ghost shopping

Right, first we need some earworm.

This town, is coming like a ghost town
All the clubs have been closed down
This place, is coming like a ghost town
Bands won't play no more
Too much fighting on the dance floor

(or put the video on in the background)

Now imagine it's Saturday night, and you're wondering round a supermarket that feels like it's in an ex Russian republic. And you keep doing the nyah nyah nyaaaah bit from ghost town, then looking round guilty in case someone heard you. That was my visit to tescos.

They're currently in the middle of turning it from being a tescos into a tescos extra. The car park has gained a portacabin that says "temporary store" on the side. But the main shop is still open....




Sadly like Russia, there's not a lot to buy. But there's plenty of jolly signs telling you there's not a lot left.



Normally on a Saturday night this place would be full of cages of goods, with happy monkeys refilling the shelves.



Anyone for cereal? To make the feeling of doom more complete they had also turned off the background music. So tis basically a shop with no people in it, very little to sell, and an idiot wondering round doing the instrumental bit from ghost town.

If you wanted cheese, broccoli, bananas or haagen dazs ice cream it was your lucky day. These where the only remaining fresh products and where being sold at 10% of normal price or less just to get rid of them.

Idiot Girl likes over priced ice cream, so after phoning her and saying which would you like? (answer: all of them) we went to the till with a trolley full of ice cream, and 1 block of cheese. Then had to get the supervisor to allow us to buy so much of the same stuff. I tried really hard, but could only manage to reduce to humming ghost town while they over rode the till.

We left feeling a mix of joy at a trolley full of ice cream for £10, and sadness for all the tesco monkeys who have been fired.

Tubetastic Thursday

I've been thinking, some of the big clever blogs do the set thing on a set day trick. Eg sick in a hedge Friday for the duck, and requests for a large one on Wednesday from little miss 69.

True, it could just be a sneaky way of getting another day off. But I should have a predictable day. (Persons saying every day is predicted to be full of crap writing will be shot on account of no one likes a smart arse).

So my lazy blogging is going to be... give you something from the tube, and tell you what it means to me. Woo, yay! Zzzzzzzz ~fx: gunshot~

It begins with this:
Kim Wilde - Cambodia



Boring comment bit:

Kim, Kim, Kim... you did nothing for me in the eighties. Which just proves what a total spacker I was. How could I have missed pretty Ms. Wilde? Hubba hubba hub...

This song also appears to get missed a lot. Every predictable 80's compilation album will contain the rather more poor but popular "Kids in America". Indeed, this one has gained the idiot girl "what's this shit?" award for non recognition, so thus must be a good song.

I like songs that tell a story. This one be: her bloke gone missing in Cambodia, presumably after getting shot down, but 1.0 years later she's still sure she will see him again.
True, the video takes it a bit further that he's gone native, and she goes to join him at the end, but I don't get that from the lyrics.

It's a definite hairs raised song for me, but I was always a sucker for boy meets girl, boy loses girl, happy ever after? type slush.

Join us next week for more crap thoughts on something tubetastic.

Is there a doctor in the house?

So we went and collected Idiot Girl's x ray images.

I must admit to thinking the "after" repaired leg looks a lot like the kind of repair I'd do on an old cupboard that's going in the garage. Aesthetics don't matter as long as it holds together for a bit. Including the too long and wonky screws that come thru the other side.

If by any chance one of my many readers knows anything about this sort of thing (broken people, not bodging furniture) I'd welcome your comments.

Before fixing: (clicky for big & terrifying)

Ikea bargain corner:

Haircut 100

I have been told I need to get my sweede cut pronto....



Whilst it is a little longer than usual, I don't actually look that different. Wild eyed crazy is the dominant part of my look, so extra length does nothing.

Being an engineer I have of course come up with a solution that deos not involve money, or actually doing anything about the supposed problem. It's called "an elastic band".



Et Voila! I now have a socially acceptable amount of forehead, and can see properly. A plan with no drawbacks!

I have also been informed I am booked into the sweede cut shoppe on Friday at 2pm. As I didn't book it, I think it's totally fair that I don't pay for it as well.

Idiot Girl update.

Today was the Big Day. Idiot girl goes to hospital for pot removal on leg, and will then get a smaller pot for a couple of weeks before being declared fixed. Well that's what she thought....

Bzzzzt! Wrong!

