clouds across the moon

Lazy blog day:

RAH Band - clouds across the moon


Things learned from this video:

80's videos can be truly awful.
The future will involve war on Mars. War where the weapons are ladies with large Madonna boobies.
Flight Commander P R Johnson is the strong silent type.
Mars bases look awfully like a disused pumping station.
Being both a member of the Borg collective and a break dancer will enhance your chances of getting a job as an intergalactic operator.

Methinks it was perhaps better to have not seen this video for 26 years.... Still a powerful track though...

Square hole

in a land of round pegs. Or something like that.

So I went to the fabulous SPICE new members night.

Woo me bits:
Ordered a coke in the pub, and asked where are the idiots hiding without running away.

This sucks bits:
Everything else.

It was 1.5 hours of egg sucking. This is our website.... if you want to look at the events you click the events button... that's the one on the left there with events written on it... rinse, repeat.

Came out to the car park to find the man parked next to me (bmw) cannot drive. I lasted 5 minutes of him moving randomly backwards & forwards next to me (so blocking my escape), before getting out, doing the universal wind down your window symbol, and then telling him to follow my instructions precisely. These generally where shouting keep coming when he has 2 yards further to reverse and is going to start going forwards again.

I suppose I could class ordering him about as a success also?

The fear

I haz it.

I went to the opticians today, as I've been thinking my eyesight is perhaps a bit worse, and my eyes burn all the time. It did not go well.

I have what is technically known as wonky eyes, and so have a prism in my prescription to wonky the light in advance so it all lines up and I don't get cheap 3D effects. Nice lady in opticians thinks I may need an increase in the amount of prism. Snag is, no matter if she gives me anywhere from zero to bloody loads of prism, there's something not quite right.

I can read her chart fine, but when told to concentrate on the letter V in the middle my eyes move very slightly. Nice lady thinks my stupid brain can't decide which image it prefers, and so keeps telling the eyes to look at both of them in turn.

The fear comes from (blind) Ma Ma having grade 1 mental nystagmus. Hook her up to a generator and you could provide power for 20,000 homes on eye movement alone. I don't want to be a blind wobble eyed person. I'm happy enough being wonky thank you very much.

Nice lady is to write a letter to my doctor, so they can write a letter to the hospital, so a man from India can examine my eyes and tell me to come back in 6 months for a few cycles until he gets bored, or my eyes fall out. I'm not very happy. Stupid brain. Stupid eyes. Stupid fear.

Voodoo economics

Idiot Girl is at it again. AND I AM VERY ANGRY, shouty angry, even!

She turns up, can I plz look at her car as the clutch doesn't work. Er, have you tried pressing the pedal on the left? Works for me!

Further investigation, aka putting my head in sweet wrappers and other things I don't want to think about reveals brake fluid dripping off the clutch pedal. As it's a hydraulic clutch it's not rocket surgery to work out that the master cylinder is knackered.

"Idiot Girl, your master cylinder is knackered" is what I said.
"oh, it works now? fine thanks bye!"

Fast forwards a couple of hours and she phones up complaining it's broken again. Er, I didn't fix it. I just told you what was wrong and you left????

So I find who sells the part cheapest, and it comes to £55 + fitting.

Engage Idiot Girl logic, and my anger..... Well the road tax is also due... so it's going to cost about £300, and I haven't got any money.... so the best plan is to go out and buy a newer car.

Er, run that by me again slowly plz.... no money, so buy a newer car? With what?
I'll get it on finance.
Er, so on the one hand you don't have to pay £300 this month, instead on the other hand you have to pay £80 per month, every month for the next five years? Are you a f'n moron... er. yes you are.

What really drives my anger level higher is little miss no money went out drinking / meals / random money wasting 3 days out of 7 last week, and has 4 nights out planned this week. Er, priorities???

She's also complaining that her house is awful as there isn't a single room that's properly decorated. Would this in any way be due to your hobby of wrecking a room, and then moving on to wreck another one?
I'm sure it was 'a right keg' smashing all the tiles in the bathroom and gouging big holes in the wall, but there isn't a magic fairy that fixes the mess you've made and fits new tiles for free...

