo. Sophie stayed for 1 drink before going with a date somewhere else in Shibuya. Yimin and I continued drinking until we eventually met up with Dawn (who had managed to get the train past Tokyo and had to double back) and Sam who had been working a late shift that day. We were also joined by two Americans called Evan and Eren who were both fresh out of training and were kind of weird. We met up with Sophie again as well who had finished her date and decided to come out with us instead.

We got taxis over to Roppongi (which I have mentioned in passing on Katakandy I believe). This place is basically a scummy hole. It lures the sleaziest of Gaijin there and really isn't worth going to very often - as I soon learned. We headed to a club called Lexington Queen where you can pay £15 entry and then get free drinks all night and they stamp your hand so you can go in and out as you please. It is the club that I had a good time at last time I was in Roppongi (even though it only has about 2 Japanese people in the whole place, which is kinda lame). Unfortunately we arrived there to find that it is closed on wednesdays and sundays as of August 1st.

This forced us to look elsewhere for entertainment. Unfortunately it soon became apparent that every other bar in Roppongi is very very expensive. They all offer a discounted first drink of £2.50, which then goes up to £4/5 for every subsequent drink. We tried a couple of places before settling on the very first bar we tried which was essentially like a very narrow corridor underground with a bar all the way along it and a tiny dance floor at one end. Atleast it was rammed and they were playing bangin chowns so that was atleast something. Also, women got free champaign and all their drinks were £2.50 so we were getting the girls to buy us stuff. I was very annoyed about the ridiculous prices at first but this soon got replaced by alcohol fueled merriment. At this point it seemed like the night might not be a total wash out. How wrong I was...

I noticed there was a trio of really hot women at the bar who were getting quite a lot of attention. They noticed me notice them and so there was some smiley smiley and then they came and danced up against me a bit which seemed ace at the time. A guy from the Isle of Mann then came up to me and upon finding out that I was British he consequently warned me that the hot women were infact hot ladyboys. My confusion was matched only by my disappointment. Though at the time I was just laughing lots as I couldn't quite believe it and found it rather gigglesome. Even more so after we let them go off with some French and Swiss guys who were going to be in for an interesting evening. Still - that was certainly a real eye opener. You'd think that for the interest of public safety that if a man is intent on becoming a woman that he could atleast have the common courtesy to do a bad job of it so that it is obvious for the rest of us. There was one who had stuck to such ideals as he/she looked like Uncle Fester in a wig.

Anyway, by about 4/5ish we left that club and travelled over to McDonalds for breakfast. Although it actually turned out to be dinner as we got there 15 mins before they were due to start serving the breakfast menu.

Upon leaving McDonalds the night took a turn for the worse again. Sophie ran off towards the train station, quickly followed by Sam who was carrying a very drunk Yimin. I was right behing them, but then noticed that we had left Dawn behind. I stopped and waited for her but then turned around to notice the others had disappeared. I rang them to find out where they were and their directions of "left" proved utterly unhelpful as there was absolutely nothing in that direction. I asked a passing Japanese person who directed us down...

[Ok this post may seem a little disjointed now, as I wrote all of the above about a week ago and am now finally going to finish it. Anyway - let's see how it goes.]

a flight of stairs into an underpass. It didn't appear to be connected to anything train related at all. During the walk down the stair, Dawn tripped and fell down the last two and landed on her knee, which was utterly busted in the experience. This was one of those 'Oh no - what do I do now?' moments. She managed to stagger along out of the underpass and then I hailed us a taxi and took her to hospital. As I am sure you can imagine - hospitals in non-English speaking countries are an interesting experience; especially at 6am when you haven't been to bed yet and have been busy all night filling you head with fluids.

We managed to explain the situation and so the nurses took Dawn off for tests etc. I promptly fell asleep in the waiting room on one of the benches. I woke up to find that Dawn was no where to be found. I didn't have my phone with me and had no idea where it had gone. Someone had also been nice enough to put a blanket over me as well, although I did feel kind of like a homeless person. I managed to find a nurse and convey that I was looking for Dawn, or as I put it "American. Bad Knee [with gestures].". She took me to Dawn who fortunately had my phone, so all was well - well, kind of. It transpires that Dawn's knee was totally busted and that she needed to have surgery, so they were going to keep her in for a few days and give her surgery the next day.

I stayed with her till 10am, before she finally convinced me that she would be fine so I went home and got some sleep. Well - I say I went home. I was still in the middle of Tokyo with no real clue as to how to get back. I got a taxi to Shibuya and then spent about 20 minutes finding the station and then another 30 minutes finding the right platform. Shibuya station is like a maze - it makes Heathrow look ridiculously easy to navigate in comparrison. Anyway, I finally got home by 1pm and got some sleep until about 5pm. Minutes after waking up I got to experience my first earthquake. The whole house started to shake and I just thought "It's probably just a train", but then I remembered that I live no where near the train station. The shaking then got slightly stronger, so it suddenly clicked that it was an earthquake. It was kind of surreal, but pretty cool.

I got dressed and trekked over to Yokohama to meet up with Yimin with plans to visit Dawn in hospital again, but we didn't get there till 7pm and Sam and Sophie rang us to inform us that we wouldn't make it to the hospital in time for visiting hours, so we resolved to trek over there the following morning before work. We then spent the rest of the evening touring round shops and getting food in Yokohama, as we resolved that we might as well enjoy the last few hours of our weekend as it had been somewhat of a disaster. We also went to the arcades and played some Mario Kart - I love that game.

That was the end of the weekend. The next morning we went to see Dawn and then trekked back and went to work, where I was greeted with my first experience teaching children. But that's another story...

The Truman Effect

2006-08-23T00:52:00.000Z

Has anyone else noticed that roads always seem to be totally empty until you get near enough to cross them? Then all of a sudden, a load of cars will appear out of nowhere, as if by magic, and you have to wait ages to cross what was previously a quiet road. It seems to happen to me all the time and I just thought it was a rather strange phenomenon, so wondered if anyone else noticed it.

Food for thought #2

2006-08-18T14:45:00.000Z

Ok this is probably really dumb, but I am going to put it out there anyway, because I can and I might as well.

Shrimp, crabs and lobsters etc are essentially the insects of the sea - granted lobsters would be big insects, but still that is pretty much what they are. So how come people are perfectly happy to eat insects if they live under water, but don't like the idea of eating bugs that live on the land? People eat fried grasshoppers etc, but this is considered to be totally weird; where as shrimp is entirely normal.

I'm not saying this like I don't do it - I love shrimp, but it'd be a cold day in hell before I'd eat a stag beetle or something. Maybe it's just a cultural thing, as we have been brought up to think that bugs/beetles (they are different you know) are pests and not food.

Come to think of it, it's probably just because we don't find crabs and shrimp scurrying around the kitchen and loitering in the bathroom when you go in there in the middle of the night - just ready to scare the hell out of you when you least expect it. I would definitely be freaked out if there was a crab chilling out in the sink.

This reminds me - I had some great shrimp the other day. It was at this awesome steak house that we found. You get a steak/steak pieces and then some other random thing to go with it, like chicken, pork, fish, shrimp or even lobster. It was a fantastic restaurant and allowed me to drop 'Steak?' into the conversation a good few times.

Monthly Review - July

2006-08-12T00:45:00.000Z

It has just occurred to me that (once again) I failed to give the previous month a score. Probably because the whole scoring thing was a lame one off statement that I have kind of stuck with for some reason, but don't care enough about to remember to do it properly.

Anyway, July scores 10/10. I visited many of my friends (apologies to the ones I didn't get to see), bought a laptop, got myself totally ready for my trip to Japan and, as far as I can remember, achieved largely everything that I set out to achieve. Therefore it is in essence a perfect month. I know there will be other months that may surpass it, but they will still just score 10/10 - it's not going to be like a Spinal Tap moment where it goes up to 11.

Oh and on a side note, I thought I'd promote a song I have been enjoying recently. It is by a band called The Sadtowns, who are from Norwich and feature our very own Dave. The song I particularly like is 'Alien Song'. Give it a listen and see what you think.

Anyway, time for me to head off for my first day at work me thinks...

Mute Walk

2006-08-11T17:22:00.000Z

Thought I would post something on here as I hate to leave it unused. This is just a rehashed version of 'The Walk' on Katakandy. As it is the same footage but fiddled with, I thought it'd be more suited going on here than on Katakandy. Anyway, watch it if you want.

The UItimate Pen Post

2006-07-28T15:02:00.000Z

I thought I better get this post published now, otherwise any longer and the words 'last weekend' will no longer apply. Anyway...

Last weekend was my penultimate weekend spent in England's pastures green. To help me get the most out of it, I was joined by a load of my friends, most of whom I had been unable to see during my last trip to Hull the previous weekend.

On Thursday I met up with Rami after work. He had got to Lincoln earlier in the afternoon and was taking some time out to chill with his new book by Danny Wallace. I met him (Rami, not Danny Wallace) in the Walkabout pub, which is only a couple of minutes from my office and we spent some time chewing the fat. We then headed over to Yates pub for dinner, before heading back to my house for the evening. It during this evening that Rami shared with me the address of a most excellent flickr stream, which I am sure some of you will enjoy.

On the Friday I had to go back to work, so Rami spent his day exploring Lincoln. I finished at 3pm so I joined back up with Rami at the Walkabout pub. After a little while we headed over to the station to meet Nick, who was on his way to Lincoln to join us. We picked Nick up at the station and headed back to Walkabout for a hearty meal and a much needed pint, as it was unreasonably hot again. After that we went back to the station where we were joined by Ian and shortly afterwards by Ben who arrived by car. We all squeezed in to his car (much at the delight of his suspension no doubt) and headed back over to my house.

Once everyone had dumped their stuff, we then walked back into town to go get some drinks. Unfortunately, as I don't go on nights out in Lincoln, I was a decidedly rubbish tour guide when it came to where we should go for a pint. In the end I decided we should go down to the wharf as the high street pubs were packed and I am too much of an old man for hot, busy places with loud music (damned young people). We went into a nice pub down at the wharf which was quite quiet and pretty much an old man's pub, which only had young people going into it because it was right next to all the other pubs and it had no queue at the bar. It was very pleasant and the cold pints of cider were decidedly welcome in the hot, humid conditions.

After that we made our way back to the high street and went to Walkabout pub, which was very busy. We stayed in there for a couple of hours before heading off to get a takeaway and then getting a taxi back to my house. I was rather pleased to discover the location of the takeaway as I only knew the whereabouts of one other takeaway in Lincoln and it was highly suspect.

On the Saturday we generally just loafed around for the day. We were joined in the afternoon by Ed and Tom who had driven over from Hull for the evening. I had planned to do a big barbeque but, typically enough, a rather nasty storm descended from the heavens and considerably reduced our inclination to go outside. So instead we just grilled/cooked all the food and it all ended up quite well. We then all went to the pub as the rain had subsided and chilled out there for a few hours, which was cool.

After returning from the pub, Ed and Tom made their way back to Hull and the rest of us went to bed (after people had got more of their fix of JFK Reloaded – a game Rami had become obsessed with on my pc).

On Sunday, it was time for everyone to make their way back to their respective homes. The guys left at various intervals throughout the day, with Nick and Rami leaving last around mid-afternoon. I then spend the rest of my day chillin’ like a villain and copying some of my vast collection of mp3s onto my laptop – a task which has taken me most of the week’s evenings to finish.

It is now boiling down to the last few days, as those of you who have been paying attention to the countdown timer on Katakandy will have noticed. I am largely ready for it now. All I need to do is sort out some new trainers (at long last) and then sort out my train ticket down to Heathrow airport. I will probably do one more post on Monday on here and then the next post I do after that will be from Japan – how exciting.

Life Lesson #1-874-238-B

2006-07-28T14:16:00.001Z

I know I still haven’t posted about last weekend yet, but I assure you I will do it soon – my account of it is rather dull anyway. So consider this an intermission….

For the last few days I have been suffering from toothache. As I am sure most of you will know, from previous experience, toothache is utterly infuriating. It isn’t so much the pain itself as that is reasonably mild for the most part; it is just the fact that it is unrelenting which causes so much frustration.

Now aside from wondering why life hates me so much as to inflict me with a dental disaster shortly before I am due to emigrate to a largely non-English speaking country, I have also been thinking about what I can do to relieve the symptoms until such time as I am able to visit a dentist [I checked online and there are quite a few English speaking dentists in the area I am moving to – good thing I am not being stuck in the countryside or I’d be screwed].

I have just had my lunch break at work, so I decided that it’d be sensible to go get some Sensodyne toothpaste, as that is supposed to be helpful, and also buy some uber-strong Ibuprofen. Now those of you that know me well will recall that I loath taking pills due to my innate inability to swallow them [I don’t know why; I am just hopeless at taking medicine. I’m sure we all remember the chewy multi-vitamins]. However I had conveniently forgotten this at the time of purchase. I got back to the office and opened the packet to discover these giant, blue orb-like capsules – each one about the size of a baby elephant. It suddenly dawned on me that I would probably have more chance of being able to swallow my own head than swallow one of these capsules. I put one in mouth regardless and gave it a shot.

After several ‘Argh!-I’m-going-to-choke-on-this-crap’-ridden moments, I decided that I was definitely not going to be able to get this thing down my throat in one piece. I decided that as it seemed to be of the same consistency as a jelly bean that I would just chew it and then swallow it – how bad could it be?

Shortly after biting into the capsule, I remembered that they had been described as “liquid filled” capsules. Almost immediately there after, the taste of said liquid became apparent. The flavour reminded me of the time that I learned another valuable life lesson, when I found out why teachers told you not to chew/suck on the end of biros. The liquid then managed to effect a rather unpleasant burning sensation throughout the whole of my mouth, causing me to rush to the bathroom in order to rapidly eject this vile concoction. My mouth then continued to produce an alarming amount of saliva for several minutes, giving me a lovely insight into life with rabies.

So basically, in an attempt to quell a mild toothache, I managed to napalm my entire mouth and still not solve the initial problem. Essentially, Ibuprofen is the US Military of painkillers – well, if you make a complete mess of things like I did anyway.

At least I have learned a very valuable lesson, which I now pass on to you – never bite into an ‘Anadin Ultra Ibuprofen’ capsule. It is about as pleasant as setting fire to yourself, only to then find that you are somehow still cold.

NB: Shortly after writing this, my toothache seems to have died down quite a bit. It seems to be helped chewing sugar-free gum. Thankfully I am in possession of approximately 2-3 million packs of Extra sugar-free gum at any one time, so all should be well for the time being.

Chemically balanced to give you a better life

2006-07-25T18:12:00.000Z

I have no idea what that means – I just had it in my head. It must be from an advert or something – who knows where these things come from. Not that it matters.

As per usual, my posting has become subject to delay. I am sure I could come up with various plausible reasons as to why this occurred, or I could bore you with the tedious truth of it all, but let's go for a more stylised, outlandish reason as to why I haven't posted on here for a while…

On and off this past week, I have been undergoing special training for a highly secret mission for the Federal Bureau of H'Investigation. Yes, that's right – I am an undercover operative for the Jamaican government. Well, no doubt considerably less undercover now that I have broadcast it on possibly the furthest reaching medium of information in the world – t'internet (well, other than the BBC World Service perhaps). Anyway, that is neither here nor there. I'm afraid the nature of the training and of the mission is highly classified, so I am not permitted to divulge any details – just be assured that it would be a highly interesting read and that it would be a perfectly reasonable account as to why I have been unable to post about the last week until now.

Enough of this twoddle – let's take a trip back down memory lane and visit last Tuesday in a detective novel, self-narrative stylee [wibbly-wobbly screen effect ensues]…

It was a cold, dark night… wait a moment – no it wasn't. It wasn't remotely cold or dark – it wasn't even night. It was Tuesday morning; it was hot and it was sunny. I had taken the day off work to travel down to London so that I could sort out my visa, as I was due to travel to Japan for a year in less than a fortnight. Lesser men would've recoiled at the thought of a day in London on the hottest day of the year, but I didn't care – I had a job to do. The train was crowded – like a village fete, but without bouncy castles or a pond. It failed to make a dent on my steely determination to succeed. The breeze from the AirCon whistled down the train like a cool, silent whistle.

I arrived in Kings Cross at 11:21 and was greeted by a stench so vile that it made my eyes water. This was London alright. I made my way out onto the streets and began my long, hard walk to Regent Street – home of the Nova Groups London office. The sun bore down on me like a giant, yellow radiator in the sky; unrelenting in its perpetual desire to make everyone perspire to an uncomfortable degree. I couldn't let it deter me.

I made it to Regent Street and stopped to gather my thoughts. The heat had caused them to scatter – like youths evading the police after an unsuccessful attempt on a liquor store. My sudden lapse in cognitive ability had led me to forget where on Regent Street the Nova offices were located. This could become a problem. Fortunately, time was on my side, so without further ado I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialled the number for the Nova offices. The woman greeted me like only a Nova receptionist could. I filled her in on the details of my predicament and she was quick to resolve the situation. She directed me from my current location to the offices with the greatest of ease; you could tell she had directed people before.

Upon reaching the offices, I noticed that I still had time to kill before my impending meeting with the big wigs. If they could wait then so could I. I asked the doorman how to get to the Japanese embassy. It seemed like a good idea to suss out the route, so that if I had to make a hasty getaway later, my options were open.

The doorman's directions proved sound as I soon found myself stood at the doors of the most Japanese embassy in all of London. With the route now firmly secured in my mind, I headed back to Regent Street.

The incredible heat and my constant walking were beginning to take their toll and I knew I needed to act fast. I immediately made my way to Oxford street to search for the nearest Starbucks, which transpired to be a considerable distance from Regent Street.

I entered the Starbucks and ordered a good old cup of tropical fruit juice blended tea. It tasted like only tropical fruit juice can taste and was as cool as a Snowman's skiing holiday. I knew then that I had made the right decision.

I headed back to Nova and waited for my time to be up. Time passed slowly – seconds felt like minutes, minutes felt like hours, hours felt like slightly longer hours. I read my guide to life in Japan and allowed my mind to relax.

Then the time came. I made my way up the stairs to join the other future Nova employees. They were a mixed bunch, all of whom had their own story to tell. We were given the information we wanted and the certificates we required. With this now complete, we made our way to the embassy.

I began to chat to a young beauty by the name of Fiona. Her hair was as gold as gold can be and her eyes were as blue as the Windows taskbar. We spoke of many things in our short time together, but all too soon the time to part had come.

My time in the embassy was brief and uneventful, save for a disagreement between my belt and the metal detector. A group of us headed to the nearest Pub to discuss the day's events and our new lives in the land of the rising sun.

A couple of hours later and it was time to depart. I had a long walk ahead of me and I had become pressed for time. I bid my farewells and made my way back to Kings Cross station. The walk was long and hard; my feet felt I had been walking on hot coals.

I arrived at Kings Cross only moments before my train was due to leave. I made my way to the far carriage and hopped on. My only option was to stand in the intersection between carriages. It was hot and busy and there was no AirCon. Sweat trickled from my brow like a waterfall and managed to exacerbate an already uncomfortable situation. The sun had won this round and didn't I just know it.

The train ride seemed to last forever – it amazes me I'm not still there now. I eventually returned home, knowing that the day had been a success and I could now rest easy.

THE END

Well, there you go – that was something a bit different. Also, I neglected to highlight in my little story that during my day in London my laptop was delivered. I am currently using it to do this post (well this last little bit as the rest was done at work) and it is most excellent.

This is looking to turn into a giant post actually as I have managed to ramble on for ages and I still have last weekend to cover as well. I think I will cover that in a separate post, otherwise this will become some sort of epic post of ridiculous proportions. So then – onto the next post…

Later Alligator

2006-07-17T22:21:00.000Z

Aloha! My time in the UK is steadily drawing to a close. It is kind of weird really, as it is finally starting to dawn on me. Up till now I have just treated the whole idea with a degree of nonchalance, coupled with a mild excitement about seeing a new country and meeting new people. After this past weekend it finally hit me that to see these new places, I have to leave the old ones and to make these new friends, I have to give up my old ones. You’d think this would be obvious and it is, but you just tend to keep it at the back of your mind and not pay it much thought until you actually have to say goodbye to people. It’s annoying enough as it is not being able to see my friends as often as I would like, but a year is going to be quite a stretch. I’ve decided to just think of it as once around the sun, as that way it doesn’t seem quite so bad. On the plus side, I am embarking on an excellent adventure (sans time travelling phone box) and when I return I will even more awesome than when I left, if that is indeed possible.

Anyway, let’s get back to the task at hand and get you all up to speed with last weekend – although most of the few people that read this were there, so it is a little pointless; but it has to be done.