Reality be... pot removed, and not getting another one. Doctors confer and present their expert opinion. Do nothing at all for two weeks, for if you as much as attempt to stand on it your leg will explode much like a ripe melon dropped from a great height. She be looking at 12 weeks before she can even think about trying the walking thing.

Here be one she buggered up earlier:

Not pretty. I was actually expecting a horse shoe shaped dint in it which would have been a lot more fun than looking twice normal size and about to fall off.


As well as being crap at riding horses, Idiot Girl is also rubbish at photos. She be in my car, I may as well make use of her was the theory. Hah!


Exhibit a:


This is a bridge (duh!) in Wakefield. I am moving at 3 mph. Task be get photo of the bit at the top where it says "All your base". Fail! My fault for going too fast apparently.

Exhibit b:


Having found out how useless she is, this time I took no chances. See the sign covered up by the hanging baskets Idiot Girl? Yes! That be your target.
I proceed at 2mph, and tell her to say stop when she has it in shot so she can't use the you was going too fast excuse again. Better than her last attempt, but not very good really. More of Arthur's castle than anything else.

Dilemma

I got a letter this morning. Amazingly it wasn't a bill. It was a leaflet saying we want blood, and no bugger ever gives us any, but we think that you aren't like the rest of the selfish bastards and will spare us a pint every now and then.

So I'm thinking about it.

On the one hand, it's a good thing to do. And it would be a good challenge for not being mental, interact with humans, perhaps meet nurses with heaving bosoms.

On the other hand, there's the slight problem of me going splat on spotting the claret. Well, mine anyways, I'm quite happy to let other people bleed if it makes them happy. This is not an insurmountable problem, I could take some really dark glasses, and perhaps an mp3 player to pretend I'm on a really sunny beach and not bleeding to death at all.

There's also the slight problem of the dodgy liver. Having looked my problem up, it says that you are allowed to donate, but if my bilirubin level is too high that day my red stuff goes in the bin. Kind of annoying as I will always have an elevated level due to said wonkyness, just how far it is from normal can vary a lot.

So interweb peeps, do I go for it? There's so much that could go wrong, but also could go right.

Leaseholder addendum

You may have also noticed dear reader that I've not been posting much, and that it's complete and utter shash when I do.

Well apart from being crap at this gig, there is a reason. I did a moderately stupid thing, & went to sell my goodies at a car show last Sunday. Which means working like a loon in the week before, a hard days selling, and now being mega behind on everything else 'cos I couldn't work over the weekend.

There is a good side to this... I converted stuff into money so now have over £600 burning a hole in my pocket. I do have a portion of it allocated to an idea for improving the life of someone I know, but sadly I suspect they won't really want to do it. I understand why, but think I will still be sad when it doesn't happen.

Other excitement... Went to the physio man today, and as usual my body betrayed me. I'm seeing the man because every now and then I get excruciating pain in my knee. The rest of the time it just aches a bit and I've been putting up with it. But then I had the idea of being brave and getting it sorted.

Today went a bit like this:
Does it hurt today?
No.
What about if I do this?
No.
Tell me when it starts to hurt?
It doesn't!

No matter what the man did I felt no pain at all. I feel such a fraud. Of course now I'm back home it is going throb throb throb..

I also went to the supermarket on my own, and took a trolley. And went to the till instead of the diy machines. Woo big deal I hear you say.... well as a still recovering nutso, it is actually to me. True I'm a long way away from where I started when I would have literally run around the shop and broken down in a panic attack outside. It's still hard to not fall into the old patterns, and actually have to force myself to interact with people.

But something amazing happened. I almost had a conversation with the woman on the till. True, it did go on the lines on she makes a comment, my brain goes Argh!!!!!!!, I say something stupid, but she didn't appear to mind that she was talking to a complete and utter fruit loop. I came away knowing that she likes cornettos, would like a big house in the country, and that perhaps there is hope for me after all. Don't worry dear reader, normal doom and gloom will be resumed shortly...

I'm also doing something totally out of character. Ask any blogger unlucky enough to have met me, and they will tell you I'm a boring anti drinking nazi. I don't drink because a) I used to, and realised one day I'm sat at home alone and drinking as a crutch to block out reality, and this is not a good thing. b) I discovered I have a genetic liver defect, and should be nice to my liver. So I stopped.

