Xmas countdown: Teh End

I'm sure my 1/2 a reader will be glad it's all over.

So without further ado:
Christmas Party



Top trumps time:

Number of xmas cd's featured on: not on cd anywhere.
Probability of being played on asda in store fm: minus infinity.
Relationship to xmas? : It's a xmas song.

I may get a buzz,
'cos mistletoe's poisionous,
oh hell I don't care I think I'll die.

This is a cover (prolly better than the original version actually) of a dead milkmen song from the time when the dead milkmen where a "fictional" band, and their albums came on tape with each one having a hand drawn cover by the band.

Of course thanks to the power of the interweb you can now obtain such rare material rather easily in mp3 format.

This is from "Oh no! Somebody shot sunshine!"


If you're really that interested you can hear the original here:

	The Dead Milkmen - Christmas Party .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Ps.. Merry Christmas...

Xmas countdown V Tubetastic Thursday - grudgematch

There was some whining about credit cards and how awful they are when you have to phone mr. Patel in India and pay for the privilege here, but it was soooo boring, even by my standards, so it's gone now....

Time for a double bill....

Xmas countdown:
Sesame Street - Counting the days



Top trumps time:

Number of xmas cd's featured on: one!
Probability of being played on asda in store fm: -2.6%
Relationship to xmas? : Weapon to keep the kids quiet with.

Having odd tastes in muzzax, I quite like obtaining doo wop "zero hit wonder" cd's. I got a xmas one, and this was on it... Freaky stuff eh?

Tubetastic Thursday:
The Cars - Drive



There be a slight xmas message in this one for all you crazy kids who go out on the pop.

"Who's going to drive you home tonight?"

No drink driving now. Or getting in strange cars with strange men. Or phoning me to come and rescue you. Thank you and good night.

Xmas countdown : Son of the xmas countdown

Season of goodwill? My arse!

Went to the hellhole that is asda. Coming out some little bastard shouts at me "cut your hair and get a job".

Now in an ideal world, I would be like the terminator and quickly choose an appropriate response:

Choices:
Ignore.
Kick child.
"There is no Santa".
"I have a job. F***ing your Mum"
"F**k you asshole".

Sadly I'm not very good at the human thing and spent too long thinking about it, and only managed a half hearted "F**k you". ~sigh~


More lazy blogging:
Band Aid - Do they know it's Christmas?



Top trumps time:

Number of xmas cd's featured on: all of them.
Number of xmas words in the lyrics: 1
Number of winter / snow etc words: 1
Probability of being played on asda in store fm: 87.9%
Relationship to xmas? : More related to Geldof's ego. Midge Ure hardly gets a look in.

Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you.

This has bugger all to do with Xmas. It was a method for extracting cash much the same as the local brass band playing and rattling tins outside tescos. You're supposed to give them money and pretend you care, feel good about yourself and then a few weeks later forget they exist.

But the artists, record companies etc did it all for nowt and helped the poor people... Oh yeah? And the record labels haven't made it back 10 times over in royalties for the song appearing on every bloody xmas compilation album, playing on the radio etc.... They only handed over the dosh from the single sales.

The truth is, we're really not remotely interested in helping the 3rd world. The 1st world is already using more than the planet can provide, so even if it was possible to instantly "upgrade" them to our standards it wouldn't be done.

Perhaps the Macc Lads had the truth with their "alternative" version of this song:
Feed your face, don't give them a second thought.

Rant ends....

Xmas countdown: revenge of the xmas countdown

Well, the doom begins. The usual xmas deluge of fools who bought an item from me on ebay AFTER last day for xmas posting to their country, and now want to know why they've not got it yet. Only one man from France so far, and he was only 1 day late in buying so may still get it, but I'm sure Thursday will see me with head in hands screaming "Make them stop".

But enough of this self pity. More lazy blogging:
Jona Lewie - Stop the cavalry



Top trumps time:

Number of xmas cd's featured on: 72
Number of xmas words in the lyrics: 1
Number of winter / snow etc words: 1
Probability of being played on asda in store fm: 37%
Relationship to xmas? : Vague.

Wish I was at home for Christmas.

Methinks this has not actually got a lot to do with xmas, and more to do with war...

Video appears to be set in WW1 trenches / no man's land. N a lot of the typical cannon fodder "tommies" signed up for the war with the idea that it would be a bit of adventure / bash the hun / finish the war in time for christmas.

Or is it just me?

Xmas countdown: part deux

It snowed today. And as I live on a hill, this can be entertaining.

You see, stupid people live further down the hill from me. Very stupid people. The road bends to the left, and it's moderately steep. Right on the apex of the bend, 2 cars parked on each side of the road. Which makes a gap in the middle of 1 car + 18 inches. The road is covered with snow... can you see the problem yet kids?

So the skittles have been set up, all there is to do is wait and watch for someone scoring a strike. How many cars will they damage? I should also point out you can go down our street to the council depot, so there's lots of vans driven by people who don't give a sh*t.

Sadly, there was no score today. One council van did look a good contender by a) going too fast & b) braking so the van is now going sideways on towards the target. Fortunately for him his brain kicked in, and he stopped braking, van goes back to straight again and he managed to steer his way thru with about three inches to spare.

Also had to drive to Idiot Girl's to "put up a picture". Yes, drive only if you have to, or if your sister wants to change her decor. No drama for me even if my land rover is in limp home mode. Entertaining following a very shiny BMW that wasn't going remotely where the driver was pointing it.

Thinks...... Ah: Jackie Wilson - reet petite



Top trumps time:

Number of xmas cd's featured on: 1
Number of xmas words in the lyrics: 0
Number of winter / snow etc words: 0
Probability of being played on asda in store fm: 2%
Relationship to xmas? : Bugger all.

Reet petite the finest girl you ever want to meet.

So what's the xmas connection?
Christmas number 1 single for 1986, and most of December too if memory is working. One of my favourite xmas songs actually...

Xmas countdown

Bit of a joy / despair / despair/ slightly less despair day today.

Joy: My new credit card was finally delivered.

Despair: After activating it, and them trying to sell me insurance against it being cloned (wot, like it just has been you mean?) I took it to the shop. Where it failed to work.

Despair: Attempting to start car: clunk. Bugger new battery required. Hang on.. the headlights are still bright... tries again, starts first time.... Bugger.. new starter motor required.

Slightly less despair: Googled discovery td5 starter motor, and they're apparently crap and fail a lot. But you can get a kit of replacement bits to fix them for £10, so slightly happier as this is cheaper than a battery at £130.

I haz also had a genius, GENIUS idea I tell you, on how to blog lazily in the run up to xmas when idiots will suddenly decide to do their xmas shopping online at my emporium and drive me insane running around after them.

The idea be: Youtube vids to the max. With a twist on the xmas theme. Yes, I hope to have enough ideas of xmas things to show, that when you actually stop and think for a soupcon, they're not remotely xmas-y.

I will start this plan NOW: Freiheit - Keeping The Dream Alive



Top trumps time:

Number of xmas cd's featured on: 5
Number of xmas words in the lyrics: 0
Number of winter / snow etc words: 0
Probability of being played on asda in store fm: 15%
Relationship to xmas? : Bugger all.

The game will never be over
Because we're keeping the dream alive

I'm baffled why this is a Christmas song. Anyone got any ideas?

And they'd have got away with it if it wasn't for those darn kids!

I am, so I'm told, the intended recipient of a package. Which contains $700,000 in cash. (must be a bit heavy).

But the silly sausages forgot to pay enough to cover the weight of all those greenbacks, so I must pay $315 and 29 cents within the next 2 days, or it will be sent back!

Quite why the nice lady at fedex currier company can't just take a bit out of the money in the box, I'm not sure. They could even get some donuts, on me! They must be stupid or something...

Perhaps that's why they spell courier as currier. Unless it works by a chain of fast food shops delivering your money slowly in a max 5 mile radius with free onion bhajis?

Voyage to trip out city

Well, sort of. A bit. Maybe.