Ditto the cunning plan of paint a big splotch in the middle of every bloody wall to see if you like the colour... you're supposed to then paint the rest of it...

AND RELAX....

Avalanche

As I may have mentioned earlier, I've bought a (used) bike. From nice pictures on evilbay.

My avalanche was delivered today. My unhappy level rose by, oooh, at least seven points. The bike I have only bears a passing resemblance to the one in the pictures. Sad face is definitely on.

The first thing I spotted is the paint has been touched up by a mr. Stevie Wonder. With the wrong shade of blue. Then I noticed it's been done everywhere. Methinks it's had a very hard life, and is not in the "excellent" condition I was promised.

It is then observed that the mechanical condition is also lacking in the excellent department. The chain is jumpy on the cogs (stop me if I'm getting too technical), and the steering bit makes clunky noises when you rock it.

After 30 miserable minutes I finally accepted it's a lemon. It is thus Going Back. Going Back in capitals. I'll lose money, but would lose more if I kept it.

Not sure what to do next. try and find another, less knackered, used bike? Buy a shiny new one? Give up this entire mad plan of joining the ranks of 'fat bloke on a bike trying to lose weight but losing sanity instead'? Answers on a postcard plz.

hey...... got any grapes?

Lazy blog day:



Did you guess the ending?

I'm almost tempted to buy the book & CD just to see if it has any more weapons grade songs for when Idiot Girl is in my car.

Long way down

Saturday! A new SPICE challenge. I'm booked on the "York minster hidden tour".

First problem:
The instructions say 'meet your contact Ian at the entrance to the minster'.

Er, there are approximately 80 people that could be classed as near the entrance. In groups of various size, who keep coming and going in a tourist sort of way. True, I can discount 50% of them if I assume Ian isn't Asian. This isn't going to be easy.

A woman walks past holding what looks like a printout with their logo on it. Said woman then meets a random man. I phone 'Ian'. Random man goes to answer his phone. QED: he is Ian. Just to be sure I say "Are you Ian?". He is. Woo!

Problem 2:
We are now all to go for a 'free' cup of tea. I am stuck with the world's most boring man. He likes skiing. He has nothing else to talk about. I resort to watching out the window at the passing people.

Tour starts. We descend into the vaults with mr & mrs earnest our tour guides. It's all a bit difficult as I think they assume we know anything remotely about how said place works, and it's history. Personally I'm professionally ignorant, as I know 2 things. 1) it was on fire in 1984. 2) I've never been anywhere near it before as parents too tight to pay.

The tour gets more deep, as we are shown hidden bits. That's a bit of 12th century wall, followed by excited description of it's building technique. Yes, it could be said this part was a soupcon dull.

Final problem:


Clicky to get the big picture. Observe how tall the person is at the bottom. Now note how there are smaller windows above the big ones. Yes, they took us up there.

Yes, there's bugger all in the way of stuff to stop you from falling down. (a 3 foot high crappy fence).
Yes, after being warned not to have lose items I dropped my phone. Only onto the ledge, so no one died, but rather embarrassing.
Yes, I got a sudden U2 earworm.... hello, hello, I'm at a place called vertigo... I'm normally fine with heights, but was feeling dizzy for some reason. Better to be back on the ground.

Final score:
Maybe a four. Interaction was poor, but no one died....

True colours

Pseudonymph tells of black and white thinking. The next day Idiot Girl proves she works the same way.

Idiot Girl takes her long suffering car for the annual MOT test. This is supposed to detect if things are worn out to the extent of being dangerous. She comes back with a pass, but with advisories. This means (usually) something is 95% worn out, and will not last 12 months to the next test. Smart party members investigate and fix the advisories.

Idiot Girl is black and white. Pass means 100% safe brilliant car, fail means death trap. So as it's a pass, insert fingers in ears and go la la la can't hear you!

Her advisories where:
Rear brakes have an efficiency of 52%
Parking brake has an efficiency of 16%

Totally safe to ignore them then. Who needs brakes anyway? And you can carry a brick around to fix the 2nd one....

