Fat Gecko

reunion

2008-05-23T23:57:00.002Z

I really hate the Beatles.

Over-hyped scousers, so far up their own arses you could kick them in the backside and they'd get a black eye. Heather should have simply poisoned that old tosser and his gormless children when she had the chance.

Sorry. Random rant. Nothing sends me over the edge than simpering DJ's who insist on playing crap like 'yellow submarine' on a Friday night, and then trying to brainwash the listeners into believing the hype.

And to think that all it would take to re-unite the Beatles are two little bullets..

Thor vs the Volcano

2008-05-13T22:12:00.004Z

And no, these haven't been paintshopped.

This was the sight when a Chilean volcano, which had been dormant since +- 7,000 BC, decided to erupt.

National Geographic has an article and some video footage of the eruption.

Awesome!

Gears of War

2008-05-07T21:52:00.005Z

I've been finding gear changes a bit...sticky lately, despite having adjusted the clutch cable (or, more correctly, had my mechanic adjust it). The problem went away for a good few weeks but is now creeping in: the diagnosis? My clutch is fooked and needs replacing.

Adrian, my brilliant mechanic has quoted about 300 quid to sort it. Sounds a bit pricey at first, but if Nationwide Auto Centre, the big franchise chain, is quoting me 335 already it seems a lot more reasonable. Particularly when you see reviews like this.

Adrian's been working on the Suzuki since we got her, around 4 years ago now, and I've never had cause to complain about anything. I'd happily reccommend him to anyone. Actually , I will. You need your car fixed? Ring him at AST Motor Services.

Besides the inconvenience, it's also just lousy timing. I wanted to use that money to buy myself some fishing kit next month :(

Plus, we're going to be trading her in at the end of the year, so these added expenses are defraying the amount we're going to be left with on the sale. Sigh. Typical.

Thud.

2008-05-04T23:19:00.002Z

Football's for poofters. 'nuff said.

oh for a twatless gym

2008-04-23T23:15:00.004Z

You really do see all sorts at gym... you've got the normal people, the serious gym nuts, the casual sorts who you see now and then, the penitents who you only see on Mondays and the week before they go on hols.. as well as the posers and the lads.

The posers are generally younger guys who 'train' in a small group. They're convinced that they're well ripped and like, totally buff. Their eyes dart from mirror to mirror as they fail miserably to be surreptitious about trying to see themselves from every possible angle. Even lifting a cup of water becomes a complex operation as they try to nonchalantly flex their wee biceps to breaking point while lifting the cup to their mouths- because, you know, everyone's watching. The reality is, they're normally pale weedy little things who haven't quite decided if they're queer or not.

Then there's the lads; the semi neanderthal types with brains transplanted from the late 70's. They consider cardiovascular exercises only worthy of girls and poofters.
Despite the fact that they're all over 18 (125kg+) stone and haven't seen their feet while standing up since 1992, they all hang around the weights area, randomly grabbing any machine thats open. They do one set, then stand around talking about how they 'felt the burn' in loud voices before taking a 10 minute water break.

I had three of these buffoons doing exactly this at the bank of machines in front of me tonight. Each of them was a pale, shaven headed blob; they were hanging off the pull-up bars doing leg raises. I think they thought this made them look very fit and tough; the sad reality is that they had no clue how to do the exercise properly; all they were managing to do was tire out their hip abductor muscles and hang off a pole. But boy, did they make enough noise to ensure everyone was watching them be tough.

I looked over at the guy on the treadmill next to me and he just shook his head and summed it up neatly with "What a bunch of twats."

Wow.

2008-04-19T20:30:00.002Z

Pardon my French, but what a fucking incredible voice!

Find them here.

Those crazy Russians

2008-04-18T23:21:00.003Z

Borrowed from the BBC...

A Russian man trying to sleep off a night of after-work drinking failed to notice a six-inch (15-cm) knife in his back - until his wife woke him up.

Yuri Lyalin, 53, took a bus home, ate breakfast and apparently slept like a baby before his spouse noticed a handle sticking out of his back.

He was rushed to casualty but doctors found no vital organs damaged.

Mr Lyalin shrugged the episode off but the drinking partner who stabbed him faces trial, Russian media report.

"Unique and intriguing the case may be, but the accused faces a severe punishment," said Pavel Vorobyov, a deputy prosecutor in the northern city of Vologda.

'We were drinking'

Mr Lyalin, an electrician, had spent the evening drinking with a watchman at his workplace when they got into an argument, Interfax news agency reports.

The morning found him waking up in the watchman's office but instead of going back to work, he decided to take the bus home.

At home, Mr Lyalin had some sausage from the fridge and lay down to sleep, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper says.

After a couple of hours, his wife noticed the handle sticking out of his back and called an ambulance.

Viktor Belov, a surgeon who treated him, found a kitchen knife in Mr Lyalin's back but "by good fortune, it had gone through soft tissue without touching vital organs".

His alleged attacker reported the crime to the police himself, Interfax adds. Mr Lyalin apparently feels fine and bears no ill-will.

"We were drinking and what doesn't happen when you're drunk?" he was quoted by Komsomolskaya Pravda as saying.

Remind me not to get pissed in Russia....

..with good intentions

2008-04-08T20:48:00.002Z

I'll do the updates soon, I swear.

watch this space

2008-03-25T22:31:00.002Z

holy hell, has it really been 2 months since I got my finger out and actually posted something here? wow. Tempus fecking fugit.

I've certainly thought about it often enough. So many things I've been wanting to bitch about, yes each time I sit down in front of the PC it's a case of "Naaaah, not tonight, let's play Team Fortress rather". And so on. Same thing with my writing.
A cse of 'No, not tonight Museophine.' But! ha! I have dragged myself to the keyboard and have made myself do it. I've started writing again. although, to be fair, I have got a moleskin book written from cover to cover full of my ideas, storyline, plotted and planned and such. It's kind of like dehydrated food. Now, all I need to do is add the boiling water of my mind and keyboard and expand that notebook into something that others can see and understand.

And I'm going to give the blog a bit of a spring clean too. refresh the colours, change the graphics etc. Yes yes. Maybe it's the bars of chocolate and litres of vino I crammed into my maw over easter that did it. Who knows. If eating 15lbs of dark chocolate and drinking shiraz makes me write, so be it. I will suffer for my art and eat and drink more.

reboot

2008-01-31T23:17:00.000Z

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to go up to Birmingham with the boss to visit a site that we're looking to finance. Not being one to miss a chance to a) evade the office for free b)travel somewhere new on a train c) score a free lunch and d) suck up a little, I gladly accepted.

The only flaw in the plan- the severity of which I, in my innocence, underestimated- was that we were going to Birmingham. In my mind, Birmingham was a slightly smaller, grubbier version of London. I mean, it's only 90 mins away by train.

oh my god. I got off at the station (as I normally do, rather than leaping from the toilet window when it slows down for a sharp bend), sent the boss a confirmation that I was on my way, and headed out. First native Birminghamian I see? Some deformed person. Honestly. The first person past the ticket inspectors (apparently turnstiles haven't reached that far north yet) was a facial Quasimodo.

Normal body, mutant head. I'm afraid I stopped, stared and made gagging noises. To bolster myself, I thought I'd go for a coffee, figuring that whatever was in the water would be killed by the tender ministrations of the hopefully non mutated barista. No coffee shop. Sure, theres an 'open air' coffee stall with a few folding seats around it off on one side of the concourse, but not a single proper coffee shop- or simply somewhere to sit down. Only cheap seats on a linoleum floor. And this is at one of the principal train stations! It's about then that I started to suspect that the city was a actually a suburb of purgatory

My lift was running a few minutes late, so I decided to escape to the pavement outside. Naturally, this was clogged by a collage of station staff, vegetating with their cigarettes. I say vegetating because I honestly don't think any of them could go to the shop for a packet of crisps without writing it down and tying a string around their finger. I've never seen such a downtrodden, uniformly hunchbacked group of pasty faced troglodytes.

Fortunately my ride appeared before they could scent my fear and I was soon safely ensconced in a ton and a half of never-seen-a-dirt-road SUV and on my way to the meeting. The meeting itself was damned interesting; there's such a lot of development going on in Birmingham its unbelievable. Every road you go down has something being renovated or built. I'm looking forward to the project, despite its location.

But the overall impression the city leaves is one of depression. Have you heard the lyrics of the title song of The Enemy's "We live and die in these towns" album? It could have been written for Birmingham.

Everything looks so tired and washed out; it leeches the life out of you just looking at it. There's no zing. Nothing that lets you warm to it. I don't know what the town planners were thinking all those years ago, but they should be found, dragged out into the streets and beaten to death with lead pipes.

Me, I'm just glad I could get onto a train and zoom back to civilisation. Euston station was a slice of paradise. Toilets you could actually find- with dry floors to boot, a selection of coffee shops where you could sit down on real chairs, even announcements in a language resembling english

You can keep the midlands, thanks. I'll stick to my own lovely city, warts and all.

quickie

2008-01-05T21:39:00.000Z

"Imagine my joy when getting out the christmas decorations and found a present I forgot to give my kids last year. Their excited faces were a picture as they unwrapped it and opened the box.

Such a pity it was a puppy."

Two thousand and eight

2008-01-02T23:10:00.000Z

It can't be New Year without Dinner For One! Genius!

So. 2008 eh?

It holds a lot of potential for us, I think. I hope. There are a lot of things on my to-do list ofr 2008, things I've forgotten about, been too lazy to do or have just been putting off.

The top 3:-

Naturally, there's the perennial favourite of losing weight. No excuses this year- we've got the $$ spare now to be able to put decent lunches together, no more nasty wet gobbets from Pretty Mangey or Eat for me. Rabbit food it shall be, with a regular side order of gym... I'm planning on being between 90-95 by Christmas 08. Watch this space. If I'm not, I'll post a full frontal of myself.

Writing more- I've got an entire notebook of a draft for my story, and I'm aiming to get it out in readable format. My goal is pretty soft i.e attainable, that is to put at least 50,000 words down by the end of the year.

Work- to prostitute myself and work harder than a Malaysian boy in a Nike sweatshop, to try catch the dangled carrot of another fat bonus.

In between, I plan on enjoying life on the island a bit more. Taking more time to seek out decent pubs and try new ales. New whiskies. To cook more. To read books I wouldn't normally read. Listen to differnet music. (Except of course for that r&B/urban dross. Rappers should be recycled and used to feed the poor.)

Anyway. 2008, here I come, ready or not.

tis the season to be bWaaAAak spit spit

2007-12-13T23:34:00.000Z

Good Crikey- the work Christmas party is tomorrow night! Tempus fecking fugit all right.