I have been given by the vets some new antihistamines, as standard over the counter stuff works for about 2 hours and then stops, and taking 6 in a day is slightly more than "1 a day" like it says on the box. I'm also told "drowsy effect", which considering I've not been spleeping could well be a positive point.

So last night, itch, scratch, not tired.... I know, try one out.

Goes to bed, still not tired but resigned to singing the infinite bottles of beer on the wall song. Then came the strange things.

I can hear something. But in my head, not in reality. It's like listening to a numbers station. This goes on for a bit. It then changes to Jeremy Clarkson talking gibberish. No, not the rubbish he often spouts, but actual strings of nonsense words, that I sort of understand. Then there are a sequence of chords, that are not so groovy. Then I start to feel tired / dulled, so write down the above so I'd not forget (I have some great blogging ideas that are lost by the next day).

The pills are bright blue coloured... Oh.. matrix-y.. Perhaps I should ask if they've got any red ones and wake up?

Tubetastic Thursday - Keltech strikes back

Meh! One more week and the insanity of it all will be over.

The mildly annoying thing is I'm very busy and working hard, but I'm not actually making all that much more money than usual. Peeps appear to have stopped buying the cheaper easy to make things, and are buying the expensive 40 mins each sodding things, so I work like crazy and then there's only 10 parcels for that day and £90.

And.. relax.

I bring to you:
DJ Keltech - Keltech strikes back



Thinking you've seen this before? Well you prolly have as it was a viral video, what, three years ago?

If you like your scratching, then his cd be worth a-buying.

I generally doth not buy cd's cos a) tight, b) mp3's on a usb stick works better in my car. But I bought this one. I's even got it signed to moi... could be worth 99p in a few decades time... And yes, first thing I did was rip it to mp3 and put it on a shelf. The cd is dead, long live the cd!

Woo!

We interrupt this not blogging to bring an important announcement.

I is teh winnah! And no, I don't mean I'm a "special" winner like other peeps tell me, I mean the real cash money type. £25 from the premium bonds.

Woo! Yay!

Tubetastic Thursday - Living next door to Alice

It's rather sad that the only day I can keep up with is the lazy blogging day dontcha think?

It is of course quite a lot to do with that whole xmas rubbish. Brings out the idiots who waste my time, and makes me work harder so no time for excitement and adventure.

"But at least you're making money" stupid people will say.... Well, yes you are, but no you're not. The 'extra' money goes on buying in lots of boxes and bubble envelopes and stock just in case someone wants to buy it. So you end up with more stuff that there's no space for, but no more "real" money, and not forgetting of course that people stop buying things once it's time to plonk in front of their shiny new idiot boxes.

Anyway, enough of my ranting. You're (maybe) here for tubetastic Thursday.

I bring to you:
Smokie - Living next door to Alice.



Smokie.... possibly the best thing to have come out of Bradford. Not a city I have much love for.

You may have noted that this is the original 70's version (methinks the sweede cuts give it away just a soupcon), not the 90's remake. Though come to think of it, the 90's one does have a valid question "Who the F*** is Alice?" anyways?

Why is she leaving after 24 years in a big limousine? Has she inherited the family fortune? Obviously she wants to make an impression on leaving, it's been staged and perhaps planned for years....

What happened to stop him from being able to interact with Alice? Did one or more of them go mental? I'm thinking perhaps he did.

Sally's been waiting 24 years for Alice to bugger off so she can have a go... But I think she will not get anywhere. He's not capable of interacting with the world, even if the world wants to interact with him. All he can do is watch as his chances fade away.

Er, I think I'm projecting my story onto this just a little.... Stop now. Yes, stop good.

Empty

My mind is on empty. And my enthusiasm reserve is too. And my tolerance of the whole xmas shash. I just keep trying to think soon it will be back to normal, whatever normal is anyways.

On the bright side, I've overcome the Ma's quest for the perfect (none existent) washing machine. I applied a bit of lateral thinking, and repaired the old one. It's a whole lot easier to fix these things at 3 am, when you can be calm and methodical. Printout from fix your washing machine website in one hand, cup of tea in the other.

True, technically it could also be a recipe for someone finding you dead of electrocution the next morning, but faint heart never won fair maiden, or got your clothes clean.

To add to the fun, I'm also trying to find out empirically just how many "one a day" antihistamines you can take in a day without dying. I've had five in the last 24 hours, and the edge is just about wearing off, as if I need another one. Google tells me what the symptoms of overdose are and I don't have them. It also tells me the half life is 8 hours, so how 1 is supposed to work for 24 hours I'm not sure. The house of half truths that is wikipedia suggests 10mg (1 a day) is barely more effective than a placebo. Ho hum, if anyone finds a spare liver, I'll have it for xmas plz.

Tubetastic Thursday - Punk rock girl

I'm rather tired today as it's 2:43 am on Thursday morning. Too many late nights methinks...

So without further ado I bring to you:
The Dead Milkmen - Punk rock girl


Not my favourite milkmen track, but the first video I could find.

Now they're back as a band again with a new bass player I'd like to see them live. I'd also like to win the lottery, have a wining personality, and lots of other things that won't happen. Sorry, depressed, tired, tired.. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Additional, 5pm.

This song be of course sung by Joe Jack Talcum, and is perhaps their most commerically successful release. Shame he doesn't actually sing most of the songs normally.

I'm am still tired, and can now add world weary to the list... The washing machine died. I took Ma to the washing machine shoppe to look at new ones. New ones fill up with only cold water. Ma wants one that fills with cold & hot water. I tell her the only come in cold these days. Shop assistant tells her they only come in cold these days. Ma believes we are lying (??) and insists we go to every shop that sells washing machines. Quelle suprise, they only sell cold fill ones, 'cos that's all the manufacturers make.

Methinks this one is going to run and run until I can't take any more.

IG update

Like anyone cares. But just in case....

Idiot Girl has been released from the hospital. Plz to come back if your foot falls off, or if it starts leaking blood / metal parts / massive infection.

Bugger

Bugger to N decimal places.
Today is not looking like a good day.

Next door neighbour knocked on the door, can I move my car for 10 mins?
Ok.... Moves car.. "bong bong bong" goes car and the dash lights up like a Xmas tree. This be going to be expensive, and I can't put it on the credit card as yesterday the credit card people phoned up to tell me my card details have been stolen and it doesn't work any more. So no credit until they send a new one in 14 days.

I then get a phone call where I get bollocked for being out of the house for five whole minutes. Turns out Idiot Girl is now sitting in the hospital A+E department, as it would appear the plates holding her leg together, er, aren't.

So I've now got the entertainment of the Ma playing "what if?" and "We should go there... text Idiot Girl this stupid message" etc, when Idiot Girl has said stay put here until she tells us to come. So eventually Ma will a) drive me nuts, and b) go there even though told to stay away, and big shouty things will happen in the hospital.

Somebody plz, shoot me thru the head, I don't want to live...

Tis the season to eat holly

blurgh blurgh blurgh ow ow ow...

Well, that was a fun weekend.

As a pro evil bay seller I get the fun of not only selling stuff, but then going down to my magic workshop and making said stuff, followed by packing it. Some stuff is just bought in and sold on, but of course they really hit me hard on the "my stuff" and not the easy things.

So I worked until 9:30 pm, then grabbed a quick sarnie before starting to pack things. 1:12 am, and packing is complete. Lots of bubble envelopes for the lady to take to the post office tomorrow and terrorise the staff with. They are all hugely afraid as she now knows the game better than they do and tells them off if they get it wrong.

I'm still failing to understand the logic of the evilbay punter though. 90% of my stuff is buy it now. You click the little button and it's yours. So why do I have 50 people watching one of my ducks when there are exactly four of them left on my shelf?
They're not going to get any cheaper people.... and you can be sure when I've sold them at least 5 of the watchers will email me asking if I've got any more 'cos they was watching and didn't get one...

Other joys of the day:
Some bloke knocking on my garage wall. Turns out he's vaguely related to a friend, and would like to purchase my ford fiesta. Er.. a) it's not for sale b) if it was you don't want to buy it as it's in lots of small pieces, half of it isn't there and it needs massive amounts of welding. c) It's behind my ford capri that last moved three years ago, and I have no plans to move it soon.