You know Idiot Girl is going to do nothing, as you point out the potential result of wall / car interface. Oh yeah, I'll get it fixed. Just not this month 'cos I'm sooooo busy. My diary is overflowing and I don't have a second spare.

Er, you're off work Two days next week... Yeah, but I've got 'stuff' to do.. you know, STUFF.

~sigh~ Makes note not to go anywhere near her car...

Lazy blog has to be poor dead Eva Cassidy's cover of true colours:

Crazy fit massage

FX: Door bell

C'riz rushes to the window, remembers to open it first, puts head outside and says hello? (For I be expecting parcels).

"Parcel for Idiot Girl", says the man.
Bugger, I'll be right down...
"I'll get it off the van"...

So I open the door, sign here, and then notice the sodding huge box. W, T, and indeed F has Idiot Girl bought now? The box is huge, and extremely heavy. Delivery man gives me a cheery wave and sods off, so I'm left to drag it into the house by myself.

"Crazy Fit Massage (pink)" is written on the box. I ponder on this for a while before getting on with my so called life.

~wavy lines of time passing~

Ma Ma has asked Idiot Girl what the hell is in the big box, and when is she coming to collect it? We are told it's dead brilliant, and she's not. I am to deliver and assemble it. Joy.

Big box is dragged to my car, and then into Idiot Girl's house. A clear bit of floor is found, the chinglish manual pictures studied, and a work of modern art emerges, thus:


A crazy fit massage (pink).

The accurate words being a) pink and b) crazy.

Said device is yet another miracle weight loss product. See the black bit at the bottom? Well it violently rocks side to side. For 25 minutes.
I stood on it for 30 seconds and lost 5 lb's and discovered the result is 'pins and needles' in the lower leg area coupled with a loss of ability to walk in a straight line.

This piece of crap cost £135. Another prime example of how Idiot Girl would be queuing to jump off a bridge if other people was doing it.

Those with long memories may also recollect the same Idiot Girl attempted to remove her foot by the medium of horse. As she now gets huge pain when walking I'm sure violent shaking of said foot will be most pleasant.
Still, I'm sure everyone who anyone would love to have such an attractive piece of modern art installed in their house.

Challenge C'riz

No, that isn't an invitation. More a case of sharing success. Yay Me sort of thing.

My man in Doncaster tells me my shiny shiny metal has come in, so proceed to his gaff and hand over the money tout suite. I have an additional task, for I've seen on evilbay a shoppe near to his house have horse stable rubber mats at low low prices. Yes, I don't have (or want) a nag, but they're also good for putting next to machinery for humans to stand on.

Ma Ma makes several attempts to say she will come with me, but no, this is a mission I must undertake alone.

So I drive to shoppe. Walk around a bit until I locate said items. Yes, they look ideal. Snag being evilbay ad says £29.50, sign on mats says £42. A slight difference. Fortunately I have a printout of the evilbay ad, so go in, and using my best mildly insane smile enquire if I can have a mat, but only pay the lower price.

Nice lady was either scared of my insane smile, or hates the bosses as it's mine all mine for £29.50. Yay! Result! I am full of win!

Lazy blog:



I had eliminator on my usb stick on the drive over. No remotely interesting facts about this one, 'cos er I haven't got any. Feel free to share 'em if you've got 'em.

D is for drug

So today I went to the hospital. Hello dermatology department!

Explained my random itching problems to the nice man. Nice man says ah! you're being investigated for wonky liver syndrome***

So I tell him the doctor says that's 'fine' and not really that far above normal people at all. O Reily? he says..... Looks at my results and says it's deffo high enough to give me the mega itch.

Shame there isn't a magic cure tab, eh doc?
Haven't they given you anything to stop it then?
Er, no. Got told to try otc antihistamines that do the square root of.. well, you know.

He pulls out a pad and writes me a script. Try these, if it doesn't work I'm writing to your quack with a list of others to try.

