My Duvet Weighs a Ton
Is how Chuck D would have described this morning’s attempts at crawling out of bed.
I had about two weeks of poor sleep prior to my exam, but how it’s been and gone, I’m sleeping like a log.
In the mornings I wake up with lichen covering my trunk, and wood lice in my crevices.
My Ship Anchors in E Bay
Just as I’ve been a relative newcomer to blogging, so I have only just discovered the joys of shopping on ebay.
It’s fantastic isn’t it: Every thing you could ever want at knockdown prices. A Bargain Hunters dream. And everyone seems so friendly and helpful too. It’s great!
So far I’ve bought an old board game and two books that I’ve wanted for years (lost treasures from my youth).
Everyone who knows me, knows I love games. Board games, card games, computer games, bedroom games (joke), roleplaying games (especially in the bedroom – nudge, nudge, wink, wink), games of chance, games of skill. You have a game, I’ll play it.
My love of games comes from when I was very little, but the move into fantasy and sci-fi came a little later. I was introduced to the world of fantasy gaming by the classic – and ground-breaking – Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the first book in the hugely successful Fighting Fantasy series of “if you want to do this, turn to page such and such” adventure game books.
I’ve been riding the geek rollercoaster ever since.
Anyway, the FF writer Steve Jackson decided to compose a set of classic FF game books, called Sorcery! with two twists: The story / game played out over the course of all four books in the set, making it an epic – like Lord of the Rings – and you could use magic, with a very clever code system.
So my mum bought me the first book, and when I’d finished it, the second.
Unfortunately I never saw the third or fourth episodes in the bookshop and my quest was never finished…
I’ve been keeping an eye out for them ever since at jumble sales and charity shops, but had no luck until ebay came along… But with a two minute search and a couple of small cheques, I’ve now got my missing chapters.
Wish me luck as I set forth to reclaim the Crown of Kings!
Friday, November 22, 2002
Thursday, November 21, 2002
A Stitch In Time
And we had Marks & Spencers very tasty strawberry-flavoured Squeelingly Fizzy Piglet sweets for afters.
I've just realised that with the recent spate of recipes and film & book reviews, this blog is starting to resemble a women's magazine rather than a man's diary. My Wonderful World is becoming a Woman's World. I'll be sewing quilt covers next!
The last piece of sewing I did - apart from stitching up my gaping imaginary war wounds with a fish hook, by myself, macho Rambo style - was at school in Needlework, a good 18 years ago.
I made a fabric pencil case with a picture of a lion on it. The lion was made of felt: Yellow face, brown mane and nose, big white eyes with little round black pupils. Antelope carrion hanging from blood-stain gob.
It took me ten weeks to make it and was crap.
But it wasn't as bad as my brother's attempt at knitting a 2 foot tall penguin.
He managed to knit all of two inches of orange beak in his ten week Needlework stint, and my gran had to finish it off for him. It took her all of a morning to whip up the Woolly Emperor.
Gran goes into hospital next week for an exploratory Op.
As usual I didn't know where this blog entry would end up when I started writing it - you just go with the flow. But how its ended, with the prior talk of stitching up wounds, makes me feel uncomfortable. I'll leave as is for now, as if I start getting sentimental, it'll ruin the tough macho elements of the post...
And we had Marks & Spencers very tasty strawberry-flavoured Squeelingly Fizzy Piglet sweets for afters.
I've just realised that with the recent spate of recipes and film & book reviews, this blog is starting to resemble a women's magazine rather than a man's diary. My Wonderful World is becoming a Woman's World. I'll be sewing quilt covers next!
The last piece of sewing I did - apart from stitching up my gaping imaginary war wounds with a fish hook, by myself, macho Rambo style - was at school in Needlework, a good 18 years ago.
I made a fabric pencil case with a picture of a lion on it. The lion was made of felt: Yellow face, brown mane and nose, big white eyes with little round black pupils. Antelope carrion hanging from blood-stain gob.
It took me ten weeks to make it and was crap.
But it wasn't as bad as my brother's attempt at knitting a 2 foot tall penguin.