Last year's party was almost memorable- and by that I mean I can almost remember it. This year, I've made myself a solemn vow- NO SAMBUCA. Anything else (except Southern Comfort) is okay- but not that vile spittle of satan. It renders me utterly useless and punches great big holes in my memory. Just ask my little Italian friend about The Curious Incident Of The Hand And The Guiness. Horrible stuff.

So yes. This year we've foregone the traditional curry and are going somewhere more upmarket, private dining room in the City.. and not just because we were banned from the curry house we went to last year. Afterwards we're heading over to the closest Pitcher & Piano for one for the road, although everyone knows it's actually going to be a keg apiece.

Still, it's at least in an area I know, both sober and tipsy, so I should be able to wind my way across to London Bridge station on autopilot; failing that, a late night cab only costs about a fiver. Yes indeed, it bodes well. I'm even making sure I travel with the bare minimum of accesories tomorrow to minimise my chances of losing stuff.

Be warned though, I'll have my cellphone with me..so some lucky friends can expect deep and meaningful texts any time after 9pm. I'm warning you now that I take no responsibility for the content thereof. Any complaints can be directed to whichever fool tells me the boss is running a tab a the bar.

fight night

2007-12-09T20:04:00.001Z

MAn, I'm shattered. We stayed up the whole of Saturday night for the Hatton vs Mayweather fight, watching all the warm up bouts en route.

It was great! I haven't done this for fecking years.

It was disappointing in that I had money riding on Ricky, but there's no doubt that he was hopelessly outclassed by Floyd Mayweather Jr. FLoyd's punches were crisp, on target and, as can be seen, carried a fair bit of venom. His post-match comments were also quite encouraging- I'd had him down as an arrogant twat, but that opinion is much revised- I think I'm a fan now. The man can box!

Speaking of arrogant twats, I realllly enjoyed watching Amir Khan flooring Graham Earl. Earl had been spouting no end of crap along the lines of 'Amir's a young nobody, he's not ready for me, I'm mean, I'm stringer...' blah blah blah. 72 seconds and about a dozen punches to the face later he's tasting canvas. Happy birthday Amir! :)

Isn't it Friday yet?

2007-11-22T00:09:00.000Z

Gods, what a long week.

Doesn't help that I've been snowed under with work.. you know, business lunches are fun, but man, they eat up your day. It's fun while it lasts but afterwards you have to cope with the fact that you've just lost 4 hours of your day, making everything on your desk urgent.

I think I managed to break the back of the worst of it today. I was at my desk at 08h30 and, barring loo breaks, didn't budge from it til 16h00, when I just had to go gulp some fresh air and stretch my legs.

Yay. More of the same tomorrow :P At least the boss is away tomorrow, so I won't be given extra work willy-nilly throughout the day. Friday, if it ever gets here, may even (gasp! shock!) be a pleasant day.

Remember, remember..

2007-11-05T22:05:00.000Z

This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.

The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.

.........

As is the custom in our humble abode, we watched V for Vendetta tonight, it being the 5th and all that. Now, as some may now, this month is nanowrimo month, the time of the year when I give in to the voices within and and let the words out. Sometimes it's a torrent, sometimes a trickle. So far, so torrent. I've discovered I get the words out by hand much better than by keyboard; there's so much more you can say with ink and hand than you can by keyboard.

To help the wording along, I've been trying to read lots- the more words in, more words the brain thinks about, the better and more eloquent my scribbling becomes. I'm busy digesting the original Frankenstein, a collection of Hellboy short stories, a treatise on ancient warfare and, now and then, some Jon Shannow. Exciting stuff.

Anyway, the point is I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed the dialogue, especially V's. It's an echo of the time before the cinema dragged English into the gutter, sodomised and left to limp its way into the 21st century, a shadow of its former glorious self, and has made me promise myself I won't betray my characters with lazy language.

And yes, the thought of blowing parliament up (whilst in session) and starting afresh certainly seems more appealing every time I watch both the movie and the news.

drive by

2007-11-05T22:04:00.001Z

With pride!

2007-10-21T23:00:00.000Z

Huzzah! We are champions again!

What a weekend :)

It's been a long time since we had such a South Africa orientated day- surrounded by Saffers, potjie for lunch, the Boks on the box.. all that was missing was a cold Castle.

But dammit, my nerves before the match were shot to shit. When they actually kicked off there was a few seconds of relaxing, then they just froze up again. 80 minutes has never vanished like that (without adding sambuca into the equation)!

I really do feel for England- if they were playing anyone but SA in the final I would have been shouting for them just as much. No Hollywood ending for them though, not this time.

They might do better if they realise that the 14 guys next to Jonny Wilkinson are also playing in the same match. Ah well. Only 4 years to go eh?

Now all that's left is to decide how smug I should be at work tomorrow...

mY suMMeR hoLidAy

2007-10-01T22:35:00.000Z

The missus has posted a couple of bits about our trip to Greece...I've been procrastinating about doing one myself- a battle between the urge to say how great it was and share the minutae of our adventures and my own innate laziness which begs me to do nothing.

So I've reached a compromise with myself- hopefully these are worth their thousand words.

First glimpse of the Parthenon

Street scene, Plaka district

Temple of Zeus, Acropolis in background.

Sunset over Athens

on the road to Sparta

(to be continued)

Owned!

2007-09-14T22:58:00.000Z

Whoohoo!!

Now I can show my face in the office on Monday :)

Yia mas!

2007-09-13T20:39:00.000Z

The holiday has come, and has gone.

In the aftermath, all I have to show for it is a battered credit card, a handful of small souvenirs and a peeling tan.

And the memories of a fantastic three weeks... I walked through ancient Athens, stroked the marble of the Parthenon, watched a blood red moon rise over the Acropolis, raced a Nissan Micra along 360 km of winding mountain passes, ate my body weight in kebabs, sipped coffees on streets of Sparta*, paid homage to Leonidas, sat upon the seats of the all but forgotten theatre of Sparta, swam in the seas Odysseus and Jason sailed, overtook 4x4's in the mountain passes of Zante on our scooter and had generally had an unbelievably fantastic time :)

I really can't fault anything about our time in Greece. We missed all the major fires- had to do a couple of detours, but these worked out just fine too, due in a large part to the hospitality and general friendliness of the people we met. Hats off to the Greeks!

Now all I need to do is sort through the 900 odd photos I took and print off my favourites. Hooray for digital cameras :)

* Sparta was fantastic btw- an abject lesson in taking everything in the Rough Guide with an unhealthily large pinch of salt.

up, up and away

2007-08-22T22:35:00.000Z

finally!

2007-08-22T00:17:00.001Z

Come Thursday we head to Athens for the first leg of our holidays :)

At fricking last!

Tomorrow we pack, buy the last few essential goodies and get a haircut...
Thursday the dog goes off to the kennels and then.. off to the airport and awayyyyyy!!

Watch this space for pics- have got 20gb worth of memory on my camera and I'm not afraid to use it!

:)

snigger

2007-08-12T21:15:00.000Z

David Beckham is due on the pitch for a training session, and he's nowhere to be seen.

His new Galaxy manager goes looking for him and finds him in the dressing room, and says "Hey David! Why aren't you out on the pitch??"

David says: "I'm trying to do this jigsaw puzzle that Victoria gave me."

Manager: "I don't care about a damn puzzle, get out on the pitch!"

David: "no.. I've been trying for weeks to do this jigsaw, and it's all i can think of right now"

Manager: "what's the puzzle of?"

David: "It's a tiger."

Manager looks over David's shoulder at the puzzle laid out on the floor and says:
"For fucks sake! Put the Frosties back in box and get out on the pitch!"

.

itsy bitsy my arse

2007-08-06T21:12:00.001Z

Meet Tegenaria Gigantea, commonly called the 'house spider' in Britain.

T.G is essentially harmless and is considered to be something of a gentle giant by some; around this time of year the males tend to go walkabout, looking for a mate for the season. The males legs can grow fairly long, allowing them to dash across your carpets in the blink of an eye, the visitor we had tonight proved.

I mean, this spider is fast. Seriously quick. It covered just over a metre in the time it took me to look down after catching the movement in the corner of my eye (looking for chameleons in Mrs Bea's hedge as a kid taught me a lot).

I grabbed a pint glass and grabbed him from his hidey hole under the sofa throw, upon which poor Mrs FG sat a-quivering. Perhaps, in retrospect, I shouldn't have shouted "Fucking hell! Don't move!" and run out of the room.

Anyhoo, he was a fantastic looking bastard- healthy, huge & hairy. It's a pity we couldn't find the camera. I took him to the massively overgrown hedge at the corner of the road and set him free.. he was big enough that I could hear him scuttling away across the leaves.

And no, I don't hold with killing spiders if I have a choice.. bad mojo doing that, especially indoors.

nnnnh

2007-08-04T00:49:00.001Z

Fuck me, I'm knackered. It's been a helluva couple of weeks... I forgot how busy it gets in the summer.

I've been shuffling piles of work from one end of my desk to another just to create enough space to be able to actually start something.. people are on leave left, right and centre, so their stuff gets passed on... lots of new work in... year end looming.. :P

What is it about warm weather that brings out the freaks? Almost every day now I've had my senses assaulted by some variety of Timmy.

If its not a twitcher or drooler, it's a bible thumper hollering that I'm in danger of paddling in brimstone for eternity, tempting to seal my fate by punching him in his gurning, self righteous mug.

Today I had a charity collector follow me for half a block, unable to comprehend a simple "no". I had to upgrade to "Fuck off, I don't care" before she wandered off to re-braid her sandals or eat more tofu, or whatever it is those people do when they're not littering the streets.

Man. By the time I reached the sanctity of the office I was already exhausted, my lovely new shirt decorated with oh-so-attractive sweaty rings under my arms. Yay.

The weekend is good, but set against the crushing weight of the in-tray waiting for me on Monday, its only a brief pit-stop. I need my holiday! Only 3 goddamn weeks to go :)

It's all that's keeping me sane.

Another port, Smithers. Good lad.

2007-07-17T21:32:00.000Z

I've been with my 'new' employer for just shy of 18 months now; and this week marked my first review as a full-fledged, dinkum employee. Last year I'd just popped out of my probationary period and as the FNG/nOOb my review was a cursory thing. They did, however, deign to give me a 'token' pay rise and bonus, which was most welcome (when is it not?!).