Until two days ago. When I've started again. 4 years of stopped over. True I'm only having 1 can a night. But it could be the start of the slope to doom again. Or I could get bored by the end of the week and stop again. Watch this boring space.

2:14 am.. I think I'll stop boring the world and go spleep. Work tomorrow. ~Sigh~

She's alive, alive!

I refer, of course, to the one and only Weird Science.

Why have I always liked this film?

No, actually, it's not because of Ms. LeBrock as shown left. True there is a certain person who I would pay real cash money to recreate this shot. Sadly (for me) said certain person has always told me to take my pervert ideas somewhere else.

I like it because I've always secretly wanted to be Wyatt. Sure he has all the family problems, but he's also obviously of the clever, and has the computer. I definitely wouldn't want to be Gary, as to be honest he's written as an asshole who just wants everything for himself.

There was also a spin off tv series, that other than the basic idea isn't connected to the original film. Tis actually not that bad, but I'd still want to be Wyatt.

Just in case you're interested, the tv version be on youtube. try here..

Spamage

This one slipped by my spam filters today:



Is it wrong to think "Oh no! Hit by invisible car BAD?"

Ps... wouldn't visit the site on the pic if I was you.

On being astro conned

I'm going to write this one later. For excitement marginally better than watching paint dry, try and guess what it's about?

~Returns to Xanadu complete post~

Last night I fell for it yet again.

The BBC tells me that it's the bestest night for viewing the Perseid meteor shower. True, your view may be slightly spoilt by the brightness of the moon, but all you have to do is drive out into the countryside away from the lights, look north east, and enjoy!

What a load of fetid dingo's kidneys! I got in the landy, drove out onto the scary moors, up the huge hill with the twisty road of doom, and parked up in the car park that is normally used for panoramic views of the moors. Perfect. Hang on... I can't see any meteors. In fact I can't see the moon. And if I turn my cars lights off I can't see my hand in front of my face. I've been astro conned again. Dejected, I head for home, only to reenact the film duel with a psycho truck driver behind me on the twisty roads of certain doom.

I have a long history of falling for this sort of stuff. You know, where they tell you no one alive today will ever see this astronomical phenomenon again.

I have missed:

Halley's Comet
Hale-Bopp Comet
Mars closest for x gajillion years
That Michael Shoemaker comet crash thing.
Meteors.
Eclipses.
UFO's.
Northern lights.
Button moon.

It's all a big fat con. And yes, I will no doubt fall for it next time as well.

What dear reader(s) do you never learn from doing?

Local hero

No, not Dickie Bird, or any of the other almost celebs who don't live here.

I am sending out a salute to a true local hero, the one, the only, Mr Kipling. He of "exceedingly good cakes" fame.

True, no one has actually seen Mr Kipling for many a year, but this could be something to do with how many lorry fulls of french fancies he has to make every single day. I picture him looking at the clock, 11pm... I'll just knock out a batch of apple pies then I'll go home. But then it's the next day, and there are more cakes to make.

As the factory is only 3 miles from my house I have tried asking workers leaving about the welfare of Mr. Kipling. No one was willing to give an actual opinion, with many telling me to sod off. Is he an elderly workaholic, or being held a prisoner against his will?

Suggestions on how to infiltrate the factory are welcome. I've already tried applying as a cake eater tester, and was turned down as it was felt I would eat too many cakes, and my sample report of "om nom nom" was not helpful to the marketing bods.

Excitement, Adventure, A jedi craves not these things..

Or C'riz has not one but two full days off in a weekend. Amazingly rare, and I will be suffering for a week to catch up with the work.

Saturday:
C'riz goes to a steam fair.

Amazing discovery: Source of S. Duck's lol's found:

Melody of mirth... Woe, and sick in a hedge organs where also in attendance
(May contain traces of lie)

Shiny:

Rat look: (guess which be my favourite).

Should have taken tripod instead of monopod:

Actually, this was a sad point of my day out. Most of the time I can fool myself that I'm happy being on my own, but here amongst the fair's diesel fumes, drunkeness and feeling of impending violence I had to admit it's no fun being the last of my kind, lost in a godless universe and out of shake n vac.

Quite what I can do to break the alone cycle I do not know. I'm 35 and know so little about the human interaction thing. Answers on a postcard plz.