Facebook doth not like me.
Try to do anything and a big notice comes up saying you haven't confirmed your account, check your email and confirm it. But.. I've done that...

Emailed the facebook dwarfs... reply.. your account has been confirmed... Yes.. I know that.. could you please tell the interweb thing that is has so it will work then?

Maybe tomorrow things will work....

illogical captain

I start my day the same as always, ask the Ma what's new?

News for today is the house idiot girl is renting out is damp, and tenants want it fixed pronto. Idiot girl has told the agents she has no money, and it will get fixed next year and if they don't like it, unlucky.

Er, Question.... What are you going to do when tenants leave the house 'cos it's uninhabitable, and the agents then don't advertise it for rent 'cos who wants to rent a damp house? Call me stupid, but no tenants = no income, so you have no choice but to fix it now...

Then comes the next thing... Idiot girl is not very well. And she's supposed to be "going out" tonight, but is in no condition to drive anywhere. "Unlucky" is the thought that crosses my mind.

Fast forwards a couple of hours. Idiot girl is still ill, but Ma has "volunteered" that I can drive her to the pub, and collect several other drunken fools she calls friends on the way.

Oh, thank you Ma! Not like we're in the Xmas rush and I've got work to do... Plus really ill, so is it clever to add really drunk too?

So sucker collects idiot girl, and collects "friends". Where to now IG?
"The monkey, you know where that is?" no.
"Next to northern college" still no.
"Hood green" Que?
"Near my horse".. Still a bit on the cold side. I've got this really good idea... it's called I drive and you say left or right when there are choices...

As we bimble along there are several topics of conversation:
1) How much they hate the other people they are all going to go and meet.
2) How the pub is freezing cold, and a sh*thole.

No, I don't ask why the hell they are going there then, much as I'd like to. They then say one of the nicest things anyone has said to me.... "He's not like Idiot Girl at all". Thank the LORD for that.. though it is perhaps rather rude to talk about someone in the third person when they're in the same car.

Idiot girl, just say no.

On not getting it in the slightest

I haz done it. But I'm failing to see the point. Several years after everyone else I now have a facebook account.

But, er, just what is the purpose of this fabulous must have thing?

No, really, I'm serious...
So far all I've worked out is you put the name of your real life friend in the top box, and thump search. It then brings back lots of results that aren't your friend at all. You then do this several more times, narrowing it down by inserting their location, weight, DNA structure etc, and you finally find your friend.

It then says click here to add them, so you do, and fill out a captcha, and then it says they will think about it, oh and here is a massive list of people you don't know remotely, but are they your friends??

After half an hour I've found oh! four friends, and my sister Idiot Girl. I clicked block on idiot girl, as frankly knowing her in real life is waaaay too much.

I consider myself to be good with all this interweb stuff, having been online since 1995.
~hovis advert music~
I can remember mosaic browser, then there was that new fangled netscape thing. I had a hotmail account before it belong to microsoft... And I had a 28.8 modem for the speedz..... so why don't I have a clue what the bloody hell this social networking guff is all about?

If anyone can tell me what happens now, and when the excitement is likely to start (So I can wear my brown pants on that day) I'd be happy to hear from you...

Tubetastic Thursday - Camouflage

Hello world! Why, is it Thursday already? I'm only up to Monday on the work thing at best.

I bring to you:
Stan Ridgeway - Camouflage.


Oh! Spooky! Dead marine's ghost saves the day in 'Nam.

Also one song you are pretty much guaranteed never to ever hear on the radio. Said video is only the radio edit at 5 minutes, the full version being over 7 minutes. And no DJ will ever risk playing it as they're afraid peeps will go off and do something else instead, and there won't be time to put 500 adverts an hour on for the jelly bar.

This actually made no. 5 in 1986, but I don't even remember it being on the radio then...

A spaceman came travelling

on his ship from afar,
'Twas light years of time since his mission did start,
And over a village he halted his craft,
And it hung in the sky like a star, just like a star

Yes, the countdown to doom is drawing closer. And I have questions, dammit! Or they could be badly disguised rants....

Uno:
Why do we all have to rush out and buy lots of things for other people?
'Cos it's Christmas! the sheeple will cry.

Oh. So you have to do it's cos everyone else does. The rest of the year you can ignore them, safe in the knowledge that you don't have to buy them anything until the one day comes. I must be some sort of sucker to buy peeps I care about things all year round for no other reason than I want to.

Dos:
Where are you going round 'tarn to get pissed on Xmas?
What do you mean you're not???

There may or may not be a Jesus bloke sitting on a cloud watching us (I suspect not), but if he is I'm sure he's dead proud that you're celebrating him coming to save mankind by going out and getting totally hammered. Look dad, another one passed out in the gutter... Smote him son, he's a bad 'un! Another drunk dies choking on vomit.

Of course as my "friends" & "family" know about me, this means I can be exploited. Don't book a taxi, phone the idiot boy at 3am and tell him it didn't arrive and you're stranded and come help. Or last year, when your child gets half it's teeth knocked out by your other child at 1am, but you're too drunk to do anything about it, phone old reliable to take the happy family to hospital...

Three:
What do you want for Christmas?
Nothing.
You must want something!
World peace?

Why am I supposed to want several hundred quids worth of stuff? I'm not mega rich, but by looking after the pennies, if I want something I can go out and buy it. Ergo, if I'm not buying things, I have no current desire for things.

Perhaps they think by spending lots on shiny things they show they love me. I would be a lot more impressed if they did something for me that had meaning, personal effort, not just throw money at a problem. Draw me a card. Write something for me. Sing a song if you have to. Oh, that requires work... Bottle of booze it is then.

Bah humbug!

No suprises

Teh BBC has a waste 20 mins of your life and find out who you is test thing.
My results are:


Openness describes to what extent you are receptive to novel ideas, creative experiences and different values.

Conscientiousness describes to what extent you are organised, strategic and forward-planning.

Extroversion describes to what extent you are inclined to experience positive emotions and how attracted you are to social, stimulating experiences.

Agreeableness describes to what extent you are concerned about the feelings of others and how easily you form bonds with people.

Neuroticism describes to what extent you react to perceived threats and stressful situations.

Quelle suprise! Introvert nutcase without friends.
Can I get my 20 minutes back plz?

Smart party membership : DENIED

Or Idiot Girl gets it wrong again.

Idiot Girl is still not very good in the walking department, having previously mangled the leg to hell. Idiot Girl has a dog, Sasha. Who has just had 'bits' removed at the vets, and has been kept inside without walkies for days.

Idiot Girl takes Sasha for a walk. Without crutches. Or a mobile phone. In the style of a Mr. R. Harris, can you guess what happens next kids?

Ans: Splat! I've fallen and I can't get up! I'll just lie on the pavement until someone comes to my rescue then shall I? Yes, that would be a good plan.

Smart party membership: Lifetime ban.

On crap pub names

I have the radio on while in the workshop to try and cut down on the tedium of it all. Sadly, in an attempt to make money they have adverts. Usually this includes one for some position relating to making of adverts (scriptwriter, sales manager etc). This is because, the adverts are in fact complete and utter shash.

But there's a new one, where no one has a hope in hell of making a successful advert. The basic premise is ok. Pub has a new chef, with exciting menus, freshly made food and they want you to come and eat there.

The problem is, the pub is called "The Jelly Bar". J-E-L-L-Y Bar.... Does this make you think of quality food? Or ice cream....

Of course crap FM and their adverts team have made it even less appealing by using a bloke who sounds like Chris Tarrant. No, not "who wants to be a millionaire" final answer? serious Chris Tarrant, more like Tiswas pissed off his face Chris Tarrant.

Which then makes you think of Sally James's Cleavage, and do they sell milk at the Jelly bar?

Tubetastic Thursday - The carnival is over

You, yes YOU ! get to choose today.

Feeling downbeat?
I bring to you:
Nick Cave & the bad seeds - The carnival is over.


Feeling upbeat?
I bring to you:
Boney M - The carnival is over.