But this year I got hauled into a boardroom with two directors and had my last year dissected. I squirmed, I blushed, I preened. It was... surprisingly good. I mean, I know I work hard and put the hours in, but its just the daily grind, you know? I do the work. I never realised that apparently I do it very well - no one tells you these things! You're just left to get on with it (being an adult and all).

So when you're suddenly thrust into the situation I found myself in, you splutter. Or maybe it's just me... I know I'm a bit of a closet pessimist at work, but that's how I try keep myself ahead of things blowing up- by assuming they will and then reacting as if it were already happening. Unfortunately, assuming that you're making a complete hash of everything is a natural side effect of that otherwise cunning mindset.

So I just sat with a mouthful of teeth, blinking, listening to the senior director telling me I was doing a great job and they were most pleased with my sterling performance. I'm fairly certain I didn't drool, although I know I forgot to blink at one stage and my mouth was open for at least half of it.

The upshot? A hearty pat on the pack and a much, much happier wallet :)

Increase in line with the rate of inflation? Ha! Bite me.

Capitalism rocks!

horny

2007-07-13T21:50:00.000Z

Ownage.

Ah, Pamplona.

Where else can drunken idiots stand in the streets and cajole a couple of thousand pounds of pissed off beef, and then wonder why it is that that have very large, horn shaped holes in them?

Dumbasses.

tick tock

2007-07-08T16:06:00.000Z

Someone you know having a good day? Feeling carefree and at peace with the world and mankind in general?

Fear not, there is a cure.

meaty goodness revisited

2007-06-28T20:27:00.000Z

Gaah.

My gut is churning like a hyperactive cement mixer. Been like this for a couple of days... normally by this time I've either launched a fleet of u-boats or melted a new hole in the ozone layer, but for some reason it's not doing anything besides making me squirm uncomfortably.

I reckon it's the bit of red meat I scoffed overt he last week. Normally my flesh eating tendencies revolve around chicken, turkey and fish, but last week I surrendered to the impulse to make some proper, old school burgers, a solar system away from the floppy reprocessed dogvomit served up by the likes of McD's or BK. Proper man-burgers.

The day after it was beef chili for supper following a left over burger for lunch. I was off on Monday and guess what, had a burger for lunch, albeit with kangaroo meat (hooray for the Walkabout).

I reckon my poor entrails are in shock over all this meaty goodness. It'll pass -in more ways than one. I just hope I'm not in a public place when it does.

har

2007-06-26T22:40:00.000Z

An out of work pianist with Tourettes Syndrome is strolling around the streets and bars of Soho one unemployed afternoon. Walking down Dean Street he sees a lounge bar with a sign in the window 'Pianist wanted for evening performances'.'Fucking get in there you cunt!' he says to himself and goes to the bar.

'Get the fucking manager of this pigs shit middle class wankhole please you cunt', he says to a somewhat startled barman. The barman however obliges and his manager comes upstairs. 'Can I help you sir?' he says 'Yes you can you fat piece of shit, I saw your poxy advert in the cunting window and I'm here to audition.....wanker.'

The manager is naturally put off by the man's abrasive manner but his dire need for a top class pianist forces him to agree to an audition. The first tune the Pianist plays is an uplifting jazzy number, not too involving, yet utterly melodic.

At the end the thrilled barman cries, 'Wonderful, wonderful. What was that called?' 'That song, you big nosed twat, was called "Excuse me prime minister but I just jizzed in your daughter's eye, and now the cunts blind...'

'Oh' says the manager 'err, can you play me another. Something a little less "lively".
'Wanker..' interjects the pianist before launching into a powerful ballad which leaves the manager in tears. The manager through his salty teardrops asks him the title. 'That little number was called "Sometimes when you do a bird up the shitbox you get crap on your bell end.'

'I see' says the manager, 'Have you got any songs with less offensive titles?'
'Well there's my jazz number "Do you want me to split your ringpiece", or there's the epic "I don't care if you're older my dear, you've still got nice jugs".

'Look' says the manager interrupting, 'I think you're a superb pianist but the title of your songs are a little "racy". I will hire you on the condition that you do not introduce your songs or speak to the audience.' 'Fuck it' says the pianist 'Why not'.

On his first night everything is going superbly the crowd are lapping up his repertoire and his silence is being perceived as modesty. The only thing putting off the pianist is that in the front row there is a gorgeous blonde in a black evening dress with a split up the side revealing the tops of her stockings, and a plunging neckline which boasts a proud and inviting cleavage.

During the interval the pianist has got such a stonking hard on that he decides to go to the bog and knock one out. Just as he has shot his muck he hears himself being re-introduced over the tannoy, so he rushes back to the stage and finishes his act. After the show he is at the bar relaxing when the blonde approaches him.

'Hi' she says. 'Hello' he winces, struggling to hold in the expletives. She leans over and whispers in his ear, 'Do you know your cock is hanging out of your trousers, and spunk is dribbling onto your shoes?'

'Know it?' says the pianist putting his beer on the bar confidently, 'I fucking wrote it!!!'

.

flesh...mmm...hungry..

2007-06-24T18:00:00.001Z

I've been having fun with the Script Frenzy project... I've scribbling away in my scruffy notebook for a couple of weeks or so and I've clocked up around 30 pages of solid material.

But now, the thing is that my notes are such that I reckon I can expand it into a decent chunk of book. We spent a few hours on Saturday trawling through bookshops in town, and one thing which i noticed is that there aren't any decent zombie apocalypse books on the market. The one I did find is set after the whole rise of the zombies and fall of civilisation.. but the fun part is the beginning of the end, you know? The initial panic, the chaos, the eating of faces and fingers, the flight-or-fight reactions, the gory and inventive ways that Joe Average meets his maker.

So. That's what I'm going to do. Write the story I want to read :) I know it won't be easy and somewhere along the line it's bound to get less fun, but I've got to get it out of my head before it drives me crazy!

Grandad

2007-06-14T20:25:00.000Z

not so Fat Gecko

2007-06-08T20:34:00.001Z

My favourite shirt, circa 2006...

.....and circa June '07.

*grin*

Sunny day at Omaha

2007-05-31T21:55:00.000Z

Recently I've been going through a definite resurgence of my fascination with World War II. Its an unquenchable curiosity and interest I've had since I was old enough to sit up straight and watch "The World at War" on Sunday evenings after supper. I was mesmerised from the opening credits to the end.

I have a few decent war movies, all WWII related (except Black Hawk Down) and occasionally dig them out and coo over them, like a miser shining the gold he keeps under the floorboards. Last week I loaded Saving Pvt Ryan onto my PSP and watched it end to end in episodes:- on the train, during lunch, train home etc. This week I dusted off my copy of Band of Brothers -the book- and have been poring over this. Playing games like BF 1942, Forgotten Hope & Company of Heroes has been enriched too!

I'm enjoying it so much that I'm going to buy myself the boxed set and take a day off work next month to watch it end to end. Just me, the Dog, some beer and pretzels, the surround sound cranked up and the sub woofer tweaked for extra explosiveness. I can't wait.

It would have been nice to do it on the 6th (the 62nd anniversary of D-Day) but I'll have to hold out for an extra week or so.

(adjusts soapbox)

You know, you look at the men and women of that era and what they did,their selflessness and, well, their great big brass balls and you have to sit and wonder about what the fuck's gone wrong during the intervening 60 years to have led to the generation of common scum we're saddled with these days. I think it's timeI wrote to the PM (whichever crony it is today) to unveil the benefits-driven compulsory euthanasia scheme I've drawn up.

park life

2007-05-20T13:48:00.000Z

Hurrah for sunshine!! After weeks of dismally bleak skies and yo-yo temperatures we're finally getting some sun today.

So it was off to the park for a bit of a stroll - I reckon it's about 2 - 2 1/2 miles around the path.

The little dog had a ball, leaping into muddy puddles, eating flies, racing through the long grass and sniffing anything remotely faeces-like. At least he didn't roll in any this time.

We sauntered more sedately than his frenetic to and fro'ing... we boldly decided to hit the gym hard yesterday morning and are paying the price today.

I'm glad I did - it gave me a chance to sweat out the effects of the large quantity of scotch, red wine and sambucca that I chucked down my gullet on Friday night. There's nothing quite like corporate funded entertainment to encourage a bit of alcholic gluttony :)

's alive

2007-05-10T21:29:00.000Z

Crikey, I hadn't realised how long its been since I blogged. My birthday's come and gone without even a mention in passing. I've joined a new gym. lost weight. need to buy new clothes. weather's crap.

This year I decided to do something different for my birthday... I arranged a day's paintballing for myself, Mrs FG and a hadnful of friends down in Sevenoaks. Amazingly, we found it easily enough and stood around waiting for it to officially open, all the while staring at the horde of feral kids pouring from soccer-mom wagons and assorted vans. Fortunately.. or unfortunately.. we didn't get to shoot the little muppets and had to be content with regular sized muppets.

We sweated. We dived for cover, rolled in dirt, leopard crawled, said Fuck a lot, gained some interesting bruises and just generally had a fun but utterly exhausting day. After a pint and some nosh at the oh-so-genteel pub a couple of miles away, where we were politely glared at for *shock* *gasp* laughing and talking merrily, we headed home where I personally crashed out on the couch for a couple of hours. good fun- but dangerously expensive if you have an itchy trigger finger :)

I've given up on the kickboxing classes... I have t-shirts older than 90% of the students and well, they irritate me. Their form is horrendous and the discipline is tragically mediocre and no one seems to care! But.. I have now enrolled at The Real Fight Club, an old school boxing gym a block or two from the office.

Let me tell you this- boxing is gruelling, exhausting work. And thats without even getting into the ring to spar. The required fitness level is absurdly high and let me tell you something - its not easy. Theres a mountain of stuff for me to learn- no easy ride this one. It's great.

Sad as it is, theres not much other news. Work grinds on, the only carrot being the legend of a decent bonus in September. By all accounts it should be juicy- we're a good few million squidders ahead of budget and are adding to the surplus monthly. But then, I am but a lowly serf still, so we see what kind of crumb falls from the master's table this year.

the universe hates me.

2007-04-13T22:57:00.000Z

Finally, on the eve of Good Friday, the weather finally turned from wet and cold to sunshine and fairly warm (late teens/ early 20 C). And lo, the people of London rejoiced.

All but 1.

For that 1 man was struck down by flu. After surviving months and months of sodding wet and freezing weather, I got knobbed by the flu on Good Friday. Man, was I cross.
Going out for a few drinks and a curry on Thursday probably didn't help, especially the bit where my mate insisted he supposedly knew a shortcut from Brick Lane to London Bridge. Ha.

