Saturday, May 12, 2007

I Got Served

See them dark clouds on the horizon? That would be the wife. She found me out like a prize-winning beagle. She found this blog. Hello Darling! We had 'words' earlier so thus forever more, my blog shall be a sanitised version of it's former potty-mouthed self. Henceforth my posts will resemble:

Flowers. Aren't they pretty? Aah yellows and pinks. Hmm. Nicey nice...

Please feel free to not return, don't pass GO and save yourself the effort (and possibly your lunch).

I did 'A Good Thing' today. In my decorating phase, having finished the paint job - two colours (count 'em) - I set to work on our bedroom wardrobes. I've ripped out the innards like a Hannibal Lecter type freak. In it's place I put up extra poles for my wife's clothes and I had the little bit in the corner. There's shelves and everything. Mother would have been proud. Not. Pictures shall be forthcoming when I can be arsed to faff around with the camera.

The search for a flooring solution continues - 100 B&Q staff when surveyed said NUH ERRRR.

Having been left comments in my post 'No readership', thus proving I have at least two readers, I've come to the opinion I sound like a whiny runt (Rhyming slang? Possibly). Henceforth The Quest shall be ended. In public anyway.

I'm now off to change all names on the blog. Not that I've been ordered to or anything...


Derren Brown writes me love letters

Friday, May 11, 2007

Still?

The decorating continues at a snails pace. Today I put up a new pendant light fitting. In a slothlike two and a half hours. Even then I had to phone my brother-in-law for help.

Monday, May 07, 2007

A Sudden Decision

Spontaneous decisions aren't my wife and I's forte (Bad english? Who cares). Well, for me it is. My motto is "Don't dither, do". Wifey can't make a decision to save a kipper from someone's breakfast though. Until yesterday.

Up she got (read: sitting on the edge of the bed while I fannied around). She asks "Is it me, or does this carpet create more dust than the wooden floor we used to have?". I disagreed, it wasn't her and the carpet was a hotbed of dust activity. Well, no sooner could you say hot-diggity than we were pulling the carpet up to gaze at the beautiful floorboards beneath. Gorgeous they were. Apart from the million splodges of paint all over them. So today, as well as having a pub lunch, I spent forty pounds at Homebase on various paint removal and sanding gear. Didn't work. Laminate it will be.

The next few days I shall be slaving away painting, sanding, and flooring. Think of me.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

No readership?

As no-one has replied to my previous post, am I to take it I have no readers whatsoever? Am I just writing for me, to me? Maybe if I were to stop writing self-indulgent posts like this one...

I read something the other day that suggests self-publicising your blog is a bad thing - how else would you know about my words of wisdom? Silly Biffo.


Here comes the beast again.

How Lucky I Am

Yesterday I had the great privilege to do that thing beloved by Englanders everywhere: go to a static caravan on the coast. This is the wife's grandma's caravan, where my sister-in-law was staying.

I had to force the wife out of bed (anytime before midday is a struggle) at 9 (literally force - she hit the wall leaving only a small dent) to get the usual day out stress. An hours drive to St Merryn in Cornwall, a tiny hamlet near Padstowe and then did what I suspected: we sat there all day and did nothing. We could have stayed at home and done that, not spent the hour getting in the wife's chair, nor the hour driving there - that's two hours someone owes me, never mind the drive back the same day.

God it was frustrating listening to my mother-in-law (for she was there too - huzzah!) making little comments to which I'm not allowed to respond. It was fun trying to get the wife toileted though. Carrying her through the caravan doors which are narrower than my shoulders, into a bathroom the size of a postage stamp (mind her legs!) was tricky to say the least.

Still, days out with family - gotta love 'em.

Friday, May 04, 2007

Shocking

Think of an image. Think of another. Did either of those come anywhere to the image of Eddie Izzard in a micro kilt? This is the image Carol Vorderman has just put forth on Countdown. He apparently asked to try it on after seeing Carol wearing it. With that fresh in your mind let's move on...

To the film I saw at the cinema recently: Sunshine. Can't be bothered to write too much about it (go read a review!) but I thought it was much better than certain quarters have suggested. After reading the SFX forum thread though, I may have missed bits. The missing bits made the film work for me though, so who cares?

If you search for 'wee' and 'smell' I'm first on Google after the BBC.

Womble, on a bike.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

See? Over there? ----->

A new Sight Wat I Lyke. Aprosexic has taken advantage of my rather generous link exchange program. God bless him (?) and God bless all atheists everywhere.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

A Young Man's Passage

AKA Julian Clary's autobiography. Did you know he was gay? You would if you read this. My god the man was a slut! Are all gay men the same?? Speaking as a purely hetero male, I've got no problem with a man wanting to sleep with as many women as he wants and have to consider the possibiliy that double the blokes doubles the horniness. Jeez. Like shaggin'? Turn gay. Most of Julian's conquests seem to enforce the stereotype of homosexuals as screaming, bitchy queens.

The book goes a bit deeper than that and is literally painfully funny (his pain, not the readers). I don't normally read biographies, especially those of celebrities but a) I thought it was a novel b) it was three quid in HMV and c) I was struggling to spend a ten pound gift voucher. I'm glad I did. Despite the nauseating in-your-face (quite literally for Julian at one point, answering the door with last night's jizzum all over himself) gayness of it, it is a very funny book. It shows how these entertainer folk start with Tarzan-a-grams and elevate to TV land.

It's a good thing it was funny as it also dwells on many of Julian's darker moments i.e. 98% of his life, including the death of his soul-mate Christopher through AIDS. All in all a very revealing book on many subjects I wouldn't normally touch. Bargepoles at the ready.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Melon Farmers

Some people IE bastardy tits call me workshy. This is as nothing however compared to farmers wanting, nay demanding compensation for their cows getting TB . This to me seems to be like asking for money for old rope.

Is not your animal getting a disease a hazard of the job? My cat is currently sick, yet I don't go complaining to T. Blair for her vet money. Not only would I get summarily thrown out but I'd be laughed at. Farmers join nurses on my all time 'sucking the government dry' list.

On a happier note, last month I had 261 unique visitors according to Statcounter and 364 page loads. Those 261 may be the same 10 people with a different IP address everyday but still, not bad. If of course it's a true and accurate figure, about 258 people have visited and not left a comment! Why? Is it not true that you get a warm feeling in your heart in the knowledge of a well written response? So, for now and this time only, leave a comment and give me a true census. I love you all. Except the ones that smell of wee, obviously.

PS I've been found on a search engine with the phrase "treating needle track marks and bruises" - eh? Explain that if you can.

Super Blogger

It's a funny thing having an online identity. I used to go by the name 'Damnation' on newsgroups; now I go by the more confident 'jstarbuck' (for 'tis me). Many people aren't even who they say they are (shock! horror!) going so far as to change gender and sexual orientation (go on, have cybersex as the opposite sex in a gay relationship). It never occurred to me though to hide 'me' from the wife.

I left a comment on Scaryduck's blog today comparing my wife, as a joke, to a Nazi. Did you see the mushroom cloud? There surely was one. After five years of marriage my wife a) really needs to learn my sense of humour and b) get one for herself. I felt somewhat affronted. Let alone it was a joke, this was my internet identity I was displaying - what relevance should it have on the 'real world'? A lot apparently. All day long she's been harping on, wanting to know in what way I was comparing her to a Nazi. I should have said it was her persistent extraction of information via inhumane methods but she might not have understood that. One final thing, it was a joke! Good job she never saw my acronym for my job title: Slave To A Bitch.

NB Godwin's Law is irrelevant in this case.

Monday, April 30, 2007

Prison Break - series 2

The second season has now closed in the States with a WTF?? moment. Possibly the biggest of all time.

From the beginning of the season things have failed to reach the exciting heights generated by the first. Michael and Lincoln bounce from here to there for illogical and unclear reasons. Everywhere they go they're followed like a puppy by William Fichtner's oh-so-clever FBI agent, Alex Mahone and it just gets tiresome. Mr Kim, the face of the evil 'Company' gets more like a Paontomine Dame with every episode; to his credit he doesn't cackle. He does have the most smug face in the world though.

And the ending seems to have been written purely with a third season in mind. And is frankly, shite.

US TV Networks - keepers of ineptitude

Saturday, April 28, 2007

121 pints

I know some of you are hoping I'm going to be talking about lager but no.