He managed to knit all of two inches of orange beak in his ten week Needlework stint, and my gran had to finish it off for him. It took her all of a morning to whip up the Woolly Emperor.
Gran goes into hospital next week for an exploratory Op.
As usual I didn't know where this blog entry would end up when I started writing it - you just go with the flow. But how its ended, with the prior talk of stitching up wounds, makes me feel uncomfortable. I'll leave as is for now, as if I start getting sentimental, it'll ruin the tough macho elements of the post...
You Get Less For Manslaughter
It was our 11th (first date) anniversary last night. We reminisced about the Oxford Polytechnic Bop and the drink Vicster ordered at the bar.
“Cinzano and lemonade please!”
It was her sophistication that appealed to me *.
I was under orders (pain of death or divorce) to cook something yummy for dinner. I resorted to a tried and tested recipe that I knew would be a winner: Rick Stein’s Spanish style Squid and Chorizo **.
For 2 people:
150g Squid – prepared, hoods cut into rings, tentacles cut into bite-sized bits.
100g Chorizo sausage – thinly sliced.
1 red pepper – roasted until blackened, skin removed, seeded and diced.
2 good handfuls of new potatoes (about 8 oz) – boiled until tender, then thinly sliced.
1 plum tomato – seeded and diced.
1 garlic clove – crushed.
1 red ‘finger’ chilli pepper – seeded and chopped small.
½ teaspoon of hot red chilli powder.
A cup of fresh flat leaf parsley – roughly chopped.
Freshly ground salt and black pepper.
1 ½ tablespoons of olive oil (about 2 big glugs).
Cook the new potatoes and roast the pepper.
Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan or wok.
Stir-fry the squid over a high heat for 1-2 min – don’t over do it otherwise they’ll go like rubber bands.
Add the chorizo, chilli and garlic, fry for 1-2 min – this gets the chilli working and some colour out of the chorizo.
Add the potatoes, red pepper and chilli powder. Give it another minute or so to let the potatoes heat through.
Add the tomato and parsley, season with plenty of black pepper and salt to taste.
Serve with some French bread (to mop up the juices) and a green salad.
Scrum-diddly-umpious!
Top tip: Put the tentacles in your mouth, let the ends pop out between your lips, and then scare the kids by waggling the tentacles with your tongue so they look alive. Rah!
* She doesn’t even like Cinzano. It’s just like Stashboy ordering himself half a pint of Pernod whilst we were on holiday in Spain, and then remembering he didn’t like Pernod after the first sip.
** with black fuel oil.
It was our 11th (first date) anniversary last night. We reminisced about the Oxford Polytechnic Bop and the drink Vicster ordered at the bar.
“Cinzano and lemonade please!”
It was her sophistication that appealed to me *.
I was under orders (pain of death or divorce) to cook something yummy for dinner. I resorted to a tried and tested recipe that I knew would be a winner: Rick Stein’s Spanish style Squid and Chorizo **.
For 2 people:
150g Squid – prepared, hoods cut into rings, tentacles cut into bite-sized bits.
100g Chorizo sausage – thinly sliced.
1 red pepper – roasted until blackened, skin removed, seeded and diced.
2 good handfuls of new potatoes (about 8 oz) – boiled until tender, then thinly sliced.
1 plum tomato – seeded and diced.
1 garlic clove – crushed.
1 red ‘finger’ chilli pepper – seeded and chopped small.
½ teaspoon of hot red chilli powder.
A cup of fresh flat leaf parsley – roughly chopped.
Freshly ground salt and black pepper.
1 ½ tablespoons of olive oil (about 2 big glugs).
Cook the new potatoes and roast the pepper.
Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan or wok.
Stir-fry the squid over a high heat for 1-2 min – don’t over do it otherwise they’ll go like rubber bands.
Add the chorizo, chilli and garlic, fry for 1-2 min – this gets the chilli working and some colour out of the chorizo.
Add the potatoes, red pepper and chilli powder. Give it another minute or so to let the potatoes heat through.
Add the tomato and parsley, season with plenty of black pepper and salt to taste.
Serve with some French bread (to mop up the juices) and a green salad.
Scrum-diddly-umpious!