By midday Friday I was out cold on the couch, wrapped in a fleece sweatshirt and cursing the world. It got worse over Saturday.. Sunday showed signs of improvement, thank ****, I really was on the brink of suicide. One more day of that and I'd have been on the first bus to the nearest council estate. Felt better - good would be a massive overstatement- on Monday, and forced my aching bones out into the yard for the first bbq of the year. It was quite pathetic, really. Me sniffling and coughing, poking at a tiny heap of coals, roasting a handful of sossies. But it was the principle of it. I could go back to work knowing that I'd had a bbq over the sunniest weekend of the year so far.

I paid little or no attention to the occasional cough, blaming it on the smoke. Stupid man. Said cough has been with me since, occasionally, and quite often violently switching to a deep bark and causing me to spew forth lung oysters the size of Texas. Not pleasant at all. Some of those suckers didn't even slide down the side of the toilet bowl after I launched them.

I've been glugging cough syrup and it seems to have helped a bit. I've still got a bucket of goo bubbling around my lungs but its not as bad. All I have to do now is deal with the mysterious and rather sudden allergic reaction I've had to something in the house. Yup, everything happens in 3's. This morning, whilst making brekkie, I noticed my leg was itchy.

Looked down, and voila! red spots/ welts. Not bites, not a rash. Dozens of round thingies. Itching like nothing else. But from where???? and why?? We've not changed our detergents, not eaten anything odd. The missus is unaffected, so its not something eating me. I mean, come on. What the fuck. First flu on the hottest weekend of the year, then a chesty cough, which I haven't had since around '97 and now this! Fucksakes.

Either the universe really hates me or I'm due for some extreme good luck, and this is just a pre-emptive karmic balancing act. Yeah, that's it. I'll go with door no.2 please.

300!

2007-03-23T23:32:00.000Z

Seen it twice now.

Its.Fucking. Awesome.

Go see it.

Now.

Random thought.

2007-03-21T21:35:00.000Z

Why are all planets & moons round?

woot

2007-03-17T16:40:00.000Z

mUhahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa!

I've just booked tickets to see 300 at the Imax next Friday! :D

I can't wait to hear "Tonight we dine in Hell" coming at me from a 11,600-watt digital surround-sound system....

Spreading the lurve...

2007-03-14T23:23:00.000Z

Too cool not to share.

The Punisher rocks.

Give me him or Batman over spandex boy anyday.

We march.

2007-03-13T22:25:00.001Z

300.

One.More.Week.

Aaaargh.

skRitch SkRitch SkrItcH

2007-03-11T23:31:00.000Z

Aah, lazy sundays. Today was busy, yet lazy at the same time. I got woken by the dog this morning as he whined at the foot of the bed. He didn't want anything except to let us know he was awake and hungry.

After kicking him solidly up the arse and stuffing him back under his blanket I crawled back into bed, but by then the sun was lighting up the room in a non ignorable way.

So. Long story short, by 9:30 we were out the house and on our way to the big ass park down the road for a long walk. Got back, had an impromptu fry-up (fresh air + exercise = starvation!), then headed off to homebase to price up some bits and pieces I need to try transform the mud-pit behind our house back into a usable garen for the summer.

Got back home, had some tea & biscuits, crashed onto the couch to watch Hellboy: Sword of Storms. Kind of flaked out midway through..woke up, resovled to watch it again during the week. Dusted off my sketch pad & a pencil or 3, doodled for a couple of hours, trying to find my style. Sounds poncey, but I'm so out of practice I just need to draw anything at this stage, no matter how squiff it looks just to get back into it.

After my arm cramped out I headed upstairs for a few rounds of 2142 before coming downstairs for supper and to watch Supernatural and Heroes.

So,I kind of did a lot, but none of it was chore-like. So I'm not sure if I was busy or lazy today :/

Blood moon

2007-03-05T20:52:00.000Z

We watched the lunar eclipse last night... the gradual disappearance of the moon was interesting to watch, but once it had been completely swallowed the sky changed dramatically... it was like watching Star Wars on the Imax.

For a good few minutes, the sky was something alien, dominated by this shimmering red globe that hung there, irresistibly drawing your gaze onto it. Fantastic!

creativity

2007-03-02T20:38:00.000Z

I've been feeling more..creative than usual recently. Not sure why, or what's prompted it, but I'm trying to hang onto it this time.

I have to get some of these ideas out of my head and onto paper/ clay/ word. I'm running out of space for all of them.

So, I've got some nice new inkers and pencils, a couple of scrapbooks, a miniature canvas, a keyboard and a waiting cursor. Now I just need to sit my arse down and get working! Watch this space- i'll try stave off my innate laziness and mark my progress here on something resembling a regular basis.

no, really. i will. honest.

Fuzzed

2007-02-27T00:09:00.000Z

For the first time in absolute ages we dragged our asses down to the cinema.. yet again there were a bunch of Anianstani's (*) there, but unlike our last trip to see Apocalypto, this week's mob was at least fairly quiet (i.e no subtitles to translate into Anianstani for their chums).

Of course, we were there to see Hot Fuzz, the Spaced crew's latest offering. The verdict? Fantastically fun!! Even funnier if you've ever spent some time in a cream-tea quaffing Devon town.

The last 20 mins are so are really the best of the movie- the sheer incongruity of these village-bound geriatrics whipping out and blazing away with automatic weapons works wonderfully in the setting. :)

Go see it!

(*) People from any country in Eastern Europe. Eastwards from Prague every country seems to be Something-ania or Something-stan.

Homo Sapiens d'jour

2007-02-12T21:42:00.000Z

One of the movies we got from Blockbusters this week was Grizzly Man - a movie/documentary about grizzly bear activists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard, who were killed in October of 2003 while living amongst grizzlies in Alaska.

It was...different. Sort of a macabre National Geographic. Timmy Treadwell, I have to say, got more or less what he was asking for at the end of the day. I think he lost the plot - somewhere along the way he forgot that he was dealing with wild animals- he anthromorphosized [is that the right word?] them to such an extent that he blurred his reality.. and he didn't come across as that stable to begin with.

He pushed his luck and wound up as the main course. Nasty, but hardly unexpected. I feel a bit short changed in that they didn't really go into the attack- lets face it, thats the interesting bit (altho there is some amazing footage of the furry bastards- the clip above is an excerpt from the movie)- I personally would like to have seen the 'forensics' of it- I find it all rather fascinating.

I'm going to go poke around the net and see what turns up.

gaiety

2007-02-10T21:52:00.000Z

lol

LOL: defined

2007-02-01T00:02:00.000Z

I haven't laughed that much in ages. :D

Needs sound!!

at last!

2007-01-28T22:38:00.000Z

Finally, a decent bit of winter weather :)

I won't even go down the route of ranting about how this country falls to pieces after barely an inch of snow. If I do, I'll be here 'til next Wednesday, hammering out words like 'gross incompetence' and 'fucktards'.

So I won't.

Gotta love South Africa :)

2007-01-26T20:49:00.000Z

Mind the gap.

2007-01-17T21:13:00.000Z

I see the bleeding heart brigade are in a hand-wringing frenzy about the vandals who got splattered by a tube a few nights back.

Um..hello? Why the sympathy? They were vandals, common garden variety thugs who don't give a shit for anything but self gratification.

They knew what they were doing and the risks attached; when they got rumbled, they ran away to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. Across tracks which they knew were in operation.. and got smeared for their efforts.

Do you think they would have stopped for a second if it was the security guard who had been hit by the train? No fucking chance, they'd have been laughing & bragging about it to their fellow pinheads in the pub the next day.

Twats.

.

'ere we go, 'ere we go!

2007-01-07T11:43:00.000Z

Hey ho, so 2007 has arrived! Huzzah!!

Sorry forthe delay in posts, things just kind of got away from me over December. I didn't quite realise how prevalent dinners, boozy lunches and general partying was in the banking industry.Everyone finds an excuse to take everyone else out somewhere! It rocks :) I think I've put on about 2 - 3kg's over the last month, from the lack of exercise and rich food. The odd gallon of ale doesn't help either I reckon.

Anyhoo, it was a good festive season and a cracking Christmas.

This year we actually had more than just the two of us at the table- a total of 8 festive mouths were being fed from our cauldron this year. I am sincerely pleased to say that not one person left the table less than absolutely, positively stuffed to the gills, as it should be! And there was still enough left for gammon & cauliflower sandwiches for days afterwards. All good!

New years was it's usual quiet self. We spent some quality sofa time with a bottle of Gordon's and some bitter lemon and a bucket of snacky stuff and drifted through the 'magic moment' in a gin soaked haze. We did watch the fireworks at the Eye though- impressive stuff. I shudder to think who's footing the bill for it, but it was certainly pretty to watch... but , from the look of the rather hemmed-in and squashed looking crowd I can honestly say I'm glad I watched it from the comfort of my couch.

So, here we are, firmly in the grips of January. The weather is still disappointingly mild (not even touched 0 C yet), the pace is picking up at work and everyone is gazing at their waistline, sobbing and swearing never to a) drink again or b) eat another pasty.

On a different note, we've now booked our summer holiday- we're off to sunny Greece in August! A friend of the Mrs is getting married on Zakynthos, and we've accepted the invitation. We've booked flights already, and our hotel in Athens for the first couple of days... we're working hard to hammer out a general itinerary for ourselves, but I don't think you can go wrong with a meditteranean summer holiday.

After a couple of days in Athens doing the touristy thing, we'll probably rent a car and tear off to visit Thermopylae, something I've always wanted to do. Then we're southward bound to run amok in the Peloponnese (sp?) for a few days before hopping over to the islands. I can't wait!

The downside is, I'm going to have to work damn hard now to get myself in any kind of shape for the beach (don't want Greenpeace hippies rolling me back into the waves)- I don't want to be just another podgy, white bellied tourista crisping to a nice crayfish colour under the Hellenic sun.

You beauties

2006-11-26T21:54:00.000Z

A client kindly invoted me along to Twickenham to watch the England vs SA game on Saturday... what a pleasure!

Crammed onto a train at Waterloo at 11h30 and headed out to the wilds of south west London.. the doors got jammed by the usual undead at Clapham Junction, milling around trying to force their way on to an already overcrowded train so that the doors couldn't close. Eejits.

Anyhoo, by the time I got to the pub where I was meeting them, the streets were packed with both England & SA fans. Unsuprisingly, the pub was jampacked, even the beer garden, despite the dire looking weather. I met up with my host, and was handed the first of many, many pints before I'd even had a chance to unzip my jacket. After 3 pints and a burger we headed off to the stadium, stopping en route to pick up some droewors and a ref-mike -an ingenious little device that lets you hear everything the ref's saying on the field! very 007.