A channel 4 program, Human Footprint, has listed the cost to the planet of a human life and one statistic stands out for me (of those I saw in the advert anyway - there's no way I'm actually going to watch). Apparently, in the course of your life, not mine cuz I'm a double hard bastard (DHB), you will shed 121 pints of tears. No, really.

Glossing over how this could possibly be measured and massive differences between people eg the aforementioned DHB and hormonal pregnant women, who the hell could cry that much? That's about two pints a year! Poke me in the eye continuously and I wouldn't be able to do it. It might be just about possible with a particularly toxic nerve gas. Tear gas, maybe.

And so, a list of things to make your eyes water:

The Goodies on their three-way bike, stopping all of a sudden and landing balls first on the crossbar.
Extreme hayfever. (Should be a sport - throw a bit more pollen on me ya bastards!).
Wind from the north-west. On a Thursday. In Dorset.

And that's it. Suggestions appreciated.


Earthquake in Kent kills sperm

Thursday, April 26, 2007

On Stupidity

Jeez. Some people just don't know they've been booted out of their mother's crotch. They think life will always be cosy and warm, little realising reality is gonna come and bite them on the scrotum. Of course, some people, like Pete Docherty, openly invite it by being a twunt. Others, think that however foolish they act, whatever obscenity they perform, they'll always be number one. And it is about these people that I shall be speaking about today. Or rather, one of them.

His name is Keven Federline. Coming from nowhere, K-Fed, as he is now stupidly known, met and married Britney Spears during her thin and gorgeous phase, having two children (let's not forget that for this he must have seen her naked and possibly had her sitting on his face) and money thrown at him left, right, centre and up the behind. All he had to do to continue sitting pretty, was keep her happy. But no. K-Fed got drunk, saw strippers and slept around. I pause at this moment to scream 'allegedly'. He must have been off his tits on drugs. The evidence? Go read this paragraph again. Someone commit the eejit to an asylum for the criminally twuntish.

Surely it can't have been hard to have fun with Britters? Great body, obviously up for fun, not at all tight with her money...no, let's go get some 'ho. Tit.



Don't forget Dylan's canine credentials

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

On Blog Dither

Not relevant to what follows but my nipples are hurting as I type this.

Reading other peoples blogs you get a sense that there aren't half some (self) worthy people in the world. See Big News, write Serious Discussion Piece (no joking at the back). I've been wondering if I should adopt a similar tone now and again. Rather than the bollox I write at the minute that is. (I came up with a great joke earlier about that but it's gone...).

I just can't help writing my stream of consciousness. For instance, I just have to mention I'm hungry and am dying for some chocolate (someone help me beat down my craving - It's entirely possible 'm pregant looking at the size of my belly) and on it goes.

So I'll leave the weighy stuff to others; I'm quite happy here on the Islands of made up Bollox. (That's the one on the left I'm on; the one on the right is slightly higher up.)

Blog of the moment

Sheryl Crow is the talk of most blogs at the moment. I won't be jumping on this bandwagon as I think she's full of crap.

The Quest - an update

My quest for blog domination continues unabated and unabandoned. Mr Chipen Dale has agreed to swap links (definitely no bodily fluid though). Get in.

Monday, April 23, 2007

The American Middle Class

I was watching Slither tonight (Nathan Fillon's vehicle to stardom - not gonna happen, dude) and it occured to me that America has two kinds of people - the super-rich and the immensely poor. Let's look at the evidence.

On the one hand you have a family depicted by their trailer, their disgustingly tacky decor and their redneck attitudes.

On the other, an open plan living room with the kitchen of my dreams set in grounds.

There is nowhere in between. Land of the free? My arse.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Is Lost losing it's credentials?

Many things are allowed to change. Some blend and yet more mutate into monstrosities or into swans. One thing that isn't and certainly shouldn't, is genre programming. This is my domain goddammnit and it should not be sullied by namby pamby normal things happening.

When Lost started it had questions galore, all of which it was implied had supernatural explanations: the plane crash, how the Island came into being, the others, the monster, even the frickin' button. There were theories of time travel, magnetic anomalies, of quantum flux and many more. None were denied by JJ Abrams or Damon Lindelof, the shows creators. In fact, people were encouraged to believe.

Most of the questions have now been answered and there's a perfect rationale for it all! OK there're some bizarre happenings (which I won't go into for those not near the end of series three) but, and I feel stronlgy about this, although it's still a great program, I feel I was dragged into addiction on false pretences. This wouldn't happen in the other direction. Pauline Fowler wouldn't take off her skin to reveal her family crash landed twenty years ago from planet Suifge. No right minded SF fan would suddenly start watching. In fact, it would lose viewers.

I demand we all stop watching until they bring back the SF trappings! So say we all.

My mentalist dog is a tree.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Third post of the day...

to say I've had an email from Dave Bradley of SFX. As a result of having a letter in the next magazine, I've won another book! I truly am blessed.

Readers

My ratings are gradually increasing. Hurrah.

If you like my blog, you may wish to send me money. Please feel free. At the very least you could link to my blog and in return get linked back (which is obviously a highly sought after commodity).

I am a Sci Fi Orphan

Things are equal in the battle of the sexes. The Neanderthal men have gone back to their caves dragging their Barbie by the ankle (swinging might be a better image...or perhaps not). Women are now equal in so many things I can't think of a single one. Maybe you could leave a comment to suggest one (go on. Please.) Women however don't go quite the same way. They believe us men should equal. As long as we're separate. Aah, good memories of apartheid.

My wife is a fan of all kinds of crap TV. Soaps, docudramas, Little Biddy Animals Being Rescued, almost anything to do with babies and well, shite. Amazingly not all of it is on ITV. Like a Lord of all she surveys (not that she could actually survey anything per se having the intelligence of [insert your own item here]) she has her TV Land schedule mapped out from dawn to dusk, Monday to Sunday. IN fact, what's on TV is pretty much the way and why we keep track of what day it is, each blending into the next to make a big gelatinous lump of beige days.

The perceptive among you will be asking the question "But Jamie, when do you watch your programming?". Thanks for asking. I watch my genre and 'special' programming in the small hours of my wife's bedtime and in the time when she isn't on MSN with her sister and I've finished my scrubbing for the day (which she does check on). I look forward to the days that she's ill and has to spend time in bed or go there early.

This is normally a 'good and fruitful' plan. Thursday was a bad day for it to fall on though. This is the day of Chaos at the Castle and Sea of Souls. So I wasted this valuable extra time watching the same TV as the wife. I can't help feeling she planned it that way.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

My Life's Aim

LIving with my wife gives a unique perspective.

She has a 'shortened lifespan'. Like a lot of things it's akin to The Iron Man. How long will she live? Nobody knows. How will she die? Nobody knows. Will it be vastly unpleasant? Almost certainly.

For most of the forthcoming years, she'll spend a large proportion in some sort of discomfort. Hold your breath for twenty seconds, breathe for five and hold it again. Repeat ad nauseum. This is her day-to-day existence. Being her carer allows me to see first hand what a shitty stick we're all handed. Which begs the question why most people are happy to sit (or stand) doing a job that has the consequence of making other people money. Think about it: that woman in Tesco behind the check-out - she might make six quid an hour. Lord of Tesco probably makes that in less than a minute. But still she slaves away every day struggling to make enough to feed her kids, not forgetting copious amounts of nicotine obviously. She's gotta have some pleasures after all. (Hear me scoffing? Anyway...).

So, when my missus packs her bags, to pass over the coil that is mortal, I in theory should have to find a job. Which I am not going to want to do. Over and above the fact I spend my days doing a bit of DIY, sitting drinking tea and eating biscuits, reading, watching TV and generally being a lazy arsed shit (in between bits of care for the wife) do you really think I'm going to get up early, slave away 9-5, miss the great sunshine (which I'm missing by the way to type this, you ungrateful twunts) and make money for someone else? Am I arse.

My plan is thus, and forgive me if this sounds callous but it's always been my dream so get stuffed:

Grieve.
Buy a tent.
Buy a push bike.
Sell house and worldly possessions (at current reckoning about £90,000 based on profit from my house, minus mortgage, car, savings and other bits).
Travel.