As mentioned earlier I spent the previous weekend in Hull. It was my last trip there before I leave for Japan. I left work on Friday at about 3ish and got the trains towards Hull. The trains all ran on time and everything went according to plan, which was nice. I got off the train early at Goole to be greeted by Louise, so that I could go and see her new flat – which was very nice. I then got a lift with her to Hull where we met up with the other attendees for the weekend – Rami and Rebecca; as well as permanent residents: Tom, Ed, Leigh and Chris (who is currently in between residences). Drinking started soon after arrival and continued well into the night. We went to Pozition, which was dead; so we left and went to Attic, which was quite good. By that point I was already beyond any ability to comprehend either my surroundings or my own actions, so I indulged in numerous shots of various natures. This was blatantly a mistake, but I couldn’t face dancing and I am an idiot. After leaving Attic, we all went to bed, where I slept for about 2-3 hours before waking up again at 7:30 on what was now Saturday morning.

As one would expect, my body was not thanking me for my attempts to destroy it and I felt like a walking catastrophe. I staggered into the shower in a futile attempt to wake up and not keel over. I decided that my best bet was to walk into town and get some fresh air as this would undoubtedly gratify me with an instant reprieve from my current state of nausea. This could not have been further from the truth. In my, possibly still drunken, attempts to leave the house I woke up Rami, who subsequently decided that he would not leave me to stagger into town alone and joined me on my journey. I think I managed a whole 3 steps out of the front door before the goblins in my stomach began to cackle maniacally and begin shutting down my internal organs one by one.

We mainly just mooched around in town, looking in the odd shop or two and strolling round the wharf. We had a good look around Toys R Us, which was fun – but then toys always are. Whilst in there we found a small, electronic 20 questions game which claims to be able to read minds. After some speculation and scoffing, Rami and I decided to give it a go to see if it was all it claimed to be. I can only surmise that it is a toy conceived by either clairvoyants or witches or both. After it managed to guess that we were thinking of both a bus and then shoes, Rami decided that he had to buy one as it was clearly magic. It went on to get plenty of use throughout the weekend, especially by Leigh who wanted to see if he could somehow corrupt it with his perverse mind.

At lunchtime Rami and I were picked up by Louise and Helen. Rami was dropped back off at the house to then get lunch with everyone else at the Gardeners pub, whilst Louise, Helen and myself trekked to Hull city centre to find somewhere nice to eat and catch up as the three of us hadn’t hung out together for quite a long time. We found what appeared to be a nice looking pub in old town, so we popped in and ordered some food. Unfortunately the pleasant appearance of the pub managed to belie the utter horror that was the food. I can not remember the name of the pub – it was ‘The Ale…’ and something I believe. It was most likely ‘The Ale (is the only thing you can safely ingest in this pub)’. Fortunately lunch still proved to be excellent as it was great for the three of us to be able to hang out again and we just found the dire state of the food to be a source of constant amusement.

Upon leaving the pub we drove around for a little while before going over to Helen’s house. After sitting there and enduring the second coming of my hangover, Louise and I said our goodbyes to Helen and headed back to the house.

A short while later Louise headed back to Goole and then the rest of us went out for a Chinese at our beloved Jade Palace. We then trekked back to the house for a brief spell and Rebecca dropped Rami off at the Gardeners to see some of his other mates who were in the area. The rest of us then drove over to the Humber Bridge to go see the fireworks display, as there had been a 4 day festival at the bridge to celebrate it having been open for 25 years or something along those lines. The fireworks were really good and you can get a vague idea of what they looked like in the pictures below.

After the fireworks we returned to the house and we were rejoined by Rami. We then finally opened a bottle of champagne which my brother had given me for my 21^st birthday and it had been sitting at the house in Hull since the days that I had lived there. We had been meaning to drink it for such a long time, but to be honest I am kind of glad we didn’t get round to it till this weekend – perhaps it was destined to wait until my last weekend. After that we all chilled out for a little while before retiring for the evening.

On Sunday I once again woke up decidedly early, although this time at the slightly later time of 8:30am. Leigh was already up and about to head into town for work, so I got him to give me and a reluctant Tom a lift into town. This was because I wanted to (a) buy some trainers I had my eye on, and (b) try out a chocolate and toffee Danish pastry which Tom had highly recommended. Unfortunately neither plan worked out overly well. For a start the shops don’t open till 10:30am on a Sunday, so Hull was like a ghost town. Therefore Tom and I decided to go and sit down by the wharf for an hour and a half and watched the cool boats go by. It was then that I decided that I need to get myself an awesome boat, as the property ladder really doesn’t appeal to me. We then went to the trainer shop, which had sold out of my size in the colour I wanted. Our attempts to get a Danish was also foiled by the fact that Cooplands bakers don’t open on a Sunday. In the end we got brunch from Marks and Spencers and sat in the park and ate it. On our trek back to the bus station we noticed that there was an open Cooplands after all, so we popped in praying that they would have the legendary Danish pastry. Unfortunately they didn’t have any, but we did get to try and rather fantastic cake called a Russian Slice. It is a marbled slice of cake with strawberry jam, which is then absolutely sodden with rum and has fondant icing on top. As you can no doubt imagine - it was amazing.

We then popped into Debenhams, who were having a rather excellent sale. I picked up a tie that I had wanted since my last visit to Hull. Unfortunately an awesome Animal polo shirt that I had also wanted was practically the only item in the store still at full price.

We then got a bus to Kingswood Retail Park to meet up with Ed, Rebecca and Rami to go see Superman Returns, which Ed had booked us all tickets for the day before. It was a really enjoyable film and an excellent addition to the Superman saga. We then picked up a KFC bucket and headed back to the house.

Two pieces of chicken later, it was time for me to leave. Saying farewell to everyone was quite sad, but I am sure it won’t be too long before I am back and hopefully they will all have an excellent year whilst I am away.

Today I was back at work, which to be honest, I really wasn’t in the mood for. I didn’t feel like feigning cheeriness and enthusiasm all day. Luckily, as the job forces me to do that, it actually turned out to be quite beneficial as it proved a good distraction. I also ordered my laptop at long last today. I paid a bit more for it to get next day delivery, so all being well I will have it tomorrow.

Tomorrow I am heading down to London for the day to sort out my Visa for Japan, so I will no doubt have the joy of standing in a queue at the Japanese embassy. Still, I will be sure to update you all about it when I get back.

Business as usual

2006-07-10T18:28:00.000Z

Alcohol is thoroughly unpleasant. How I fail to remember this for longer than 48 hours I do not know. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself…

As mentioned previously, I have just spent the weekend in Kettering. It was part of my tour for seeing friends before I leave for Japan. Fortunately they have all finished university now so there was quite a few of them around, some of whom I hadn’t seen for quite a while. By chance, this weekend was also host to Coey’s birthday, which worked out rather nicely.

I trekked down on the Friday after work. This time the trains behaved themselves, despite some minor delays and I was able to get to Kettering for the planned time of 6pm. I spent a large part of the train ride down playing Animal Crossing on my DS Lite (yes, I am a sad act - no, I don’t care). Upon arriving at Kettering, I was met at the station by Coey, Joliver and Hindu and we then went to Frankie and Benny's for a meal. As is par for the course at Frankie and Benny's, the prices were high and the portions were few – “It was everything I expected and less”. The food is nice enough though and they have ‘learn Italian’ CDs playing in the toilets (presumably in case one should meet a nice Italian man in there?). We then spent a couple of hours in a pub before going to the cinema to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. It is a good film, but unfortunately the ending is thoroughly disappointing. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it, so I shan’t go into details, but the film is left decidedly open for a third film. Now normally I’d be pleased that they had left the film open to make it a trilogy, as I rather like these films – however, when I say “open”, I mean like a ravine. It is as if it is just one really long film that has randomly been cut in the middle and will no doubt have a 2-3 year gap in between instalments. Needless to say, this is somewhat frustrating, especially given the fact that I had to sell a kidney just to afford the cinema ticket. I swear, I was asked if I owned my own home when I tried to buy my ticket. Well, maybe I am exaggerating ever so slightly – but what is exaggeration, if not a more interesting version of the truth? Therefore my word is practically gospel.

On Saturday we went to town to have lunch in The Earl, which was just as nice as Frankie and Benny's and about a quarter of the price. We were joined for lunch by Joliver, Absmith and Absmith’s friend Kyle. We were then joined by Hindu, and later Edd, and then spent the rest of the afternoon trekking around various pubs in Kettering, laying the foundations for the evening as we were celebrating Coey’s birthday that evening. What I can remember from the rest of that evening is vague and blurred, but that’s probably for the best – especially given the alarming amount of Black Sambuca that said memories involve. What I do remember is Coey, Edd, Joliver and myself staggering back to Joliver’s house for the night after failing dismally to get a taxi (I ordered a taxi, which upon arriving 30 minutes later, prompted us to notice that none of us had any money left at all). I have a vague memory of us hearing screams of pain coming from the local council estate down the road, so we trekked round it for a while to see if we could see anyone, but to no avail. No doubt it was some other drunken idiot.

Sunday morning greeted me with that all too familiar feeling of ‘I wish I was dead’. Coey and I trekked back to town to get a bus to Coey’s house, where I was later picked up by my parents. Upon getting home, I went to bed and hoped that my head would just get it over and done with and explode.

Now I am back at work for another week of toil, until this coming weekend where I shall make my final trip to Hull before I head off to the far side of the globe. No doubt it will once again serve as another reminder of the evils of imbibing alcohol, but I’ll worry about that at the time.

World, Hold On!

2006-07-04T18:21:00.000Z

Guten tag. This post was delayed slightly as YouTube was being slow, but now all is well so I can get you all up to date.

Firstly, it seems I am two monthly reviews behind; so without further ado, May and June scored 7/10 and 9/10 respectively. Mainly as in May I found a job, then in June I got paid, got a DS Lite, saw Dylan Moran live and there were no doubt other enjoyable things too.

Anyway, now that that's done, I can get on with summarising the time between my last post and now. I've been working lots and finding my job to be getting increasingly more burdened with responsibility as every day more and more people decide that I will become their go-to-guy when ever they need something done. Still, it is a means to an end so that is all that matters.

This weekend past I spent with my brothers and it was most excellent. On the friday, my brother Paul picked me up after work and we trekked down to Welwyn Garden City to stay with my other brother Nigel. We had a giant Chinese and watched some Black Books as I have managed to get Nigel hooked to it after buying him the boxset. On saturday morning we were joined by the fourth in our quartet, my brother Richard. The four of us then set out to our day in London. It was an absolutely baking hot day, as many of you are no doubt aware, but fortunately I had left work early the day before to get some combat shorts, as I didn't fancy walking round London in jeans in that heat. We toured round various places, including looking round Covent Garden for the O'Neill shop so I could buy an awesome hat that I had been after for a while. After looking round the shops, we went to Wagamamas for lunch. It is a Japanese-style noodle bar. As I am moving to Japan next month, we figured I might as well have Japanese food in London and pay 4 times the price. Still, it was really nice - I had a great Chicken Katsu Curry. After lunch, we had a look round the London Aquarium, which was interesting, but not really worth the rather hefty cost of entry. On the plus side, they had lovely air-conditioning in there. You can see some footage from inside below...

Upon leaving the aquarium, I was able to see/hear the Gay Pride parade that was taking place on the other side of the Thames. Never have I seen so many people mincing simultaneously. It was a really long parade with an extremely long procession of floats. To their credit they were playing some banging chowns, and they were so loud they could be heard clearly from the far side of the river where I was standing.

The main high point of the day was our trip out on a life boat along the Thames. It was brilliant. It sped along the river up towards Docklands, then turned around and came back slowly whilst a cockney guy pointed out some of the sights along the river and gave us some history behind them. It was really interesting - I never knew the 'wharf' stands for 'WareHouse At River Front' (now you all know too). It seems that quite a few of the really old buildings to survive were pubs, which is kind of indicative of English culture. Some dated back to the 16th century. Anyway, below is some footage of the life boat speeding up the Thames:

We then headed to one of our favourite London pubs - The Princess Louise, which is in High Holborn and is one of the few pubs not to have a TV in it; so it was rather quiet, unlike every other pub in London which was full of people watching the England v Portugal game. They have their own brand of beer/lager and it is particularly awesome. It went down a treat on such a hot day. We also spoke to some interesting people, including a punk with a pink Mohican (haircut that is - not an American Indian with a pigmentation problem) who was telling us about his friend who worked promoting Black Currant Tango at festivals by leaving empty cans and bottles everywhere to make it look like loads of people had been drinking it. Alcohol-induced conversation is generally the best kind of conversation. Well, I say that - shortly before we left the pub it became subject to drunken, disheartened English supporters who were randomly shouting at people in the pub. I felt immensely sorry for the bar staff as one of the fans drunkenly shouted down his phone the name of the pub to his friends so they could no doubt join him in being obnoxious. Still, it was to be expected really.

We left the pub and headed back to Welwyn Garden City. My brother Richard left us at that point, so the rest of us got a curry for dinner (my second curry of the day).

On sunday Paul gave me a lift back to Lincoln, though before that we went to The Galleria. This is a big outlet centre. There were quite a few shops and they were selling all the usual brands but at silly prices, so obviously I was compelled to load up on some clothes. We then popped to Welwyn Garden City centre to have a look round the shops there as well. By mid-afternoon I was back in Lincoln and relaxed for the rest of the day, before returning to work on Monday.

Now I am just working my way through the week; earning pennies and planning how to spend them. On friday I am off down to Kettering for the weekend to see a load of old sixth form friends and celebrate Coey's birthday. So until next week - I bid you adieu.

Please fasten your seatbelts

2006-06-24T19:15:00.000Z

My how time flies. I have been planning to post on here since monday and have only just got round to it. I guess it just means there will be a little more in this post than there would've been originally. Well, lets start with last weekend...

On the weekend in question I went to Hull. Primarily to see Dylan Moran's new stand up tour, 'Like, Totally...'; but also for a spot of socialising as I hadn't done any for a while. I left work early on friday and got the train from Lincoln to Hull. Well, I say "got the train"; what I really mean is a collection of trains, all of which were less than impressive. Still, on the plus side regarding the train journey, I was able to get my ticket for under £7 rather than the usual £19 by being extra frugal and choosing a specific route to travel from Lincoln to Hull which was a bit more round-the-houses than it would otherwise have been.

Anyway, I eventually arrived back in Hull and was reminded of what a wonderful city it is. It's sort of like a Babylonian garbage dump. I was greeted by a BBQ and all the usual faces, as well as Nick and, later on, Ben. On saturday we had a Chinese and then saw Dylan Moran. He was most excellent and pointed out some of the less appealing points of Hull at various intervals. He seemed to have a genuine contempt for the place, which is fair enough. He suggested that it needn't be like this; that if all the people of Hull pulled together and put some effort in then surely they could invade Sheffield.

On sunday I went back home and relaxed before another week of work. Work is decidedly more tiring these days as I am now filling a different position. The person I was covering before has returned, so I am now covering a different member of staff who coincidently has just started a secondment until the end of July. Albeit very handy for me to have a secure job till the end of July, it does require an awful lot more work now. I don't really mind doing more work as it means that I never have time to be bored, but it does mean that I am usually pretty tired when I get home and can rarely be bothered to do anything save from watch Big Brother and/or the World Cup then fall asleep - hence this post's delay.

This weekend I was due to go to Northampton for a big reunion style thing and no doubt alcohol-fuelled adventures. However, after last weekend's impromptu visit to Hull, I was too tired and couldn't really afford it, so I decided to give it a miss - though this wasn't well received by the friends I was supposed to be seeing. I have instead been chillin' like a villain, or at least, for the most part. Yesterday I returned home from work to find that my Black DS Lite, which had been on pre-order since May, had arrived. This came as quite a shock as I hadn't paid for first class postage (something I was slightly regretting), so I wasn't expecting it till next week. I was rather pleased it had arrived as it meant I could play on it this weekend like the big lamer I am. Needless to say, it is fantastic and was well worth the effort/cost of selling the old one and upgrading.

I was also paid (at last) yesterday, so today I decided to go into town to buy some new clothes. Whilst in Hull I had seen many things in Debenhams that I liked the look of, but didn't have the money to buy them with at the time. So today I trekked to Debenhams with the intent of exchanging some of my newly earned shiny pennies for the items that I had seen the previous weekend. However as luck would have it, or as my own particular brand of luck would have it, none of the items I had seen in the Hull Debenhams were available in the Lincoln branch. I was not best pleased. It always seems to be the case that if I have no money, I will see things I want; as soon as I have money, there is nothing to be found any where. I hope other people find this to be the case, as it pisses me off greatly and I would hate to think that I am the only person whose life is plagued by irony and chronic misfortune.

I am feeling more inclined to moan about things again as of late. Mainly due to the fact that most of the time I am subject to symptoms akin to having my brain melt and dribble out of my face. For those of you unaware what I am referring to, I am of course making reference to hayfever - an utterly rubbish allergy. Well, I suppose all allergies are rubbish, but being allergic to the air around you is quite a hindrance. If only pollen was the size of ping-pong balls - at least then I would be able to see it and hopefully avoid it. It would also be decidedly harder for me to inhale it. Today I bought some Beconase from Boots, which should hopefully bust up my hayfever sufficiently.

In other, non-related, news. I have recently learnt of a book which sounds rather interesting that I am going to have to purchase. It is called 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly'. I'm not sure if this is something everyone will have already heard of that I am just miles behind on, but for those of you who haven't heard of it, I shall explain a little. It is written by a man called Jean-Dominique Bauby. Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor of a French magazine called Elle, which is a quite a famous magazine. He was known for his success, wit and charm. However in 1995, at the age of 43, he suffered a stroke and became the victim of a rare condition known as 'Locked-In Syndrome'. He was in a coma for 3 weeks and when he awoke the only muscle in his body that would still respond was his left eyelid. Over the following year he manage to write a book, purely by having someone read through the alphabet over and over and Bauby winking at the appropriate letter. As you can imagine, that is quite a remarkable achievement. The book itself is about his thoughts and feelings about his life and the situation he had found himself in. The Diving-Bell in the title of the book refers to the empty shell he now considered his body to be and the Butterfly was his spirit. It was published 2 days before he died of a heart attack. It is supposedly an invigorating book which emphasises some of the joys of life and the many things which we so often take for granted that can be taken away from us at any moment. Anyway, I thought it sounded worth reading so I am going to order a copy and I thought some of you might find it of interest as well.

Anyway, this has become a rather lengthy post, so I think I am going to leave it there. I think I shall go watch a film - I am thinking Steamboy, or failing that The Squid And The Whale.

Oh and before I forget, today I received my flight details for when I travel to Japan. Read more here.

Fortuitous Schmortuitous

2006-06-14T16:04:00.000Z

Fortune, having previously 'vomitted on my eiderdown', has been rather kind to me today and has not only paid for the dry cleaning bill but also sent me flowers, chocolates and a little card saying "sorry". Basically what I am saying, albeit in an unnecessarily round-about manner, is that something nice has happened to me today.

As I had previously mentioned, this was due to be my last week working for the local council and I needed to secure a 2nd job to tide me over till the end of July. I wasn't too worried by this as TempLinc found me this job easily enough, so I assumed there wouldn't be too much bother finding me another job. However, the deadline was looming and TempLinc had yet to receive any jobs for which I was a suitable candidate, largely due to the fact that I am only available to work until the end of July and most people wanted someone who could work for longer. I remained reasonably optimistic, but was starting to worry that I may end up being unemployed again, which would be both thoroughly unejoyable and leave me in a bit of a financial crisis with regards to my imminent move to Japan.

I was therefore pleasantly surprised this afternoon when my supervisor asked me if I would consider to continue at my current job until the end of July. This is most excellent as I enjoy this job and the people are nice and it just generally suits me to continue here rather than to try and gain other employment. It also grants me considerable financial fortitude, which is no bad thing; especially given my ever growing addiction to Ebay.

Black Gold

2006-06-12T12:38:00.000Z

Google Videos has presented me with yet another little gem and thusly I am, in turn, sharing it with you fine people. I've just been watching Robert Newman's show 'History of Oil'. It manages to fulfil two of my preferred prerequisites for stand up shows in that it is both amusing (kind of important for a stand up show) and is also interesting, as it is highly political and has quite a lot of historical facts entailed. I hope you enjoy it as well.

Watch Robert Newman's 'History of Oil'

Fashion Guru

2006-06-11T13:56:00.000Z

Rather than just give you the one boring post, I thought I would give you two - aren't you lucky. I need to buy some more clothes etc for when I go to Japan and I need to decide what to get as I am limited on both funds and space as to how much I can take with me. So I figured I would list some of the cool stuff I have found and you can let me know what you think the best ones are.