Oh, and another pint. Walking half a mile is thirsty work. We eventually find the correct gate and ambled in. Since we were early, we stopped at one of the in-house bar areas and had a couple of pints and a fiery curried pancake thing, which was actually quite good.

I have to say, I had some serious doubts about what the feck the Bokke thought they were doing for the first 20 minutes of the first half... they were handing over penalties like it was going out of fashion, but then they seemed to stabilise and things got interesting.

Half time came around too quickly, and we squeezed our way back to the bar for some refills.. we were even quick enough to be seated before the players came out for the second half.

I'm quite chuffed to have been there to see SA break their dry spell at Twickers.

Afterwards, of course, we made our way back down to the bar to dissect England's abysmal performance, giving me a chance to be annoyingly smug. After a few pints we decided that it was getting a bit chilly in the open air bar and migrated back to the pub to have a couple for the road/ train.. stopped off at Waterloo to grab some spicy noodles & a pick me up Asahi from Ned's before I thanked them for a cracking day out and stumbled up the escalators to Waterloo East and my train home.

woe is me

2006-11-21T22:18:00.000Z

Ach, I don't know what's happened. I was streaking along with my Nanowrimo project, cracked the 10,000 word barrier and then *pHuT*. My brain-rockets died. No more thrillpower, no more mojo.

I sit here looking at the cursor, willing my fingers to start tapping some plastic but nada is happening. I've got the ideas and the storyline, but there's been a bit of a signal failure between Brain Central and the Finger Exchange.

So annoying.. I won't be able to live with her gloatiness if the missus wins our bet.

(whoever loses the word count challenge has to take the other out for dinner at a restaurant of their choosing)

Will try again tomorrow. Grrr. Stupid hands.

stupid radio

2006-11-13T21:45:00.000Z

Funny how if something breaks, something else will break in sympathy too.

The CD player in the car has been a bit wonky for quite a while... the led display hasn't really worked since I accidentally dropped the fascia unit in the loo about 18 months ago (I dropped a coin and bent over to pick it up, forgetting the radio was in my breast pocket. The only kindness was that I'd already flushed)... last week the clips at the back gave up the ghost and it kept popping out everytime the car went over a bump ...which in London means it fell out constantly.

Our kettle has suffered a similar fate. No, I didn't drop it in the loo. When I first bought it I thought it was quite cool ,with its posh lid that opened at the touch of a button. However. The operation of the aforementioned lid, and thereby the entire kettle, was dependant on the structural integrity of one tiny plastic widget/ hinge thingy about the thickness of onion skin. Naturally, the widget broke. Completely. I tried to fill the kettle and suddenly there was broken plastic, a tiny screw and a spring in my washup.

Sigh.

Hello Comet and Halfords, goodbye budget.

Cleverly, we opted to pay one of the commoners at Halfords to install the radio, since I admit I'm not really up to par when it comes to figuring which of the 50 wires taped together under the dashboard does what. The chap was quite efficient, I have to admit- he cleaned up the rats nest of wires in record time and got everything working quite quickly. And as a bonus, he didn't try get all buddy-buddy and chat to me while I sat in the opposite seat, studiously trying to a) feign interest in what he was doing and b) make it seem like I really wasn't only sitting there to make sure he didn't steal anything.

At least I can now make myself a cup of tea to console myself when I work out the bills this month, and can listen to mp3's in the car when I'm on my way to the soup kitchen to steal food.

Rapidly, he wrote

2006-11-04T19:48:00.000Z

4035 words so far :)

*whip crack went his whippy tail*

Keyboards away!

2006-11-02T00:21:00.000Z

I've decided to force myself into doing something with my PC that doesn't involve me getting the stuffing shot out of me on BF2.

So I've joined the missus and signed up for NanoWrimo. It's an international contest (of sorts), the goal being to write at least 50,000 words of a story between 1-30 November... doesn't neccesarily sound like much, but that equates to having to churn out about 1,700 words a day (4 standard-spaced pages).

Which is a lot if you've been creatively lazy for as long as I have.. but! so far so good. Despite spending some time in front of the telly tonight (watching Tristan & Isolde- better than average) I have gotten off to a good start with 1,895 words on my scorecard :)

(And no, I haven't succumbed to the temptation of giving all my characters really bad stutters.)

Silent Hill

2006-10-24T17:13:00.000Z

Urgh, I feel sick.

But not because of the movie as such, it's more likely attributable to the giant packet of M&M's I ate while watching it. Those evil bastards at Blockbusters are giving them away if you rent 2 movies.

The bad part is I told myself to stop after the first handful....but I could still see them, with their evil little candy shells and peanutty goodness hidden inside. They called to me, forced me to eat them.

All of them.

Urgh. I feel almost as bad as the movie was... but at least I'll be better in a few hours. The movie, however, has naught to look forward to except an eternity at the bottom of supermarket "bargain bins".

300

2006-10-16T14:24:00.000Z

I cannot wait for 300 to hit the bigscreen.

I've watched the trailer at least a dozen times.. and each time it gives me the chills, in a good way. Bring it on!

sHinY!

2006-10-09T22:18:00.000Z

It's here at last! my indulgence, my present to me from me!

I'm still going through the slog of installing all my bits & bobs, but it's eating the installations CD's with a sneer of contempt and beckoning for more..

ANd aaaaah ooooog phwoooooar oh gods, why didn't I upgrade my graphics card years before! what a treat for my eyes to play Guild Wars at maximum resolution without so much as a hiccup.... its more beautiful than I realised!

I'm busy downloading patches for BF1942 & BF2..... can't wait to see what they look like on something besides the minimum settings! :D

Public Service Announcement

2006-09-27T22:43:00.000Z

A helpful aid to a happy home for the modern woman.

Shiny!

2006-09-26T20:31:00.000Z

Hoo boy, the missus certainly proved why she's my favourite wife this past week!

On Friday morning, since I had the day off, I booted up my PC to find the background changed to a text block that read "If you can find it, you can have it.X"

It took a while for the thought to shoulder it's way into my seriously hungover consciousness. Then the itch began...soon, cupboards were being emptied, books moved, cushions lifted... it got so bad that the dog wound up retreating to the safety of the overgrown jungle that passes for our backyard whilst I stomped about growling "where the fuck is it!"

Eventually though, I found it :) and immediately got it onto the charger! It's so sexy! Sleek and black and shiny.. it rocks.

Today I watched Serenity on the train to & from work. Screw newspapers!

Tomorrow I'll be watching Samurai Jack :)

Fixed!

2006-09-20T21:06:00.000Z

Didn't realise it was broken... I just thought no one visited me anymore.

BoooOOaaaKKkkk

2006-09-18T21:49:00.000Z

Urrgh.

I feel nauseous. I just ordered my new PC and paid via Switch. It's a grotesque experience watching your bank balance go *poOoF* with a single click.

I'm bravely fighting off an attack of second thoughts. I'm not used to spending that much money in one shot on anything except the rent :P

Zap

2006-09-15T20:15:00.000Z

Whooooowee...nice ol' thunderstorm last night. Great big cracking booms of thunder and retina searing bolts of lightning, torrential rain.

Awesome!

I was kind of hoping that the irritating people from 3 doors down would be incinerated by a stray bolt, but as usual the world was deprived of proper justice and they continue to draw breath. Still, it's cloudy again, so there's still hope.

300

2006-08-28T21:05:00.000Z

I've just been watching the production journals for the upcoming movie based on Frank (Sin City) Miller's graphic novel "300".

Awesome!

The story of the Battle of Thermopylae is one of my all time favourites. The Spartans were as hard as fuck.. had I been of of those Persians I'd have pissed my silken breeches at the thought of going toe-to-toe with them.

If I could make one trip back in time, it would be there.

The movie looks very promising... if they do half as good a job as they did with Sin City, I'll be one happy little gecko :)

Death Proof

2006-08-16T20:16:00.000Z

Tarantino's gotten into bed with Rodriguez....their mutant love child, by the name of Grind House, is currently gestating.

Saying that it sounds interesting is like saying that it might be fun to be snowed in with Kate Beckinsale.

Essentially, it's going to be two movies, connected by a few well chosen trailers for fictitious movies. QT is writing Death Proof, which he says is "sort of a slasher film, only with a car instead of a knife"... RR is doing "Planet Terror", an ode to zombie movies... sweet!

Want to know more?

Scary Movie?

2006-08-09T20:56:00.000Z

You know how some people say they can't think of anything to write about?

Between the missus & I there is no sign of any such problem. Much the opposite-- too many ideas. I can't decide on 1 and run with it. So for now, I'm just putting them down, pen on paper or finger on keyboard, just getting them out of my head and into something resembling an orderly queue.

I think I've managed to narrow it down to about 4 or 5 good ones. Now I have to sit and work out what I want to do with them/ where the story goes.

Do me a favour -- answer me this-->

What's the scariest movie you've ever seen?

Afterburner

2006-08-07T11:53:00.000Z

In the wake of last month's visit to the Whitstable Oyster Festival, we headed down to West Dean College for their annual Chili Fiesta on Sunday.

Last year we got there just past midday after a gruelling 3 and some hours worth of riving, most of it spent in gridlock for the last 7 miles before the turnoff to the fiesta. This year we thought we'd be clever and leave home at stupid o' clock, which we did.

It was a clear run all the way there...the result being we were there over an hour before the gates opened. And you know, theres not a single goddamn coffee shop or tea room out htere that opens before 11? It's insane. Anyway, we managed to entertain ourselves for the hour (don't ask) and hit the stalls.

Within 5 minutes my mouth was on fire, courtesy of chilli pepper Pete - awesome sauces, friendly & well versed in chilli lore. His was the only stall I actually bought stuff from. Once the flames died down we ambled along, sampling goods from every stall. Some good, some mediocre, all good, especially the fried prawn sampler!

The sun came out, the wasps descended, food was eaten. It was better than last year, and not just because we got there before the Great Horde. I very much reccomend it to anyone with a love of fiery food! there was something for everyone. I have some new seeds for next year's planting which I'm pretty excited about as well as a basket full of Pete's sauces and powders, which i'm planning on using for tonight's supper :)

Legend

2006-08-01T21:31:00.000Z

Today I received the news that my all-time favourite author, David Gemmell, has passed away, leaving a void in the literary world that no-one will be able to fill.