Top tip: Put the tentacles in your mouth, let the ends pop out between your lips, and then scare the kids by waggling the tentacles with your tongue so they look alive. Rah!
* She doesn’t even like Cinzano. It’s just like Stashboy ordering himself half a pint of Pernod whilst we were on holiday in Spain, and then remembering he didn’t like Pernod after the first sip.
** with black fuel oil.
Wednesday, November 20, 2002
Cutting Costs In The Workplace Bond Style
Our purchasing manager asked the company grunts for any cost cutting ideas today. Instantly we had the predictable response of someone popping their head up over the pen and suggesting that the company "gives us all a sweater so they can cut the heating bills!".
Never one to let an opportunity such as this go by, I replied to the purchasing managers request will this email:
Suggestion: Switch off the lights when nobody is working. Should reduce the lighting costs by 100% in Purchasing.
On second thoughts you could buy everyone some nightvision googles:
http://www.ticketsofrussia.ru/store/lomo/nightvision/png2.html
Large one off cost, but would cut lighting costs to a minimum.
In a similar vein to the "sweaters" suggestion, just more James Bond.
Hopefully he won't read the suggestions before he presents them to his manager...
Our purchasing manager asked the company grunts for any cost cutting ideas today. Instantly we had the predictable response of someone popping their head up over the pen and suggesting that the company "gives us all a sweater so they can cut the heating bills!".
Never one to let an opportunity such as this go by, I replied to the purchasing managers request will this email:
Suggestion: Switch off the lights when nobody is working. Should reduce the lighting costs by 100% in Purchasing.
On second thoughts you could buy everyone some nightvision googles:
http://www.ticketsofrussia.ru/store/lomo/nightvision/png2.html
Large one off cost, but would cut lighting costs to a minimum.
In a similar vein to the "sweaters" suggestion, just more James Bond.
Hopefully he won't read the suggestions before he presents them to his manager...
Wot No Updates?!
Were you starting to think that TWWOND had gone the way of many a blog and died a death? Or perhaps I myself had dropped off a cliff *?
Well do not fret dear readers, for Nobby lives and so does his blog. You just forgot that I had my CIMA Business Taxation exam yesterday and that I've been busy revising. How did it go? "OK" pretty much sums it up. Professional exams like these are notoriously difficult to predict how you've done, and the best I can say it that I might have passed. I'm not unhappy, but not happy either, if that makes sense.
Results are due at the end of January, so I'll just forget about it until then: No point in sweating on it or getting excited / depressed - what's done is done.
[Crack - tinkle, rattle]
That's the sound of my chains breaking. No longer a prisoner of revision, I am released back into the community.
* What do you call a man with a seagull on his head?
Falling Head Over Heels Into The Chamber of Secrets
Friday evening was Harry Potter 2. Read some amateur review of it here. Dark and sinister and great fun. Much better than the first one - which was 2 hours of character introduction and 1/2 of plot - and it actually featured Harry "Greatest Wizard Ever and he's only 13" Potter doing some magic. I recommend watching it in a cinema full of kids too: Their excitement rubbed off and the gasps, shrieks, wails, cheers and clapping made it feel interactive. Seeing the target audience react so positively to it upped the enjoyment and value of the film. And yes, despite Vic telling me off, I did clap and cheer too. I'm so down with the kids.
The shrunken heads, giant man-eating spiders, and pecked out eyes were cool.
Blade 2
...was watched alone on DVD on Saturday night, as Vicster had left me to do my revision earlier in the day and travelled into London to see Sara and Stashboy. She was very brave considering the threat of dirty bombs and poison gas. They always seem to do the best things when I'm not with them, and Saturday was no exception as they did a walking tour of Jack the Rippers East End haunts. Free piece of spleen with every ticket.
Anyway, Blade 2 is crap. If you're writing a book or screenplay about vampires or characters who play with swords (and who have the word "blade" in their names), watch this film to see what not to do. It was like watching MTV for 2 hours. Bad CGI, terrible plot, rip-off of Aliens, 2D characters, just awful. It sucked big time ;)
I loved the first Blade - very cool film, great atmosphere, nicely paced, depicted vampires as they should be. I was expecting more of the same, but like so many sequels - whether film or music or novels - it was a real let-down.