The lesson here is anyone who feels upbeat has been suitably punished. Even if I wasn't 24 hours a day "negative" as some people claim, I think I'd go for the Nick Cave version.

Yes, I know it's by the seekers originally. And whilst I quite like the original version, I think Nick turns it into the song about ending and doom it should be. Quite what the lyrics mean I'm not 100% sure. It's a fairly safe bet that it's not about carnivals.

Theory uno:
They be off to a war in the morning. And unlike Baldrick didn't think of carving their name on a bullet, and thus are likely to be deado shortly.

Theory dos:
Singer is dying of some slow terminal disease, and this is it. Goodbye....

illogical

as mr. Spock would most likely say.

Today's big spam is an email telling you your email account has been deleted. Er, surely that's a spiral that can only end with the destruction of the space / time continuum?

Your email account is deleted.
You have been sent notice of this deletion by email.
To the deleted account.
But you are reading the deletion email.
50 goto 10...

Five points for original thinking though. Way better than last week's hot spam of "your facebook password was changed".

O RLY?
I say old chap, that's most shocking... considering it's been changed 500 times this hour alone... quite an achievement considering I don't have a facebook account...

More spam as it happens.. Lots more..

One and a half percent

I did it. Sort of. Badly.

I met up with the world famous Misty, or more precisely her viking alter ego. And her viking friends.


Misty tells me they are all very nice people, and I should interact with them. The problem of course is no matter how nice they are (and they where), I am a total and utter failure in the interaction thing.

But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here
I don't belong here

(tnx radiohead).

True, after this photo was taken, to the untrained eye, it did appear that they engaged in attempting to beat seven bells of sh*te out of each other. I'm not sure I would like to take part in this if I was invited (I was assured they're all highly trained at clonking each other).

But I failed miserably in the more peaceful pursuits that I could have done. I wonder occasionally if I'm perhaps somewhere on the autistic spectrum, I've never been able to do the small talk thing well. But that feels like cop out, blame my failing on this label sort of thing.

Normally at this point I would have given Misty her birthday presents (my excuse for going), and buggered off into the sunset to be miserable thinking what could have been. But due to unexpected happenings which I won't go into, as Misty will no doubt a) want to tell the tale herself, as it's her tale, and b) make a much better job of it, I found myself having a second day of Misty and friends.

Which be where the 1.5 percent comes in. That being how far round the earth I drove today. Woo! Knackered now! I know some people prolly go that far to the corner shop, but I'm not used to it. Sadly I am used to getting the evil eye from certain people who think I'm stupid to do such things. C'est la vie.

Friday the 13th

Holds no fear for me. Having lived my entire life at houses with the number 13, if something bad was to happen it would have done it by now. Or it has and I've just failed to notice.

I am, however, in a mixture of excited / sad / unhappy / hyper. For on Saturday I am to meet a certain blogger and her killer friends. I should be happy. But all I can think of is how many ways I can get it wrong. Self doubt, your name be C'riz.

In an attempt to break the negative thinking, I am playing a selection of my favourite teenage death songs, with a heavy emphasis on the silly ones. I know it was only yesterday I was leaning on the youtube lazy blogging crutch, but My blog! My blog!, I'm going to do it again, as I feel you should share my pain.

I bring to you:
Bob Hudson - Teenage Cremation



At a 100 miles per hour,
we ran into a truck,
the driver he just looked at us ,
and all he said was "Ooooargh! Look out!!"

I feel better already...

Tubetastic Thursday - Woodpeckers from space

I'm still not feeling too well, and there are important things for the weekend. Important, terrifying things. So have to hope for improvement soon..

But as I'm suffering, I think it's only fair that everyone else does too. 80's style..

I bring to you:
Video kids - woodpeckers from space



Now there's a song you couldn't make today.... Besides the random awfulness of it, there's also the would get zapped by the copyright police factor.

The 7 inch starts with a speak n spell sample of w-o-o-d-p-e-c-k-e-r. Entertainingly, if you have spotify installed there is a cover version on there. A cover version of something this bad. They make it worse than the original by not being able to afford a speak n spell, so get a bloke to pretend to be one instead.... Most odd.

Can you think of anything worse than this?

ill

I appear to have a stinkin' cold, with the added bonus of sudden rush of work to do, which means more time in my cold damp garage.

So my brain is now totally fried and I haz nothing to blog about. Plz to read some of the clever people's blogs from the side bar >>>

Normal service will be resumed just as soon as I can work out what normal is.

She tried the green

she tried the red. I'll have 'em both that's what she said*

Well, the post strikes are off until the new year. Yay!

Or maybe not. 'Cos of course having expected a strike tomorrow I've not busted my nuts to get the work I have got done for then, 'cos there's no point is there? Plenty of time, do it at a sensible pace and not make mistakes. Now there isn't a strike I'm waaaay behind.

It's also woken up the idiots to buying things. I got asked this question:
What would you do for a gear knob (no 11) and 2 sets of dice?

The bad old days are back... He wants to buy 3 things (total value £10). He's expecting a price of <£5 for all 3, when the most expensive is £6 on it's own. Do I a) not bother wasting my time replying or b) do what I'd like to do and tell him I'd take them off the shelf, but you're going to have to pay £10 you pikey.

(*Don't you rock me daddy-o - vipers skiffle group)

Tubetastic Thursday - Earth Angel

Thursday again. I'm not sure it's a good Thursday.

Tonight I get to go to the photo class and explain why I have no photos of canals, but I'm sure I can bluff it. Or sit at the back and let the extroverts take over and there won't be time for little old me.

I'm also getting killed slowly, by no fault of my own. The post strikes rumble on, and what should be a busy time selling xmas tat isn't. People aren't stupid and if the strikes continue nobody will buy anything. Being 40% down on normal isn't very nice :(

Not looking too good for Idiot Girl either. Be back at work by the end of December or go down to half pay. Currently the people in the know think it will be at least 6 more months before she can work, so that's going to be 'interesting'.

But enough of this doom and gloom.

I bring to you:
Marvin Berry and the Starlighters - Earth Angel



This is of course the fictional group created for "back to the future".

Earth angel has also been recorded by just about everyone, "the penguins" version prolly being the version most people know. Whilst it's a good version, I think I like this one just a soupcon more. Methinks the BTTF connection helps boost it. You want George & Lorraine to live happily ever after, or is that just me?

Anyways, feel good song, which be what I need right now. Normal moping will be resumed shortly.

On doing it wrong... again

Twice in one week. I think I should be locked up away from humanity where I cannot do any harm.

I gave someone who doesn't read this blog something (being vague just in case I'm wrong on the previous statement). And they was happy for a while. But as usual I can't say "enjoy" and leave it at that, no I have to #### it all up, and no doubt now the happy is tempered somewhat with what a useless git I am.

SO I will go away and be miserable. But it won't help, and I will get it wrong again next time. Life. Why bother? I'm just lurching from one failure to the next.

On doing it wrong

I'm on a photography course. Not really for the photos, but to interact with real humans as well.
On Saturday I was supposed to interact on a "field trip" to the Sheffield canal.

It's fair to say the words "epic fail" come to mind. Interactions: 0.5 (they talked, I tried to run away).

Photos taken: 121
Photos taken that contain a canal, or elements thereof: 0

Think this one was the closest:

Tubetastic Thursday - Crucified

It's Thursday. And I'm in huge amounts of pain, as I went to readjust my hairband, my shoulders spasmed and now they plus my neck are going ARGGHHH! for no sensible reason. Add in I have a lot of physical work to do and today will be "interesting".

But never mind that tot. You're here, (well I assume you're here, you may not be) for Tubetastic Thursday, yay!

I bring to you:
Army of lovers - Crucified



Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I like this one for the lady with the gravity defying breasts aren't you?

Well, it is true to say if La Camilla (for that be who she is) was to offer me the chance to put my head between them and go blubble blubble blubble I wouldn't say no. For that would be rude.

But the truth is I actually like this as a song. It's a good example of euro cheesyness. In fact back in 1992 when this came out I actually spent hard earned money in rip off HMV buying the import album. As this was pre interweb it was of course priced at think of a number and double it pricing.