When I travelled in 2000 I spent about 12k a year, and most of that was on hostels. I reckon I could get by on 8k a year or about £21 a day. A bit less if did any attractions.

My question to you is this: which direction?

North: Scotland? Always wanted to see it but once there where do you go?
East: France, Europe, the Far East: nicely varied but full of foreign speaking oiks.
West: Ireland and then a ferry to the US and Canada, trailing down to South America. This is my current favourite choice.

Make your case.

Bald Britney with Lyndsay Lohan getting a mohican. On a rope.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Do you smell like wee?

Is it you I sit next to on the bus?
With the face made of pus?
Is it you in the street?
With the honkin' size 12 feet?

WELL HAVE A FRICKIN' WASH!


God I hate having to smell other people. Having someone smoke in the same atmosphere as me is bad enough but to invade my personal air space with their dirty genital smells is, frankly, disgusting. Have these people heard of toilet paper? If you smell of wee do you, by default, smell of pooh? After all, if you don't wipe one way why wipe the other?

Obviously the general stereotype is for this to afflict the older generation. Fair enough, if your arthritis affects you so much you can't hold a really very lightweight piece of paper between your decrepit fingers but for the majority of the population it's really not too hard. I assume. I may be unique in that I'm the only person capable of wiping my knob on the curtains, for there must be endless opportunities for self-cleansing.

Ever been on a train when someone whiffy gets on? It's bad enough on a bus and that's for relatively short distances. A train can take you to the other side of the country, all the time next Micturating Mike. Excuse me Mike but are you wearing a frickin' nappy? Ever heard of femfresh?

I'd like all readers to do the following (and perhaps even leave a comment telling me how you got on - this shall be an amnesty and all charges shall be cancelled forthwith):

If you've been stinking for awhile you may not even notice the smell anymore. So ask someone. Pluck up the courage and ask a complete stranger to smell you. Not the wife, the husband or the mother (God bless 'er). They'll never see you again. Don't ask this guy though:








Saturday, April 14, 2007

A Blog's life

What? Half hour later? 260 words! Piece of micturation juice this. Time for a break. KIT KAT!

See Compo, will enter

I've decided to enter, or at least try to enter, SFX's Pulp Idol competition.

I started last year with some guff about a wandering space family but ran out of steam at about 600 words. This year I have a killer idea and should easily get a thousand words; my concept is easily split up into little chunks which in total should get me there. Here's dreaming.

I'd love a writing career - I have high opinions on my use of that there grammar. My downfall though is written speech. I might be able to do it but it's such a ball ache. So and so said that, he replied sarcastcally...blah. My 'great idea' (patent here I come) is to not have any. My story will be written entirely in the second person and my character shall talk to no-one. Which is actually integral to the story. This will be The Greatest Story Ever Told. Which is a hint.

Friday, April 13, 2007

I'm a winner!

Today isn't quite so awful as ususal - I've been picked by SFX Magazine to win a full set of the Runelords series! No information has been released as to how I've been picked (echoes of Richard and Judy if you ask me) but I have been leaving lots of mesages of lurve for Ian Berriman, Deputy Editor and chief picker on the mag. I've entered loads of these things and to suddenly win like this can't be entirely coincidental.

I was always arguing with HBK on the SFX forum and elsewhere about, well, many things, but relevantly about my sycophantic naturedness where free stuff was concerned. Hell, now I know it works I'll be IB's bitch media whore. Give it to me Ian. Give it to me good. Any remote control Daleks lying around?


|Corned beef and pickle

Thursday, April 12, 2007

On my unknown celebrity status

6th July 2002. That was the date of my nuptials. The day my freedom ended and my life as a eunuch-with-a-penis IE a husband started. 'Twas a great day, with not one bit of vomit and even my sister-in-law only threw a single strop (over her hair). I'd go so far as to say the cliched happiest day of my life. We went to Mexico on honeymoon. Aaah. Hot and sweaty it was. So was the weather. Fnarr, Fnarr.

When we got back a parcel was waiting for us - the wedding video. God, I thought, I'm gonna have to watch this a hundred times as we go around the relatives. If I knew what it contained I'd have burned it with petrol.

Picture the scene: my mother-in-laws living room - many people jammed in front of the TV waiting for the forthcoming feature. It starts. And there standing nee bouncing is Mr Bean. Alas, no. It is I. I'd previously been unaware of the similarity but the evidence was conclusive. OK I'd always been quite good at putting on silly voices and acting a twat but was a joke; I hadn't realised that was normality compared to my normal self. It now gets mentioned ad nauseam at every opportunity. I'm just glad we haven't had kids; every year on it's birthday I'd have had to check for the symptoms (presuming these things are genetic): silly walk? Check. Silly voice? Not yet thank god. Bad style? Just like me.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

The Quest - an update

Back when I first got the Internet (seems so long ago...what did we do all day??) I spent most of time and bandwidth downloading programs to make my downloading faster. Kinda pointless really.

Now I'm doing this blog thing properly I seem to be spending most of online time just promoting this site, trying to get bloody readers - you shall read me goddamnit!

On a trawl of other blogs yesterday I noticed Smeg_Head has linked to me - he never said! It came as quite a shock to be honest as I thought he couldn't stand me (let's face it - few people can), him being a regular on the SFX forum. Maybe it's the teacher in him. How anyone finds his blog I don't know; if you look up Smeg Head on Google you just find information on Red Dwarf.

It also came as a shock to find the link as I did a Google back link search and it said not a single link was out there to be found. Which is blatantly rubbish. I now feel the need to publicise Smeg_Head too...

Monday, April 09, 2007

A Rose that is a Rose is still a Pain

Shakespeare apparently said many wise things but none more stupid than 'A rose is but a Rose' *. See, if your name's Smith it's probable that you don't get asked about it's origin, you don't get bombarded with comments along the lines of 'Do you own the well known newsagents?'

I used to work in a call centre selling advertising for the local paper; it was a good job. I liked it. Apart from the telephone work. There I'd be in my preamble, trying to get the bloke on the other end of the phone to actually talk to me (No! No, thanks! I'm dead! etc etc) and the moment would come when I'd mention my name - "Starbuck? Like the coffee?" Yes, like the bloody coffee. No, I don't have shares. No, it's not a relation. No, I don't actually like coffee. No, it's named after a character from Moby Dick.

Or the other famous connotaton - "Starbuck? The cylons didn't get you then?" Oh, watch me chortle.

You might think it's not that bad but I get it everywhere I go: petrol stations, shops, National Rail Enquiries, Insurance firms, hospitals. I could have three conversations a day that follow the exact same pattern. How I yearn to sometimes be a 'Smith'.

* May not actually be correct.

Spasm is a five letter word

Inventions that need to be invented #1

Forget about flying cars, forget about Star Wars type Speeders, forget even about those anti-gravity barge type things in Star Trek: TNG. The perfect use for this technology is a floating washing basket.

How many times have you done for your back when pegging out clothes? Up, down, up, down, getting some potentially very heavy towels. I'd buy one of these tomorrow if I could. If anyone is on the verge of production and is looking for an investor my email address is over there ---->

Friday, April 06, 2007

The problem with BSG

This is a great article on where BSG is currently going wrong. It's not often I don't find something to disgaree with...

Carnivale

I finally got around to finishing watching Carnivale recently - the full and interrupted two seasons. It was cancelled at the end of season two; such a travesty has never been committed. Especially if you ignore memories of Dark Skies, American Gothic and Invasion.

It centred on a young man called Ben Hawkins, played with sublime subtlety by Nick Stahl, he of Terminator 3 infamy. Ben became an orphan in the first episode and was picked up by a travelling fair, the 'Carnivale', that came with a rag-tag bunch of misfits, charlatans and, for want of a better word, freaks. It was set during the thirties in the US of A and pretty much every frame emphasised just how dirty everything was. From the people to the towns, muck was endemic in every day life (if this show's accurate it's a tale of Lazarus proportions how they got to the shiny, spangly, gaudy situation they're in today).

They travelled the 'circuit' up and down the 'States trying to make a quick buck before people got bored of their wares or as in one spectacular case, died, leading to a highly graphic tar and feathering. Can you spell 'ouch'?