Er, thanks. Wait a minute... I've been putting up with this for years when there is an answer? Boy was I suckered....

So I now have 30 * 180mg fexofenadine. Whatever they are. Joy.

***Stop me if I get too technical.

Toast

I like toast. But it must be made correctly. Well done, crispy texture, hot, lots of butter (melted). There's nothing worse IMHO than cold toast.

The problem is, crap toaster + Ma Ma conspire to produce cold toast. Yes, it's easy to get the correct level of burntness, but to get the butter right and retain heat is very difficult. I suspect not helped by putting it on a cold plate.

So I applied SCIENCE to the problem. How can I get more heat into my toast without burning it to oblivion, or using mega thick slices?

Because I like you all, I will tell you my secret. Burn toast to correct shade with the toaster. Transfer toast to microwave and apply radiation to superheat the toast. Add butter, enjoy!

Ma Ma it turns out has been giving away the secrets of my research to all and sundry. Idiot Girl knows how to make my perfect toast!!!! Turns out she followed the instructions, and denounced my wonderful toast as being, and I quote, "F***ing awful".

Of course, she is full of wrong. I'm not sure why she would undertake to use my method, when (sicko she is) she thinks toast should be 1) minimal butter, and 2) cold.

Er, hello! McFly! hello! Anyone in there? You've used a method that is designed to produce the exact opposite of what you want, and then complain that it's wrong? Think mcFly, Think!

Lego

So I had a idea that could be solved by lego. Tis a long time since I did the brick construction toy thing, and I know Ma Ma will have disposed of mine by now. So I googled lego.

And this came up:



Can you tell what's going on here kids?
The answer be here.

Is it wrong that my initial thought was 'why doesn't his head fall off'?
I dunno, biblical lego is somehow disturbing, yet lego deathstar canteen isn't.

Result

Shock horror, labour wins local election. With predicting powers like this I should play the lottery.

My chosen man, mr "unemployed gizza job, I can do that" achieved 5.02% of the vote. Or to put it another way, 55 votes more than required to get his deposit back. So in a small way I helped a man not lose £500.

Ma Ma has been having 'fun' too. She only managed to get herself on the television being interviewed by man in the street on her views of this election victory. Sadly, this now means everyone knows her views....

Vote!

Today was the chance for the fine people of Barno central to make their voices heard, and to choose a new MP after that slight problem of the previous one being sent to prison for robbing the public purse.

There has even been tv crews in town, speculating on who the winner may be.

One slight snag is, even mystic Meg could predict the result. Labour have won it every time since, oh, 1945. Who do you think is going to win this time kids?

As it's 'special' we have had a lot of potential candidates. But who to vote for? Mr. Wood who last time stood on the platform of "I'm a season ticket holder at Barnsley FC" is not standing this time.

Having given it careful thought I've gone for the man who is unemployed, tired of having no money, and thinks it would be a good job to have, so he's applied for it. (Sort of). A modern day Yosser Hughes.

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

Musical linky thing from yesterday. Er, well that went badly. Note to self, pick links that persons other than yourself have a hope in hell of getting. I'm crap at this interacting lark, sorry peeps.

Anyway, my links where:

Both made #1 for exactly 1 week.
Artists involved are Scottish.
Both had greater success under different band names.

Will try harder if I do this again.....

Quiet innit?

Sadly there's not much going on to blog about.

I think I've fixed the leak in my land rover, but as it's not rained since it's a bit hard to say for sure. Other not news includes many many miserable hours grinding metal things.

I do hope one day soon to be hypocritical by posting a photo of my neighbours new 4x4. If he ever parks it in daylight hours. I know mine never goes off road, but at least it could. He's chopped in the audi for a mercedes that has wheels of such size they would look too large on a bus, but with elastic bands for tyres thus making the 4x4 part of it totally useless.

I've also booked more Spice events, but suspect they will be cancelled as looks like I'm the only one interested.

Enough of my so called life. Lazy blog:



Can you link this with last week's lazy blogging? I can think of two (count 'em), two! links. My answers on Friday 'cos that will give me something to blog about.