Firstly, T-Shirts:

Ok, I guess that brings us neatly on to trainers, as I will need 1 more pair before I leave.

Gola Boston 1
Gola Boston 2
Gola Chase
Dunlop Greenflash (white & brown)
Adidas Adi Racer
Nike Free - feel free to design me a custom pair at NikeID

I think I will finish off with boardshorts:

Then, now and the bits inbetween

2006-06-11T13:11:00.000Z

Thought I better post something as I haven't put anything on here for a while. Although I don't know how interesting it will be as I haven't really been up to much and as things have been going reasonably well for me recently I don't feel inclined to whinge about stuff on here. Anyway, here is what has been happening...

I'm still working for the local council. It has been quite enjoyable as the job is easy, it pays quite well for what it is and the people are nice. This coming week is my last one though, so hopefully TempLinc (the temping agency who secured me the job) will be able to find me a job starting the following monday (19th).

Other than working, I have been up to very little. A little while ago Louise came round to watch X-Men 3. I'll be honest - it wasn't as awesome a film as I had hoped it would be, but it wasn't terrible by any means. That aside I have just spent my time chilling like a villain, playing games, watching films and buying stuff on Ebay. I've mainly been playing Hitman: Bloodmoney, Farcry Evolutions and I recently bought Guild Wars: Factions, although I can't be bothered to play it at the moment. I've also bought a load of crap to go with the DS Lite that I have pre-ordered. I bought a GBA Movie Player v2 along with a 1 GB SD Card and Card reader all off Ebay for distinctly reasonable prices. This device will allow me to watch films, listen to music etc on my DSL - basically giving it media functions akin to those of the PSP. I also managed to get a new copy of Metroid: Hunters for my DSL for just over £15 as well, which I was particularly pleased about as it's £25 on Amazon. I know this is all terribly boring, but I did say that I hadn't been up to much.

Next weekend I shall be doing something interesting however, as I am going to Hull to see Dylan Moran's new stand up tour 'Like, Totally!'. I shall be going to see it with Ed, Ian and Nick. I am really looking forward to it as Dylan Moran is excellent and I really enjoyed his 'Monster' show.

I have been enjoying the lovely warm weather recently, save for the fact that my hay-fever has sought to utterly destroy me. Not being able to breathe or see does tend to limit one's enjoyment of the summer. Annoyingly, there's not much I can do about it either, as my immune system seems to be great at rapidly adapting to antihistamines, but it fails miserably when it comes to grass pollen. At least I found something to whinge about I guess.

In a completely unprecedented move, I shall even make mention of a sporting event. I'm sure many of you saw England's match against Paraguay on saturday. England seem to be up to their usual tricks of having a strong first half and then completely falling down in the second half. I would like to hope that they will learn to stop doing this for the next match, but if they haven't learnt it over the last however many years, I see no reason why they will decide to remedy it over the next week.

The only other thing of note (a very small note - probably A minor), would be something ace that I have been listening to recently. I've recently started listening to ThePartyParty album by RX. I became aware of it from an old post on Ian's site and it is most excellent. Recommended for anyone who thinks George W. Bush has a lovely singing voice. Anyway, after this thoroughly dull post, I shall leave you with the other thing that I have got stuck in my head recently, no doubt after hearing Ian's haunting rendition of it...

Hip Hop Opera

2006-06-02T22:07:00.000Z

Some of you maybe aware that R Kelly has created his own 'hip hop opera'. It is totally serious and having just seen a clip of it, I can testify that it is a work of pure genius. I have included said clip below and I urge you all to watch it. I really can't think of the words to describe this, but it brought a smile to my face and I am sure it'll bring one to yours too. Enjoy.

Spin It!

2006-05-28T16:44:00.000Z

Ian has sent me a link to an excellent collection of TV Theme Tunes available for download. It's worth a browse for anyone feeling nostalgic. It has such highlights as Bucky O'Hare, Captain Planet, Duck Tails and my personal favourite, TaleSpin. Some of these just can't help but put a smile of my face...

Like is like a hurricane,
Here in Duckberg.
Race cars, lasers, aeroplanes;
It's a Duck blur.

Might solve a mystery,
Or rewrite history.

Duck Tails!

Other than listening to theme tunes from awesome TV shows, I've not really been up to much. I have now completed my second week at work and am now enjoying a 3 day weekend, thanks to the bank holiday.

I have been mostly weighing up what I need to buy and sort out for my Japan trip. Rachael was recently given her flight date and destination. She leaves on June 6th and is heading to the Fukui region, which is situated on the west coast of Japan. Hopefully she'll really enjoy it and will be able to let me know what to expect when I go over.

Recently I have been looking into what type of laptop to get for my travels. The 3 most likely candidates seem to be an Acer Aspire which is our lightweight contender, weighing in at £400 (with extra ram and a wireless card). I was about to say that the middleweight contender was a Dell Inspiron 1300, but weirdly enough the price seems to have changed over night. Yesterday it was looking to be about £550 with a customised spec. Today, with the same spec, they are quoting £700. I guess this leaves us with the last contender, a Sony Vaio, weighing in at £640. Anyway, if anyone has any thoughts on which laptop I should opt for then be sure to share your thoughts.

Other than that, I am still trying to palm off my Nintendo DS and various other things on Ebay, so as to raise some money for a lovely DS Lite. I have decided to get the white one after all. A friend of mine is getting the black one and even though the exclusivity of it to Europe is nice, I think the white one looks better.

Coco Jamboo

2006-05-23T21:30:00.000Z

Put me up, put me down
Put my feet back on the ground.
Put me up, feel my heart
and make me happy.

Ay-ya-ya-ya Coco Jamboo Ay-ya-ya-yai

I think that says it all really, but I guess I should probably elaborate on the events of the last few days. I know I haven't updated my blog much since starting my job and this has been for two main reasons: [1] As Rami claimed, finding time to write posts on here becomes harder when you have to do more than twiddle your thumbs all day; [2] What with working most of the time, I haven't really been up to much of interest - I wake up, go to work, come home, watch some TV, go to sleep, repeat. However, having little free time during the week does re-establish a sense of worth to the free time that weekends grants me. Last weekend being a fine example of this as I went to Kettering for the weekend to see some friends and have a BBQ.

I have flexi-hours at work, meaning that I can work longer hours at the start of the week and do less towards the end. So having already accumulated my 37 hours for the week I was able to leave work at 3pm last friday and begin my journey south. It began with a 30 minute walk home to get my bags and get changed and then a further 35 minute walk to the train station, during which I was rained on. I then got my first train, which was packed beyond belief. Fortunately I was able to get a seat after barging some children and old people out the way. However, my good fortune ended there. My first train, which should've been direct to Leicester, was stopped at Nottingham and I was forced to get another train. This second train was delayed for 40 minutes before eventually being cancelled, thus forcing me to find a third train to take me to Leicester. Thankfully when I got to Leicester it was easy going from there, what with trains departing every 30 minutes. Still, it's a pain that over all it took me almost 4 hours to do a journey that is 1.5 hours by car.

The weekend itself was great. On friday evening we went for a meal in a pub, then headed into town to go to the pub. We then headed back to Ed's house (where we were all staying) to watch Sky, play Dead Or Alive 4 on his Xbox 360 and begin the process of stinking out his house. On the saturday we went to Milton Keynes for the day, affectionately known as "Satan's Lay-by". On the journeys there and back we listened to a collection of choice hits from the 90s from such classic compilations as Fresh Hits 97 and Now (that's what I call music) 29. We looked in loads of shops and I saw many cool items of clothing that I wanted but can't afford at the moment. Then in the evening it was BBQ time. The weather had decided to be a pain and was raining through out, but it proved to not be a significant problem as Ed had a couple of Gazebos set up side by side, so everyone could sit and eat without being soaked. In typical 'Ed BBQ' style, Ed's "Kettering friends" sat at one table and the illustrious "Hull lot" (of which I consider myself one of their social super-luminaries) sat at the other table. It was like having a BBQ spanning the Israel/Palestine border - but with more pork.

It was a most excellent BBQ as the food was both very tasty and plentiful (just how I like it), guests included the lesser seen Rami and Ben (with his girlfriend - who got the unrivalled joy of meeting us for the first time), as well as the usual crowd of Tom, Ian, Chris and of course, the BBQ maestro, Ed. Entertainment (aside from the amazingly witty banter of course) included the Eurovision song contest being won by some Finnish Klingons and Chris managing to get whipped cream everywhere except in his mouth...

On sunday, we left Kettering. Ben and Rami made their way back to their respective homes and the rest of us set off in Ed's car. Ed dropped me back off in Lincoln on their way back to Hull, then monday it was back to work.

In other news, I have put my Nintendo DS up for sale on Ebay. This is because the DS Lite is due for a European release on June 23rd and I intend to get one. All I have to do now is decide if I want a white DSL or a black one, which will be exclusive to Europe for the time being.

Last but not least, I am going to have to mention Big Brother. As many of you are no doubt aware, (what I believe is) the 7th series of Big Brother started recently. I have managed to get hooked very early on this year, as I am a big loser. Most of the candidates seem to complete idiots, as is par for the course. So far, my money would be on Pete (the guy with tourettes) to win. He is completely mad, but in a good way.

I come from a land down under

2006-05-15T22:01:00.000Z

My days as a bum are officially over - or atleast on hiatus. Today I started work. I've got a temp position as a Data Entry Clerk working with in a department of Lincolnshire County Council. Granted it doesn't sound overly glamorous, but it is pretty enjoyable as the people are nice and it beats sitting at home not earning money. The job should last until mid-june and should put me on track to earn the money necessary for my Japanese adventure. As I may well have previously mentioned (I can't remember), I have decided not to accept the BT job. Instead I am going to get the temp agency I am with to find me another position when this one finishes. I figured it would just be easier all round really, also if they can find me one quickly I will earn even more money doing it this way.

On another note, I have finally taken the advice of Tom and Ed and watched 'Lost in Translation'. It was most excellent and I recommend it to anyone who would enjoy a slow paced, feel good film with a great soundtrack.

I Conspire, You Conspire, He/She Conspires

2006-05-12T01:12:00.000Z

This post is going to be a little different from my usual burbling about irrelevancies, in that it is actually topical. I have recently become aware of Charlie Sheen’s views about the 9/11 attacks (11/9 to be precise) and the interesting questions he has raised. Sheen speculates that the 9/11 attacks were not caused by terrorists and were actually planned and orchestrated by the US government as a deliberate psychological attack on the American public. Quite an astonishing accusation and one that has not been well received by a lot of people. Well, by ‘a lot of people’, I mean the American media. YouTube is loaded with videos of various US “news” shows demonising Sheen and labelling him as a liberal nutcase.

On this vein, I subsequently discovered a documentary all about the 9/11 attacks called 'Loose Change 2nd Edition', which supports the ideas that Charlie Sheen has brought to light and highlights a great many disturbing things. I urge people to take some time out to watch it as it’s very interesting, albeit rather worrying. Certainly, combining this documentary with Michael Moore’s 'Fahrenheit 9/11' leaves one with a pretty unsettling conclusion. Granted all these things are mere speculation and based on evidence that could largely be described as coincidental at a push; but given that the US government possesses all the evidence as to the real events that took place and keeps them closely sealed away under lock and key… well, people with nothing to hide generally don’t withhold evidence that would validate their innocence.

Anyway, I just thought it was all quite interesting and thought I’d share it with you. It’d be nice if it is all just the rantings of deranged (presumably liberal) conspiracy theorists and that the American government is a fluffy, cuddly organisation that seeks to promote global peace and wouldn’t dream of being involved in such a diabolical act. Malheureusement, like Blade says, “the world isn’t nice”.

Watch 9/11 'Loose Change' Documentary

Et, finalement, les Anglais! Hahaha

2006-05-09T00:14:00.000Z

Every year at Cooper's Hill, in the county of Gloucestershire, around 5,000 people from all over the world (I think that may be pushing it) gather for the cheese roll. As mid-day approaches and the crowd begin to chant "Roll the Cheese!", the competitors run, tumble, roll and slide down the hill after the cheese in 4 seperate down-hill races. Young farmers and rugby players act as 'catchers' for runners who are unable to stop. Every year there are a few casualties, usually twisted ankles, broken limbs and bumps and bruises. All competitors know the dangers but still chase the cheese.

The above was pretty much lifted from the same place I found the picture (aside from being corrected for spelling and grammar). As for why I have included it in the first place, I can't really say. I was thinking of the Bill Bailey 'Part Troll' stand-up show and it just escalated from there; "just simple, logical steps."

Anyway, I guess I should get on with the point of this post. I have managed to secure some temporary employment to last me till mid-June. I start on monday. Hurray! It's quite a surprise for things to actually go well. I'm reasonably taken a back by it. Perhaps I will find out that the job involves entering data whilst wearing a suit made of bees or something. Still, as long as the money is coming in, it really doesn't matter.

This should hopefully now mean that everything is now on course and that Japan is now a definite. Now that this has become a concrete reality, it means that I can now start to panic about a life in a country with a completely different culture and language. Still, if you really want to learn to swim, you might as well jump in at the deep end. That's probably the stupidest metaphore ever, but I hadn't really given it much thought so what do you expect - in any case, I'm sticking by it.

Perhaps I could introduce cheese rolling to Japan. Granted they're not really into dairy products, but they do have a lot of hills.

Out with the old

2006-05-04T16:24:00.000Z

I guess I should first address the obvious. As you have undoubtedly noticed, I have redesigned my page. I've gone for a more minimalist look and generally just tried to make it look tidier. I've been meaning to change it for ages and was inspired to take action after making the Katakandy blog. Let me know if you think this change has been an improvement.

Anyway, onto today's events. This morning I had an interview for a job at a BT call centre. The whole process lasted about 2.5 hours and involved various tests, an interview and a lot of paperwork to be filled in. Well, the paperwork only needed filling in because I managed to get the job. This isn't quite as excellent as it sounds though, as even though I have now (at long last) secured employment; unfortunately the job doesn't start until June 12th. This poses a dilemma for me as it won't give me enough working time between then and August to earn the money I need. I therefore have 2 options open to me:

1) Try and find a temp job to fill the void between now and June. I am registering with another temp agency on monday, so it's a possibility.

2) Beg Nova Group to delay my trip until September. I really don't want to take this option though as I have already messed them around a bit and they've been good enough to give me this opportunity and put up with me, so I'd rather not annoy them any further.

I guess I will have to see how monday goes and think this all over very carefully. On the plus side, it is a beautiful day today. The temperature has been between 20ºC to 25ºC. Nice enough to justify wearing shorts out, which is the official indication of the start of the summer.

On that note, I shall leave you with the names of two fun, summery songs to check out which I have been enjoying recently:

Shout Out Louds - Please Please Please
The Boy Least Likely To - Be Gentle With Me

- It's also worth checking out the video for the 'Boy Least Likely To' song.

Casino Royale

2006-05-03T23:55:00.000Z

I know, this is entirely unprecedented - 3 posts in 1 day (although only just). I just felt I had to give mention to the new trailer for the next James Bond film that was released today. A link to this new trailer can be found here. I think it looks excellent; Daniel Craig looks like he should be a good early Bond (as, to my understanding, it is set before the previous Bond films) and the Bond girl is looking most hot. Here's hoping this will prove to be a fine addition to the Bond saga.

Katakandy

2006-05-03T15:34:00.000Z

I have created a blog which I shall be using to share my experiences of Japan with you. Obviously it's a little redundant at the moment, as I haven't gone yet. I shall update it when I discover my flight date and destination city.

He came from Rome

2006-05-03T11:14:00.000Z

I have no idea what that title means - it was the very first thing that popped into my head when I opened this page. Read into it what you will. Anyway, back to the 'saga' (thank you Rami) that is my life.

Ok, last friday I went to get registered with Total Recruitment. They seem to be a decent recruitment company, although the proof will be in the pudding. Still, fingers crossed that they will be able to find me something. I took typing and data entry tests with them as part of the registration process and scored excellently apparently.

Friday afternoon I then went to Horncastle College for a weekend course learning abut Japanese culture and language. It was taught by an English woman who has lived in Japan for 24 years. It was really interesting and I learnt quite a lot about Japanese culture. I have also discovered that learning the Japanese language is going to be incredibly difficult, which I guess I should have expected. The language itself is broken down into 4 parts, which I am going to have to try to learn. The four parts are:

- Hiragana: A phonetic way of writing, which has 46 symbols.
- Katakana: Another phonetic way of writing, which I believe also has 46 symbols and is used for words that stem from outside of Japan (like television and video etc, which are pronounced in a similar way, but written in Japanese phonetic symbols)
- Romanji: This is where the Japanese words have been written in English characters (e.g. when you see the names of Japanese actors in the credits of films)
- Kanji: This is the real killer. This is a logographic writing system (symbols that represent words and their pronunciation). There are more than 2000 of these.

Anyway, once I have become reasonably fluent in Japanese then hopefully I'll get headhunted by a big international Japanese company or something.

I also learnt during the course that Osaka (one of my preferred locations) is actually not that nice and is Yakuza territory - oh goody. I have since contacted the Nova Group and changed my preference from Osaka to Tokyo.

I came back from the course on sunday afternoon and been pretty much twiddling my thumbs since then. The next thing on my quest for a job is that I have an interview and tests tomorrow for a job at a BT call centre. It seemed promising over the phone, so assuming I ace the tests and interview, I may well get a job after all.

Oh and before I forget - the monthly review for April. I think I'll give April a 6/10. I can't really remember anything bad that happened, but I can remember a fair few good bits.

I think I'll leave you with some Bill Withers...

When I wake up in the morning
love
and the sun light hurts my eyes

And something without warning
love
bears heavy on my mind.

Then I look at you
and the world's alright with me

Just one look at you
and I know it's gonna be -

A lovely day

D-FENS

2006-04-26T10:18:00.000Z

Just a quick update - I had my interview yesterday morning to work in menswear of a large department store in town. I think it went pretty well. I was able to fabricate lots of excellent answers relating to my previous experiences in retail, which may or may not have actually happened. I always work on the basis that the things I am saying probably happened, so rather than lying I am in fact just giving a rough approximation of the truth. Once you've convinced yourself, convincing other people is easy. The only problem was that at the end of the interview, the interviewer asked why I wanted to work in menswear in a department store as I have all my GCSEs, A-Levels and an Honours degree; he pointed out that it was not a logical career progression. In fact it's not a progression of any kind. It seems I am always over-qualified and under-skilled. I guess it will be ironic if my degree actually prevents me from getting a job; it wouldn't be the first time that irony has sought to plague my life in a distinctly non-hilarious manner. To coin the phrase, "Fortune vomits on my eiderdown once more".

Other than that, I have recently sought out the help of a local recruitment company in Lincoln who actually seem quite good. They are a nationwide recruitment company who find temporary jobs for people in local County Council positions. I am being sent an application form, so fingers crossed that they will be able to help find me something decent in the immediate future.

Naughty, Naughty, Very Naughty

2006-04-24T12:18:00.002Z

Bonjour! Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I have been busy most of the time and the rest of the time I just couldn't be bothered; but now I am back.

Hmm where to begin - my memory of everything I have been up to over the last two weeks is rather limited. Still, anything I can't remember I will just replace with a probable scenario as provided for by my wondrous imagination.

The first of my two week absence may not have happened for all I know - I really can't remember what I did. I believe it's the week where I was to attend an interview for some lame job I really didn't want (but really needed) and then just as I was leaving the house, they rang me to inform me they had filled the position the day before. I was not amused that they waited until 15 minutes before the interview (which was the 2nd one with this particular company) to inform me that the position had been occupied for the last 24 hours. Still, I won't lie - there was a slight feeling of relief. The company was a shop, the sort of which Cash Converters would look down upon and as you can imagine, it attracted all my favourite characters from life's rich tapestry - Scallies, Bikers, weird old people. I couldn't wait to get stuck in.

Other than that, I really can't think of anything else that happened during the bulk of the week. I can only assume that I was either abducted by aliens and subsequently disregarded because I am a poor example of a human being, or that I was a spy from an evil Mars corporation, who has had his memory wiped for a top secret mission. I hope it's the aliens one, as at least that would mean the worst of it is over (albeit it would certify that I am a rubbish individual), but if I am a spy from Mars then there is all sorts of mutant-hugging, nostril-probing, face-expanding adventures to come and I just don't have the energy for those sorts of capers.

Oh wait, I remember now - ok forget all that other babble (which you probably already have). During that week, my brother and family came to visit me (twice) which was nice. We went to see Lincoln Cathedral (the inside this time), of which (surprise surprise) I have more pictures. The only downside to their visit was when I let my niece play on Mario Kart on my DS and she took it upon herself to delete my saved file. I'll be honest - a little part of me died inside. Hmm there is an awful lot of brackets in this paragraph - I don't know quite what to make of it (yet).