Intermittently cut in were scenes of a preacher, Brother Justin, and his sister Iris. It soon becomes clear that BJ (as he shall henceforth be humorously known) wasn't all he seemed. Thus started the show proper. For BJ and Ben were Ying to each others Yang, it not being conclusively clear on which side they lay. They developed supernatural abilities (sounds corny, it's not) during the first season; Ben could use his to heal people and BJ could...do pretty much what he wanted. They'd dream of each other, of some bloke called Hank/Hack Scudder, of WWII and a tree of all things. Entwined in all this were the secondary characters of which there were an army (rumour suggests the cost of keeping them all on was the primary reason for the shows cancellation - have the US networks not heard of art for arts sake?? - instead we get Tracey Emin and a dirty bed. Nice trade.) all under the eye of 'Management' a shadowy figure confined to a trailer in the Carnivale ranks.

As season 2 wore on the tables were being set for an almighty confrontation between BJ and Ben and there were revelations galore, Management seemingly being way more involved than even the viewer could have guessed. People died, some even died and then lived again. The series ended on such a shocking moment, a revelation in all senses of the word that to never have a resolution is a crime.

It made for one of the best-looking series ever made, by which I mean the production values not the state of the cast for some of them were outright fugly. Not one of them would have been in a beauty pageant, which is why they're probably character actors and boy do they have character. Not one aspect of the show was poor; it was uniformly excellent: the acting, the direction, the scripts, the music. You must see this show.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

To Dog or Not to Dog

Man's best friend....Dog? Don't think so! That'd be cash. Cash for the wife, cash for the kids cash for the new technogadgetry. Hmm. Cash.

But dogs're alright too. I'd always thought that if I won the lottery I'd buy a BIG house and then I'd also have time for dog walking (which has got nothing to do with having a house of any size but there you go). So I'd buy a dog. Which is a problem. See, I've always wanted a St Bernard (pronounced to rhyme with 'would' not 'hard' for my American readers (see my ambition? - American readers)) as they look like a dog you could literally fight with and it a) wouldn't give a toss and b) wouldn't fight back. But then my neighbour has a Weimerauner and they're gorgeous and such good fun so I'd have to have one. And have you ever had the pleasure to be in the company of a Cocker Spaniel? Such a stupid dog but you can watch one all day without getting bored. Alsatian? Always wanted one of those. Pyrennese Mountain Dog? Ever since I saw a children's TV program....And the list goes on.

So how could you choose between them? Is it greedy or selfish to have them all? I ask because I have Saturdays winning ticket. I had one last week too but they pulled out the wrong numbers...

My cat is feline fine

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Dangerous Substances

Hmm. Drugs. There are many that are dangerous that aren't on the wicked list (that's wicked bad not wicked 'mint'), many that aren't dangerous but are and others that have never been considered. You often come in to contact with them in day to day life. I did earlier in fact (as if you hadn't guessed).

We went to Tesco earlier in the week, part of the wife's health drive (not that it's helping her lower end problems). Wahey we went on the 'fresh' fruit and veg section. (See the ''''? That's cuz 'fresh' is a complete fuckin' misnomer especially if you shop at Asda. It's off by the time you get to the car, let alone three days later.) Bit a this, bit a that, hmm feel those melons. I even bought a Pineapple for the first time in my life; that was fun I can't tell you. We intended on making smoothies of strawberry and bananananan and raspberries. We got at least half way through before my blender broke. I estimate we threw away about fifteen pounds worth of fruit that otherwise isn't edible and you can double that when you factor in how much of the stuff we did manage to make hasn't been touched by the wife.

Amongst the more 'obscure' items we bought were some chillies. I'm a bit of a gastro-amateur when it comes to food which translates as: pick a meat, throw it in a pan and throw other stuff in at random. And so this was my technique tonight. Except I planned on pasta instead of meat. Tin of tomatoes, red pepper, garlic, red onion and one of my chillies. Let the pain commence.

There I am chopping away thinking to myself of all the stories of the useless twunts that have chopped chillies and rubbed their eyes. Ho ho ho I very nearly verbalised. Then I got distracted. I hadn't done the wife's baked beans! Ooh, my eye is itching, scratch OMFG fuck fuckity dwarf on a barge someone has inserted a blow torch in my eye akin to the oriental bird in Hostel.

It hurt. A lot. I don't have a pain threshold. I have a pain switch. At the 'off' position all is tranquil. At 'on' it's like Jack Bauer is inserted in my mutha lovin' brain.

I literally fell up the stairs to the bathroom ( I was stood three feet from the kitchen sink but my instincts led me stumbling up the frickin' stairs) and eventually managed to dab it with a tea towel. Didn't work. The wife suggested cotton pads. Didn't work. All this time I was worried about my culinary creation which may have been burning. Eventually I got in the shower and stood with my eye under the shower. Fifteen minutes later the blow torch had been replaced with a single solitary match. And a football had been inserted under my eye (a euphemism for swelling). I can now see again but I may have to change my name to John Merrick for the foreseeable future.

My pasta was lovely by the way.

Pigs are happy when flagellating

Monday, April 02, 2007

Serenity Sheep

SFX have been running a poll to find the 'greatest SF film ever', including such alumni as Blade Runner, Aliens and The Terminator and little known fan film Serenity.

The latter film for those that don't know is based on the series Firefly, created by Joss 'In Search of a Success' Whedon. It's about the criminal crew of a rundown spaceship (the Firefly) and their adventures throughout known space (apparently one system wide but with an amazing array of survivable habitats). It's not a bad series as such and some characters are better than others, Jayne being the male stand-out from the crowd. He has the best, funniest, lines and is lower on the IQ chart than a piece of crotch crust. River is at the opposite end of the likability scale. She's nutso when you first meet her and doesn't contribute to the show except to how how crazy she is. The only exception being Objects in Space, where it appears she is absorbed by the ship. This would have been one of the great SF twists. As it is she was just on another ship. Meh.

It had the potential to be one of the better show of recent years; not up there with Babylon 5 but certainly on a par with the 4400. It lasted thirteen episodes before being cancelled. 13. One and three. Joss Whedon's fans, and if you like one of his shows you're pretty much likely to obsess about them all for some unknown except to bum fluff reason, come up with plenty of reasons for it being cancelled, all of them irrelevant and fatuous. Quite how a film was ever made I'll never know.

As soon as the poll appeared on the main SFX site, threads appeared on the Buffy and Firefly websites enrolling people to vote for Serenity. They do this every time one of their number appears somewhere on the net or on a vote-me-up somewhere. I'm getting to the point now and the point is this: get a life. Not in a William Shatner tongue in cheek type way but really, get a life. The show was cancelled quite a long time ago now. OK you must find a way to fill your after school time but go ride your bike, buy some binoculars and perve on the old lady across the street (I do - she's lush) or even help your Gran in the garden (the grass gets right in her Petunia when Grandad wants to do some trimming of her hedge).

It's not even as if Joss Whedon has had a single successful project since Buffy and even that is considered to be shite after series 4 (I personally never saw the 'brilliance' in that show either). Off the top of my head (cuz that makes a) my pop culture knowledge seem wizzo and b) there's nothing better for Blog kudos credibility) let's have a rundown of Jw's work and chart his successeseseses:

Toy Story - according to modern myth he wrote, created, starred and directed. In fact he co-wrote a few lines.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer - seven series TV show that limped a bit after the fourth.

Angel - Below average BTVS spinoff that got cancelled after the third season.

Firefly - Thirteen episodes! Count them and come back in...less than 10!

Serenity - Film based on Firefly that is struggling two years later to recoup it's cost.

Wonder Woman - a new film he was developing. Until he got chucked off.

I await the next announcement in SFX of his 'latest exciting project'.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Light Dawns on Marble Head

I like to think I'm pretty tech savvy. I like to think I'm fairly well endowed in the intelligence department. And I also like to think that I'm not the doofus I actually appear to be.

I converted to the new blogger, ooh, ages ago. Regular readers will know what a chore-bore that was, it being a nightmare of Homeric proportion. I was just glad to get it finished. Well apparently I never did. I was flicking around this morning and realised I hadn't installed the code for my Page Counter - DOH! No wonder I've been registering as having no readers these past few...ages. Rest assured your efforts shall not go unheeded anymore.




Lindsay Lohan sitting in a tree

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Doctor Who 3x01 "Smith and Jones"

So Nu Hu bounces back onto UK screens and it does so with a swagger, a jape and a knowing wink that it's already been commissioned for a fourth series. Which is why Russell T Davies seems to have followed through on his promise to not change a single thing.