It's still one of my favourites today, though of course since the t'interweb you can now find euro cheese that you'd never have heard before 'cos the marketing men decided you wouldn't like it. We've never had it so good.

ps. As observed by one of the you tube comments, one of the blokes does look like Amy Winehouse, with the exception he can sing.

On not being defective

I think I'm going mad. Yes, madder than normal.

For a while now I've been thinking I can't see properly. Like I'm driving along and I have to concentrate to make out the next car's number plate. So being a dutiful citizen who follows the laws I booked myself in to the opticians.

Just been there now, explains my concerns, read my chart plz. Er.... you can easily see two lines more than the driving standard. Twiddle twiddle, better with this lens and all that tot, and the verdict is my current specs are the correct prescription, and I can see perfectly fine.

So it's either all in my little head, or I'm not allowing for it becoming winter and darker, or there be something wrong but it's not happening right there in the shop. I don't know if I should be relieved that there's nothing wrong, or upset that there's nothing wrong.

Oh well, it will soon be winter properly and I'll get SAD again and won't want to go out or do anything but sleep, so maybe that will cure it. Depression as something to look forwards to. Hmmm.. yes I am a fruitloop..

Wait! You have a tv?

No. If you read the tv guide, you don't need a tv.
- Grandpa, the lost boys.

He's right you know... Plz to observe exhibit A) over that way <<<<<

Yes, it's another book I bought in my mad book battle of wills with the post man. And it's surprisingly good. I'd even go so far as to say I'm definitely enjoying it more than sitting down and watching the dvd.

The freaky thing is, every time I pick it up and look at the cover I hear Brad Fiedel's terminator theme in my head.

Awooga! It's a wild tangent... Naturally I've not seen terminator salvation yet, but the message I'm getting from the mean streets is it's not very good. So I have a theory why... It's the soundtrack. Composed by Danny Elfman. You know, the bloke who did the simpsons theme. So 'tis obvious why the film I haven't seen is no good.

I'm going back to my padded cell now. If you have any wild theories you'd like to inject into my psyche then plz, comment me up!

Tubetastic Thursday - Live it up

It's Thursday, and I'm feeling 80's today. Ok, the decade that taste forgot, but technically my era, so what the hell.

Caution, may cause earworm.

I bring to you:
Mental as anything - Live it up.



Of course this was massive due to being used in crocodile dundee. The single has a huge pic of gurning Paul Hogan, a large crocodile dundee logo, and a little "mental as anything" hidden away.

While I like it, I must admit, having downloaded er legally purchased their album, it is, in fact, a complete and utter load of tosh. Shame really.

Oh go on then:

Madama Butterfly

I got another one of my cheapy books delivered.
But I think I like the envelope more than the book:

2nd class large letter for 47p or I'll use this knife....

A book at bedtime : Roadblaster #1 - hell ride

Ok, I admit to buying this book. I was trying to injure postmen, and that's my excuse.

Not fooling anyone am I?

One of my weaknesses is the post apocalyptic trash novel. Popular for a brief period in the eighties when it looked like Ronnie Raygun was likely to accidentally use the wrong colour phone to order a pizza and wipe out the planet by accident.


If you've never read one it works like this. The "hero" is a 'Nam vet etc. Who happens to be taking a weekend out of civilisation, living off the land in the wilderness when the button gets pushed and nukes go off everywhere. Lucky him, he doesn't die. But he now has a quest, to cross the US of A to "find his family". In the way are corrupt government killers, biker gangs, radioactive zombies etc. Our hero spends the rest of the book protecting the weak, shooting lots, and coming out with worse one liners than any Arnold movie.

So simple mindless fun for an evening's reading.

Except... this book is wrong. Very wrong. It looks right. Double checks the list:

tag line, check! :
After the war the dead outnumbered the living and gasoline was more precious than blood
Silly title, check!
Author with unpronounceable name, check!
Nuke scorched cover art, check!

Problem's are:

Boom.. there go the nukes. So he goes for a drive to see what the bang was. Now at this point there should be radiation mutated zombies, biker gangs etc. There isn't. Instead there be friendly townsfolk who feed him and give him fuel before waving him off on his quest.

He goes to the big city, and starts helping people. Still no zombies etc. This is all wrong. In fact I'm at page 100, and nobody has died yet... There's no descriptions of burger joints where the only things char broiled where the customers.. No bullets tearing thru skulls, brains flying like strawberry thick shake.

It is, to be blunt, an epic fail. I don't think I can read more. It's mad max - the disney channel cut. The last time I was this disappointed with a book was "rendezvous with rama". (Oh look an alien spacecraft, oh yes, it's alien alright, right that'll do, then end.)

The only thing that truly amazes me is he found somebody stupid enough to publish two more followup books, imaginatively called "death ride" and "blood ride".

More books coming soon...

Tubetastic Thursday - Daria

Thursday, blah, busy busy busy, places to go, people to kill etc.

I cut to the chase and bring to you:
Daria - Esteemers.



I identify with Daria. Yes indeedy.

She has the mega popular sister who hates her, the dysfunctional family etc.

I also have the envy, as she has Jane Lane as her best friend. I need an outsider best friend. ~sigh~

I like having low self esteem, makes me feel special.

Clickage ideas required

So it's Wednesday already, I've got work piled up to here, and I also want to go to machine mart for the don't pay the vat on shiny new tool things day, which also happens to be today.

So veh busy... but tomorrow is Thursday. Thursday of rather boring clicky photography course. The one where last Thursday the nice man said it was very important that we all go and do the clicky.

The only photo I've taken all week was on my phone today. A car where some deranged person had stuck on gajillions of flower stickers, and then put in the back window "pimped my ride".

So I've got this mental picture of everyone else turning up with carefully composed masterpieces, and I've got one wonky shot of a crap car.

So, dear reader, what can I take pics of today that isn't going to need loads of time to do, given I have to be busy with the acid tank and buying shiny?

Help. Plz.

Doctor Doctor!

Can't you see I'm burning, burning?
Oh doctor, doctor, is this love I'm feeling?

Or is it in fact not love, and more like something very wrong with my foot? Yes, it's the foot isn't it....

I'm not a happy chap. 5 weeks ago I woke up with my foot hurting for no apparent reason. Nothing looks wrong with it, just aches all the time and goes argh! every step I take.

2 weeks ago I thought bugger this, and went to the new shiny all singing and dancing (them not me) walk in fix it clinic, as it would be 5 weeks to see a doctor at my own practise. 5 mins later I am seeing the triage nurse. Looks normal.. yes.. I know that. Take Ibuprofen & paracetamol for a week, and if no better come back and see the vet.

1 week ago I went back to see the doctor. Looks normal... yes... I still know that... I now have some diclofenac sodium 50mg.

Today I still have pain, and less tablets left. So I googled what it is, and it's an anti-inflammatory. But, er, said foot looks normal and not swelled in the slightest.

So, er, what's going on? C'riz suspects I've been given a big box of do nothing tabs in the hope that whatever it is will clear itself up in the time it takes me to use them all up.

Teh happy, I no have it.

The war is over

I won. I think.

Books are now appearing behind my door, posted properly. So I could have beaten the postman into submission, or, perhaps, the original postman is back, in which case I've not won, and I am torturing an innocent. Bugger.

I also have quite a few books to read. The problem with buying books off ebay is sellers are a bunch of lazy gits. Take a photo of the cover, type in the title and author, and that's all they do. Call me stupid, but surely you sell more things if you say, include a photo of the back cover? You know, sell to the people who are browsing, not just to the peeps who want a specific title.

So I've been buying by a combination of "read his books before" and "interesting cover".
The one I'm reading at the min is:



This satisfies both criteria.

Joe Haldeman is of course perhaps best known for the award winning "the forever war". It's not my favourite, which be "All My Sins Remembered". He took a bullet in 'Nam, so rather unsurprising that his works tend to be anti war.

Then there's the cover. Oh my.

Cat faced alien being - Check.
Bold man with ray gun - Check.
Woman lacking clothing - Check.
(If I had a bottom like that I'd never leave the house.)