Ironically, words cannot do justice to what his writing does for (and to) me. No other author has ever produced a body of work that draws me back to it, to read it over and over again. I've lost count of the number of times I've read the tales of Druss and Waylander, of Jon Shannow and the Sipstrassi, of Parmenion and Iskander. Whatever the circumstances, they buoy my spirits and make me want to be a better person.

I count myself lucky to have met him on several occasions; no matter how packed the area was, and how many other fans and agents were clamouring for his attention, he was always willing to say hello, to have a chat, share an anecdote with you. The first time I met him he wished me happy birthday; I stared at him goggle-eyed at this feat of psychic power.... only later did the missus confess to having written to him to forewarn him about the besotted fanboy who might pop-up at the signing. The thing is though, he'd read the letter, and remembered it.

David may have moved on, but his stories live on, pale reflections of the genius that created them.

He was a man to walk the mountains with.

David passed away on 28/07/2006.

You can sign an online Book of Remembrance here.

Sweaty Sirens and Muffin Top Horrors

2006-07-31T20:10:00.000Z

A couple of people, my boss included, have commented on the effect the hot weather has had on some women's choice of attire, bare flesh being the thing to be seen in during this lovely little summer we're having. And I'm in on that, it does make wearing my sunglasses worthwhile since no one knows where my eyes are :)

Yeah, yeah, I know it sounds a bit creepy but hey, let's face, if you don't want people staring at your genie, don't rub the lamp, you know? I'm going to be staring, so at least the sunglasses save you the discomfort of being ogled and save me a little of my remaining dignity.

It also saves me from being struck blind by those who believe 'muffin top' is a term of endearment.

Klaatu Verata Nikto

2006-07-30T00:07:00.000Z

We finally got around to watching Wolf Creek tonight...all in all, quite watchable but not the jaw-dropper I had thought it was going to be.

It was nice to see something besides your ubiquitous American teenager getting into deep shit, and the acting wasn't too shabby. Personally I would have added more bite to the chase scenes in the bush- that was a untapped vein of potential. Still, next time I see it on sale I'll grab a copy from my collection.

On the theme of horror movies, Fright Fest is coming up shortly. Theres a couple of beauties lined up so far... we've pre-booked tickets for Pan's Labryinth and See No Evil. Empire magazine has given Pan's 4 stars- the reporter reckons he's gone to see it 3 times already and it's gotten better each time. Now that's promising :)
Depending how the bank balance looks nearer to the time we might try pick up some random tickets on the day, but I'm not stressing about it.

Rain already dammit

2006-07-26T22:11:00.000Z

I hate humidity.

Give me the desert anyday.

Roll on winter.

Bring out your dead

2006-07-26T21:37:00.000Z

I see that Stephen Lawrence is back in the news.

For me it seems that as soon as it may appear that his family have managed to at last get on with their lives and lay him to rest, *wham bam* there they are in the papers or on telly, all but eating ashes and dressing in sackcloth, spouting a new take on their conspiracy theories. Maybe its just me, but after 13 years you'd think they'd move on with their lives?
Maybe their little cash cow is drying up ... and what better way to get back in the game than to re-hash your alleged grief for the curious masses? to get in there with a few choice exclusive interviews in the hope of riding the crest of another wave of public outrage?

Just hire a decent gunman and have them whacked. Before the judge lets them slip through another legal loophole. End of story. With the amount of "credit" they've built up with the politically correct/ bleeding heart lobby I doubt they'd even be brought in for questioning... the police won't be able to weather the embarassment.

For those who haven't been bombarded with Stephen's tale of woe (since he is, after all, the only person ever to have been murdered and the police really don't need to worry about solving any other crimes), the short version is that he was attacked and stabbed to death in an alleged racist attack in April 1993. To date, no one has been convicted of this otherwise motiveless and rather senseless murder... despite several eye witnesses standing at the same bus-stop that night, no one apparently saw anything. Here's the timeline of the saga.

But why's the rum gone?

2006-07-23T00:30:00.000Z

We headed out to Whitstable this morning to have a look around the Oyster Festival.

As is normal for us, we left fairly early in an attempt to avoid getting bogged down in traffic and made good time. It was a nice little drive, a straight zoom up the A2 and M2. One day when we get a sat-nav we'll be more adventurous and try the back roads a bit, but for now a straight road is just super. We discovered that Little White Dog freaks out if I take the jeep past 75mph, as evidenced by the flying leap he took over the backseats to land unceremoniously on Lizzy's lap, quivering. I think it's the tyre-rumble that gets to him- theres an unmistakable drone that vibrates through the car over 70 mph, probably because the tyres a bit wider than standard.

Anyhoo, we got there 10a.m as planned, parked and strolled off towards the harbour (£2.10 for a whole day's parking- bargain!). There was a nautically themed market, and joy of joys, stall after stall selling (cheap!) seafood :)

The jazz band struck up as we strolled away from the harbour to take a peek down the high street... quite a few interesting shops, and best of all it hasn't lost local character, in that it hasn't been taken over by the bland chain stores that dominate so many of the UK's towns. I also discovered that the missus doesn't know who Peter Cushing is. Tsk tsk. Time to add some classics onto our blockbuster list.

We ambled along, having nothing to actually do and the whole day to do it in, and wound up back at the harbour where I indulged in a snack of a dozen fresh oysters (they were still crying for their mama when I sucked 'em down) and some whelks and prawns.

By now, the place was filling up with people rapidly, including the unavoidable coachloads of our Oriental friends and the purple rinse brigade. We made another circuit of the market, had some more whelks (well, I did anyway), marvelled at the drift wood sculptures, railway sleeper furniture, ceramics, local artists, the Victorian mechanical accordion and the ranks of salty sea-dogs that make Whitstable their home. I tried to slip "Avast" into any conversation I had but no one seemed to notice.

We headed to the Easy Quay restaurant and the adjoining bar, where we wound up spending a very agreeable hour or two, beer in hand, sitting under a very spacious brolley with a cool sea-breeze to make everything quite pleasant. The fish & chips from the restaurant was a bit disappointing, considering the freshness of the ingredients, but I've had worse. Next time I'll have the mussels rather than the skate. LWD enjoyed the batter immensely.

We bought ice creams from one of the vans near the harbour exit and headed up the little hill to visit Whitstable castle, which turned out to be more of a decorated house than my idea of a castle... it had been hired for a wedding, so we didn't hang around too long, heading back to the jeep for the drive home. A quick pit stop on the high street so Lizzy could grab us a big bag of cherries for pudding with Sunday lunch and Whitstable started fading on the horizon.

When we left, there was a helluva queue of traffic just sitting there, trying to get into the town. I think next year we'll be back, but we'll stay overnight to make the most of it. I quite fancy visiting that beachfront pub again- I liked that, I liked that a lot.

Thanks for the tip-off Cheezy!

I say

2006-07-18T22:46:00.000Z

Hell's teeth, it's getting a tad hot in London this week. I have to admit, this is more than just generic summer weather.

All I can say is thank $"%*"$! for air conditioned offices.

Phew.

2006-07-14T20:25:00.000Z

What a week!

I damn well earned my peanuts this week, I can tell you that! Yesterday and today were mad- my desk literally vanished under the overspill of my "in" tray. I managed to sneak 10 mins for lunch, and was even interrupted during that little break.

We had one big deal that had to go through this week.... at 15h30, the day before it was due to complete, the powers that be decide that they're re-structuring the entire deal. However, the contractual date for completion was fixed. The cherry on top? All our directors with signing power to authorise payment on a deal of this size were going out to a corporate lunch from noon today. Aiieee!

Shish kebab, it was busy. Especially since aside from the above mentioned humdinger I still had to deal with a handful of building payments, letters to go out to various solicitors, redemption statements etc etc. And answer the phone. The normal day to day time critical stuff.

But you know what? These last 2 days have been the best I've had since January. I seem to do better under that kind of pressure. When I walked out to go home it felt like I'd really accomplished something tangible, you know? Job done.

The big ass deal sailed through by 11 a.m this morning.
Sure,I've got some polishing todo as regards the paperwork on Monday, but the clients are happy, the solicitors are content and the Grande Fromage is pleased with his new slave. All is well.

Now if I can just avoid making an ass of myself until the week after next, everything will be shiny.

Shite.

2006-07-05T22:24:00.000Z

What an absolute, misbegotten pustule of a day today was.

Thank fuck it's over.

Sticky ends

2006-07-04T22:24:00.000Z

Man, it's a humid one tonight. No doubt it hasn't got a thing on a nice summer's evening in downtown Biloxi, but it's enough for the rest of us.

The windows are all wide open, but there's fukoli breeze to stir the lace curtains. The only breeze is coming from the wingbeats of the multitude of bugs drawn to the light. Those that aren't sticking to me that is, since it feels like my skin has metamorphosised into flypaper. If the top of my PC desk wasn't perforated I'd have to ask the missus to fetch the spatula so I could get my arms off it.

I'm holding out for the mother of a thunderstorm which is due to follow in the next day or so.. I'd be stupendously shocked if it didn't arrive by this time tomorrow night. There's nothing like that smell of fresh fried ozone that you get after a hardcore storm, especially after a hot spell :)

At least a bit of rain will save me from the prospect of seeing more potbellied, sunburnt builders waddling around broadgate with their shirts off. Not a good look chaps, not a good look at all. Very few women go for the balding-albino-hippo look. I think.

No.5 is alive

2006-07-03T22:18:00.000Z

Ah, happy day. I fixed the problem I was having with my firewall.

No more spontaneous shutdowns and freezing. ZoneAlarm, you guys suck. If I ever see the word "TrueVector" again I'll be forced to commit acts of random and unnatural violence upon the hapless soul who has caused me to see it.

I'll freely admit I've been lazy recently. True, the whole Russian roulette thing with the firewall played a big part, but I reckon I started using that as an excuse.

Anyhoo. Here I sit, baking quietly in my own juices in our spare room, one tiny fan valiantly trying to move air thick enough to cut with a knife around, succeeding only in being a mechanical placebo. The weather's been grand eh? Sorry, I meant the "heatwave". Oh yes ladies & germs, the UK can't simply have a summer like other countries, it has to have a "heatwave". I wonder when the newsrags are going to try finding someone to blame for the weather?

Hell, they'll probably point fingers at us poor 4x4 drivers. Grr. Now there' something that gets my back up, old Mayor Ken the Cnut and his Pointless Crusade d'Jour. Haven't you heard?4x4's are the tOolS oF sAtAn... I wonder, has he actually driven on London's roads? I swear, frigging Mogadishu has better road surfaces than London. Close your eyes, and from the jolts and sudden lurches as you plummet into the craters that dot every 2nd road here you'd swear you were in any one of a dozen tinpot banana republics in some hazy, dusty corner of Africa. It's embarassing. Just the other day I have to help an italian tourist climb out of a pothole over in Regent street. I had to tear my shirt into strips and knot them together as a makeshift rope to get her out.