Also during that week, I was visited by Vicky. She was kind enough to bring a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts with her as well, which was most excellent. I showed her the wonderful sights of Lincoln and there was much rejoicing.

Right, so onto week two - well, almost. We are at the cusp. Friday, of week one (14th), I travelled to Leicester for the day to meet up with a couple of friends from 6th form, Coey and Hindu. It was a most excellent day. It was sunny and warm and it was the first time I had properly looked round Leicester. As the day drew to a close, I then returned to Kettering for the weekend. The Easter weekend was predominantly spent in a drunken stupor, interspersed with feeling like death. This climaxed in a pub lock-in on the sunday night that lasted until about 8am on monday. Walking out of a pub at 8am is a very weird experience. We went to McDonalds for breakfast and then went back to Coey's house to sleep for 4 hours before beginning the journey back to Lincoln.

Coey came up to Lincoln for the week and we spent the week chilling like villains. We mostly spent or time playing games or watching films or going to the pub and discovering Lincoln's dodgiest take away. Still, we didn't get food poisoning - so yay for us!

On friday of the second week (21st), Coey made his way back home to Kettering and I made my way to Hull for the weekend. It was quite a good weekend. Friday night we went to Pozition, which was alright, but by this time I had had enough of alcohol-related adventures for a while. On saturday we went to see Silent Hill. I was so excited as I had been looking forward to this film for years and I am pleased to say that in no way did it disappoint. I went with Tom and Leigh, who admittedly aren't usually fans of horror films (in all fairness, most horrors are a bit lame) and even they enjoyed it. Whilst not being identical to the game, it was very true to the style of the game and they even employed the use of quite alot of the original score of music. I'd go so far as to say that this is the best example of a game to movie transition to date (competing as it is against such strong contenders as Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat and, let's not forget, Street Fighter), as well as being an excellent example of a well made horror film. I have to admit though, I was a little confused as to how on earth this film got a 15 rating. This is one of the sickest films I have seen in ages (in a good way). It puts Event Horizon to shame and yet that is an 18. I guess the BBFC are just getting soft, or senile. Also, I have just noticed that IMDB gave Event Horizon a poor score - how rude.

On sunday, we got a Chinese for lunch and then chilled like villains for the rest of the day. I went home around mid-afternoon. Not alot has happened since returning home, save for a phone call offering me an interview for a job at a department store in town tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed that works out alright.

We try, but we don't belong

2006-04-07T17:29:00.000Z

As the Grand National has recently begun (that being the races and not the awesome band by the same name), I thought I would dispense some knowledge. Today's hot tip is Hot Chip. This band is most excellent and deserves a gander. Here is a link to their new video for their next single 'Boys from School' (where today's title came from; in case anyone was thinking I was being super emo). It should just stream in Windows Media Player - if it doesn't, then sort yourself out.

Anyway, that is neither here nor there. The last few days have been awash with failure. I can't really be bothered to go into details. Just lots of little things that have gone wrong, that all amount to me getting increasingly irritated. Also, I am in somewhat a state of disbelief as to how me getting a degree seems to have made me less suitable for jobs. When I was in 6th form I never had any problems getting a job if I needed one, but now I have become a graduate, I can't even get the most basic of jobs. If I get a job in a factory counting beans I will consider myself lucky at this point.

I heard back from the job I applied for with the local council. They informed me that I had been successful and offered me "congratulations" in my "success" and also informed me that I would now be placed on a waiting list and they would try and find me a placement within the next 6 months. Needless to say, I was ever so slightly less than amused. The amount of hassle and form filling and tests and assessments that I went through, to then be put on a waiting list and congratulated. It's things like that which send people mental. I had originally been informed that they were looking to fill 40 vacancies in their local office and that I also should've heard back from them a week sooner than I actually did.

Anyway, enough complaining for now. I'm pretty sure there were other, non-complaint, things that I was going to mention, but I can't remember what they are. Anyway, on monday I am just going to have to blanket bomb the whole of Lincoln with my CV. I am determined that someone is going to employ me. Oh and before anyone suggests that I cave and become a "Tesco till tart", I have already contacted all the local supermarkets. None of them have any vacancies, save for Sainsburys, who suggested I write in and state what sort of job I would like. Factory work, here I come...

Tom is going to be a pilot

2006-04-02T20:32:00.000Z

You may have guessed that today's title is a complete fabrication and has no relevance to anything. I just thought it would get people's attention - especially Tom's no doubt. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, I doubt Tom is going to be flying anything other than kites for the foreseeable future.

Anyway, here is a brief update as to what the last couple of days has entailed. On friday, I didn't really get up to much but I did go for a nice walk in a local park as it was a sunny day and the puppy needed walking. It was decidedly reminiscent of summer afternoons spent out the back of Thwaite Hall, as there was a footpath through the trees around a large lake. Just like the back of Thwaite Hall, but with a bigger lake and an island in the middle. To commemorate this journey down memory lane, I have included a golden oldie music video based on such "worthless frivolity"...

I spent saturday in London with Rami. It was a most excellent day. We sauntered around the city and went where ever caught our interest. We went to Harrods and dined on sushi. It took a little while to get to grips with the whole concept of grabbing your food from the conveyor belt, but we soon got the hang of it. We were then compelled to sample some Krispy Kreme doughnuts as this just has to be done really. We also went to the Hard Rock Casino so Rami could once again give a fine example as to how his luck far exceeds my own in terms of goodness. We finished off the day by going to the London IMAX cinema. We saw a film called Deep Sea 3D, which was excellent. As the title suggests, it was in 3D and so we were given the huge glasses to wear. It was my first time going to an IMAX cinema so the screen and sound itself were impressive enough. For those of you who havn't been, the screen is probably about the height of 3 double-decker buses. They give a presentation of the sound and lighting before the main feature, which is also quite impressive. To have all this coupled with the fact that it was a 3D film (the first time I had seen a 3D film as well) was great. Sitting there whilst giant Tiger Sharks seemingly swim out of the screen towards you really is quite something to behold. The film itself was a documentary about life at the bottom of the ocean. It was considerably better than I expected and really rather interesting. It was narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet, which was nice. It also had a nice mellow soundtrack composed by Danny Elfman, which you can sample by going on the film's website. All in all, the film taught us that life at the bottom of the ocean can not only be fascinating and beautiful, but is generally just weird and disgusting.

I haven't really been up to anything today. Just relaxing and filling in forms for my Japan trip. I need to go get half a dozen passport photos done tomorrow for it and then post it all off. I think I shall have to go get a haircut before hand as well. Oh and before I forget it, the Monthly Review for March: I think I am going to give March a 6/10.

Leavin' on a jet plane...

2006-03-31T11:35:00.000Z

After much deliberation, I have finally accepted my offer from the Nova Group and, all being well, I should be heading to Japan in August. Now I just need to find employment in the meantime, fill out a million and one forms, renew my passport, save up for and buy a laptop, try and learn some basic Japanese and a plethora of other activities. I'll keep you all posted on my progress. Perhaps I will create one of those Blue Peter lollipop fund-raising charts to show how much money I've raised. Anyway, back to form filling...

It's a hit

2006-03-30T18:13:00.000Z

My how time flies - here is my 50th post on this blog. It would be 70th if I counted from the humble beginnings of my blogging adventure on MySpace, but I'm not - so it's the 50th. Anyway, I really have nothing to say - this blog is purely commemorative in nature. However, I shall give you all a little treat and share my latest finding with you: Videoteque - a blog about music videos. Uninteresting though this may seem, what is good about this site is their rather hefty archive of music videos available for download. Needless to say - Goldmine.

It's not the end of the world

2006-03-29T15:50:00.000Z

I figured I would do a quick update as to what's going on as things are a little up in the air at the moment. Yes, I got the Japan thing; but no, I haven't accepted it yet. The reason for this is that I was waiting to hear back from another job I applied for ages ago, which I need to get in order to fund my Japan trip. I rang today to find out when they will let me know if I got the job or not and was informed that it will be another 1-2 weeks. This is a nuisance, as that means that even if I get it I may not start working for another month.

I need to ring the Nova Group tomorrow to accept or reject the offer, but I am still without employment. It seems to me that I'd be really stupid not to go to Japan, but it'd also be stupid to commit myself to something that I can't afford.

I need to come up with a cunning plan, probably involving going to get any old job asap. Though I really don't want to stack shelves for 4 months - I hoped that sort of thing was behind me. I guess if it all falls apart then I can just take Rami's advice and apply to be an air traffic controller. "Come in Flight #297 - either you're heading towards a really big albatross, or you need to change course..."

Sway

2006-03-26T21:41:00.000Z

"When marimba rhythms start to play

Dance with me, make me sway
Like a lazy ocean hugs the shore
Hold me close, sway me more"

- Dean Martin is awesome. Fact.

Anyway, I thought I would do a little update as I haven't posted on here for a while - no doubt much to the dismay of my avid fan-base. I will also point out that there have been no recent posts by Rami, Ian or James either - get on it.

As you can no doubt imagine - little has happened within my little bubble. I did however get accepted by the Nova Group to be a teacher in Japan. I have to ring them by wednesday 29th March to accept a placement. I am still waiting to hear back from the local job I applied for to see whether or not I can afford to go to Japan in August, so hears hoping that works out well. Though I suppose I can always get a job in Tesco as a shelf stacker or something if I really have to - just to fully complete the stereotype of a failed graduate.

Over the last... however long it's been, I have mainly been filling my time with watching TV (mostly Two guys and a Girl) and geeking it up. Fortunately, in about 2 weeks I shall be going down to Kettering to see some old friends over Easter. If I am to retain any degree of sanity then I am going to have to socialise to some extent and I could do with a good wasted session. Though having said that, I am sure I will regret any such activity within 12 hours of its commencement - business as usual really.

#47

2006-03-16T14:43:00.000Z

Boom! I don't feel so well.

Yesterday, I had the second part of an assessment for a job. It involved a group exercise and a mock telephone situation. I feel it went quite well, but it's hard to be sure. I should find out how I did in 2 weeks - roughly around the same time I get to hear if I am going to Japan. So fingers crossed for some good news.

I have just watched the new trailer for X-men 3 'The Last Stand'. It looks amazing. The nerd in me is ridiculously excited - hmmm that sounds rather disturbing. Anyway, it's definitely worth a look. Although you will need the latest Quicktime, which is a bit of a nuisance. X-men 3 and Silent Hill are definitely going to be the movie highlights of the year.

Other than that, I have just started watching series 4 of '24' today, which was kindly lent to me by Vicky. It is excellent. I have only watched the first 2 episodes so far and already I have been reminded of what a brilliant show it is.

Oh yeah, I forgot to comment on the Beauty and the Geek finals. Both the American and British versions of the shows have reached their conclusion. It almost brings a tear to my eye. I won't talk about who won either as [a] I'm sure most of you don't care, [b] most of you probably know anyway and [c] if you do care and don't know, then I am sure you'd rather watch it for yourself.

Last night saw another episode of the UK Apprentice. How annoying are almost all the people on that show? Also, I wonder how these people are supposedly the 'cream of the crop' ("I rise to the top. I never eat a pig cause a pig is a cop.") when they are all utterly useless.

Boxers

2006-03-13T16:38:00.000Z

I'm going to keep this post brief as I can't be bothered to write lots. Then again, I can never be bothered to write lots - it's just something that happens.

I've just spent the weekend in Hull and it was mostly excellent. On the friday I got the train to Doncaster, where I met up with Leigh. We chilled round his place for a little while as he needed to pack some stuff, so I watched StreetMate - such an awesome show. Davina McCall was so ace. We headed over to Hull in the mid-afternoon. We didn't really get up to much on friday evening. Leigh went out for the night and I waited in with Ed as Vicky was due to arrive later that evening.

On saturday, Hannah turned up and we all went to Asylum for the night. I don't know why I agreed to go to Asylum as I had previously vowed to never go again. It was rubbish once again, so I left early.

On Sunday Vicky, Tom, Chris and I went to the Golden Palace Chinese restaurant as they do a buffet on sundays at lunchtime. It was most excellent and we ate till we could eat no more. I then had to head home soon after as I needed to get back for an assessment thing I had today for a job.

The assessment thing I had today was a series of tests that I had to pass in order to qualify for the next round of assessment for a job in the Lincoln City Council Department of Work and Pensions. Ironic that I am trying to get a job within the Job Centre. The tests were a literacy test, a numerical test and a 'situations' test. I aced all the tests (naturally) and have the rest of the assessments on wednesday which will involve group discussions and other frivolity (love that word).

GowerPen Must Die!

2006-03-09T01:13:00.000Z

I'm going to open this post up on a complete tangent from what it's meant to be about. I have just been forced to endure the latest Powergen advert again. I'm sure you all know the one - "Powergen is cheaper than Gritish Bas?". Utter bastards - it's such a cheap shot and a rubbish advert. I have no particular love of British Gas; I just really hate massively patronising adverts which are about as inventive as putting foam on your coffee and giving it a different name. Anyway, the mini-rant is over now as the adverts have finished and it's a music video by Pink (Just like a pill).

Also, on another brief tangent (this post has become tangent-tastic. I might bring Sin and Cosine into it later - good old trigonometry), I wanted to put a link to an interesting site that Vicky has directed me to. She sent me the link to a site called Pandora, which is created by the Music Genome Project and is for helping people expand their musical repertoire. You type in the name of a song or band. It will then play that song, or a song by that band. Then (and this is the clever bit) it will enqueue a list of other songs to play by artists who are similar to the one you originally selected. I know some of you are thinking it sounds a lot like Launchcast, but I assure you this is better. For a start, it isn't covered in all the nasty, messy adverts etc that now plague the Launchcast site.

Ok I guess I should actually get to the meat of this post - I can't put it off any longer. As many of you are aware, yesterday I went to London for my long awaited Japan interview. All in all, it was quite a fun, yet tiring, day and I shall run you through it all now.

Much to my dismay, the day started at 5:00am. Malheureusement, I had only had about 3-4 hours of sleep, although strangely enough I didn't feel quite as dead at the time as I had expected. I didn't feel like my eyes were bleeding or like bits of my brain were "falling away like wet cake". I got up and got myself ready for the day, then at 6:00am my dad kindly gave me a lift to Newark which is about 30 minutes away. I got the 6:46am train to King's Cross, which arrived 3 minutes early (much to the driver's obvious delight as he announced it) at 8:11am. Upon arrival at King's Cross I then doubled checked the route I would be taking on the map and then proceeded to walk to the Nova Group's London office. The route seemed simple enough - I walked along Euston road, took a left and went down Tottenham Court road, then a right down Oxford Street. It was when I reached Oxford Circus that a problem arose. The Offices were (according to Nova Group's mini-map and directions that I had printed off) about 8 minutes along Regent street from Oxford Circus. After walking along Regent street for about 10 minutes I started to get worried as I only had 15 minutes to get to my interview and I still hadn't found it. Another 5 minutes on I reached the end of Regent street. Panic set in. I checked the proper London map I had with me and discovered that I had looked at their print out upside down. I should've turned left at Oxford Circus rather than right. It was a true Bugs Bunny moment - "I knew I should've turned left at albuquerque!". I then became increasingly aware of the fact that their office was 8 minutes away from something that I had just walked 15 minutes away from in the opposite direction and I had about 10-12 minutes to get there. I marched back towards Oxford Circus like my life depended on it. I reached it again with about 3 minutes to get to their
office. At this point, I realised it was all or nothing, so I ran down Regent Street towards their office. When I reached the road it was on I felt destroyed. After about another panic-filled minute I found which building the office was located in. Then I just ran up the two flights of stairs (thank god it wasn't a massive building) and managed to get in about 30 seconds before the day began.

The day involved a long, but interesting, presentation about the company. This was broken up with a couple of tasks for us prospective employees and a demonstration of a typical teaching lesson. One of the tasks involved looking at a picture for 15 seconds, then giving a 45 second presentation about it to the rest of the group. I volunteered to go first just to seem keen and it was easy enough, as I am reasonably good at babbling endlessly (as I'm sure most of you are aware). After the presentation, we had 15 minutes to complete a quick psychometric test (I hate those) and a couple of mini essay questions about why we should be picked. Then there was a short break before the one-to-one interviews started.

The interview was reasonable unnerving, but I feel it went reasonably well. There was the usual questions about "give an example where..." - this was the bulk of the interview. There was also a section of quick-fire questions where my answer wasn't allowed to be any longer than 3 words and any hesitation resulted in skipping the question. That was by far the worst bit. I then had to give an example of my teaching ability based on the demonstration I had seen earlier.

All in all I feel it went quite well, but it's impossible to tell really. I shall find out in 3 weeks if I made it or not. I was pleased with how I did though, so I guess it all depends if I am the sort of person they are looking for.

After the interview, the day was over. It was about 1:00pm, so I headed back to King's Cross at a leisurely pace as there was a train at 2:05pm back to Newark. I arrived at the station with just enough time to grab a smoothie and a chicken ceaser wrap from the Marks & Spencer food hall at King's Cross. Marks & Spencer food halls really are excellent and whoever thought of putting them in areas heavily populated by commuters was a genius.

On the train back I received a call from Success Matrix informing me that the company I had an interview for on the friday decided to cancel the position, so none of the applicants got the job. I was quite relieved to be honest as I didn't want that job, but didn't want to turn it down if I had got it.

That pretty much covers yesterday. Tomorrow I am going to go to Doncaster to meet up with Leigh. Then later in the day we are going to trek over to Hull for the weekend, where we shall stay with Tom and also be joined by Vicky and Hannah. It should be an excellent weekend. Then I shall return on the sunday as I have another interview on monday.

Right now however, I think it's time for some Leo Sayer...

Take me baby, I'm all yours
Do just what you wanna do with my love

Back by popular demand

2006-03-07T21:27:00.000Z

That's right - The Time Squirrel is back. I'm sure you havn't forgotten his original incarnation with his encounter against the Pirate Goose.

Well, now he has a new home where his adventures will be updated from time to time. In accordance with Ian's description of it being the "Gayest post ever" I have modelled the site appropriately.

I encourage you to submit any Time Squirrel related art-work (as I can't draw) and I will post it on the site.

Cavalry

2006-03-06T14:24:00.000Z

Today's title is the name of a song by The Delays. I picked up a copy of their new album the other day and it is fantastic. My last.fm account will probably testify to the amount to which I have enjoyed this album. By tomorrow, the Delays will have knocked Interpol off their long held top spot as my No.1, most listened-to band. Though I am sure this will be rectified again when Interpol brings out another album.

Anyway, there isn't really much news to share today. I have my Japan interview in London on wednesday, which should be a fun little adventure. The downside is that the train ticket is looking set to cost me just shy of £70. Still, lets just hope it's worth it.

Other than that, I just thought I would give people their latest fill of Puppy-love...

Thought I'd through in a random one of the Cathedral that I took the other day, as it was a lovely sunny day with a clear blue sky.

Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto

2006-03-03T14:45:00.000Z

Some of you may recognise the title of this post as being a lyric from a song by the ageing rock group Styx called 'Mr Roboto' - if you do, then good for you, but it's totally irrelevant. I just liked the sound of it and it's Japanese connotations, as this leads me neatly onto my first point.

As I mentioned in my last post, yesterday was an interesting day and the same is true for today as well. Granted today hasn't actually finished yet, but as my plans for the rest of the day involve having lunch, watching the new episode of Lost and then just chillin like a villain for the rest of the day, I am sure that we can safely omit said activities from the proceedings.

Also, I have noticed that my last post was actually written today (March 3rd), but as you have probably noticed, it was written about the 2nd March. Anyway...

Why was yesterday of interest, I hear you ask. Well, firstly it would seem that I jumped the gun when I said that I had failed the Japan application. Yesterday I received a phone call from the Nova Group informing me that they had been trying to email me and offer me the opportunity to attend an interview, but for some reason the email wasn't going through. I gave them an alternate email address to send me the details and I am now due to attend an interview on wednesday 8th down in London. The logistics of attending the interview are a little tricky as I need to be there for 9am, so I am going to have to go down the day before and find somewhere to stay. Infact... BRAINWAVE! - Rami, expect an imminent phone call.

That evening I then went to Nottingham, as I had previously mentioned, to go see Death Cab for Cutie. The gig itself was pretty decent, although I was a little upset to find that performing next door, that same night, was a band whom I personally prefer called The Delays. Still, it doesn't really matter as I enjoyed the Death Cab gig. We were also able to explore quite a bit of Nottingham as we spent a large part of the evening wandering around lost. To his credit, Ed asked several people directions on the way back from the gig and was able to navigate us to the car. I'll be honest - Nottingham has lots of nice shops and trendy-looking clubs and bars, but it also seems like an utter hole. This image is confirmed by the fact that whenever you hear of any crimes going on in the midlands, it's almost always in Nottingham. The days of Robin Hood when crimes were charming and heroic stands against an unjust ruler are definitely past.