So it's a double reason to buy. And only a pound too.

It's actually been a while since I was seriously into reading. As an ankle biter I read pretty much constantly, which baffled the adults. How come he's so crap at spelling and writing when he reads so much? The answer is obvious to me, I was busy being in another world far in the future. I didn't have time to take notice of how the words are spelled, only where they took me. Silly people.

Sadly, I won't get to read all these books. I have already caught the Ma stashing some of them in a carrier bag-o-doom. This being why I have purchased some titles 5 or more times.

Carrier bag-o-doom > lost or charity shopped. Why the bag-o-doom is never used for good instead of evil I don't know. Sister in the bag? No problem...

Stopping now. Ramble over.

Tubetastic Thursday - Double bill

Thursday... now almost 2 hours old. 22 scary ones still to come.

I have a lot planned for Thursday. I will relate this now:

Firsty, I am the man who you phone up when you a) want your pooter fixing, and b) don't want to actually pay for your pooter fixing. It's got to levels of the silly now, as I get phone calls from people I've never even met. Friend of friend type stuff. And I just don't have time for it. So I now operate on a simple system, pay me real money or wait. Wait a long long long time. This has cut down the calls a lot.

But I got one on Sunday night. Friend of a relative, who we will call Sonja, for that be her name. I fix her pooter as notes of the realm are involved, and it's never really broken. More like infected to hell as still not learned when a box pops up saying "click here to infect your machine to hell" it's a good idea not to clicky. So going to go and do battle with that monster tommorrow.

I am also going to my photography course at night at the university 15 miles that way>>>

Did the first session last week, and it was fairly awful. No clicky occurred, but several old people monopolised the time with stupid questions. As instructed I duly emailed the lecturer, and casually pointed out I was one of the quiet ones, due to being mental. I got a reply saying a) ta for not killing him to death in a mental way, b) he intends to stop the oldies from monopolising the time, and c) (scary) hang around after the lesson and have a chat if I feel up to it. Do I feel up to it? Somehow I doubt it...

Anyways, you're not here for my so called life. You're here for Tubetastic Thursday. And as I missed a week I'm going to give you 2 bites of the cherry. Lucky you eh?

I bring to you:
Titanic. In 5 seconds.



Sorry, but this just makes me laugh like a total loon.

I also bring to you:
3 doors down - Be like that.



If I could be like that
I'd give anything
Just to live one day
In those shoes.
If I could be like that, what would I do?
What would I do?

Answers on a postcard..................

Battle of wills

I is back. Woo... yay... maybe...

Domestic situation is now at defcon 3, where people politely pretend there isn't a problem, while at the same time looking for any excuse to go off on one. Still, I can live with it.

Besides, I have new excitement in my life, A battle of wills, er, with the new postman.

As you may know, I am a professional fruit loop. So I have no option but to be self employed, as there is no way I could hold it together working for someone else. Now being self employed is bloody awful wonderful!

One of the things you tell normal people to make yourself look good is you're the boss and you set the hours you work. Want the day off, take the bloody day off, enjoy yourself! You're the boss! You kind of gloss over the bit where the job has to be done no matter what and there's only you. Besides 70 hour weeks are good for you.

Er,where was I? Er... Yes! Well I never liked mornings, so I made an executive decision that I'm not going to work them. So while normal people are going about their ant like lives, for the last twelve years I've been sleeping my way thru mornings. True, I have to work evenings to catch up the work, but it suits me fine.

Until last week. "ding dong ding dong.... ding dong ding dong" Wha? 10:30am.. Must be post... Opened the window, and it's not my normal postman. It's my (soon to be) enemy... Shambled downstairs, "parcel for you" he says, holding what is obviously a slim paperback book wrapped in brown paper.

"oh, thanks. Er, that would fit thru the letterbox".
"oh. Bye!" And off he goes.

Next day... 10:30am.. annoying doorbell plays a bontempi special version of "yankee doodle". It's the same postman. With another very thin parcel. Hang on, there's a pattern emerging here, but I can't quite put my finger on it....

Obviously I cannot let him win, and just get me out of bed every time I get a parcel. Then I had a revelation. He can only wake me up once in a day, no matter how many parcels he has for me. He also has a finite space in his post sack, and if it is exceeded will have to go back to the post office for the rest of the mail. I can punish him back!

So I went on ebay and accidentally bought a few books. Next time he got me up he had four parcels, and I detected was not over happy. But he'd still got me up... so up goes the ante. Back to ebay....

Today he had 10 books, and even less happy. But, he knows my game now and turned up half an hour earlier, the fiend!

The question, dear reader, is do I escalate it further? I have been buying books that I want. But I could start buying not for desire to own, but for desire to punish. I'm thinking big heavy books that no one wants and thus are cheap. £10 spent on crap books could easily weigh 5 kilos, maybe more.

To be continued....

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye

I'm putting blogging on hold for a bit... Yes, I know you won't spot much difference.

Real life™ is rapidly becoming a misery, so blog would just become one big boring rant. I will return if/when teh happy does.

Take care.
C'riz

Television

"The drug of the nation, breeding ignorance and feeding radiation"
as the song goes.

By now long term reader(s) will have realised I'm strange and don't do what normal people do. Yes, you guessed it, I have very little time for television.

In fact my interactions tend to be Ma screws up the tv and shouts at me to fix the tv now Now NOW! as she's missing whatever mind numbing pap they are showing. I'm not over fast at doing this, as there are 4 remotes (tv, video, dvd, satellite), and because I don't use them it takes me a while to work out a) which one is which and b) what button to press. (She normally screws it up by changing the source to something that isn't switched on - no signal = no picture).

The last time the tv broke in a smoke leaks out way it made no difference to my life at all. Well apart from the Ma driving me insane about finding the "perfect" tv to replace it. When the end days come and it's just me left I won't have an idiot box, and will have hours of entertainment with the tv licensing people who assume you can't live without one, and thus you must be lying and will keep sending you demanding letters to stop lying and start paying.

I do have the odd small weakness though. Not that I watch them on a tv of course. The Americans have had the "season premiere" of CSI Las Vegas on Thursday night. And thanks to the evil powers of the interweb and my rather fast broadband I can start downloading an illegal copy on Friday, and 3 minutes later can be watching it. Why bother waiting 6 months or more for it to come here?

I must admit to being in geek heaven. The episode opens with this:

Yes, it's a "bullet time" shot of morpheus from the Matrix kicking ass. Ok, so he's called Ray in CSI, but he'll always be Morpheus to me. It's almost worth losing Grissom to get Morpheus.

So I have 45 minutes of tv a week until Januaryish. I feel slightly dirty, the bad kind of dirty.

Made in England

That bloke with the wrong way round name who deserves to die painfully for the Diana dead guy song has a song called made in England. It includes the lines:

I was made in England like a blue Cortina
&
If you're made in England, you're built to last

Which has to be total and utter proof that he knows bugger all. When did you last see a blue cortina? I could give him 10 points if he'd chosen, say, a green land rover, but cortina? The mk5 having the dubious honour of being the most scrapped car ever. Millions made, naff all survived.

Er, where was I? Ah yes, made in England. You don't see that on products any more. People will tell you it's 'cos everything is made in the far east, because they can do it cheaper and better than England ever could. These people are wrong.

I will now reveal to you why we don't have a manufacturing industry any more:
Brass plaques.

We lost it because we kept putting beautiful brass plaques on our products, and those clever foreigner types started using stickers and undercut us (due to not having to pay for brass plaques, or men to fit them), and bang! we have no industry.

I'm surprised we even won the bloody war. Exhibit a:

Note the carefully riveted on plaque?

This be a generator for a merlin plane engine. You don't need the info the plaque tells you to enable you to fit a new one, 'cos if it stops working your plane drops out of the sky and goes splat. It also feels a colossal waste of resources, given the plaque and generator, and plane it's attached to is likely to be going splat in an occupied part of Europe within months at best.

If you visit one of the museums where they have the dug up remains of a ww2 spitfire on display, you will see 1 x mangled merlin engine, 5 x rusty bits of could be anything metal, and a 1m square display board full of recovered brass plaques.