Think back to the release of Oasis' third album. The expectation was massive and although the fans (like me!) thought it was great, the critics decided it was just too much of the same, identical to the first two albums. The third series of Doctor Who is following the same tack...except that SFX, Europe's best selling science fiction magazine, still appears to be kneeling in front of RTD with mouth agape. Still, I await the results of the forum vote.

This may be the year that I stop watching. There's only so many dysfunctional families that you can watch in a childrens SF show setting. Like Smallville it may develop into an event-episode watch only: the inevitable Dalek episode; the rumoured Master episode and the series end.

See, even the much-publicised "first black companion" (Sorry Mickey. You've been forgotten about) for which RTD can strike off another minority tickbox, can do something to shake up the program. Most programs in their third series have a shift away from where they were; think BSG stranding themselves on New Caprica. In introducing Martha Jones, a capable enough actress with a sort-of likeableness, you can't help imagining it's just Rose with brains. Which wouldn't be so bad if other things had changed for the better - RTD's way of writing 'generic female companion isn't too bad by itself - but all the usual Nu Hu tick boxes were marked in the very first episode: London? Check! Mouthy family? Check! Stupid people? Check! Sonic screwdriver used as regular mcguffin? Check! Contemporary setting? Check!

Let us not forget this is a program that can go anywhere in space and time - we should be seeing new weapons not gun analogues, new planetary vistas not...what we get, undescribable aliens not anthropods with dodgy voice changers, concepts, ideas - something to make you think! This is a kids program after all and surely it's remit should be to challenge the future generation, not to convince them that London is the place to go see spaceships?

6/10

Friday, March 30, 2007

List of words

This will not be a lengthy post. Or one that's probably even worth reading. If you've made it this far I don't want to see you following me, asking for these thirty seconds of your life back, ok?

This is a big, gopping list of words that I liked the look of. I'm also hoping that a google search might be confused. Here's hoping.

The Common Garden Oik

I'm not a nice person. This has been acknowledged on quite a few occasion including the time I alluded to my maths lecturers weight problem by shouting to the entire class that it wasn't possible for her to be under twenty stone. Beetroot? She was. I just sat there larfing and larfing...Hi Beverley by the way (Peoples College, Maid Marian Way, Nottingham for anyone that wants to enquire after her rotund wellbeing). I like to think I have standards though; I'd happily punch a woman given enough of a pummeling by one but I'd help her stand after.

But not even I'd stoop so low as to SWEAR IN FRONT OF THE MOTHER-IN-LAW.

This has got to be the most heinous of crimes. Murder cannot compare. Paedophilia? A mere trifle. See, it's not hard to continue my status of Golden Boy when you have my brother-in-law. He's the kind of person that tells his obnoxious six year-old daughter to tell other people to F*** off "cuz it's funny". Yeah, that's funny. See in twenty years that your daughter is a delinqnuent drug user like you? See those needle track marks? See those bruises on her inner thigh? That's your fault that is. Harsh but true.

So later when we're at a childrens birthday party and his four year-old niece wets her knickers, he calls her a bitch. Hmm. Needle track marks.

Well, 'Kate' goes ballistic on his ass not that he cares. He comes wading into the kitchen "Aah f***, F***y, C**t". (That's known as paraphrasing). Well, I never thought eyes could actually leave one's head but my ma-in-laws certainly did. You could watch the tumble weeds glide past before another word was said...which was quite some time as we had to fight with a bread knife to get between the bickering pair. It was only later, as is the 'Jones' way, that the truth came out about how she really felt. Which wasn't exactly a surprise.

In my quest for readers I've developed a plan: I shall include phrases on all my posts that are either unique or aim for the more populist google searches eg I'd like to see Britney Spears naked (see what I did there? I got a freebie. Britney Spears? Naked? Freebie? Hmm.) This posts phrase shall be: Reticulating flange

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Was The Death Star Attack an Inside Job?

Some important questions need to be answered by someone in authority. Where's your "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime", now Blair? Eh? EH? Bloody Labour and it's workshy manifesto.

The Quest - an update

Many thanks to Scaryduck for including me in his oh so fantastic link-o-matic. It can't be long before my world domination is...to commence. Surely. Of course, it helps when you actually post to your own bloody blog but with all this free time on my hands I surely must be able to find the time...

Anger Management

I've never been one to get my ire raised easily; I'm a chilly kinda person, I hang with the 'bros and am calmer than Robin Knox-Johnston at sea. But my wife....oh dear. She is the one and only person able to do this to me. A wrong word here, even a sly glance there and faster than a fireman in a flame my tempertaure rises and my steam kettle goes BANG!

This was my downfall yesterday. Small are the arguments we have but they escalate. Massively. See, I don't see the point in arguing. It doesn't get you anywhere, it certainly doesn't make you feel any better. In fact it just serves to create bad atmosphere and increases the things for you to argue about next time. So most of the time my wife argues and I just sit there saying "Yes, dear" which of course makes her even more irate (but I can't help that). It's only three hours later when she's still going on and basically repeating the same thing over and over and over and over again that I start to get annoyed and that's mainly because I'm bored. So I'll retaliate at which point the argument shifts emphasis and what I've just said is suddenly what the argument has been about all along.

Well yesterday I lost it. Under the sofa and sewn into the lining type lost. I stormed over to her, put her wheelchair in freewheel (to no insignificant possible harm to my fingers I must say (ever tried putting your fingers between the spokes of a moving wheel?) and pushed it into the corner. There she sat for a bit until she calmed down. After she'd vented massively at the indgnity of what I'd just done obviously. Eventually, with a bit of help from our old friend Asthma, she'd managed to work up enough courage to apologise. After a bit of crying she even managed to raise a smile. Now, I asked her, was it really worth arguing about wether the cat wanted to go out in the night? I think it's clear who was in the right.

So, dear non-existant reader, what things have you been right about in the past which others failed to see?

NB: Part of this post was made up. Only part, mind.

Friday, December 15, 2006

A Woman's Mind






I'm not sure I understand this - maybe that's the point! (Click for a larger version)

Pussy Whipped

Alfie has returned! There I was cleaning my kitchen, I opened the door to take out some rubbish and in she wandered, not a care in the world. We have noticed a few changes in her behaviour, like when she goes to sleep she'll wake up in a panic and she won't be left alone and every time I leave the room she screams but apart from that...

The Hateful (nearly)dead

Aaah old people. Dontcha love 'em? Erm...no. Stinky gits the lot of 'em. Apart from my dear old Gran, bless her poor deceased cotton socks.

Spend two minutes now and name me five people over the age of 60 - apart from immediate family you have a scarily unnecessary emotional attachment to - who deserve to carry on breathing......Can't do it can you? The truth of the matter is, that despite the usual protests that these literal degenerates have amassed years of useful experience, they don't have any meaningful purpose. What do they choose to do with their collective selves? Do they go around schools explaining why they're so decrepit, telling all the innocent children where they're going wrong in life, how they managed to single-handedly win the war (if they're American obviously) or even visiting sad and lonely tossers in hospital, who, lying in cancerificly awful pain, yearn for just someone to talk to? Do they bum. (That's not a question by the way). They decide, for it is so clearly a choice, to sit and watch DAYTIME TELEVISION. Admittedly this isn't a bad thing in itself, DT being highly addictive but it's such a waste of experience...

And why should they persist in clogging up the supermarkets everyday with their urine stinkiness? If they must micturate in their clothes, surely they must have learned that one trip a week allows them to vegetate even more??

There are distinct flavours of Homo Senilis. My particular favourite is that of the female variety with "Big Bottom Disease". Much like the theory of evolution, there doesn't seem to be an intermediate stage for BBD. There goes a middle-aged lady walking down the street, with her relatively pert rear-end when she is suddenly afflicted with BBD (not that you'll ever see this happen). It must be made clear that BBD is not just for those ladies of a more...obese nature. BBD happens irrespective of general body size and is distinctly more pronounced in those who are in fact quite small. Notice how the have to lean forward to compensate for the rear weight. Notice also how the affected area can balance a tray of pint glasses, something which old women fail to appreciate, adding further credence to the argument above.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

The Prestige

No spoilers shall be revealed.