On a brief tangent, I have just noticed that The Delays have a new album out. This means that had I gone to see them I would've got to listen to a lot of their new stuff. I am displeased. I will have to find out when they are next playing in somewhere easily accessible to me.

Today has been interesting because I had an interview for a job. I met with a woman from a company called Success Matrix at 9am. Success Matrix is linked with Business Link, which some of you may have heard of. Their task is to supply graduates to local employers. They had rang me on wednesday to ask if I wanted to be put forward for a position that had opened up with a local company to be an accounts administrator. She gave me some information about the company and interview assistance etc, as well as signing me up for some of their free schemes that aim to help me get a job if I don't get the one I had the interview for today. She gave me a lift to the company and I had the interview at 11am, which I feel went reasonably well, but it's hard to tell with these things. I will find out how I did at the end of next week, which will also be after my Japan interview. It was kind of amusing, that whilst talking to the woman at Success Matrix, she said that after looking at my CV and having met me, she is totally bewildered as to how I have managed to remain unemployed all this time - I guess it's a gift.

Monthly Review - February

2006-03-03T00:51:00.000Z

Today has been an interesting day. However I am not going to write about it now, as tomorrow is also liable to be an interesting day, so I am going to clump them together and post about them both tomorrow afternoon. However I wanted to throw in this brief interlude in the meantime. Firstly, I have suddenly become aware that I neglected to give February it's review score yesterday. February scored 4/10.

Secondly, I have also discovered my Superhero name and Superpowers etc and I was so taken with them that I decided to share them with the rest of you:

Your Superhero Profile

Your Superhero Name is The Time Squirrel
Your Superpower is Complements
Your Weakness is Midgets
Your Weapon is Your Power Throwing Stars
Your Mode of Transportation is Love Van

What's your Superhero Name?

I'm not entirely sure about 'complements' as my Superpower...

The Time Squirrel: "Oh no - It's my arch nemesis: The Pirate Goose!" (Hey, if I'm a 'Time Squirrel' then I think a Pirate Goose is perfectly acceptable)

The Pirate Goose: "Avast ye scurvy dog!"

The Time Squirrel: "Hey! I'm a squirrel, fool! THE Time Squirrel!"

The Pirate Goose:"Garr!"

The Time Squirrel: "Enough of this feeble banter! I shall attack you with my Power Throwing Stars!"

The Time Squirrel: *Throws Power Throwing Stars*

The Pirate Goose:"Argh! I am done for - surely thar can be no more!?"

The Time Squirrel: "Wrong! Now I shall deal the final blow - complementary mints!"

Stay tuned for more adventures of...

The Time Squirrel

Woof!

2006-03-01T22:40:00.000Z

An interesting day today - well, I say 'interesting'; the bar has been set pretty low these days due to the uneventful nature of my life. The most notable event of the day was that my mum has bought a puppy and we picked it up today. A 10 week old, long-haired Alsation called Poppy.

It would seem that I haven't made the cut with my Japan application, which is pretty lame. I guess that means that I shall just have to get a job, save up a load of money, learn Spanish and get on board with Rami's Spanish adventure. To that end, I have got an interview on friday morning to become an accounts administrator for a local company in Lincoln - so here's hoping that my luck changes, as I am getting increasingly bored of being broke.

Also, I notice that today is the first day of Lent. I was going to give up a whole bunch of things, but Lent has sort of snuck up on me as I wasn't paying attention. I did consider giving up alcohol for the 40 days, but I think that would verge on madness. If anyone has given up anything for Lent, then feel free to share your Lenton vows, so you can deservedly feel slightly 'holier than thou'.

Zen-tastic

2006-02-28T14:35:00.000Z

During my travels through out the internet, I have come across an excellent podcast [?] and I decided I would share it with the rest of you. Whilst reading Ian's latest post about Tokyoplastic's new creation, I came across the link to a purveyor of collectable, limited addition 'toys' called Android 8. On their site, they had a song playing by Glen Liberman called 'Builder'. I was rather taken with it, so decided to try and procure a copy from the depths of t'internet. Malheureusement, I could not find it anywhere - except, on an episode of a podcast known as Zentopia Transmission. This podcast is, as it describes itself, an "ambient and chillout podcast". I have only listened to #16 so far, but it's good stuff and I recommend it to anyone looking for something a bit different to listen to. Enjoy.

Nugget

2006-02-27T21:10:00.000Z

I have added a torrent search field to this site to make it easier for anyone who wants to try and find any of the excellent shows or films that I have made reference to. I know, I know - I give too much; I just can't help myself. I'm just a generous kinda guy.

It's nice to see that Rami has once again returned to the world of blogging. Hopefully for more than two posts this time. I am intrigued to see how his quest to be the King of Spain will unfold as time progresses. Hopefully all will go well, then I can migrate to his villa and live a life of Riley - or Señor Riley to be precise. I don't think Rami needs to learn Spanish - he can just follow the sage advice of his most favoured comedian, Ricky Gervais: "Point, speak louder; If that doesn't work, smash the place up, safe in the knowledge that you tried your best.".

The Travel Song

2006-02-26T12:17:00.000Z

Today's title is taken from a song that I am currently listening to by a group called Pilate. It seemed vaguely relevant what with it being about travelling, as I have finally submitted my application to the Nova Group to go teach English in Japan. Now I just have to wait and see if it is only Britain that refuses to employ me, or if there is some sort of global conspiracy going on here. I do begin to wonder if there is like some book somewhere and I am black-marked, so no one will dare employ me or they will suffer the wrath of the Witch of the Waste.

Witch of the Waste: What a tacky little hat shop. I've never seen such tacky little hats. Yet you are by far the tackiest thing here.

For those of you wondering what on earth that is from; it is from yet another animated film called Howl's Moving Castle, which I made reference to in my last post. I watched it this morning and it was also most excellent.

Other than me submitting my application, there is little of note to say. I am off to see Death Cab for Cutie on thursday with Ed, Tom and Rachael. A very good band, despite their emo affiliations. Still, it's no concern of mine if it appeals to the terminally mopey.

That aside, my plans for the week are few. I shall watch The Cat Returns and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, inkeeping with the current theme I have going on at the moment. At some point I shall no doubt wander into town again; I walked in today purely to buy some chewing gum - I can't be without my gum. But I only bought two packs so I will likely need more before too long.

I'll just finish by saying: "On the famous Jersey shore, entertainment is so much more! Tiki Time!"

Haste

2006-02-24T16:57:00.000Z

"...and now - the weather:

The Sun has got his hat on! Hip-hip-hip Hooray! The Sun has got his hat on and he's coming out to play!"

Unfortunately, it's also absolutely freezing outside. Still, you can't have everything. Unless ofcourse you do indeed have everything, in which case - well done.

In other news today, Saudis 'foil oil facility attack', Mayor is suspended over Nazi jibe and I have put a short film on the internet featuring an English southern coastal town.

Other than that, there is little of concern going on the world over; grass is still predominantly green, the air is still predominantly composed of nitrogen and I am still predominantly bored. My triumph of the day is fitting the word 'predominantly' into a sentence three times.

Yesterday I watched an excellent film called Princess Mononoke. It's a fantastic film and a must see for anyone who enjoys animated films, or just good films in general really. Next on my list of films to see are Howl's Moving Castle and The Cat Returns, brought to us by the creator of Spirited Away. As you can see there is a distinct theme of animated films going on here. It's always the way though - once you watch a really good film, then you subsequently desire to watch lots of films in a similar vein. Or atleast I do.

I shall finish with a link to one of my favourite adverts. Enjoy.

Hull Odessey (Pt. 2)

2006-02-22T00:37:00.000Z

Clear! I still have an urge to use a defibrillator on someone. If anyone wants to volunteer to [A] buy me a defibrillator (they retail at about £1000 apparently) and [B] let me shock them with it, then feel free to contact me.

Anyway, as I mentioned in my last post, I spent this past weekend in glorious Hull (once again). My memory of much of the weekend is pretty much blank as I spent most of the weekend either under the influence (of alcohol that is, not just pounding bass lines - though they may have factored into it at some point) or recovering from the effects of said past-time. Yes, I am labelling being wasted as a past-time - it's right up there with golf, air-fix models and making furniture out of people; whatever floats your boat. Alcohol floats my boat as it's the only one which is a liquid; ba-boom.

I arrived in Hull on the friday and presumably spent much of the day doing something, or even very little, with a group of people I know. Anything more specific than that may be pushing it. Things I do remember is getting to see some friends that I hadn't seen for a fair while, one of whom was the illustrious Rami (who has yet to update his blog in ages I'd like to add). At some point in the evening, I left the group of friends I was with to meet up with some other friends down the road, which is where things started to slip slightly. All I remember is that the rest of the evening contained lots of wine, whiskey (an expensive brand, but horrible none the less) and lager. I did however learn the next day that it was probably a mistake to mix large amounts of said drinks together as saturday saw me enduring one of the worst hangovers I have had in quite some time. I can't say I am surprised as the last time I had mixed wine, spirits and pints (cider rather than lager) I ended up being sick for 3 hours. Glad to see I remembered that valuable lesson.

After spending the vast bulk of saturday a worrying shade of grey and generally feeling and looking like crap, I then decided it was time to sort myself out. By about 4pm, after about 2 hours in a pub, I finally braved my first pint (well second pint - I gave the first one away as I couldn't face it) and fortunately it went down rather well, which then confirmed that I was recovered enough to start drinking again. I trekked back to the house, got a shower and got ready for the second night of drinking.

The night started off at the casino. Why I keep going there I don't know - I think it's the gold card with "Lifetime membership" written on it. It makes me feel like a... person when I look at it - which is rather nice. In record time I managed to lose £10 and decided that I had had enough of gambling. My friends around me were doing badly, right up until the point that I left them and went to the bar; as soon as I was gone they started to do well - I think this is yet more confirmation that I am a cursed man. Therefore I shall not leave them alone to do well next time as misery loves company. After the casino we went to Pozition and proceeded to destroy ourselves - well, by 'ourselves' I guess I really mean 'myself'. Only 4 of us went - Rami, Rebecca, Tom and myself. I was on a mission to get smashed, mainly due to the usual reason that I am an idiot. After many vodka and lemonades, Rami (knowing that Tom and myself will drink anything that is free) decided to buy us horrible drinks - namely dodgy shots in test tubes that can only be described as tasting like a binge drinker's vomit. These were then followed by double Sambukas - a drink that I particularly dislike, as aniseed is possibly the most horrible thing you could force someone to ingest without actually wanting them to die. When we were considerably worse for wear, we left Pozition (presumably around 1-2ish) and Tom and myself went to a house party (well, an eviction party to be more precise) at Pearson park. After saying hello to some people we knew, I then found an arm chair and fell asleep for 3 hours. I left the house party at around 4ish on my own and walked back to the house I was staying at and soon realised that it was freezing cold. It wasn't that I felt freezing, but I noticed that all the cars were covered in a thick layer of frost and I wasn't wearing a jacket or anything remotely warm; so I knew that as I sobered up I would really start to feel it. I then got back to the house to find that everyone was asleep (strangely enough) and the door was locked. I then rang Tom who was still at the house party, buried under a pile of attractive women, and had to get him to leave and come back and let me in. Suffice to say, he was not best pleased.

Sunday went more smoothly than saturday in that my hangover was reasonably minor, despite the amount I drank and that Tom felt terrible. In my mind, Tom's suffering and my lack of it made up for me being the only ill one the day before, but this is just because I am a horrible person. This did go to prove our theory that if you go out drinking heavily two nights in a row, the hangover after the second night is never as bad as the hangover from the first night; therefore, whenever you're feeling terrible from a previous night out, just start drinking again - good old 'hair of the dog'.

Sunday also saw Nick create some of his famous heart-stopping, artery-blocking, stomach-churningly-buttery rice crispie squares. Now I know this has sparked everyone's interest so I have included the recipe below. Hopefully Nick won't chose to violate me for giving away trade secrets, as this is on a par with giving away information on how to create biological warfare agents.

Ingredients:

7 Mars bars (full size)
Half a pack of butter (roughly 125 grams)
Rice Crispies (big pile of)

Recipe:

Break the mars bars into small chunks and place within a large microwaveable bowl.
Then add the butter.
Place the bowl into a microwave and heat until the mixture has melted and formed a chocolatey, buttery mess.
Add rice crispies and stir into the mixture. Add as many rice crispies as the mixture can stretch too, making sure that they are all nicely covered.

Once all the rice crispies are covered, spoon the mixture out into an appropriately sized baking tray.
Place the baking tray into the fridge for approximately an hour or so until the mixture has solidified.
Removed from fridge and cut the rice crispie cake into small squares.
Serves about 1000 people, given that 1 small bite is your recommended daily calorie intake for the day and recommened fat intake for the week. Give to people you don't like or who are looking to put weight on fast. Alternatively, put less butter in and it's actually really nice.

Anyway, interesting culinary adventures aside, sunday was taken at a relatively relaxed pace - inpart due to the onset of liver failure likely to occur in some of us had we opted for a heavy night again. Sunday evening was spent chilling like villains at the pub, before returning to Evil Ian's house to watch the majority of the director's cut of Donnie Darko which had been free with that day's copy of the Sunday Times. It's a fantastic film, but we were too tired to watch it all and consequently fell asleep during it.

On monday afternoon I returned home to resume my search for an ever elusive job and finally fill in my application form to become a teacher in Japan; which I have now finally started to make progress on. Tomorrow I am going to go into town and perhaps pick up a book about Japan to help me fill in the form convincingly, as I don't think I can just get by on saying "It looked pretty in Memoirs of a Geisha and House of Flying Daggers". Coincidently, for anyone wondering, both those films are excellent and really worth watching.

Do me a lemon

2006-02-15T21:24:00.000Z

Firstly, I have a favour to ask; Can anyone reading this please spare 20 seconds to fill in this questionnaire. It's only half a dozen questions and it's nothing personal; it's just to assist a friend with his coursework. Much obliged - unless ofcourse you opted not to do it; in which case, no love for you.

In other news, there is no other news. Last night saw another brilliant episode of the UK 'Beauty and the Geek' (it had to get a mention really) - hot birds aplenty.

Tomorrow morning I am due to go register with a job agency in Lincoln so I can get some random job. I was due to do this last week if you recall, but my appointment got postponed because the woman was ill. Following that, I am going to go have a few drinks with a friend in the evening and then on friday I shall be heading over to Hull. I am writing about it all now, as I probably won't get another chance to post on here until I return from Hull on monday; then I shall cover all these events in a little more detail - or perhaps just breeze over them with a degree of non-chalance and babble about matters that are completely inconsequential.

Trying your luck

2006-02-14T00:56:00.000Z

I havn't posted for a few days as I have been in lovely Hull from Thursday to Monday. I was due to return to Hull on the friday, but plans changed and I ended up trekking over on the thursday so that I could meet up with a friend who was only there that day.

The bulk of the thursday was spent drinking, climaxing in a night out at Pozition. Only three of us went out - myself, Tom and Louise. My memory of the night is hazy at best, but I do remember having a most excellent evening.

Other than being hungover, I can't remember what we did all friday. I have a feeling we just sat around feeling terrible.

Saturday, I went to see The Strokes with Ed. They were great, although I wasn't happy about the exorbitant ticket prices. £23 is probably perfectly reasonable for such a well known band, but to my mind, anything over £15 is too much and also it's not every day that I get to use the word 'exorbitant'. I have no idea who the support act was - no one memorable anyway. We turned up a bit late and only caught his last two songs, after which there was a wait of over an hour till the Stokes came on. After the gig, Ed and I went to Hockneys to meet up with everyone else and get a few drinks in. We then returned to the house and watched Cool Runnings.

Derice Bannock: Sanka, you dead?
Sanka Coffie: Ya man.

Sunday was spent making and eating flapjacks and pancakes and doing very little else.

I returned on Monday morning to spend the rest of the week being bored and, more importantly, not spending any money so that I have some pennies for next weekend, which will see part two of the Hull Odessey.

Having just noticed what the date is - Happy Valentines Day for anyone reading this today.

Swindlers

2006-02-08T17:49:00.000Z

It's the time you've all been waiting for - a whinge about mobile phone network operators. Surprise surprise, O2 have succeeded in disappointing me once again inspite of my very low expectations of them.

Around mid-january my Direct Debit transaction to pay my O2 phone bill failed because there was not enough money in my account. A mistake on my part; I quickly put the money in the account then, when they rang me and informed me it had failed, I paid the bill over the phone and told them to reinstate the Direct Debit. I figured that after that, all would be well again.

Yesterday I received this months O2 phone bill, only to discover that according to said bill it would not be paid by Direct Debit and I needed to sort out payment myself. This came as something of an annoyance. I rang O2 today to confirm that despite me telling them to reinstate the Direct Debit that they had cancelled it, so I then had to spend half an hour setting the Direct Debit up again and then also paying the current bill.

It then occurred to me that I had better check that the previous Direct Debit had been cancelled as I did not want to be paying my phone bills twice and I have no intention of believing anything the O2 people have to say. So this afternoon I walked into town and popped into Nationwide and sure enough, the previous Direct Debit was still active; meaning that they would happily have let me pay for the bill over the phone and then sucked the money out of my account via the Direct Debit as well. So, as you can imagine, I promptly cancelled it. I don't know if any of you have tried reclaiming money that has been taken out of your account by Direct Debit when it shouldn't have been, but by all accounts it is an absolute pain.

I guess I probably owe Orange an apology as I whinged about them messing me about over the phone for so long, but to be fair, it seems all phone companies are utter bastards.

On the plus side, it was sunny today for the first time in like 10 days and I got a lovely dairy ice cream.

Today's letter is the letter 'C'

2006-02-08T00:52:00.000Z

There are two things you need in life: Vitamin C and, as of this moment, 'Film C'. I hope you will find it... educational.

I've just watched the first episode of the new 'Beauty and the Geek' on E4. I know it seems like this blog is starting to become a 'Beauty and the Geek' commentary, but this is important stuff. I thought the British version of the show was excellent and better than the current series running in the US. Though this is mainly because the women were more attractive. Unfortunately there is no website for the British show as of yet, so there are no pictures for comparrison for those of you who have not seen either show. Though, to be fair, if you havn't seen atleast one of them then you're doing something wrong.

I've also just noticed that a new series of the UK Apprentice will be starting on BBC 2 on 22nd February; which is something else to look forward to for those of you who, like myself, enjoy quality, thought-provoking television.

In current affairs (that's right, I'm up to date with my news), it seems Abu Hamza has been sentenced to 6-7 years for inciting racial hatred etc - I'm sure that will go down well.

You may or may not have guessed, but I am just sat here with the tv on behind me and just writing whatever I hear.

In other news, BP have... Hmm time to switch off the tv I feel. My head has become like an empty vessel. Well, I say "become like" - it is an empty vessel; I just use it or hat storage.

I'm going to register with some random job agency tomorrow called Brooke Street so they can find me some random job somewhere... random. Boy I sure am glad I spent 3 years getting a degree! Other than that I am just saving my pennies (of which I have precious few these days) for my following two weekends back in glorious Hull. I shall have to find out just how much my tolerance to alcohol has become similar to that of an 11 year old catholic school girl. I shall discover this in my usual, moderated and carefully considered manner. This generally involves drinking more than I used to back in the happy days when I drank regularly and then spending the following 12 hours full of regret and nursing a terrible hangover by supping on cans of Carlsberg.

Oh and whilst signing on (for dole) today I was informed that I had reached the time of my dreaded 13 week review. Basically after 13 weeks they meddle in your life and make things hell for you and annoy you constantly and after a while they will assign you with some shit job. So I was booked in for the first part of the torment, which is a 20 minute interview with one of their advisors. Fortunately for me however, they are so booked up that they couldn't fit me in for an appointment until the end of March. I therefore have about 6 weeks to get myself a job - the clock is ticking...

Remember Me

2006-02-05T16:23:00.000Z

What with having precious little to fill my time, I have made a new music video. Enjoy.

Have you made good today?

2006-02-04T21:57:00.000Z

I have uploaded the Make Good video onto YouTube as I know not everyone got to see it in it's entirety due to bandwidth problems with where I was hosting it. Granted this probably isn't of much concern to most people as the video didn't make any sense to anyone, but that's not the point. Anyway, here it is again in all it's glory...

Kite Watch

2006-02-04T20:43:00.000Z

I've just discovered the brilliance that is YouTube. This website allows you to upload videos of pretty much any format and then it converts them to a flash file and puts them on the internet for all to enjoy. Videos can be up to 100Mb in size and you can upload as many as you want and at the moment there is no time restriction as to how long they will be kept online. Best of all, it's completely free.