While I'm going on, I'll give you my other theory on these things. It was a simple anti German tactic. Hans shoots down your plane, but cannot steal your secrets 'cos all the plaques on everything say made using patent number.... and it wouldn't be the gentlemanly thing to copy when we got it recorded as ours first.

Despite costing us our industry, I secretly love the things. In my shed I have a lathe, built in 1942. Despite the war, it has a beautiful how to use plaque. My shed also has a modern lathe made in China that is 1 year old. The instruction stickers are peeling off already.

Tubetastic Thursday - Most Haunted

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
The tape didn't get me, but Idiot Girl is having a very good try.

It works like this:
On any given day, state that you intend to move into new house tomorrow.
Sensible people then point out the 5 billion things that still need to be done.
Idiot Girl pooh pooh's simple things like there being no electricity, and if we just work at it, it will be done in time for tomorrow.
Work your little socks off while Idiot Girl pretends to lean on a shovel and supervise.
Rinse and repeat.

Anyways, it be Thursday which means... Tubetastic Thursday.

I bring to you:
haunted uk. (caution, contains sweary words).



This be a p*sstake of most haunted. Which for people lucky enough not to have access to uk tv is a lets go investigate the scary ghosts.. oooh scary... argh! Mind numbing pap tv for the masses.

I think my favourite bit be the Derek Acorah section from 5:42.

As a rational scientific mind owning person, I obviously think all this ghost stuff is a load of made up rubbish.

It will probably come as no surprise, but Idiot Girl is into this in a BIG way. Currently cannot do bugger all useful 'cos of the leg, but can somehow manage to go to "the spooky church" (her words not mine) twice a week.

Suspending disbelief for a minute, I'm going to pretend there are the spirits of all the dead around us like Idiot Girl claims. I'm still left with some problems with the whole gig.

You're a spirit right... and presumably you can thus go anywhere, and watch anything you would like happening in the world... so why would you decided you like to come to an asbestos clad shack in delightful Barno on sea, just so some git can charge two quid a pop to the gullible?

Why do we never get reports in the newspapers that go like: Gullible person dies after being told to dig up treasure which turned out to be world war 2 unexploded ordinance. Are you telling me there isn't a single spirit with a twisted sense of humour?
It's a right wheeze Gerald, you get the medium to tell them to go and find the family treasure, and the suckers go off and dig where you tell them. Boom!

N if these "medium" types can hear messages from spirits, and there's spirits everywhere, why don't they go insane in short order, what with the constant noises of all the spirits? 1 spirit per dead guy, there must be 1000's of them on every square meter of land.

Of course the ultimate proof that it's a load of honk : Idiot Girl buys it. I've never failed by following the rule of do the opposite of everything she does. I live my life by it. It works with films, books, people, everything!

The cassette of doom revisited

I have played the cassette of doom.

I'm not going to put the video on here, for it is obviously a genuine doom generator.

Not 48 hours after playing, I am told due to an unexpected hospitalisation I won't be meeting the lovely Debbie Mcgee, Manic Misty next weekend after all. Hugely disappointing after lots of yay! grade looking forwards to. So I don't want to inflict doom on you all, or people you know, or as in my case friends of people I know.

I will risk saying Squeakypony was half right, as one side was blank. The other contains some unknown Lancastrian comedian who is rather awful at the teh funny.

Message ends.

The cassette of doom

Whilst at Idiot Girl's future new gaff today I noticed yet another pile of previous person's (ie. dead guy) possessions has been dumped outside for disposal by Idiot Girl.

One item being an 80's cheap n nasty hi fi. With a cassette tape in it. Curiosity has got the better of me, and I have the tape here on my desk. I haven't played it yet, just in case it's like the video tape in the ring. Plus I've got to find a tape playing machine somewhere.

I don't know why, but if I had to guess what was on the tape, I'd go for it being a very heavy bagpipes version of The Northern Lights of Old Aberdeen.

Anyone else want to have a guess?

Additional: Will play & video it, and post on Monday so you all get to die too...

Tubetastic Thursday - Smoke gets in your eyes

Another week nearly killed.

I bring you a double bill:
Smoke gets in your eyes



The platters of course. I suspect when most people think of this song they think of the platters as the original version. These people are wrong. It was written for the musical Roberta by Jerome Kern in 1933, 23 years before the platters came along.

Just about everyone has had a go at covering it. I have a bit of a soft spot for this song, which possibly explains why I have 25 different versions of it on my hard drive.
Why do I like it? Not sure. Perhaps it's a longing to experience lurve the way he describes it, so sure it's real. "I of course replied, something here inside cannot be denied", but I would like to prove the friends wrong and not suffer their derision. Yes, I know, V. Unlikely.

I also think it would make an excellent choice for the funeral. It's short, sweet, and would lighten the occasion beautifully.

Part the second:
Verity Thirkettle shows how it's done on harp.



Had to include this one, not only is it a really nice version, but with her name, could you see her doing anything other than playing harp? It would be the one time skool careers advice got it right, brickyard, down t'pit, brickyard, Verity? That's a nice name, you should play harp...

An experiment in perception

Or examining the mind of Idiot Girl. Yes, I know, a stupid thing to do.

I went to Asda for some shopping at 9:30 pm. Due to them digging up the bloody car park again the shop shuts early at 10pm. Which means... bargains! on stuff that must be sold today due to "sell before" date. Stuff that is perfectly fine, but computer says becomes deadly toxic at store closure.

Then I saw it... clearance flowers. Girlies like flowers I am told. So I bought Idiot Girl some. Took them straight round to her house.. I have brought you a present.

"Oh! they're lovely!" she exclaims.

Part one of the experiment is complete. All I need to do is wait for the results of part two. Which doesn't take long... Idiot Girl spots the reduced price ticket. The brow furrows. Idiot Girl spots they have cost 10p. Anger occurs. "You tight git!", and holds them away from her in revulsion.

The question is, how have the flowers changed? They're still the same flowers, if they cost 10p or the not reduced £4 they will have cost in the afternoon.

Exhibit A: Flowers. It was later stated that they do smell nice, and are "not that bad".



What other experiments could I try on her?

I did find a 3 CD box set in the rubbish bin whilst filling her car with diesel, but decided it would not make a good present. She only listens to whatever the radio tells her is hot at the minute.

I did have a moment of doubt if I should rescue the cd's from the bin, as technically it's stealing. Then I reasoned the original owner obviously doesn't want them, Asda won't even know they are there and will destroy them with the other rubbish, and if I don't like them I can give to someone else / charity. Reuse and save the earth.

The thing that prolly did swing it for "take" is I was filling up Idiot Girl's car... so it's her number plate on the CCTV.

The code

I quote:

Never violate a woman, nor harm a child. Do not lie, cheat or steal. These things are for lesser men. Protect the weak against the evil strong. And never allow thoughts of gain to lead you into the pursuit of evil.

This be the code of Druss the Legend. I like to think I can follow said code, perhaps struggle a bit on protecting the weak.

We took Idiot Girl to b&q, the most evil of DIY shops in existence to buy crap for her house. Oh.. a big heap of discounted tiles. Muggins gets to dig thru the pile and find out how many boxes of "warm yellow" ones there are. For warm yellow are 20p per box of 22 tiles. So enough tiles to do the kitchen for under £2.

Later on, Idiot Girl says to the Ma, we should have bought all the blue tiles as well to tile the bathroom. Ma says I may be persuaded to take Idiot Girl back to purchase tiles. Idiot Girl reveals her cunning plan of swapping the price tickets on the blue tiles from £1 to 20p from previously purchased yellow tiles. Ma tells Idiot Girl that I will take her to B&Q, but will not be involved in any price diddling because I am honest and do not do that sort of thing.

This conversation is later relayed to me, in a hey! tomorrow you get to take Idiot Girl for tiles! Won't that be fun! sort of way.

So doth this mean I am the righteous one for having principles and sticking to them?
Or perhaps I'm stupid for not taking advantage, after all B&Q don't want the tiles, otherwise they wouldn't price any of them so low?