However, the DVD extras disk featured not only an immense Roni Size / Cypress Hill "Child of the Wild West" music video, but also a little story from the director about Michael Jackson:
Apparently MJ approached them about a cameo role in the film as he'd seen Blade and really liked it. So the director writes this little scene in where one of the Reaper Hunters opens a door deep within the heart of the vampire nightclub and discovers this weird drug-dealer type guy who is taking littlebags of entrails out of a suitcase. There is a dentists chair, strings of razor-blades and various surgical implements on show in the background.
For some reason MJ turned it down.
Darren Popstar
Darren Hayes is apparently "the voice of Savage Garden". Not only do I not care about this, but as Vic says "That's not right! Darren isn't a name for a pop star!".
Eye Test Voucher
I've got one and I'm going to use it on Friday. Unfortunately I can't read the small print.
Were you starting to think that TWWOND had gone the way of many a blog and died a death? Or perhaps I myself had dropped off a cliff *?
Well do not fret dear readers, for Nobby lives and so does his blog. You just forgot that I had my CIMA Business Taxation exam yesterday and that I've been busy revising. How did it go? "OK" pretty much sums it up. Professional exams like these are notoriously difficult to predict how you've done, and the best I can say it that I might have passed. I'm not unhappy, but not happy either, if that makes sense.
Results are due at the end of January, so I'll just forget about it until then: No point in sweating on it or getting excited / depressed - what's done is done.
[Crack - tinkle, rattle]
That's the sound of my chains breaking. No longer a prisoner of revision, I am released back into the community.
* What do you call a man with a seagull on his head?
Falling Head Over Heels Into The Chamber of Secrets
Friday evening was Harry Potter 2. Read some amateur review of it here. Dark and sinister and great fun. Much better than the first one - which was 2 hours of character introduction and 1/2 of plot - and it actually featured Harry "Greatest Wizard Ever and he's only 13" Potter doing some magic. I recommend watching it in a cinema full of kids too: Their excitement rubbed off and the gasps, shrieks, wails, cheers and clapping made it feel interactive. Seeing the target audience react so positively to it upped the enjoyment and value of the film. And yes, despite Vic telling me off, I did clap and cheer too. I'm so down with the kids.
The shrunken heads, giant man-eating spiders, and pecked out eyes were cool.
Blade 2
...was watched alone on DVD on Saturday night, as Vicster had left me to do my revision earlier in the day and travelled into London to see Sara and Stashboy. She was very brave considering the threat of dirty bombs and poison gas. They always seem to do the best things when I'm not with them, and Saturday was no exception as they did a walking tour of Jack the Rippers East End haunts. Free piece of spleen with every ticket.
Anyway, Blade 2 is crap. If you're writing a book or screenplay about vampires or characters who play with swords (and who have the word "blade" in their names), watch this film to see what not to do. It was like watching MTV for 2 hours. Bad CGI, terrible plot, rip-off of Aliens, 2D characters, just awful. It sucked big time ;)
I loved the first Blade - very cool film, great atmosphere, nicely paced, depicted vampires as they should be. I was expecting more of the same, but like so many sequels - whether film or music or novels - it was a real let-down.
However, the DVD extras disk featured not only an immense Roni Size / Cypress Hill "Child of the Wild West" music video, but also a little story from the director about Michael Jackson:
Apparently MJ approached them about a cameo role in the film as he'd seen Blade and really liked it. So the director writes this little scene in where one of the Reaper Hunters opens a door deep within the heart of the vampire nightclub and discovers this weird drug-dealer type guy who is taking littlebags of entrails out of a suitcase. There is a dentists chair, strings of razor-blades and various surgical implements on show in the background.
For some reason MJ turned it down.
Darren Popstar
Darren Hayes is apparently "the voice of Savage Garden". Not only do I not care about this, but as Vic says "That's not right! Darren isn't a name for a pop star!".
Eye Test Voucher
I've got one and I'm going to use it on Friday. Unfortunately I can't read the small print.