**********************

Sunday:

Mostly ducks & duck balancing

Yes! We have no bananas!

Seen at the hospital today:



looks more like a fish to me, n'est pas?

Wet dream

I had a wet dream last night involving bloggers.

One of them has been unlucky enough to meet me in real life, the rest I've only seen pictures of, but I felt I knew them all intimately. It was one of those dreams that are amazingly real, where you can feel everything @ 110% intensity.

Thankfully, just as I thought I couldn't take any more, I heard a familiar voice say "Yarrr! leave the boy alone!".
My saviour was none other than Captain Birdseye coming home from the night shift. Why I organised a blogger meet in Grimsby I'll never know, but you didn't all have to give me a good kicking just because it never stops raining there.

100% true dream!

Death by stereo!

There be a small chance you doth not know what the hell I'm on about.

Clues:
A Joel Schumacher film.
Kiefer Sutherland.
Both Coreys.

Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire.

Just in case you've still not got it: The lost boys.

So what I hear you say?
Well I realised today that I have way too many copies of this film for someone who rarely watches tv.

I has:
Battered vhs x 2.
DVD.
DVD 2 disk special edition.

I don't have a blu-ray version, due to refusing to buy into technology where they can't even spell blue correctly.

(Stretching it a bit):
Soundtrack cd.

Book novelisation.
Actually, if you can find the book it's a) worth quite a few quid on amazon (£25+), and b) has bits that didn't make the final cut. (who's Maria? Where did Michael get the money from for the jacket?)

So yes, too many copies of a film I've not even seen in a cinema.

Over to you dear reader, what have you got too many copies of?

The wall

No, not pink floyd***. This wall:

It's an ordinary looking wall about a mile away from my house. But it has a dark secret that means it appears in the local paper every 5 years or so. 'Cos what happens is some cute kiddie or drunken fool climbs over the wall, to say hello trees, and perhaps to water them.

If you look over the wall you see this:

Have you worked out what the problem is yet? (walk left a bit)

Ah.. it could be something to do with the 40 foot vertical drop if you walk more than a yard away from the wall? Yes indeedy.

This wall once had a part in my life.
No, I wasn't one of the people who has appeared in the chronicle after going wheeeee! splat! and then nearly dying from hypothermia while you wait for someone to realise where the argh help! noises are coming from.

Nope, this wall was important, 'cos one day I looked over it. There, hidden in plain sight was a carrier bag. A carrier bag full of rather good tins of beer. As a youth this was quite the Brucie bonus, and was snaffled poste haste. If I was a certain blogger it would be round this point I'd add in "then I was sick ina hedge", but I'm not, and wasn't.

I'm also not actually that sorry at all if I stole your beers. Cheers!

*** I had that there Idiot Girl in my car recently. My cd player had "dark side of the moon" playing. I don't know if you'll have heard of it, it's a very obscure record by a band no one has really heard of. So of course it's totally understandable that she would say "Is this that war of the worlds shit again?"

Yorkshire day

It's Yorkshire day today.

So that means the local tv news will have to wheel out all the cliches again. Flat caps, whippets, black pudding, welly wanging, photo montages of the pretty bits of (North) Yorkshire where posh people would visit should they decide to slum it.

Whilst I suppose it's good to have a bit of local pride, it's not really like that. They never show montages of abandoned steelworks, closed pits, chavved up saxos, empty mcdonald's packaging blowing across a closed asda car park.

They don't point out that if you live here you WILL die young. In my part of sunny Barnsley-on-sea, I'm predicted to get 70.5 years. National male average is 77.3 years. It's 10 years less than a certain lady blogger who scores 80.8. If you are born here, you will die here as well, as we don't do the migration thing.

This could be due to what wikipedia describes as "Barnsley is also notorious for its strong accent", or no bugger understands you when you do go further afield. Being mental, I have trouble communicating. I'll be yapping along, and suddenly the brain will realise, people are listening to me. I am the focal point. Eeeep! Add in they don't understand you anyways, and it's quite the nightmare.

Anyroad young 'un, I'll give thi a test to see if tha can understand us. Video mainly shows tarn centre, wi bits of Wosborough, and I reckon New Lodge houses, burra could be wrong. Dunno why it ends with the cooling towers in dee dah land.

Bonus video. Well why not? If you've got this far you earned it.

The north will rise again?