I think perhaps the real truth is, my sister is a pikey. Her 8 boxes of 20p tiles scanned at £40, so original price is £5 a box. But at £1 they are "ripping her off".. 5p for a tile is too much.

The thought of her scheme makes me feel dirty, the bad kind of dirty. I think I'll stay in the car.

The Koffi Lounge

After many years, and gajillions over budget the former civic theatre in Barno has reopened. And it has a poncy coffee shop "The Koffi lounge", that advertises on the local radio. Their advert offers "Barista trained staff", and "Coffee like you've never tasted before".

Hang on a minute... I can just about get my head around the concept of a job title for a bloke who makes coffee, but, barista trained? So not the real deal, just trained...

~wobbly lines as we go to the training session~

Hi, I'm Steve and I'll be your Barista trainer for the day... Watch closely pupils...

This is a kettle. And this is a jar of nescafe. Throw some nescafe in the paper cup, and add hot water from the kettle (does anyone need showing how to use the kettle?)

Then say "twoquidmilknsugaroverthereifyouwantemloveenjoyyourmeal."

Thank you class, you've all graduated with honours.

As to "Coffee like you've never tasted it before".. well that's not hard is it? Believe me, you've never tasted coffee like I make it either. Well, nobodies ever lived long enough asked for a second cup.

Sod it, I'll give you my secret coffee recipe.

1. First you need to select the right coffee... it be called "rocket fuel", it's the one in the jar amusingly shaped like a bomb.


2. Bang plenty in the cup, and then add an extra teaspoon for every hour of sleep you've missed.


3. Following the Dave Lister mantra of "triple caffeinated, quadruple sugared" you now need at least 3 teaspoons of sugar. I have caught some people making my coffee with lots of artificial sweeteners, which of course is full of wrong.


4. Splash of semi skimmed milk for the healthiness factor. (Works like extra large whopper meal with diet coke).


5. Drink. Wait for the buzz / death.

Tubetastic Thursday - Darling Lorraine

Hello pop pickers!

Today I'm taking you back to the year 1959. Unless you like buying compilation cd's of the "these songs never were successful, but aren't all terrible" type, then I doubt you'll have heard this one.

I give you:
The knockouts - darling Lorraine



Ok, now to try and explain this one. Well, first it's a great doo wop song. Two and a half minutes of spine tingling goodness. I must also admit to a liking of the idea of 1950's America. The stylised version we get from tv, the cars, the clothes, the music, drive ins. Yes, I realise it was not like that.

So who would be my darling Lorraine?

Lorraine Baines from "back to the future". Ok, four years too early, and fictional, but never mind eh?

Snail's graveyard

I guess we've all heard the theory that elephants go to the same spot instinctively to pop their clogs. Well, methinks it may also be true of snails.

Plz to observe exhibit a) :

Everyone's dead Dave.

There's actually a lot more of them in a 2 foot square area near my big shed. If I was to collect them up I'm sure I could do a Pol Pot stylee shell photo. Not that I would.

Two questions for the clever people:

Why so many dead snails? There be no poison there as far as I know.

Why do I like snails, but hate slugs?

Comfort eating

I am doing it. How do I know?

4 days in a row I've sat here and eaten a bag of cheese n onion crisps. I hate cheese n onion flavour but there's nothing else left as everyone else has eaten the nice flavours. Really not a good idea to buy the mega 36 pack size when 12 are not liked by anyone, even if it is a genuine tesco mega offer.

Omm nom nom. Crispy goodness that tastes odd. nom.

It begins

And I'm going to try not to rant...

Today marks the opening of the "I'm officially evil" season.

Idiot girl now "owns" two houses. New house is full of stuff left by previous dead owner, for he kind of has no use for it any more. So we truck along to new house. Plan being Idiot girl will examine her new domain, and decide what she's doing with olde furniture. 2 hours later and she's not made a single decision. Shall I put it on ebay? Should I get a house clearance bloke?

I know... I'll phone my idiot mate to come round and give her the ten penny tour instead... yeah... Oh look idiot mate.. an old sock.. woo!

By this point I've had enough. "Bugger this for a game of soldiers", as J R Hartley would say. Here is my clicky machine... if you want to take photos for ebay feel free. If you want to get a bloke do that instead. But some of us have jobs we should be doing while you're fucking around not deciding.

So no doubt I've officially "stormed off" and am "not being helpful".

So I do a few hours work, and it's 4:30 pm. I should point out that I've not had anything to eat yet... So I phoned Idiot girl.. what are you doing? Busy rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic... you can come and do bugger all too if you like?

Er, think I'll stay here and have food instead. Feel free to let me know when you want to actually do something worthwhile, or want driving about again.

So now I'm being "difficult"... What was I saying about not turning into a rant?

Tubetastic Thursday - Urge overkill

Is it Thursday already?

I bring to you:
Urge Overkill - Girl, you'll be a woman soon from pulp fiction.



Out of the songs on the soundtrack cd, this one is my favourite. Yes, I know it's a cover of Neil Diamond's original. But I am obviously too cool for Neil Diamond... and this one rocks more.

Pulp fiction? Well, in my opinion, ok-ish. The "Butch" segment is the weakest and lets it down a bit. Much better than reservoir dogs though.

Additional free tip:
Should you encounter a heroin overdose, don't phone round for an adrenalin shot. You be needing naloxone, and I doubt you will get a friendly dealer with some in his fridge. Keep you new found friend breathing and call the professionals kids. Drugs are bad, mmmkay?

Van full of ninjas

Seen on the motorway yesterday:

Tis a bit blurry, but it says at the bottom:
"Please note This vehicle contains no beer"

So what dear reader, is in the van? Is it a bluff and it is full of beer? Ninjas? Asprins?

Answers on a postcard plz.

Kill me now

Idiot Girl's natural state is to tell lies. True, as a social worker it's probably the first skill she was taught, but she obviously wasn't listening when they told her to try and make them believable.

So you get things like a swarm of killer wasps came in the house, killed the dog (that you can see is still alive), and they ate all the ice cream as well before resuscitating the dog (oh, that's why it's still alive then), then they flew away after threatening they would be back tomorrow so get more ice cream in or else ....

I have evolved a simple defense mechanism, do not believe a single word she says. Sadly, other more gullible humans do not use this technique.

Idiot Girl has bought a washing machine from someone on EvilBay. And can I collect it. (which of course translates to I'm telling you, not asking).

Ok Idiot Girl... ask the seller a) the dimensions so I can see if it will fit in my car, b) the address, c) a phone number. Simples, non?

Response via le Ma arrives this morning... address is: blah street, collect any time after 11am.

Er, that's not what I told her to ask, why didn't you do what you was told? Idiot Girl did! I'm just an evil person who believes the worst of poor innocent Idiot Girl.. it's not her fault.. it's a stupid seller... rant goes on for about half an hour.

Fortunately Idiot Girl has an easily guessed ebay password, so I kind of accidentally login to her account. And the message she sent is:

Hello. Could you send me ur address and a convenient time for me to collect please. Many Thanks Idiot Girl

Nice use of text speek there.... but rather lacking in the questions you where supposed to ask. Of course Idiot Girl continues to claim she did ask, despite me having proof that she didn't.

I then have the additional problem of the Ma's "I saw it on TV" view of computers. You know, how on CSI they have a blurry picture of a car, and computer whiz says I'll just see if I can sharpen it up, tappity tappity... and it's as clear as day. Or we need to stop the alien mothership... tappity tappity.. I've hacked into their control console, I'll just get it to crash into the sun...

So I have an address, and of course I can magically find out their phone number using the power of the interwebs... Er, how do I do that then? You just go tappity tappity and it comes up in flashing red letters. Er, no it doesn't... You need a name as well as an address. And when I've got a name from the electoral role search, you still need them not to be ex directory. Can't I hack into the search website and get round that?

At this point I had to make a little speech "GO AWAY!!!!!!! GET IDIOT GIRL TO DO WHAT SHE WAS ASKED TO DO IN THE FIRST PLACE".

This rant was sponsored by argh! kill me now corporation.