The story revolves around two Paul Daniels magician types having personal and professional rivalries, helped along by one killing the wife of the other. On the one hand this is an excellent film. Christopher Nolan has put together another brilliant piece of storytelling and the two lead actors (Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale) are as fine as you could wish.

On the other hand, the final reveal is a bit...meh. I saw it coming way before the end, having been looking out for it from the word GO! which maybe spoiled the effect. Having seen countless SF&F films the ending is a bit obvious but jars with the rest of the period-set film.

9/10 (loses a point for the ending alone)

Today

Alfie is still gone. I've now given up hope of finding her. She may wander back one day by herself but the chances of me finding her are zilch. I've been out no end of times to find her but can not. Sigh.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Have you seen my pussy?

Alas, my baby has gone. Left us. Disappeared. Alfie went out on Thursday night and has not been seen since. If you see her, email me. This is the only post I have time for at the moment but more grief sharing will follow when I eventually get my house sorted - wireless broadband! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

My Christmas List

I won't have one. I'm not drinking.

Geddit? I'm funny, me.

Action Cat

Alfie, my lovely tabby pussy cat who I dote on, has had a heart-stopping adventure. Heart stopping for me that is, she probably couldn't have cared less.

Never one to let anything faze her, Alfie lurves to explore. The day after we moved in our cats were getting on our royal tits (two weeks?? Which masochistic arse decided you should keep a cat in for two weeks when they enter a new home? They obviously never met Nana) so against the wife's express wishes (she's a real have a cake and take five extra portions kinda girl) I let them out. Wife was in bed. What did she know? It took all of two days for them to be left out over night. NB There is no bigger joy than to watch your cat in a new environment.

So, I wake up at ooh seven-ish and after the obligatory nee demanded wifey-cuddle, I toddle downstairs, remembering my slippers in case my feet freeze to the cermaic tiles on the kitchen floor. I swear, this will happen come winter. Tea and toast in hand I open the kitchen door having just rembered my err...beloved Alfie has been out in sub-zero temperatures all night. Well she's not at the door...although I can hear a distinct crying above me. Up I looks, and she's on the utility room roof, a seperate garage size construction not three feet from the back door. Unfortunately there's no where for her to easily jump down apart from a 2mm wide fence and even she's not that brave. So I runs around loking for something to stand on - eureka! thinks I, I'll get the grey filing box, so I run upstairs.

While there I remember the previous day she'd somehow found her way onto the conservatory roof and into this same room. Genius! I'll open the window and in she'll pop. Bad idea. Big Bad Idea. You may have read earlier, if you were paying attention, that it had been sub-zero temperatures. This didn't occur to me.

Alfie tends to follow me wherever I go, so true to form, when she saw me she made the leap (two feet) from solid flat rooftop to icy tilted glass. I felt 'the fear'. Never has a semi-naked man ran so fast through a house with a grey box (got the image?). Needless to say all was well in the end. Once Alfie was out of arms she just sauntered very cooly over to her food and chowed down. As she does.

Concordantly Concise

Reading other peoples blogs as I sometimes do (you lucky things) it occurs that I should try to just post on one subject a day but my mind wanders so much and new thoughts occur so often I have to end what I'm typing quickly so I can write on my new subject (so, so tempted to stop mid sentence there. Wouldn't that have been sooo funny?)

How do other cope with the staying on subject? Some people write thousands of words ON ONE SUBJECT. Jeez. Write a book why dontcha? Personally, if my musings were funny nee humorous, this is what I'd prefer - bang! you're in and bang! you're out. Insert your own reference to sex 'here'.

Oh the PAIN

A pledge.

I, [insert name here], do swear to go through hell, to push my lungs to their full capacity in the pursuit of bodily masochism. No longer shall these buttocks be flabby; no more shall my gut wobble when I walk. For today and from now infinitum, I shall exercise. For my heart is in the hands of my treadmill, my brain is in the pit of my pants and my lungs hurtsoveryfuckingmuchpleasemakethepainstopsoon.

Today, I weigh 204 pounds. Let the record show this to be approximately true.

Monday, November 06, 2006

The Adventures of 'Kate' - part 312

My sister-in law 'Kate' lives with her much elder boyfriend 'Ben' in Devonport, Plymouth. In a flat.

Now 'Kate' and 'Ben' earn far more than my wife and I ever did, even when the wife was working full-time. Despite this, they scrimp, scrounge and generally act like they're their own branch of Oxfam. They take pretty much anything we're giving away. Personally I'd prefer to sell it but my wife is STUPID!! and is perfectly happy to give it to them. For free. Nada.

Why do they act this way? Why does it seem like they have no self-respect? I have no idea and I have realised tonight that I don't actually care. You see, I now live in Leigham, many rungs higher on the social scale than Devonport. It's not quite Chaddlewood or even Mainstone but both are only a short walk away. Devonport however is on the other side of Plymouth. Bizarrely this has bought about a sudden excess of visits from 'Kate'. I'd always out down her lack of visits to the prescence of...me basically. I even offered to buy her pizza and go out for the evening if she visited my wife who was desperately lonely at that point and missed her greatly but no. She went to her mother, who told the wife who had a go at me for interfering and making 'Kate' feel bad! Women! (Any female readers might wish to know I love them all).

Incidentally, in a plot twist worthy of Douglas Adams, Jordan ('Ben's ADHD son) has now returned to his psycho mother in Wales and Olivia ('Ben's daughter by some other bint) is now refusing to stay the night and threatening to never visit. All of which is making him feel great. Oh, and Kate's a nagging biatch apparently.

The quest - an update

In my quest for new readers, I have convinced that fool Scaryduck to add me to his link-o-matic. I'm hoping this will increase my faithful readership up beyond the dizzy heights of five before Christmas. Perhaps SD will take pity and involved me in one of his tales of mirth - or woe - thus promoting me in the blogosphere.

I need to formulate a plan whereby I increase my internet prescence and yet spend time away from the computer. Now I have Direct Payments, I don't have a need to trawl the SFX forum (to avoid the tedium of my job - I can now read! or watch TV! all while getting paid! MWAHAHAA) and my domineering hold of conversation is falling by the wayside which leaves me wan-needing readers but not being arsed to spend the time talking to other people in the juvenile nee pathetic hope that they read this tripe. Hmm.

Thinking is needed. And a less demanding wife. Oh yes.

Nur nur nur nur

I'm so happy to have moved house. I got rid of all my disgusting throw-food-out-the-window neighbours and moved in to my new abode on the momentous day of 27th October 2006. In the style of the football reports at my Primary School 'everyone played well'. There was a slight bit of indecision on the part of the solicitors when at 1345 our sale had taken place but our purchase had yet to happen - "No, it now won't take place until after two". We were sat twiddling our thumbs in a cold, lonely and very empty apartment. Literally three minutes later "It's now gone through". Cue a mad dash to the estate agent f0r keys. It's lurvely.

I now have yet more additions to take me away from reading and slobbing. I have a garden and decorating and a conservatory and get to play "Just what does this plug in this socket do?". You see, much as I love my new house, the electrics seem to have beenput in by someone who just threw darts around a darkened room "Just there for the socket and all the way over there I'll put the light switch". I'm down to single figures now though for sockets and switches of which I know not the function. Not one of these operates the lights underneath the kitchen cupboard. Answers on a postcard. Please.

It took a whole seven days to unpack. Three months it takes some people! How??

In the garden last week we had a squirrel. The wife saw it as cute. I saw it as potential cat food. Speaking of which, Nana has found a new source of mice to torment.

A summary

So, many things have happened.

I've moved house. No problems experienced. Yay.

We have finally received Direct Payments so I now get paid to care for wife full-time at your expense. Yay.

Voltan is no more. Boo.

My cats have surveyed their new 'yard' and seem to be happy.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

And...he's back in the room.

Much has happened in the past couple of weeks since my former promised return. It shall be covered in detail over the next few days. Having just spent three hours catching up on my blog and forum reading (the product of packing, moving, un-packing and being generally too busy to even take part in onanism) I'm a little 'screen tired' ie I can't be arsed*.



* Nothing to do with anal sex and/or concrete.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Waiting

I wait. For the removal people to bring me some boxes so that I may finish my packing. Luckily I've already started or I wouldn't finish.