I have taken it upon myself to sign up and have already uploaded my first video. It's a golden oldie - a tribute to one of the greatest sports practiced on Fraisthorpe beach. Enjoy...

You can run with us!

2006-02-03T20:13:00.000Z

The internet has failed me. I have just been trying to find a quiz to determine which member of the Raccoons I relate to most and as far as I can tell - no such quiz exists. This has come as quite the disappointment. If I wanted to know what type of candy I am most like or which Simply Red song best sums up my predisposition towards fair grounds rides, then that'd be fine; but if I want to know what sort of Raccoon I am, all of a sudden it's absurd.

Now I'm sure some of you may be wondering "why the sudden fascination with the Raccoons?" - like it's some how not acceptable to randomly start thinking about cartoons you havn't watched for 10 years and then wonder which character you most related to (fascists). I happened upon the lyrics to the Racoons' theme tune recently and it was whilst reading them, and subsequently listening to said theme tune, that I wondered if there was a quiz about the Raccoons; what with there being a quiz about every other thing you could possibly think of on t'internet. I guess it's possible that there is one and I just didn't find it, as I'm not prepared to dedicate more than 3 minutes of my time towards searching for one. Therefore I thought I'd put this out there and then if anyone knows of, or finds, a Raccoons quiz they can put the link on here for everyone to enjoy (as I'm sure everyone is know thinking "I wonder which character I am most like...?"). Condolences to any Cyril Sneers.

One small step for man...

2006-02-02T18:32:00.000Z

Today is a historic moment as it has seen the birth of Rami's blog (no Pandas I'm afraid). Rami shall no doubt be chronicling his adventures as a normal person in the outside world (something of which I know nothing) as well as sharing his views on a great many pertinent issues. Atleast it will give you something to read other than my musings about utter nonsense and Ian's internet insights (I kinda like how that sounds); as well as an easy way to contact the Big Dawg. Anyway, enjoy!

Monthly Review - January

2006-02-01T15:37:00.000Z

That's right - a monthly review. I am going to give January a 2/10.

Right, now that's out the way I can get on with the rest of the post. It has been brought to my attention that my site had become plagued by pop-up adds, which is utterly lame. I discovered that the cause of this was the Mini Poll, so it was promptly removed. People were abusing it anyway - fancy voting Amanda as the hottest 'beauty'. You know who you are.

I have engaged in precious little over the past few days. I keep planning to go into town, but that's sort of weather dependent and at the moment nature is against my non-isolationist plans.

I've started watching 'The IT Crowd' which is Channel 4's new sitcom. It's quite amusing and you can read about it on Ian's blog. I've also caught up on Hyperdrive which is a relatively new sci-fi based sitcom on BBC 2. It'd appeal to anyone who likes Nick Frost or is a fan of Red Dwarf.

Other than watching geeky tv shows, I've just been applying for random jobs so that I can save up some cash and apply to be an English teacher in Japan. It'd be amazing and hopefully I will be able to get onto the course and get over there by summer, as another 6 months at home and I will probably die.

I am going to have to go as some sort of terrible children's program has come on the television behind me; it's narrated by Stephen Fry and all I can hear is him asking where 'Pokayo' is hiding. It's making me feel unwell.

Beauty and the Geek

2006-01-27T12:38:00.000Z

Win - new series of 'Beauty and the Geek' starting 7th Feb on E4! That show was awesome - I can only hope that once again it has a super hot Latino, a cute blonde and a laughable collection of maladjusted misfits. It will need to have more than 2 nose bleeds in the first episode in order to beat the last series.

In fact, having just checked their site, I can see that they are already on episode 3 in America - I may have to take matters into my own hands here.

Share your thoughts on who you think the hottest 'Beauty' is on the Mini Poll.

[Edit: The Mini Poll has since been removed]

Food for thought

2006-01-27T00:34:00.000Z

Is it just me - or are the children on Junior Mastermind really worrying? Stay with me here - surely it must've occurred to someone that it can't be healthy for an 11 year old boy to know everything there is to know about Abba. When I was 11 I was too pre-occupied with Lego or going outside to play with friends (Oh how I miss the outside) to bother memorising the entire Abba back catalogue. On a tangent - 11 isn't too old for Lego is it? As I can't be sure, but there is a good chance I was still playing with it at that age - hmm I'm sure everyone was; many infact probably still do. Man I loved my Lego Pirate ship! Nevertheless though, I still find it perculiar when a child knows so much about something considerably before his time. I've just been looking at the Junior Mastermind website and one of these children's specialist subject is the Dambusters - now that's just not right and I think that child needs to be taken in for testing.

Also, how great is it that MasterChef is back? Not only that, but now it's good. Mainly due to dropping Lloyd Grossman no doubt. I had no idea he was an economist - just goes to show that they can't be trusted. Come to think of it, MasterChef has probably never been away - I just stopped watching.

God of the Internet

2006-01-24T21:49:00.000Z

During my aimless perusing of the internet I have discovered that something that proves that I am not a total failure in life - or atleast not when it comes to creating prototype websites for Vegetarian Food retailers. Confused? Well, allow me to explain...

During the 3rd year of University, Tom and I took a module entitled 'The Internet & E-Commerce'. We chose this module due to our belief that it would be easy for us to get high grades and boost out averages, given our profficiency at IT. Unfortunately, our cunning plan fell down slightly due to, what we refer to as, a 'clerical error'. Basically, the course was divided into two pieces of coursework (there were no exams). The ratio of the module's overall grade was divided 40:60 between the two peices of coursework - ie. The first piece of coursework (an Executive Summary) was worth 40% of the module and the second piece (a prototype website) was worth 60%. Malhereusement, due to the aforementioned clerical error, Tom and I missed the first piece of coursework out completely. This then meant that we would have to get atleast 67% for the website just to pass the module. As you can imagine this resulted in a fair amount of panic as failing the module would result in us not getting Honours degrees - which would've been quite a dilemma. Not that being able to put Economics Bsc Hons on my CV has helped me fulfil my ambitions particularly, but it was the principle of the matter and I didn't need to cripple my chances in life any more than I had already done. Fortunately however, due to Tom and I being most king-like we were able to create awesome websites (relative to the efforts that Business Studies students could muster anyway) and save our worthless hides - this mainly took the form of leaving the coursework till the last minute (as per always) and then spending 18 hours straight on Frontpage creating something special.

Anyway, that is all water under the bridge. To bring me back to my earlier point - I was looking at the website for the Internet & E-Commerce module and discovered that in the section for past examples of student's work, mine was included as the example of an excellent piece of coursework.

If you go here to the list of example pieces, my website is listed as 'Excellent 1'. I can now die happy.

Back to the Big City

2006-01-24T14:44:00.000Z

I have delayed this post slightly because I couldn't be bothered to do it - sorry, no elaborate excuse involving a mysterious disease or a quest of some sort. I think I am going to document the London trip in a 'photo-blog' style as it'll be easy on the words (as there is a shortage) and it'll be nice and colourful for anyone reading it. Some of the pictures were taken by me and some were taken by Ed. I know I don't normally name people on this blog, but I can't be bothered to say 'my friend' and 'my other friend' and 'my friend's friend' etc etc.

- Tom in a sleeping bag in Ed's room at his house in Kettering. We went down to Ed's house on the Friday and stayed there for the night before setting off to London on the Saturday.

- Myself in a sleeping bag. Same place, same time, different sleeping bag.

- Ed on the train on the way down to London. Fortunately there is a direct train from Kettering to St. Pancras station and it only takes about an hour. Unfortunately I had forgotten my rail card so had to pay £30 rather than £19 for my ticket. It then later transpired that my rail card hadn't been forgotten and had been in my bag the whole time - needless to say, I hate everything.

- A statue of a midget standing on a table. One of the few things in the Tate gallery that I wouldn't burn if I had the choice (including most of the people that were in the Tate 'enjoying' the various other pieces of modern "art"). I think in my entire time there I found about 5 things that I actually considered worthy of the the title 'art' and thus worthy of my time. I would've taken pictures of some of the more rubbish pieces as examples, but I got told you weren't allowed to take pictures and so had to stop - atleast I got the midget though. I guess they don't want people to know how crap the exhibits are, otherwise no one would bother going. To my mind though, dripping paint down a piece of canvas is not worthy of being an exhibit in any sort of gallery, be it the Tate or a gynasium at a Primary School Fete - there was actually a piece of art called 'Dripping Paint' or something along those lines; atleast the "artist" calls a spade a spade I suppose.

- Ed, Tom and Sam (Tom's brother) in the Tate Modern. Sam was fortunate enough to inherit all the brains and talent in Tom's family (what with living in a nice house in London and going to Imperial College London), where as Tom got that rather stylish peaked beanie.

- This is just as we were approaching Leicester Square. We went round to China Town and managed to find the worst Chinese restaurant in the whole street - quite the accomplishment. We found one that did a buffet for £4.90 so we thought "awesome - cheapest wins!". However as you enter the restaurant, you are asked which menu option you chose and after announcing that we wanted the £4.90 option, we were lead down to the basement (no joke) where all the other cheap people are kept. The buffet was decidedly poor (the rice was like mash potato), there was mould growing up the walls and the place was just messy. Still, you live and learn.

- Some trees with lights on and a ghost car. I just included this picture for the hell of it - It has no real relevance to anything except that it was taken in London. We were enroute to Harrods at the time to load up on Krispy Kreme doughnuts and generally explore. It was most excellent.

- Descending into the Underground. From the top of the escalator to the bottom you can see the peak of Tom's peaked beanie (which he loves so much), Myself, Sam, Vicky and a random.

We went to other places duing our day out (Camden Markets for one), but there aren't pictures of them so I can't be bothered to speak about them. I did try and get a picture of some of the freaks at Camden Market actually (as there were many) but I didn't think they would appreciate it, so I didn't manage it. It was a shame as I would have liked a picture of the guy with a ginger Mohican - still, we can't all have what we want I suppose.

I shall finish with a short clip of Vicky, Tom, Sam and Ed in the Tate when I endeavoured to get their thoughts on the Sugar Cube display - they were however reluctant to comment.

Jesus Christ Supercop!

2006-01-20T13:20:00.000Z

This is very possibly the greatest thing I have seen in the whole of today (so far). The links below are the first (and only - as of yet) four episodes of the aforementioned 'Jesus Christ Supercop' which can be found on a great website called ReligiousFreaks; a site dedicated to exposing the hypocrisy of organised religions in an amusing manner - a noble cause.

"Justice has a new weapon to fight crime. A man who knows no pain and has no fear. A man who can operate outside the boundries of the law and get results. That man is Jesus Christ. If you thought Dirty Harry was bad ass, think again." - You know you're in for something special...

Many thanks to Ian for bringing this to my attention and spreading the word of our Lord :)

Warum nicht?

2006-01-18T22:42:00.000Z

I am speculating as to whether to further extend my footwear collection. As you can see I have added a 'mini poll' on the right-hand site of the page, giving you the chance to vote for which of the potential candidates you think I should purchase. It's similar to Eurovision or X-Factor, but considerably better - there is no singing, you don't have to spend money on texts messages or phone calls to vote (well, I guess that's not entirely true if you are on dial-up, but then why are you wasting valuable pennies reading this site - I can only surmise that you're not and that I am speaking to no-one... well, good) and there is the added benefit that you may actually get to see the candidate you have voted for in the flesh... well suede or leather or whatever the one you voted for is made of (doubt it will be leather as I am not prone to wearing leather trainers).

Anyway, for those of you not particularly current in terms of trainer styles etc, below are pictures of what each prospective pair of trainers looks like, as to help you make an informed decision.

Well, what d'ya know - there is some leather in there. Think the 'Chile 62' one is made of leather. I guess I could have gone back and deleted the earlier bit about not being prone to wearing leather trainers, but I really can't be bothered to scroll up.

On a completely unrelated note, I have been listening to a considerable amount of The Divine Comedy recently as I just obtained their 'best of' album, A Secret History. I had forgotten just what a good band they were. Anyway, I shall leave you with an excerpt from their single 'Generation Sex'...

Generation Sex
injects
the sperm
of worms
into the eggs of field mice
so you can look real nice
for the boys...

[Edit: The mini poll has since been removed]

Bored

2006-01-16T21:00:00.000Z

I am bored - which you may have guessed from this posts rather apathetic title. I therefore have decided to brighten up my days by purchasing something that will sparkle and delight me; well perhaps not sparkle, but atleast entertain me in some way. The trouble is choosing what to purchase, as there are a lot of things out there that I wouldn't mind having, but I am not made of money (more's the pity) and therefore must chose which item will best please me whilst at the same time not crippling my accounts; especially considering that this is, or atleast was, an impulse purchase.

In my search of the internet I have discovered many a thing that would please me, but I am struggling to decide what to part my decidedly-unearned, government-given funds on. So I decided that I would list what I had found and anyone who cares can leave their thoughts on what I should or should not purchase.

Item #1: 'The Book of Bunny Suicides' and 'The Return of the Bunny Suicides' (both by Andy Riley)

Now I know technically this is two items, but as they are greatly of a likeness I thought it seemed petty to list them seperately. Especially as I would only say the same things about both of them. As you can see, these are particularly dark humour - but I do enjoy my humour like I like my coffee; made by someone else for my pleasure. These are both quite short books and I don't know how much I would re-read them, but it would certainly be most gigglesome the first time through. They would also go nicely with another book by the same author that I was given by a friend - 'Great lies to tell small kids'. I have included below a couple of examples from the Bunny Suicide books so you can get an idea of the content.

As you can see - these books appear to be most excellent and would perfectly suit my, perhaps twisted, sense of humour.

Item #2: 'Unpleasant ways to die' (by Elan Fleisher)

Again, this is another book that I found which I believe would appeal to my sense of humour. I'm afraid I don't have any example pictures from this book. My adding it to the list was based soley on it's title, the cover picture and the comments left by people who had read it on Amazon.

Item #3: 'National Lampoon's Animal House' dvd

During a visit to Hull not so long ago, we were watching the Top 50 greatest comedy films (or something along those lines - I can't recall its exact title as there are so many of those damn Top 50/100/1000 shows that it becomes increasingly difficult to keep track) and one of the higher ranking films was this one. It occurred to me that I had heard of it before as this film has achieved a cult status. It also became apparant to me that I have never watched it and that I probably ought to. I feel slightly restrained by the fear that it will be just like Porky's and therefore probably not worth my time or money as, funny though such films were when I was 14, they now fail to amuse. Still, I have a feeling that this film is going to be considerably better than the myriad of subsequent films it spurred focusing on the antics of inadequate teens.

Item #4: Robert Post's album

I have been deliberating over whether or not to buy this for quite some time. I always find it hard to part with money for a music cd, for reasons which I won't go into now, but needless to say the cd in question has to be of considerable quality before I am ever inclined to part with money for one. I am tempted by this particular album as the limited edition version also comes with a dvd with extra material, which I am hoping includes some music videos. For those of you unaware as to who Robert Post is or, more imortantly, what his music is like, you can check out some of his songs as well as the most excellent video for his first single 'Got None' over at his MySpace page. I have particularly enjoyed his first two singles, both the aforementioned 'Got None' and the follow-up single 'There's one thing'. His music manages to be both chripy and yet melancholy, which I find to be most pleasant - I also enjoy his music videos as the two that I have seen have been reasonably original and entertaining.

Item #5: 'Joan Rivers - (still a)Live at the London Palladium' dvd

I still find it hard to believe that Joan Rivers is 72. The wonders of modern medicine I suppose. I think upon realising just how old she is that I am going to be forced to recant an earlier statement that I made to someone about her being attractive for her age. It just doesn't seem right to make such remarks about someone who is considerably older that your own parents. All though I can probably think of atleast one person who would disagree - to which I will just state, once and for all, that Sue Barker is NOT hot. No offense to Sue Barker - I'm not saying she's ugly by any means; I just don't think she can really pull off being the object of desire for a man in his early 20's. I can see that I have gone on a massive tangent here, but I feel it had to be said. I will just wrap it up by stating that Melissa Rivers (Joan Rivers' daughter) is hot.

Anyway, back to the dvd. Last night, ITV did one of their 'An audience with...' shows and this time it was with Joan Rivers. As I have come to expect from her, she was utterly comical and pretty much slagged off everyone that political correctness says you shouldn't. I decided that I would see if there were many dvds that I could purchase of her material and strangely enough the only one available was this dvd taken from her recent tour of the UK, which apparantly you can only get on Amazon. Now it seems pretty odd to me that there is only one dvd of her shows given that she has been doing the comedy circuit for the last million years. Still, what can you do - this is the only dvd I saw, so now I have to decide if I can be bothered to buy it - hence why it ended up on the list.

...

Ok so there are five items. There were many more than that (well atleast a few), but I have kind of lost steam now and become distracted. No doubt I will do some subsequent posts adding more stuff to the list in the near future. So any ideas anyone has about what I should buy, whether it be something I have already mentioned, or something awesome that I have some how omitted - leave a comment and let me know.

Last Chance Saloon

2006-01-12T21:20:00.000Z

This post has been slightly delayed due to a severe effort shortage in my immediate area. Still, I have managed to scrimp and save enough energy to remedy the situation and get this bad boy online...

On Monday (9th Jan) I was due to attend an assessment centre for a company called Pareto. This assessment day was to take place in Wilmslow, which is a fair trek to get over to from Lincoln. It involved two trains and a bus to get to Wilmslow and then to walk through Wilmslow and find where Pareto's offices were. The trip itself went as smoothly as I could have hoped for, with everything running on time and going accoring to plan. On the bus to Wilmslow I met two people who were also attending the assessment centre. When we got to Wilmslow, the three of us decided that it would be easy enough to find Pareto's offices and so thought we would go get a coffee at Starbucks as we still had about 30 minutes left. With 15 minutes left we exited Starbucks and headed to where we thought the Pareto offices were - unfortunately we had read the directions wrong and had infact walked past their offices and gone round in a big circle. Fortunately I realised this and directed us back in the direction we had come and finally we found the offices.

The assessment day itself ended up being somewhere in the region of a total failure. It was due to last from 1pm till 6:30pm, but by 3:30pm myself and about 15 other people were taken aside and informed that we had failed, or rather, weren't what they were looking for. I would be lying if I said this came as any sort of surprise. Don't get me wrong, I went to this thing expecting it to be a doddle - I guess because I viewed the job as being something rubbish that I didn't want to do; I foolishly assumed that I would be able to get the job without trying. However, it soon became apparant that the type of people that I was up against and the type of people that Pareto were looking for, were as different from me as Bill Bailey differs from John Prescott (not that I am saying I am like either of them, it was just a rubbish example - I'm no where near as funny as Bill Bailey and why on earth would I aspire to be like the Fat Controller?). Near the start we all had to introduce ourselves to the 50 or so other candidates and Pareto people by standing up and giving our name, our star sign (?) and our greatest achievement to date. It was as early as this that I could see my own imminent doom. I have no achievements, let alone great ones and I didn't feel that I would be able to get by purely by being a Scorpio; which coincidently is the best star sign, and I stated so at the time - though most people there were Aries, which some goon was nice enough to point out was "the leadership sign" (idiot). I decided that I would just say that my favourite achievement was getting the internship at Wolff Olins, as even though it's utterly boring (as an achievement, not the experience itself), it was all I could think of. When questioned as to how I came to get the internship I just said "God knows - I just blagged my way on" (that was one of those "I immediately regret my decision" moments, as they weren't impressed by my use of the word 'blag' and made it clear). With few exceptions, most people labelled their achievements as trekking to the North Pole carrying a sick huskie, or saving 4,000 people in a small town in Mexico from neighbouring bandits that had been plaguing the village led by the infamous El Guapo... [interlude]

Jefe: We have many beautiful pinatas for your birthday celebration, each one filled with little surprises!
El Guapo: How many pinatas?
Jefe: Many pinatas, many!
El Guapo: Jefe, would you say I have a plethora of pinatas?
Jefe: A what?
El Guapo: A *plethora*.
Jefe: Oh yes, El Guapo. You have a plethora.
El Guapo: Jefe, what is a plethora?
Jefe: Why, El Guapo?
El Guapo: Well, you just told me that I had a plethora, and I would just like to know if you know what it means to have a plethora. I would not like to think that someone would tell someone else he has a plethora, and then find out that that person has *no idea* what it means to have a plethora.
Jefe: El Guapo, I know that I, Jefe, do not have your superior intellect and education, but could it be that once again, you are angry at something else, and are looking to take it out on me?