Foo's in the Park

2006-06-18T21:12:00.000Z

Blogger is startign to piss me off. Photo's won't upload, and I posted this days ago and it mysteriously disappeared between now and then. Grrrr.

This Saturday saw the missus & I attending the Foo Fighters gig in Hyde Park.

The day dawned clear and bright. I grabbed my clean shorts, selected a suitably cool shirt, dug around in the spare room until I found my cap. We packed a small daypack with essentials- food, water, sunblock, extra food and some spare food & water, then piled into the jeep and roared off to town. I figured it'd be better without own transport, as we had no idea what time we'd be heading home... the missus had sneakily arranged for parking for us in her office parking garage. Very handy :)

Well, let me just say it got progressively hotter throughout the day. We made our way to the park, eventually found the right entrance and sat our arses down on the grass to wait for the magic opening time. 'This will be fun' thought I, thinking that two hours sitting in the park on a sunny would be a breeze. But I hadn't reckoned on being up close and personal with more spotty teenagers than I'd seen since matric. Gaah. Young people. Who needs 'em? I steadfastly ignored the heaving sea of acne about us and concentrated on not melting inwards into a pool of sweat.
I twitched. I fidgeted. My arse grew number. Ants crawled where no living thing should really go. I sweated.

We watched the fly-bys for the Queens birthday, includign my favourite- the Lancaster bomber with Spitfire escort. Always cool!

Eventually, despite having the enitre fecking morning to organise themselves (the time was instead spent milling about aimlessly in small groups, pretending to have Really Important Things to talk about on their little radios) the rocket scientists who were acting as the gatekeepers pulled finger and got their act in order. Only 15 minutes late.

The next revelation was a real peach. Despite it being 32C, you weren't allowed to take large water bottles into the grounds. Eh? Wtf? And allllll other bottles had to have their caps removed. wtf once more - the reaason given? "So you don't throw 'em onto the stage". I mean, ferchrissakes, we were about 100 yards from the stage, minimum!!! Fecking idiots. Never mind the fact that you could buy water inside and *shock!* *horror!* those bottles had caps! Oooh.

That's right up there with the smacktards who confiscate a nail clipper from someone at the airport, then offer them complementary (glass) bottles of flammable spirits after take-off.

Any how. We were in! We ambled along to the middle bit of the Berlin Wall (complete with no mans land in between each of the steel barriers) and once again felt the sticky embrace of the acne mob, complete with irritating 12 year olds trying to worm their way to the front.

One song into Juliette & The Licks set I set my shoulder into "Gentle Ramming" mode and we emigrated ourselves to a less crowded spot in front of one of the giant screens. Much, much better. We quaffed some refreshments and made ourselves comfy. Their set was pretty cool, considering I've only caught one of their tracks before. Juliette's a good stage performer, very entertaining to watch.

Next up was Angels & Airwaves, fronted by that bloke from Blink 182. It went ok, but then he went all California Hippie on us and started spouting crap about 9/11 and Iraq. I tuned him out and set to stuffing some sandwiches in my gob, and making the most of my sunglasses to throw a critical eye over some of the wobblies on parade. A little bit of the Good, the Bad & the Ugly really, but still not an unpleasant way to spend some time on a sunny day.

Queens of the Stone Age were up next. I have to say the sound quality here left a bit to be desired- Joshua's voice disappeared into the music. They didn't really do much for me, all told. What can I say? The majority of the crowd around us seemed happy enough though.

Then the big boys came out to play. Lemmy strolled out, cigarette in hand. This was whatI'd been waiting for- the chance to see Motorhead live. And I was not disappointed. Lemmy belted out the first song and the crowd started heaving. By the time he got to "Over the Top" an impromptu mosh pit had sprung into existence right behind us. He stood on that stage like a giant amongst men, a gravelly conduit for the sheer power of the gods of rock, and played that crowd man. Ace of Spades was the cherry on top. Fucking A.

The mob subsided around us a bit, people slinking off to get a drink, staunch their wounds and ready themselves for Dave Grohl & the boys. Thank god that by now the sun had dipped away and temperature eased back a couple of notches. Trying to get through to any of the refreshment stalls was suicide. Fortunately the ushers manning the berlin wall were doling out cups of water, so we managed to stay hydrated.

And then the lights dimmed. Strobes flickered to life. A mad guitar riff cut across the evening sky like a screaming phoenix. And , of course, the crowd erupted. Dave Grohl looked entirely comfortable on that stage, and gave us what we wanted- the popular tracks everyone knows & loves, mixed in with some lesser known and new stuff. He had fun with the crowd, and we loved him for it. It was goooood.

The encore was a surprise though - Taylor, the drummer, said he was dedicating a song to Freddie Mercury....then introduced Brian May and Roger Taylor! The guitar duel between Brian & Dave was pretty sweet!

But eventually the stage went dark and the Mob turned its collective herd to the exits. We hit the road, revelling in air that was actually moving and headed for the car and home, with a pit stop to grab some icy refreshments. We were in good time and sunk into a nice cool bath, accompanied by a bowl of cheerios. A good day :)

freedom fighters my arse

2006-06-14T20:21:00.000Z

[ insert pic here once $%^$^! blogger gets its act together]

I just had the misfortune of watching the worst frigging bleeding heart propaganda on telly. I should have known better, today being the "anniversary" of Sharpeville.

What a bucketfull of 3 day old journalistic diarrhoea. It was, no doubt, funded by the same bunch of hand-wringing tofu eaters who perenially sit on the sidelines, safely insulated from the real world and bitch about the harsh way that mass murdering paedophiles are treated in prison.

Interspersed with 'reconstructed' pieces of film showing happy go lucky black schoolchildren all but skipping along until the evil nazi stormtroopers open up on them with flamethrowers we were subjected to "interviews" (aka monologues) from a handful of survivors and relatives of activists (for activists read: terrorists). If self pity was a liquid, this lot could have floated the QE2 on the twaddle they spouted tonight.

They painted the riots and "resistance movement" in glowing shades of fluffiness, setting it up as an idealistic dream born of efforts of poor teenagers, traumatised by the horrors of Sharpeville. Euphemism was piled upon euphemism, and "one-sided" was the phrase of the day when the producers cobbled this over sanitised piece of drivel together.

The mobs which tore through the streets, burning schools, looting shops, beating men and women to death with bricks were simply "frustrated". The second wave of riots that night weren't really riots, it was just the parents looking for their missing children. And as we aqll, know, the best way to look for a missing person is to burn any building you come across (so that you know you've looked there already) , burn any car (to stop people kidnapping them, of course) oh, and most importantly, kill any white person on sight.

One interview they had was a with a chap who was happy to point out where he and his class from the local school pulled an ageing doctor from his car, where they chased him to and ultimately beat him to death with bricks and broken bottles. He described it as a cathartic process for fuck sakes.

The riots were nothing more than anarchic savagery, an orgy of mindless violence and the people taking part in them deserved every bullet shot at them.

But what about the children they cry. What about them??? A mob of12 year olds can kill you just as easily as a mob of adults. Why should someone suffer injury, possibly death, just because their attacker is young?

What people fail to understand is the mob mentality. There was nothing romantic or idealistic about the riots in SA. They were dirty, brutal affairs, fuelled by a lust for violence and greed for plunder and the people taking part in them deserved every bullet shot at them.

Of course, it wasn't their fault. No, no, no, the poor dears. The system forced them into blowing up innocent people and burning everything in sight. The system forced them to riot at the drop of a hat and destroy everything in sight like a plague of toyi-toying locusts.

And you know what really galls me? This crap. That they're sticking a goddamn statue of one of the ringleaders up as a tribute. Still, at least I'll have something to spit at when I cross the square.

What's next? International Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Memorial day? Maybe a nice bust of the playful little tyke outside St Paul's?

Raaar!

2006-06-13T21:52:00.000Z

Because I can.

Hot in the city tonight

2006-06-12T21:48:00.000Z

So, summer has finally hit us. Yeehaaah! About farking time too!

Of course, now everyone is complaining that it's too hot, it's too humid, it's too sticky to sleep etc.
Ah well, as far as I'm concerned, there are worse problems to have!

I find it hysterically funny that a few days of constant sunshine over here is referred to as a heatwave. I mean, really. According to government guidelines, a heatwave is officially triggered as soon as the Met Office confirms that it's published threshold temperatures will be reached in one or more regions simultaneously.

I mean, come on. Those temperatures are above average but they're hardly going to make the geriatric population run in circles screaming "I'm melting, I'm melting!" (although Jordan might be at risk I suppose).

Anyhoo. Aside from sweating like Sipho thanks to our suit & tie dress code I've no complaints. we've had 3 braai's over the last 2 weekends and I've got to drive around with the roof off the jeep.

Happy days :)

INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT

2006-06-06T21:40:00.000Z

Tonight I pulled finger and for the first time in a long, long time, double clicked the "Word" icon on my desktop.

Over the past week or so, having read (are re-read some parts) Syd Field's well written treatise on screenwriting, I found myself scribbling ideas and thoughts on sundry scraps of paper at all hours of the day. So tonight, to prevent the house turning into some sort of mad gerbils nest, I started writing.

It's hard work, let me tell you that. Had to shift the brain puit of neutral and slap it into 4WD. But, like most things in life, the first few steps are the hardest. In my case, the first 3 pages.
But! They're done. They're out there. A minimum of one page a night is the task I've set myself.

Tally ho.

rainman

2006-05-26T19:53:00.000Z

What the hell is it that makes people huddle under their umbrellas when it's not frigging raining??!?

Oh my fuckaroo, I literally passed about 40 people walking with their brollies up on the way to work this morning, and there wasn't even a lick of rain about. FFS, how thick are you? How very very little attention are you paying to your surroundings that you can't even notice that a) there is no water falling from the sky and b) the ground is dry???

Jeezahz. Honestly.

I spy, with my little mouse..

2006-05-24T23:00:00.000Z

Can you spot the avo tree? I can.

Ain't technology wonderful? There's no better way to make the world that bit smaller.

At a whim, I downloaded Google Earth. What a cool toy :)
I've spent the last hour or so checking out Baghdad, the Forbidden City, Cairo, Rio, New Orleans.... and of course, my house. Pity, the satellite took the snap while we were out so I can't see my car :P

And at last, I could find out what's behind the 15ft wall at the back of my garden. Disappointingly, its only more houses. No secret weapons labs or trainee playboy mansion in sight.