Sorry, did I not say? The Big Move is going forward on Friday! Huzzah! (Imagine a big smiley inserted here).

So, I wait....

Friday, October 20, 2006

A health joke

A woman goes into hospital for surgery on her cancerous innards. They remove, amongst others, her kidneys and uterus. These bits get sent to the fridge for storage until such time as they can be examined and tested thus gaining insight into the patients medical condition. But they don't make it to the fridge. Oh, no. They get put in a warming cabinet. For nine days. Rendering them useless dry husks. Treatment options? Erm....None.

This is in no way related to my job in a hospital. I must stress that or my bottom will burn from a tanning.

A good day

Well huzzah. My solicitor has called and suggested a date for my move. Next Friday, a full seven days from now. Not going to be stressed at all in the next week then...He has to phone my sellers and agree it with them first but with any luck...*fingers crossed*

Thursday, October 19, 2006

A sexy Christmas?

Today I have been introduced to the concept of 'Rodeo Sex '.

I may try this tonight or, if I consider I may wish to have ‘relations’ ever again, I may not. Not that I wouldn’t necessarily say no to my Sister-in-law’s advances but I’d probably be too busy imagining doing her bodily harm to gain a certain….rigidity, so the wife would suss it from the get go. I’d like to think she’d see the humour of the situation but like most ‘I’d like to think...’s about the wife, I would be disastrously wrong.

Such as Christmas 2003; I thought that she’d like her Christmas presents. Looking back the electric blanket, gloves, socks and water bottle cover had a theme but is it too much to ask of her undying love that she appreciates these gestures? She feels the cold incessantly (and oh she whinges so) and I thought I was doing what was best. For my nerves and tits, that she was getting on top of like a wheelchair bound Edmund Hilary, as well as her warmth. Apparently so. Three years later I’m still threatened that this year had better not be a repeat performance. I search in vain for the perfect ie cheap yet not tacky, present.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

A mission (but not to Mars) - PART 1

Henceforth I am going on a mission. A quest. For new readers. I'm sorry to betray you single, solitary reader but I feel you need company. I need people that can genuflect properly. And leave comments. Lot's of comments that I may show to others as proof of my fawnability. Any sort of advice would be welcome...

Countdown to Christmas

Are you ready yet? Have you suffered the humiliation of being pounded in the buttocks by the granny behind you, eager for that last piece of plastic crap for dear Jason? There's only 67 days to go! Aaaaah! Or not. You see the sensible among us ie those under 40 with a sense of the technical use this 'ere internet. Last year I was proud, I stood up!, to have not stepped into one single, solitary shop for a present. It helped that the wife got most of it admittedly but not even her presents were shoplifted or purloined from the high street.

Where might this technological time-saver go next? Could we order own funeral on our death-bed? Might one just log-on during fornication to get the ever needed mornig after pill? Time can only tell and I wish it would for my body clock is ticking and time is running out.

Tick-tick-tick....life is running past. Not jogging, not walking but sprinting like Linford Christie on a souped up pimping bling mobile, with go zoooooooooooooooom stripes. Next year I may be dead and then I wouldn't get to find out what the frig Lost is all about and THAT is my biggest regret. Not that I'd leave my grieving widow (she'd better grieve!!) for I'd be dead and wouldn't know what state she's got herself in but we put so much time and effort into watching these things, if we died before the climax, like so many pensioners, what would be the point of it all? There, that's my big guide to life - make sure you see the end of any TV programs you're following or books you're reading otherwise your life has been pointless. That's deep that is.

Huzzah!

Hello once more, single, solitary reader.

You will see that I've updated my blog with those pesky posts I mentioned. I have also redesigned it a rather snazzy beige colour. Hmm beige.

REVIEW: The Long Way Down - Nick Hornby

A second title for this latest Nick Hornby could be Suicide: The Hardway - It's never a good way to do something difficult by doing it as a group which is where the people of the novel go wrong.

Meeting by chance on New Year's Eve on top of a tower block four people have their own reasons for jumping, with varying factors of relevance. Mr Hornby covers a lot of the pop culture references in his group: the celebrity, the carer, the failed rock god and the chav, so from the get-go you're rooting for them just to get on with it and jump.

I won't spoil wether they do or not, suffice to say things happen along the way to drag the book out. Often funny, sometimes melancholy, it's possibly too blase about the subject matter, relying on comedy rather than reality to show people in emotional pain. Imagine a Joss Whedon TV program on suicide and you have the book; full of witticisms at a time when death is steps away, one of the characters even comments that they're talking like they're in a London Soap.

It would be difficult for a book on this subject to show motive if it wasn't in the first person, which is lucky as we read what amounts to four different monolgues, intertwining their story with different perspectives. Bizarrely though, the personalites barely change, with only Jess, being the most extreme, having any sort of different vocabulary and most of that derogatory.

I'd recommend it to fans of Mr Hornby's work but certainly not as a starting point. 3 out of 5

REVIEW: Coyote Blue - Christopher Moore

Christopher Moore is a writer on the edge. Like a man with a penis is almost a woman, Mr Moore is almost a writer of pulp; he's pre-op. His ideas and characters belong in weighty tomes, 300 pages thick, while his writing style aid the words' trip through the mind. While not a book to rival a 'classic' this is TV in novel form.

Coyote Blue rockets along veering from surreal action piece to romantic interlude, while the reader looks on in the style of Mr. T ie a crazy fool. Most of his books can be described with a single strange soundbite and this is no exception: Indian with his own god has an existential crisis. OK the crisis might not actually exist until the Coyote of the title shows up in the opening pages, which makes for detached reading later on, but once he's there the turns and twists keep coming. One particularly memorable scene involves Sam's apartment and the Coyote in the form of...a coyote wreaking havoc. Manimal was never like this.

Coyote, the trickster, having visited Sam as a child in a vision quest, helps him with his life by destroying it and thus building it back up again. Out goes Sam's life, job and apartment and in comes a more fulfilling one as husband and potential father.By the end of the book you know how it's going to end up but it's a great ride getting there. It would have been nice to find out more of why Sam's life was so awful; he's only rich and successful after all. Similarly Coyote takes a sudden shift in personality in the final chapters which jars with what came earlier.

3 out of 5

REVIEW: 24 - Season 3

The one where...Jack stops the virus #

The superhuman CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) agent that is Jack Bauer serves his country once more. Along the way, people die, get tortured, kidnapped and generally don't have a nice time but then you probably knew that.

Season 3 sees Jack back at CTU having recovered from ordeals of dealing with the nuke and the death of Terry, his wife. He's subordinate to Tony Almeda the new Director of CTU but in charge of Field-Ops, a seemingly new addition to the team. For the past year Jack's been working under cover with a group of drug traffickers to buy a 'Weaponised' virus, that kills people in about 18 hours and it's effects are nasty to say the least. Needless to say, things go wrong. Big time. President Palmer is back (yawn) and has his own subplot this time, involving Sherry Palmer and the President's new Chief of Staff, Wayne Palmer, David's brother.

As ever, the action comes thick and fast, with contrived story devices thrown left and right like Plot Grenades. No other show has quite so many cliff hangers, not just in the final few minutes but also in the twentieth, twenty first and every other damn minute of screentime. For a man having heart trouble the last time we saw him Jack bounds around kicking three bells out of anyone and anything to get his *gruff voice* "job done". We even see a softer side, something we've not seen since the first few scenes of season 1 before the Presidents life was threatened. Old characters make a welcome return and some leave in a meh kind of way. Blink and you'll miss the death of a Big Bad which is the one major disappointment of this year.

No amount of disappointment however can prepare you for the blandness of David Palmer's B story. Much of the action revolves around Wayne Palmer and he has to shoulder the blame, as an actor. DB Woodside portrays Wayne like an arrogant younger sibling, petulantly throwing his toys out of the pram. Not even Penny Johnson Jerald as Sherry can liven up proceedings as we've seen her evil-woman-pretending-to-be-nice routine too often. Just how many times can the president use her, only to regret it? American Presidents have a reputation for being stupid but it would be nice to see even the fictitious ones be clever now and again. Time and again he makes choices which you feel he'd never make - you're the President David! Never heard of a pardon?