Following the introductions, we then had a couple of group exercises. These are when it became obvious to me that I would not be passing the assessment day. I can't be bothered to thoroughly explain how the first game worked, but basically it followed the principle of Game Theory, and specifically the Prisoner's Dilemma. Now that may not mean much to some of you, but it meant something to me as I have studied it in my course and so knew how to play the game. Unfortunately, knowing how to play the game meant nothing as all the assessors wanted to see was how well you communicated your ideas to the group and convinced others that you were right. After about 3 seconds the oldest and, coincidently, tallest member of our group appointed himself the leader and tried to organise everyone in a futile manner. Everyone else was struggling to get their two cents into the forum even though none of them actually had a clue what was going on, which many of them later confessed to. After spending half our allotted looking at the numbers given to us and also at what the rest of my team had pieced together as an answer, I informed them that they were wrong and how they should change the answer. Unfortunately, as I was given to speaking in a calm and rational manner and not shouting out, I was promptly ignored and subsequently our team did terribly. Perhaps it was because they were all Aries and therefore struggling to all be the leaders - although I have my own theories along the lines of a genetic predisposition towards sub-optimal performance, but I am just being bitter. In any case, I shall make a mental note not to attempt anything constructive when surrounded by lots of people born between March 21st - April 19th.

The second group exercise involved a role playing scenario where our team had all been stranded on the moon following a poor shuttle landing and had to navigate our way to a rendevous point. There were a certain amount of items (15) available to our team on this mission that we had to rank in order of importance to our survival. By this point I had already realised that trying to explain things to the rest of my group was like trying to fly purely by flapping my arms. Given my extremely low tolerance for stupid people and my general hatred towards everyone, I was becoming slightly enraged by the fact that I had been put in the worst group (they had consistently obtained the lowest scores for both games) and that their constant squabbling was starting to sound reminiscent of hens clucking; or more like turkeys actually (gobble gobble gobble).

Anyway, after these 'games' we were given our scores for both games and people were given the opportunity to justify their decisions for both games. This opened the forum for all manner of idiocy. The amount of times people gave their brilliant strategic ideas of how to 'win' the Prisoner's Dilemma, all of which made no sense at all mathematically as the only way to win it is to co-operate with the other team and both get equal scores. Ofcourse, this couldn't happen because everyone wanted to win, so they all attempted to shaft the other team and in doing so shafted themselves. Though I will admit there was some mild amusement in hearing how these people tried to justify their own idiocy with no real understanding of what they were talking about.

After this I was informed that I hadn't passed and that there was no point in staying for the rest of the day. Having discovered that they were more interested in people's ability to talk than people's ability to think (which, in all fairness, I should have expected from a sales job), I was decidely indifferent to not passing the assessment as any job they could have placed me with I would have undoubtedly hated.

Upon leaving the assessment I was picked up from Wilmslow station by a friend who lived nearby in Stockport. We went to the nearest pub so I could have a few pints and relax and explain how the day went - I spared her the bulk of the whinging, bitterness and Three Amigos qoutes that I have put in this post.

She later dropped me off in Manchester at Piccadilly Station where I met up with a friend of mine who goes to Uni in Manchester. He showed me some of the city and I looked in a few shops before we decided to get something to eat. After an hour of not being able to decide on where to eat we just went in some random take away. After that we decided that the rest of the evening would be best spent doing a bit of a pub crawl and getting wasted. I can't say I didn't enjoy going into goth bars wearing a suit - It's like walking round a peasant village when your a knight wearing lovely shiney armour. I guess it's like the normal feeling of superiority you get when surrounded by smelly goths, but just that little bit better.

Anyway, after getting suitably wasted and another (admittedly regrettable) takeaway, we headed back to his halls to crash for the evening. He had described them as being like a prison, and in fairness, that seems pretty accurate. It's not that they weren't clean and the rooms were alright; but it's just how impersonal the place feels.

The next morning I headed back home to Lincoln. I left via Oxford Street station, so there was only one change on the way back in Sheffield. I had to leave early so that I could be back in time to go to the job centre (my favourite hell on earth) and sign on for my lovely dole money.

All in all, not a complete mis-adventure. The assessment day was a complete waste of my time, but in fairness - it was a day out.

Ears, Beers and everything in between

2006-01-08T22:07:00.000Z

I am gonna have to come clean - there really isn't anything to do with ears in this post. Sorry to disappoint all of you ear enthusiasts out there who I know frequently read this thing. Must be especially disappointing after the lack of ears in the last post. Still I promise to do a special ear feature sometime in the future - though how far in the future that will be I really can't say. I guess it depends how long it is until something interesting happens to me that heavily (or even partially) focuses on ears.

Anyway, the last few days...

I went to Kettering on wednesday to see some old friends of mine from sixth form. Well I went expecting to see just the one friend and anyone else would be gravy. For the wednesday and thursday we just chilled like villains and didn't really get up to much - we were saving ourselves for the night out planned for friday. I am too old and more importantly broke these days to be able to do more than one night out in a week - well, that's not strictly true but I had spent all my money in Hull and drinks cost a fair bit more in Kettering, so one night is all it was going to be. Anyway, Friday came along and we got into town by about 1pm after having been awake for all of an hour. We had a massive steak dinner for lunch (that must be confusing for some people with the whole lunch/dinner/tea issues). By 2pm we were thoroughly bored so decided we would have a casual pint in the pub to break up the afternoon. By 6pm and many pints later we were still there and realised that we were going to end up being wasted before the night had even begun. We left the pub around 6:30pm and grabbed a take away for tea and headed over to the house where we would be staying that night and had a can or two before setting out again into town. My memory of the rest of the night is somewhat sketchy but I did get to meet up with quite a few good mates from sixth form as well as meet a few randoms and also upset a destinctly 'emo' barman by asking him not to kill himself before he got me my drink. All in all a thoroughly successful evening (barring the expenditure of £60 or so on alcohol). The next morning I was woken at 9:30am by my friend who wanted to head back to his house. I felt like death in every possible way - infact death would've been something of a reprieve at the time.

Later than day, after a lot of being unwell and a brief nap, we both headed off up to Lincoln as my mate was going to come stay here for the weekend. Due to me forgetting the route home and choosing a worse one on the map we managed to add an extra hour to the journey, including getting lost in Stamford. Still, in the end we got here and just relaxed for the rest of the evening. Today I showed him round Lincoln and picked myself up a new hoody and belt. I also showed him the joy that is climbing Steep Hill, which I have often mentioned.

He headed back this evening, after my Dad reminded us of the correct route, and he was then able to get home with ease. Now I just have the task of preparing a 3 minute presentation about why I should be employed for my Pareto assessment centre day tomorrow - goody. The next two days are going to be quite an adventure, filled as they are with lots of exposure to various forms of public transport; which I will no doubt complain about when/if I make it back on Tuesday.

A new era of ears

2006-01-04T02:05:00.000Z

Hmm this post probably isn't going to do an immense amount of justice to the last four/five/however many days as my brain is having problems - still, I shall attempt to make the following atleast vaguely engaging.

Ok now where to start - I know I should start at the beginning but I am trying to work out where that is. Ah! I know - friday the 30th of December 2005. Infact that's another point, it's now 2006 - so Happy New Year etc. I hope this year goes well for all who survived the change over. Anyway, back to the where ever I was - friday. Last friday I was due to head back to Hull for New Year's Eve and the obligatory drinking session that knocks a decade off the functioning life of your liver. I can always just get famous and pull a George Best. I mean do a George Best - hmm that sounds no better. Anyway, I'm sure you get the point - if you're thinking anything sexual about ageing or dead football players then you have succesfully misinterpreted what I was saying, or you are just very very wrong in the head and need to have yourself checked - especially with regards to the dead ones. Anyway, like I was saying - If I was a rich girl... wait, no that wasn't it. Ah yeah, Friday.

Right, one of the people due to attend the festivities was a friend of mine who lives in Nottingham who happened to be getting a lift to Hull. As I happened to know that it costs like £20 for a return to Hull from Lincoln and only £4.55 for a single to Nottingham, I decided that I would be cunning and head over to Nottingham and then get a lift with my friend and save myself £15 - genius. This was going well until I had to return home and the single ticket back from Hull to Lincoln cost £18 so I ended up spending more over all. Still, sounds about average for one of my financial strategies - an utter catastrophe, but in a very minor way.

Anyway, that's all supremely boring. When everyone had arrived in Hull we all went to the pub and chilled like villains and got some drinks in. Then we tried to decide whether or not to go out for the evening and have a practice run for the following night. We all went back to the house that we were all staying at and in the end only three of us (myself included) were hardcore enough to go out and get hammered. One of the group was working in all fairness and we'll get back to him later. After leaving the lame ones for a cosy night in, the three of us proceeded to the nearest bar that we thought would be reasonably decent. We went over to Hockneys, which proved to be utterly dead. So we only got the one drink - no point in going in there for nothing; then moved on. On the way out we spoke to the bouncers, one of whom I knew, to ask if there was anywhere decent that wouldn't be dead on the night before New Year's Eve. They told us that everywhere would be utterly dead and not to bother. This was not what we wanted to hear so we ignored them and went to the Welly club. Dear god - rock revival night. The bouncer actually asked us on the way in if we knew what night it was and if we wanted to go in there - we just told him we loved rock and went in. After paying £5 to get in to the club it became apparant almost immediately what an utter mistake we had made. The "music" playing did not seem like 70s and 80s rock to me, but sounded more like a heard of stampeding buffalo on fire. We sorted ourselves out with a double vodka and coke each - something a little stronger was required due to the fact that there was just awfulness eminating from every square inch of the club. We were the only people in there not dressed like we were going to a clown's funeral.

We soon finished our drinks and left the Welly club and quickly grabbed a taxi to take us into town. In our mostly wasted state we decided that it would be a good idea to head over to V-bar and go pester our friend who works there, who had left us earlier that evening to go start his shift. My memory from this point on is a little hazy. We were in V-bar for what may well have been a few hours, but my memory of it stretches to about one minute. After however long it was, our friend who was working at V-bar (who I am pretty sure we were tormenting) finished his shift and we all decided to head back to the house after what we all considered to be a succesful night out - which, in fairness, it was. We'd been out all night without being bored and had got utterly wasted. What more do you need? On the way home, I broke off from everyone else as I believed I had found a short cut - this turned out to be completely wrong and led me to be trapped in the bus station and I had to run all the way back out the way I had come and round it to catch up with everyone else. Stupid wire fences. Come to think of it, at that time we were walking to Rhythm Room, but they were charging £8 to get in so we decided against it, which is fortunate as I had already spent £40. We then must've got a taxi back from somewhere, but I have no memory at all of the rest of the evening; what little there was of it.

The Following day was New Year's Eve - the main event of the trip. After spending the majority of the day lying in the lounge feeling distinctly like death, it was decided that we should all go to the Gardeners (a nearby pub) for lunch. I had a burger, which although being very nice, did not help my 'feeling like death' situation one bit. I think this is because I foolishly had a pint of coke with it rather than having what should have been my first pint of the day. We then headed back to the house and picked up some wine along the way. Why I decided to drink wine rather than beer I don't know as I usually find drinking wine to be about as pleasant as stroking my tongue with a razor - this was no exception. Still, it gets the job done. The taxis came to pick us all up at nine o'clock, bar two of our number (who were staying in for a quite night in - lame). We went to Sharkies first and got the double vodka and cokes in and were treated to the spectacle of the utterly wasted idiots that were running around with the nobs out etc. Then we headed over to Position and fortunately only had to queue for about 20 minutes or so before getting in, which was better than I had expected. The night went by pretty quickly considering that we were there for like 5-6 hours and I'd be lying if I said I remembered more that about an hour's worth of it at most. Out of the five of us that went, myself and the other two lads left about 3:30 I think.. maybe and walked home, whilst the two girls went to some house party somewhere. The three of us walked back singing "Push the button and let me know... and a happy new year!" repetitively for about an hour - not once did it lose any hilarity. We then got home, made lots of noise and then passed out.

The following day everyone except three of us went home - the only three remaining were the original Economics Trio. So naturally we stayed and did some formulas and calculated our marginal propensity to consume etc. Another way to look at it would be to say that we stayed lying under duvets in the lounge watching Top 100 shows for 48 hours and drinking endless amounts of Carlsberg. Our achievements included exploring the whole of Old Town in the City Centre for about 2 hours, which mainly involved going round in circles till we got bored. The main highlight though was to find the smallest window in England which is on a street known as 'The Land of Green Ginger'. It turns out I have walked past this window many a time and have just never noticed as it is rather underwhelming, as you may have guessed. For anyone looking at that picture thinking "There is no window there - what is that idiot talking about?" - the window is actually that crack between the two bricks. There is a pane of glass in it. For anyone thinking "What is wrong with that guy?" - he is the spirit of the Economics Trio. If you were the spirit of Economics, you'd pull that face.

Our other achievement, other than staying in the same clothes that I had gone out in on New Years Eve for two days (yes that's an achievement!) was the construction of our Carlsberg Pyramid - which was knocked everywhere twice. We also rented a couple of dvds - namely 'The Descent' (not very good or scary in my opinion - certainly no '28 Days Later') and 'Dumb and Dumber' (Old Skool classic).

Today I caught the train back and managed not to end up going all the way to Sheffield this time (the trains were a pain last time). I have then just spent the rest of the day having a mini detox before I head off down to Kettering tomorrow to continue my alcohol-fueled adventures...

[Good God; this has been an immensely long post - it's not even that interesting. Oh well, it's done now]

Blargh!

2005-12-29T12:36:00.000Z

Here's the extra pictures that I took yesterday that I just didn't get around to uploading. The first one on the right is the steps you have to climb to get up the hill. They were immensely icey and an utter pain to have to get up, although to be fair, coming down them later in the dark was probably worse.

This next picture is taken from the top of the hill. You can't see the view too well in this one though as there is a lot of snow covered foliage in the way. Today I shall walk along to a near by bridge that gives a much better view and see if I can get a better shot of the landscape.

When getting to the top of the hill, we (well, not me) decided to wait for a bus to take us into town. Whilst waiting at the bus stop with two other people we noticed a snow plough heading our way. This caused a certain amount of panic as we noticed that said snow plough was shooting all the lovely brown sludge-like muck from the gutter out onto the pavement in a sort of tidal wave-like manner. All four of us hid behind the bus shelter as it was the only form of cover anywhere to be seen. Unfortunately, when the snow plough got to be within about 10 feet or so, we noticed that the muck being strewn about by the snow plough was not only shooting out to the side, but also to the front as well and in that last remaining split second it became abundantly clear that the bus shelter was going to be of little protection against the oncoming disaster. I managed to take a nice hit of black sludge to the face, as did one of the other people who was stood next to me. Fortunately, much to my amusement, the friend who I was with who had come to visit me took, by far, the worst of it. She had turned around to avoid being hit in the face by the wave, but unfortunately her 'carefully chosen position' was infact exactly where the bulk of the sludge was cast and so her entire back was covered (see the picture on the right - this is after I had removed a load of leaves from her back as well).

Anyway, after going back home to get changed, we set off again into town. We spent the bulk of the day there and I finally got to see Narnia. This film is fantastic in my opinion. Anyone who liked the original books, or animated film or the most excellent BBC series is bound to enjoy this film. I would also recommend it to anyone who has previously had no experience of Narnia, as it's thoroughly enjoyable and I'm sure anyone would like it unless they are a moron.

Then later on we walked back through Lincoln at night and it looked most excellent as it was all lit up. Then we had the joy that is traversing steep hill whilst it is covered in sheet ice. This was probably one of my least well thought out plans, but still, it was good for a giggle. Infact all the way up you could just hear the screams of laughter of other people as they tried to get either up or down the hill without crippling themselves; many of whom were girls dressed up in their going out gear avec high heels - I admired their dedication and perseverence; among other things.

We we got to the top of the hill, we had dinner (or tea, if you prefer) in a nice pub and then went round and had a look at the cathedral as it was lit up and looked awesome against the clear night sky.

Then we headed back and had to make our way down the steps in pitch black, though fortunately my phone (being awesome as it is) has a torch on it, so it wasn't too tricky.

Snow, snow, King Kong and... Snow

2005-12-28T11:41:00.000Z

This is just a mini post really as I can't be bothered to write a long one. In the end I saw King Kong yesterday - I personally felt that it was quite good. It wasn't the be all and end all by any means and I have a feeling that Narnia is going to be better, but it was certainly enjoyable. It's like 3 hours long as well, so atleast you get your money's worth. I thought Jack Black's character was probably the best one in the film and I feel he acted it supremely well, though Adrien Brody was also very good.

Other than that, just thought I'd draw attention to the awesome amount of snow that we now have as it has atleast doubled since yesterday. I am going to update this later with some more pictures, as I intend to walk up the hill when there is a break in the snow fall and get some pictures of the view from the top of the view. Should be excellent. Stay tuned...

And Relax...

2005-12-27T00:15:00.000Z

Well Christmas Day and Boxing Day have now passed, so I can and must take a break from stuffing my face with enough food to nourish the whole of the third world and probably the first and lesser-seen-second worlds as well. This is the first time in 48 hours that I havn't felt full - I am enjoying this feeling. I think I shall go walk into town in an hour or so as well - see if there are any bargains going in the sales and just bash anyone that gets in my way. I hate busy areas so much - I think it's being so close to other people; when you break it down - I just hate people really. I think it's healthy to have a certain amount of hate coursing through your veins; if you were all bunnies and hugs then everyone would think you were retarded. In fairness, most people probably do credit me with some sort of mental defficiency - but I hate them, so it's all good.

No doubt it is going to be freezing out there as there is snow everywhere, although the sun is shining a bit now, so I'm sure it won't be long before it all turns to slush. Does anyone else have snow at the moment? I am finally going to go to the cinema today to see either Narnia or King Kong - both of which look fantastic and have been credited as being so by the critics. Narnia has received the highly prestigious and coveted 5/5 starfish - so it must be pretty awesome. Will be sure to give them my own appraisal when I have seen them. I'm not normally prone to film reviews, but that's only because I don't go outside, let alone to the cinema these days. I feel like one of those old people on a bus to the Lake District or something - so pleased to be allowed outside and to go somewhere other than the shops to buy groceries. Anyway, I am gonna go shower and cleanse my body of Christmas, then go into town and take on the hordes of bargain hunters - If I see David Dickinson I shall be forced to burn him.

Happy Christmas

2005-12-25T00:58:00.000Z

Apparantly I shouldn't wish you all Happy Christmas because of its religious implications, and should infact wish you all Seasons Greetings or something equally lame. It seems to me that most people consider the religious aspect of Christmas to be more of a tacked on chore, rather than the actual cause for the holiday; therefore I don't see the problem with wishing a Happy Christmas as most people celebrate it without giving a second thought to its religious connotations. I hardly think that saying Happy Christmas is like forcing Christianity down people's throats - people that feel otherwise are clearly suffering from sub-optimal intelligence levels. If anything I guess I should probably be wishing a 'Happy Coca-Cola Day' given that they invented what has now been come to thought of as the symbol of Christmas - a fat, bearded alcoholic. Anyway, enjoy what ever holiday you're celebrating and make sure that it involves more food than you can eat comfortably and lots of Coke (either Coca-Cola or class A drugs, depending on your budget and preference I suppose - the latter might be adviseable as an adequate source of entertainment to make up for how poor TV is this Christmas).

A Grand Day Out

2005-12-23T19:04:00.000Z

This title may be a little misleading given that it is a quick document of my trip to Scunthorpe, but it's because I watched a load of episodes of Wallace and Gromit the other day with my nieces and nephew and was reminded of how fantastic they are (Wallace and Gromit that is).

Anyway, I went to Scunthorpe to see a friend yesterday, as it's not very far away and I have precious little else demanding my time (other than chronicling my non-adventures on here ofcourse). Didn't really get to see too much of Scunthorpe - I still havn't been into the elusive town centre yet. I am convinced that it doesn't actually have a town centre and that it is actually a myth - I refuse to believe in something based solely on hearsay (not the comically poor band) and conjecture. Just because people say they've been to the town centre doesn't mean that a) they're telling the truth, b) they know the difference between a town centre and a Tesco, or c) they havn't been brainwashed to think that there is a town centre by Scunthorpe's council which, in all probability, is run by the Demon Headmaster. Also, having just googled the Demon Headmaster, I have just noticed that it comes up with lots of pictures of Jack Straw and now that I think about it the resemblence is uncanny.

Anyway, most of my time in Scunthorpe was just spent chilling like a villain and I didn't really do much exploring so this post is a little pointless, but I did promise a double post so there you go. Although, one thing of note - I did play a most addictive game called 'Pass the Pigs'. I was sceptical at first, but it's really good when you get into it - I was going to say "like Scunthorpe", but that would be a lie. Still, in all fairness, it's probably not as bad as Hull - although Hull does hold sentimental value and atleast it has a town centre.