And of course, trying to find the houses of friends and family. It takes a bit of mental exercise to interpret places and routes from directly overhead, but if you're relatively familiar with roads and landmarks, you can.

Now that I know the exact longitude & latitude, I will be able to direct my missiles with pinpoint accuracy when I receive the signal to begin my campaign for world dominance. Huzzah! The time of Al-Geckaeda is nigh!

And not a drop to drink..

2006-05-18T22:32:00.000Z

Ah, what a funny place England is.

Here we are, being continually reminded to save water because of the big bad drought looming on the horizon, yet you can't risk leaving home without a brolley!

A quick visit to the met office paints a different picture of our little island.

Go figure.

the picture what I wrote

2006-05-15T19:43:00.000Z

I've been an avid gamer for many, many years.

I was cursed with being shy during high school. Breaking the ice with someone new would have neccesitated me waiting for global warming to catch up with me. No, I was the weird kid who went red and mumbled something before running away.

On Friday nights, I'd babysit my cousin while my sister came to visit my mom. He was annoying but at least he had an imagination.. one night he didn't bring any toys over. So I improvised; I found a dice that had fallen out of the compendium of games that lived on top of my mom's wardrobe (we weren't allowed to play with it unsupervised in case we ate the tiddlywinks or drew on the ludo board). As I rolled the little cube under my fingers, ideas came to me. I started concocting scenarios; one the first was that my GI Joe figure had to cross a valley and fight his way through the terrorists (in those days, terrorists were either Angolan or Mandela & his cronies...yes, boys and girls, Mandela is still a filthy little terrorist in my book) but anyhoo....

The rules were simple. Guv was GI Joe. He'd roll the dice to see how many steps he took. Then I'd do the same for the terrorists. And if they got into hand to hand, a five or six would kill the other guy. And that was my first step. I started making up lists of bonus items he could pick up from the bodies.... machine guns, knives, grenades, etc.

Which brings me back to where I was. Shy. Yet, somehow, gaming drew me out. Its a very social hobby (read: obsession) yet at the same time its 'safe', since you're not being you, you're being Mustafa the camel thief, or Vorpulus the Legionnaire, you know?

I became a DungeonMaster (a.k.a Games Master a.k.a Referee). I'd plan and run the games for a motley collection of fellow nerdlings.. the bug didn't just bite me, it savaged me with sabre like teeth the first time I took the rickety lift to Wizard's Warehouse up in the dingy corridors of the CTC building in Cape Town. The point of this is that, being a DM, you have to paint the story in your players imaginations. You don't tell a story of high adventure and courage with words, you do it with pictures.

When I designed a dungeon or enemy lair, I could see it in perfect clarity in my minds eye, and it was glorious. The trick was to bring the players into the same vision.

Skip forward to this year and the book on screenwriting the missus gave me.
I've been reading it slowly, and the more I read, the more it seems to click. I love the idea of telling a story in pictures, rather than in words. Worth a 1000 words and all that. I'm enjoying it so much I'm thinking of giving it a serious go, to sit down and share all these hundreds of stories, quests, terrors and cataclysmic struggles that live in my head with Joe Public.

Going down

2006-05-10T21:01:00.000Z

I'm a bit of a history nerd, me. Especially WWII. It fascinates me, especially old wartime footage and war stories.

Like this little nugget that I happened across, the adventures of the German u-boat U29. It was commissioned in 1936, and saw acive service right through the war until it was eventually being scuttled in May 1945. During that time it sunk over 62 thousand tons of shipping, as well as the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous, for the loss of 518 men. The entire crew of U29 were decorated for that action.

But throughout all those years of combat service, there are no records of any crew member being lost through accidents or enemy action. Now that's pretty impressive.

And yes, this was just for you. You know who you are ;)

Work sucks and then you die

2006-04-28T22:40:00.000Z

Long story.

Synopsis: certain people at the office are knobs. I'm starting to despise them.
The bubble has most definitely burst.

They have the personal skills of a psychopathic neanderthals and the subtlety of a brick.

I mean really... get hauled into a boardroom for a 'review' with 2 of my managers. It started off well, everyone's happy with my work, all very thorough etc.
Then suddenly,BANG it all goes tits up and I'm being reprimanded because a) I read a frigging newspaper when I get to the office b) I take my full hour for lunch and c) am 'laid back'.

W T F? To get utterly bollocked because I'm not a stress bunny? Sorry, but I thought a cool head was an asset? Forget the fact that I've only had a couple of weeks of training before I was thrown in the deep end, and that just minutes ago they confirmed that I'm ahead of the standard on their training curve, and have been complimented on my handling of tasks that new starters normally only tackle after 5-6 months.

Oh NoooooOOooo. I just get "I'm worried we're seeing your true colours and we're concerned" WTF is that supposed to mean?
I can get what they're trying to say re: the papers and lunch hours ("You'll notice I only take lunch on Wednesdays"), but the thing is this: the level of work we have in at the moment simply does not justify me rushing to the office early so I can get cracking on something. If things are busy I have absolutely no problem with putting in extra hours to stay on top of things.... but what's the point if I have nothing to do??? Shall I turbo my way into the office so I can do an inventory of my stationery drawer? If I'm there reading and the phone goes nuts, I still answer it, you know?

"We notice that you've sitting at your desk reading during lunch for the whole hour" was another peach. WTF is that all about? Its my lunch hour ferchrissakes!! Would it be better if i buggered off to sit outside in the sun for the hour? Am I not supposed to have a break? Again, I could understand the reasoning if the level of work was there to justify it.

AARGH it's really working on my mind. The more I think about it, the more it sticks in my gizzard, the more it gets my hackles up. When it happened I was to flabbergasted to respond coherently, but now..... grrRRRRrr.
So much so that I'm tempted to tell them to shove it and hit the road again. Almost.

But dammit, I like money too much-- and they have it.

We have another little menage-a-trois scheduled for 6 weeks time. So, I'm biting my tongue and am aiming to become super-suit. To be fair, I have been using training as a bit of an excuse and there are some things I should have paid more attention to, and I freely admit that. But their clumsy and heavy-handed approach to the issues they wanted to discuss has left a decidedly bad taste in my mouth, one that might take me a goodly while to rinse out.

......Personally, I don't think they're ready for the undiluted version of me yet.
They might be rather surprised next week.

Arte et labore.

Early present!!!!

2006-04-25T22:15:00.000Z

Whooooooohoooo!

Early birthday present from the missus!!

Ain't it a beauty eh??
I can only imagine how happy our neighbours are now that they've discovered my ability to subsitute enthusiasm for talent when it comes to strumming! Mwaaahahaaa
But no, I am determined to master the beastie. I've been working at it already. >:)

Fat Man Walking

2006-04-25T22:02:00.000Z

I stumbled across this story accidentally today, and have been hooked.

I've started reading through his journal entries, and man, so many of his comments ring true for me. I reckon I'm going to while away a good few lunch hours whittling my way through them.

What an awesome idea though.

Let's face it though, its not something that would really have the same gravitas in the UK. Land's End to John O' Groats is hardly on the same scale as walking from LA to NYC.. . if those oddball tree-huggers could do it naked, anyone can.

Tomato Tomatoe

2006-04-20T22:30:00.000Z

It's come to my attention that I might be spending too much time on the 'net. Either that or my mind might, just might, spend too much time in the gutter.
Or both.

The office. Three women gabbing away, yours truly pecking at his keyboard listlessly in the 10 minute countdown to hometime.

"What are you doing this weekend?" says one wimmin.
"Myself and two friends are going to have a nice facial." comes the reply.

"Bloody hell!" mutters me, looking at wimmin no.2 in a new light. Long seconds pass before it clicks that their facial and my facial are two totally different things.

The good bit is, if you know what I'm on about, then I'm not as weird or without hope as I feared I might be. Phew.

If you don't, well, good for you. You're obviously a better person than me.

Unless you're being tempted to google it right now.

Bring me a bucket

2006-04-17T19:15:00.000Z

And so, that was Easter.

Godammit, I was trying to avoid sweets and chocolates this year. Pffffttt! So much for that idea.
Did lots of nothing (unless you count eating anything that wasn't moving fast enough), watching DVD's and none of this. A special mention goes to the fabulous Easter lunch whipped up by the missus.. as usual, more food than the 7 of us could ever eat, topped off with a gratuitously OTT dessert. Phweeee... man, it was good. Hooray for dead lambs!

The net result is that I'm launching into the two week countdown to my birthday feeling like my gut is going to go around corners 10 seconds before the rest of me.
It's the same feeling you get when you wake up after a night in the company of cheap alcohol. You know, the "I'll never drink again" syndrome.

So, it's back to being anal about my dietary habits until I regain some equilibrium (top movie that, btw. Gun kata rocks) around my middle bits. Still, sites like this do give me hope.

Chocolate. Urgh. Never again.

I say!

2006-04-15T09:44:00.000Z

Huzzah!!

One received an utterly bland looking brown envelope in the post this morning; however, one was rather pleased to read the missive it contained.

Rather.

W T F ?

2006-04-12T20:29:00.000Z

Somebody asked me online the other day what the abbreviation " W.T.F " stood for.

I've always felt that a picture is worth a thousand words... all I can say, looking at that prime A-Grade fucktard, is WTF !?

Bunnies taste good.

2006-04-09T23:25:00.000Z

After being bombarded with chocolate eggs since just after New Year's, Easter is eventually looming on the horizon.

Almost time for the Great Herd to shamble to the trough and start devouring a few thousand tons of cheap chocolate confectionaries. After all, it is Easter and as everyone knows, Jesus was actually helped off the cross by an army of chocolate chickens and rabbits (who had, in a cunning stroke of genius, covered themselves in tinfoil so they could blend in with the roman soldiers on duty).

It irks me how Easter seems to have been hijacked somewhere along the line and turned into something tacky and cheap. True, everyone has their own take on what it's about, but how the hell did it go from that to seeing how many eggs little Timmy can stuff in his mouth before puking them up over the couch?

As a kid, having grown up as a Christian, Easter was first and formost a religious holiday. It was only after going to church (and behaving impeccably) that we were allowed out on an easter egg hunt. Try that these days you'd probably be arrested & charged with infringing Timmy's human right to be an immoral, mindless glutton.

Thanks to the wonderful climate in South Africa, easter egg hunts were by neccesity conducted a high speed and involved eggs in tinfoil. Its not fun finding an egg that's been basking in the African sun for an hour; however if you did, the tinfoil was invaluable in preventing you from eating a doggy landmine.