Londinium

2005-12-23T18:21:00.000Z

Come one come all - Welcome to part one of the friday double bill that you've all been desperately awaiting. I apologise for the delay - I probably should've mentioned that it wouldn't be until later on friday that I would be posting these. Anyway, on with the matter at hand...

On tuesday I went down to see my brother who lives in Welwyn Garden City as a sort of prelude to our planned day out in London on the wednesday. I was picked up by my brother who lives in Leeds on his way down, which was nice as it saved me the torment that is public transport. Actually in all fairness, I have started to enjoy travelling by train as it is the only time I ever get round to reading my book ('The Straw Men' by Michael Marshall - really good so far), but I just can't be doing with paying for it as I am immensely poor after all the christmas shopping.

Got down to WGC by about 8pm to be greeted by beer and wine and lovely food - all greatly appreciated; then had to get a reasonably early night as was due to get up at some horrible time like 7:30am. Though I was compelled to stay up and watch True Lies - good old Arnie.

Wednesday: Ok, so having got up and almost come to terms with being awake before 11am, we then made our way to the train station so we could head into London early to meet my third brother for breakfast at a place called Simpsons. The place was distinctly posh and expensive looking, which was nice. We all ordered their most heff-sized cooked breakfasts, which were extremely tasty and kept us all stuffed for the rest of the day pretty much. We then went about our travels looking at some of the sights on London and trying to walk off atleast a small amount of the vast repast we had just consumed.

This first picture is of Saint Paul's cathedral. Unfortunately, taking the picture from the front of it and being down a hill, you can't really see the big dome on the top of it which is what really makes St. Paul's so distinguisahable.

This next picture is just one of many weird looking buildings that decorate London's streets. Just proof that architects like to see what they can get away with.

Below is the lovely Tower Bridge. We went through their little tour and had a look out along the Thames from the two walkways that join the two towers and also ventured down into the engine rooms to have a gander at some of the old pistons etc.

Whilst walking along the Thames we also stumbled upon the Golden Hinde. This is the ship of Sir Frances Drake. It was kind of hidden out of the way in my opinion, but still, I guess it's finding little surprises like that which make exploring worthwhile.

We also popped into the Tate Modern for a quick peek at what offerings they had which were masquerading as art. From the looks of things it seems to be a large collection of giant sugar cubes piled in no discernable order. We didn't bother looking at any other exhibits after this one, although perhaps we should have as upstairs they may have had a giant cup of coffee or perhaps a 20 foot pony (or however high that is in hands); as we all know ponies love sugar lumps.

Below is a picture of the London Eye, which I shall come back to later as we did go on that, but this was just taken in passing as we were on our way back over the Thames.

After we crossed the Thames again we went round China town (as can be seen to the right), as well as going to Convent Gardens and to Leicester Square. Whilst at Leicester Square we visited the Häagen-dazs restaurant and indulged in some lovely ice cream. It was nice, but I wouldn't say that it was worth the prices that they charge. If memory serves me rightly, I had a two scoop milkshake with one scoop of 'Vanilla with caramel and brownie pieces' and one scoop of 'Strawberries and cream' - it was great.

We finished off the day in London by going on the London Eye which I thought was fantastic. We managed to go on it at a perfect time as well. We went on just as it started to get dark, so all the lights came on but it was still light enough to see everything, or atleast when we first got on it, as it had got pretty dark by the time we reached the top. The best thing about the time we got on was that the queues were nice and short, as by the time we were at the front of the queue it had pretty much trippled in size.

Below are a couple of pictures I took whilst at the top of the Eye. They are both of the Houses of Parliament, but the second one has some stupid effect on it as I was playing with my phone's camera features and I happened to think it looks kinda funky.

After this it was then time to call it a day. My brother who had met us in London headed off back home and the rest of us returned to the house in WGC for chinese and beers. All in all a most excellent day.

The following day, my brother who lives in Leeds dropped my back off in Lincoln on his way home and I then proceeded to get ready to go to Scunthorpe...

New Trainers

2005-12-20T12:29:00.001Z

How excellent - my new trainers have arrived. Decided I would get some Golas as I havn't bought any of their trainers before and these days Golas are considered retro cool as opposed to rubbish trainers for people who can't afford Nike. I'm sure everyone remembers those times in the playground where your entire worth was sized up based upon your trainers/football boots. I used to wear Hi-Tec back then as I was completely indifferent to footwear. How times have changed. I ordered them from a company called Street Feet. Thought I'd take the gamble and use some company that I had never heard of before as they had trainers I liked and they were at a good price and with no delivery costs. I ordered them at the end of last week, so they arrived pretty promptly. I can thoroughly recommend this company to anyone looking to get new trainers.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water...

2005-12-19T16:28:00.000Z

This has been quite a long day. Especially condering it started at about 4am. I received a text at this time and then was only able to get to sleep again between 7-8am, so in total mustered a lovely 2.5 hours sleep. Got up at 8am as I needed to get ready to go into town to finally get some christmas shopping done. I'm not normally a morning person and even less so when I get a quarter of the sleep I would have liked - my eyes felt like they were trying to cry lemon juice, and I pretty much felt like I was a hundred years old. Still, once I was ready and out of the house, I popped into Lincoln to begin the shopping extravaganza! Or atleast try and chose some random items that I thought would be appreciated, as I already had most of my order ready on Amazon, I only needed a few more items. Still, it was a pretty nice morning out and about - not a cloud in the sky and the sun was shining, and it was considerably warmer than the frost on the ground lead me to believe it would be. When I had picked up some items from the highstreet I then had the lovely walk back up 'steep hill'. It hasn't earned this name through the wonder (and constant tormentor of my life) that is irony - it is actually immensely steep. Well, for a shopping area. Anyway, once climbing this everest of boutiques I was able to mill around Bailgate for a while and enjoy the nice oldy worldy atmosphere.

I also popped over to have a look at the Cathedral, as even though I am not into my churches by any means, it's still a nice looking building and looked pretty cool on a nice sunny morning. Can't beat a good spikey building - look at it there, all spikey and what not.

The walk home also yielded some nice pictures as well, as I walk along on the top of the hill for a fair while, and then have to drop down it again to get to my house. From the top of the footpath leading down from Burton road to my house is a reasonably excellent view. You can also see the fantastically slippery footpath that leads down to my house.

Anyway I got home and everything seemed to have been going rather well, although it was only about 10:30am to be fair so I was obviously counting my chickens before they had hatched - the eggs hadn't even been lain really. Hmm I wonder if that's spelt correctly...? I wonder if it's actually a word - it's the first time I have ever used it in written form and now I am beginning to wonder. For those of you a little less bright than the rest of us, or atleast those unable to keep up with my high brow, fast paced witicisms, or failing that, those of you who are really not that interested and subsequently paying very little attention - the word in question is 'lain'. Hmmm (x2) - it would seem 'lain' is indeed a word, but I think I have used it in the wrong context - oh woe is me. Still, nevermind this tot; back to the matter at hand...

It had recently been brought to my attention that I have been unable to receive texts from some people on my new phone. This was most annoying as I had spent and am currently spending lots of money on this thing, not to mention the massive amounts of hassle I went through just to get one and to now find that it had decided it was going screen my texts and only give me the ones it thought were suitable - well, I wasn't exactly over the moon about it to say the least. I was able to discern that the people I wasn't getting texts from were other people on the O2 network, which just seemed odd. I went into the O2 shop whilst in town this morning and they had merely fobbed me off with some nonsense about it most likely being a problem with the other person's phone - why I ask shop monkies for their advice I don't know; I might as well ask my cat. So then I decided to ring O2's customer care line, which was no doubt at great expense. After navigating the entirely unhelpful menu system and then being on hold for about 15 mins (better than I was expecting), I was finally put through to someone. After much discourse it was determined that there was nothing wrong with my phone or the O2 network and that it was certainly the fault of the other person. Needless to say, I was less than convinced. After ringing the O2 store in Retford and explaining the situation to another dim witted individual, I was informed that it was most likely that my phone was broken and could be sent away for repairs or I could replace it. I opted for replacing it as I know that anyone unfortunate enough to have to send their phone off for repairs is normally in for a long wait, unless ofcourse you're one of the lucky few - I know how lame my luck is; it wasn't worth the risk. Enroute to Retford, about 10 minutes outside of its centre, my phone suddenly came alive with alerts and I received about 10+ text messages from various people from during the past week. We got to the O2 store with my apparantly now working phone and explained the situation to the store manager. He was actually very helpful and rang the tech people and got them to refresh my mail box (no idea what this entails) and told me what to do and who to contact should it ever happen again. I was just thankful that I didn't have to swap my phone as it would've resulted in me having no music to listen to for the journey back - not to mention the hassle of setting it up again.

Anyway, aside from all the previous uninteresting stuff, nothing of note has really happened. I was completely fooled yesterday when my brother rang me pretending to be a new "turkey stuffing company canvassing the area". Had me fooled for the entire time anyway - I managed to ascertain that it was some people having a laugh and not a proper company but had no idea it was him. Guess I can't slag off people for being slow anyway.

Hmm looking at the title I should probably include the appropriate picture just for good measure...

Oh and below are some links that I have been sent which aroused my interest:

Something where Star Trek meets Star Wars meets Haddaway

Something Christmassy for those familiar with YTMND

Something for fans of Dennis Nedry from Jurassic Park

Something for fans of Battlefield games

Something for those interested in photorealistic computer graphics

Also, just want to express my hilarity and joy at discovering that Haddaway is still going strong and is apparantly big in Germany - where all unwanted Pop acts end up it would seem. I wonder if he knows the Hoffmeister...?

Make Good

2005-12-17T21:08:00.000Z

"You want to make good and be the man with the ice cream yes?"

Everyone likes ice cream - people that deny it are lying to themselves. Well, there may be a small few that genuinely don't like it, but I'm sure it won't be long before they're whittled out of the gene pool.

Anyway, if you too want to 'make good' (which ofcourse everybody does) then here are a few words of encouragement.

Hmm what minor things are of note today...? Woke up this morning to be greeted by The Editors on CD:UK. They were playing their current single 'Munich'. I was most pleased as I have been listening to their album somewhat excessively (in the eyes of some people) recently. This was then followed by Coldplay playing 'A Message' off their current album 'X&Y', which was nice as this is the best track on the album in my opinion. I don't see why some people have a problem with Coldplay - think they just get hated on because they are popular. Though in fairness "People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis; you can't trust people." - so who knows, perhaps they are inherently evil.

Watched the new trailer for X-men 3 recently. It looks fantastic. Hopefully it will be even better than the last film, which was most excellent. The trailer certainly seems to indicate that it could be better as it looks action filled. I must admit that Beast looks a little questionable - but in fairness, that was to be expected. Atleast he looks better than Blanka did in the Street Fighter film. Although I guess that also was to be expected. It was no Mortal Kombat that's for sure - "your soul is mine!". Although having said that - Street Fighter did have Kylie. In any case, it's about 3 billion months till X-men 3 comes out - or atleast 6 months; so we'll have to be patient and hope that it is indeed awesome. I'm sure Hugh Jackman will give it his all - afterall, I doubt he wants to go back to 'Oklahoma!'. No one likes musicals - whether or not the "hills are alive with the sound of music".

A disasterous 24 hours

2005-12-16T21:25:00.000Z

Before I break into why it has been a disaster, I want to have a mini tangent. Firstly - I have been sent the link to a fun little game. Basically you just run around a top down level and try and destroy other people - what more do you need? Secondly, why is it that on so much software these days (*cough*... quicktime...), when you approach the languages option and go to select 'English', that it says 'English (United States)'? I mean what is going on there? I noticed it creep in a few years back, when it changed from just 'English' to 'English (United Kingdom)' and 'English (United States)'. Only now they have removed the 'English (United Kingdom)' option. So surely they could just call it 'English' again? It seems a small and petty point and that's because it is - but I don't care; I'm making it. Surely they don't think they're fooling anyone - there is a country called England and a language called English. It's not just some hilarious coincidence. Perhaps it's for residents of the USA who refer to the language they speak as 'American' and are blissfully unaware that it is a dumbed down dialect of English and so it has to be labelled for them to save on confusion. Alternatively, there's always the possibility ofcourse that they (the wizards) are planning on renaming this country in the near future to 'England (United States)'? Bastards. Still, on the plus side - VLC now plays Quicktime files, so I don't have to download their lame, iTunes infected, software again.

Hmmm that second one really went on a bit. Anyway, that's got the customary rant out of the way. Now to break it up with a bit of a moan. As I was saying, the disaster in question was that last night (at about 4am - had just finished a lengthy CS session with some friends from Hull. Geektastic.) my virus checker informed me that my computer had contracted a virus (some spyware to be precise). Displeased by this revelation, but grateful that the anti-virus software had deteced it; I then asked it to kindly remove the offending items. The reply I received was roughly along the lines of "Computer says no." - I wasn't overly impressed. Then everything went wrong. The computer slowed to almost unusable speeds, pop ups started appearing everywhere, a new program was installed mascarading as a spyware remover called 'Spy Sherriff', lots of new EXEs started running and trying to connect to outside destinations - basically, it was a load of things you really don't want to have to try and deal with at 4am. In the end I just unplugged my network cable so it couldn't suck loads of information off my computer, then I tried running my virus checker and some anti-spyware programs. Unfortunately this thing, or collection of things, had dug itself/themselves deep and weren't going anywhere. This left me with one remaining option, which I really couldn't be bothered with - Format my 'C' drive; which is pretty much what I have been doing today. Spent ages backing up all my files, and then formatted the beast. I have then spent the vast majority of the day setting my pc back up again. I haven't really put much of it back the way it was, but I will just do it as and when I need certain things.

Still, I guess it wasn't too traumatic as my pc needed a good formatting anyway. On reflection, I seemed more annoyed about the stupid language selection thing than my entire pc falling in on itself and needing severe medical attention. Oh well, Whatever (big 'W' - or VV to be more acurate.).

Other than that, nothing really happened today. Got a phone call from Pareto saying that I'm allowed to go to one of their assessment days, despite being a hopeless case and failing to attend the last two that I was signed up for. I am going to go to the one on the 9th of January. I'm feeling more positive about it now as it will be nice to have a job and be busy and loads of cash and, more importanly, be out of the house - I can sense that I am starting to go funny living at home; and not in a 'haha' sense. The ability to be that sort of funny has long since departed my repertoire of skills - or so I have been informed. I'm still otherwise amazing though - it was proven in my last post.

Fill that time

2005-12-15T14:28:00.000Z

It's amazing how easy it is to waste time. I havn't achieved anything for weeks. I attribute this in part to the vast amount of amusement there is to be found on the internet. For example, a moment ago I was able to discover the different attributes that compose my character...

How to make a Lightning Jack

Ingredients:

5 parts intelligence

3 parts brilliance

3 parts empathy

Method:
Layer ingredientes in a shot glass. Add caring to taste! Do not overindulge!

Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com

As you can see - I am awesome. Though I would have preferred it if it had been an actual cocktail recipe. I think it meant to say 'apathy' rather than 'empathy'.

Other venues for slackers include the glorious WEBoggle which I discovered from reading Jol's blog. This thing is a deadly slayer of time - though I guess a non-lethal slayer would be reasonably pointless. I mean, what do you slay other than things which are living? Unless ofcourse it was someone referring to being a fan of sleigh riding and had just spelt it wrong. Or alternatively it could be a referrence to a distinctly poor rock group, stating that they don't kill people - Charlton Heston kills people... and apes. Those damn dirty apes.

If feeling sociable, and by sociable I mean you have a desire to converse with random freaks whilst playing cards - then MSN Hearts is the way to go. This is excellent. Spent hours playing this last night with two friends, and just filling the fourth gap by telling it to let a random freak into our game. A source of much amusement for those with empty lives.

Anyway, I need to go Amazon it up and get some Christmas shopping done - hopefully it's not too late to order stuff. Can't believe it's only 10 days till Christmas and I am utterly unprepared - oh wait, yeah it's totally believable.

Defeat

2005-12-13T22:02:00.000Z

I finally emailed Pareto today. This is a company who finds jobs for graduates. The jobs pay pretty well and aren't overly terrible by all accounts - a friend of mine got a job through them recently. He is enjoying it and has informed me that going through Pareto is innevitable for those of us that have no chance of getting a job we will enjoy. I had been dealing with them previously, but then decided that I would apply for some graduate training schemes instead. However it has come to my attention that I was just kidding myself, so I shall admit defeat and get a Pareto job. The reason I am not keen to get one is because these jobs are in sales, and it's not an area that I am particularly keen to get into as it will all be people with silly 'Toni & Guy' hair cuts, using buzz words, who are all really passionate about what they are doing even though they have no real understanding of what it is. Some may say that it's wrong to stereotype - they're mistaken. Anyway, hopefully they will be able to find me a job and I'm sure I will be able to overlook its short-comings once I start getting paid. I can always look for other jobs once I start working with them anyway, and it's all just more experience. It could be worse as well; it could be sitting in a call centre or going round door to door annoying people (well, I go round and annoy people anyway, but I restrict that to people I know). There, think I've almost convinced myself that it's not quite as terrible as it actually is.

Not really achieved much else today (like an email is an achievement). I signed on at the job centre again - oh how I love it so. On the plus side, I was served by the only hot bird that works there; but malhereusement I was at my most scruffy avec rubbish stubble, general scruff bag clothes and cap and the need of a good shower. Still, I'm sure I came off as charming.

Finally watched Serenity today. I thought it was most excellent, but then again I am utterly lame when it comes to sci-fi shows and I enjoyed the series (what little there was of it). I was most surprised at the death of some of the main characters, well one in particular. That was a big spoiler by the way for anyone who is reading this and hasn't seen it but would like to; can't think who that might be, but apologies in any case. Still, on the whole a most enjoyable two hours worth of entertainment.

I wish I had a wetsuit...

2005-12-12T22:31:00.000Z

Got back today from my weekend in lovely Hull. Aside from a cough that makes me sound like a chronic smoker, my cold is pretty much gone - knew a good dose of alcohol would sort me out.

The bulk of the weekend was dedicated to beer and pancakes - the sustinence of the divine. We went out on the saturday to celebrate a friend's pseudo birthday. His birthday isn't until the 28th but it's the only time that was feasable for people to be at Hull. The night out was mostly decent - started with a chinese meal; a buffet, naturally, the kind where you shovel food into your face to the point of wishing that you hadn't been such a heff. Then we went to a pub in town which was packed with as many middle aged people as you could wish for - I believe mutton dressed as lamb was the theme of the evening. I did notice quite a few hot 30+ year old women, but I didn't have my glasses on, so I think they benefitted from some considerably blurred vision (mine not theirs - I can't imagine how their vision being poorer would help them be more attractive to me. I don't have a fetish for squinters). Then we got a taxi back, and against my better judgement, went to Asylum (the on campus club). Now, Asylum isn't a bad club by any means - but I definitely did not want to be surrounded by people who are all 2/3 years younger than me and still enjoy life because they are dilluded. Ah, the bliss of ignorance - how I miss it so. Basically, I hated it and if I have any manner of luck at all, I will never find myself in Asylum on a night out ever again.

The rest of the weekend was pretty usual. One previous housemate cursed his bad luck as he got another flat tire. I guess that's what happens if you insist on driving over nails. Still, gave me something boring to take a picture of atleast.

Other than that, nothing really happened, except for being given a lovely demonstration of just how cool it is possible to look whilst wearing a wetsuit. Man, I wish I had one - I would wear it everywhere.

Upon return home, I was pleased to find that two parcels I was expecting have turned up. One is the ever so beardy Guild Wars. It is most excellent, although my pc is a pain and insists on crashing in a most heinous way every couple of hours or so whilst I'm playing it - which is an utter nuisance. The other parcel is a book that a friend has sent me which is pure excellence - it's entitled "Great lies to tell small kids". My friend said she saw it and instantly thought of me - it's nice when people know how twisted your sense of humour is and embrace it rather than shun you.

A new home...

2005-12-09T02:45:00.000Z

Ok I have moved my blog over to blogger.com as it seems more suited to the task - what with it being a website designed largely for the sole purpose of blogging. There is also the benefit that I believe now anyone can leave comments or abuse or whatever; as it was a source of annoyance that only registered myspace users could leave comments on the previous blog. Given that this has been done on the same day as having already made a post on the previous site, there is little more to say. Especially given the fact that it is currently 2:45am roughly and why I am still awake baffles even me; even more so considering that I am supposed to be getting up in about 6 hours so I can get ready to go to Hull. Anyhow, this is the new home for my incessant ranting, complaining and waffling about things that are not important or of any interest to anyone - enjoy...