You'll be relieved to hear Kim Bauer's not put in danger umpteen times an episode having been given a job at CTU by her oh, so loving Dad, where she falls in love with...Jack's partner. Hop aboard the cliché train! New IT people jump in - do you need to be an IT specialist to work in CTU? - and work miracles with their 'future' technology. Paul Blackthorne is perhaps the best addition to this year as token English bad guy Stephen Saunders, playing malice for all he can get.

As usual characters and plot strands abound, revolving around each other with abandon; bluffs and double occur with all too common frequency and there's not a lot you think you haven't seen before - how many times can they play the "Someone’s hacked into CTU and/or are working undercover" card? Just how secure are the computers and staff in American Intelligence?

So, three seasons in and jack's looking tired. Let's hope season 4 re-invigorates the show as there's not a lot else as exciting. Dropping a point for unoriginality, 3 and a half out of 5.

REVIEW: House of Wax (2005)

Being better than it has any right to be, House of Wax is a decent teen-slasher. It seems to tick most ‘slasher’ boxes: pretty cast (Elisha Cuthbert, Paris Hilton, Jared Padalecki), camping in the woods, a road trip, creepy family, brother & sister, amongst others, which handily also sums up the plot if you chuck in copious amounts of wax. The only glaringly obvious omission is gratuitous nudity, especially given it’s rating and Ms Hilton’s extra-curricular internet videos.

The performances are (amazingly) solid, the effects are acceptable and the death scenes suitably gruesome, one of which features the best use of a javelin, ever. In fact, it’s the stuff that happens behind the camera that lets it down: The continuity is shocking, the directing tiresome and the editing slow.

3 out of 5

REVIEW: Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore

Superhuman strength, sleeping all day, cool mist effects, immortality: what’s not to love about being a vampire? As Jody discovers it’s a pretty lonely affair. How can you love someone when you treat them as your next meal?

Such is the premise for the Christopher Moore’s vampire opus. Referencing many of the vampire classics, including Anne Rice’s Lestat series, Moore creates his vampire and leaves her for dead under a dumpster. Who did it and why, are questions explored during the course of the book and makes for compelling reading. Unfortunately the pay-off isn’t quite justified. Yes, we have fun along the way: Jody’s boyfriend and his work mates AKA ‘The Animals’, learning Jody’s powers and limitations via bizarre experiments, the best littlest hobo in town and one of the best uses for Turtles in literature today, makes for fun reading, right up until the closings chapter when we find out the justification for the Big Bad being the Big Bad. He’s not really that bad after all, he just wants to get laid…

It might be a big change to your life being a vampire but once through the process, Jody seems to forget about her previous life, one scene with her mother notwithstanding. Her job is barely mentioned, her friends certainly aren’t. Would it hurt Christopher Moore to fill in back story now and again? It seems to be a recurring trend in his books that you get to know what is happening now, how it affects now but none of the repercussions, or events that led to it.

Thus, while it’s a humorous read, it’s an ultimately unfulfilling one. 2 and a half out of 5.

REVIEW: Vellum by Hal Duncan

OK, I'm making no bones about it. It doesn't happen often but I failed this book. I got to page 117 and gave up. Before I go further,to give a sense of the book's prose I'm going to quote from the authors blog, something that had I read, and his blog is pretty much like this all the way through, I might never have bought it.

If we are to see the metaphysical narrative as utilising a third vector of dislocation in a 3D timespace, as part of a deeper system in which it is the Z-axis to the X and Y of parallel and future narratives, then the logical question is whether the metaphysicals are treated in the same way as the counterfactuals or hypotheticals. What I mean is: do writers use the same techniques we have identified within parallel / future narratives to validate these metaphysical unrealities, to prevent the collapse of suspension of disbelief? Do they explain them or excuse them? Do they exploit them?


Now, the book starts fantastically; it has an urgency, an immedicacy, a need to get the story out. It reads like the final reel of a thriller, the killer about to strike and I sat there thinking 'Wow'. Not since reading Stephen King's Dark Tower - with it's superb prose after years of him producing guff, which I since realised he wrote Dark Tower way before his 'guff' which gives you a sense of how his career his gone dontchathink? - have I had that feeling.

Then the second plotline kicks in. And the second. And the third, fourth and possibly fifth (I'm no longer quite sure). All of which occur at different times, in different places, in different perspectives and in different styles of writing. Headfuck? Oh yeah. And this would be fine, I'm not a dullard, I can cope with this complicated stuff, except for the schizophrenic nature of it. At no point is it clear just what the hell is going on. The plot, apparently (having taken this from various sources) is about armageddon and Heaven and Hell are searching for people to join their sid, including Big Good, Metatron. It's just so damn hard to give a toss when the narrative intertwines mid paragraph with the fate of characters in different timelines, when the prose makes no semantic, grammatic or plot-ic sense.

Some describe this as the best book of 2005 and for a short period I agreed. Unfortunately I'd describe it as Most Obtuse 20th Century.

REVIEW: The 4400 - series 3

The one where...We get an Adult Isabelle and like a club foot, it drags.

The American TV networks are a strange thing to behold. One the otherhand you have Firefly, a show beloved by fans and critically acclaimed, even by those who normally abhor the Whedonite cause (like me!) that gets cancelled half way though the first season. On the other, you get The 4400, with far from stratospheric ratings and mediocre reviews, now in it's third season with the fourth confirmed before the third had even finished.

This year should have been the end for many reasons. The major addition this year was Adult Isabelle, miraculously grown from a baby to late teen at the the end of last year through some sort of 4400 ability. Daughter of Lily and Richard, she'd been signposted as a Big Bad to come, being able to communicate and destroy from an early age IE birth. While played by the admittedly beautiful Megalyn Echikunwoke Isabelle is perhaps one of the most obnoxious characters ever created. Evil people should have charm and style, not throw tantrums and sulk. it wouldn't be so bad if she was played well; you can't lay all the blame at the feet of the writers but Ms Echikunwoke tries to act like the two year old person she technically, instead of giving her character a defined purpose.

Much of this year focuses on the characters and suffers because of it. Isabelle ponders her role in the coming war far too often and can't make up her damned mind which side she's going to be on. Despite the viewer knowing it way before the climax.Too much of what happens is signposted, too much is just bland. Matthew, Sean, Kyle...why should you care about them when they're just so boring! Matthew it turns out is an agent of the future and what do they do with him? NOTHING!

In the first two years this was an exciting program, you didn't know where it was going but it was good to watch them get there. This year you knew exactly where they were going and they took far too long about it. The entire middle third of the season could be excised and make a much better season. I actually stopped watching and only came back to it for want of something better to do - "What have they done to this program??!!" I cried.

In the final few episodes Jordan Collier returns from the dead and impacts like the Tunguskan Meteor. Boy did he save this series; he should have been bought back at least four episodes earlier and allowed to develop. Instead, he's in, he schemes, he's possibly Jesus Christ and he makes the program exciting once more but even for a season climax it's a damp squib.

The main stable of actors are satisfactory enough, Diana gets a new love interest, Maia is her normal great Child Actor Who Doesn't Annoy, Jeffrey Combs (he's got his own fan club dontchaknow) is one of the Sci-Fi alumni obviously and Summer Glau is now a semi-regular.

Final mark? Big disappointment. Must try harder. 5/10.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Moving House

If you ever get bored of where you live, especially if it's a flat with a rubbish management company for a landlord, get over it. It's far less stressful to hear your upstairs neighbours running up and down stairs at 3am or watch them throwing endless cigarette butts and food from their window to beneath yours, than it is to cope with endless paperwork, threatened deadlines and slow solicitors, believe me.

We started the process of moving (note this doesn't include the time spent looking for a house in the first place) in June. JUNE!! It's not the middle of October and we're nowehere near completion. My buyer keeps askign bizarre questions (Are there any medieval churches in the area? WTF??). It wouldn't be so bad if she could ask them directly but they via ger solicitor, to ours and then to us before being bounced back along the chain, so a simple question takes a week. To be fair we don't know if it's her asking the questions or her solicitor being thorough. Either way our 'seller' (new word for me!), is on the verge of pulling out as they're getting fed up of delays. Unfortunately we can't do anything but sit on our hands as we wait for our management company's solicitor (the third in this sorry affair) to sort out the answeres to yet more questions.

As far as we're aware our buyer really wants to move (she set-up her new phone bill three months ago), we're desperate (technically the weakest link but were ready first!!) and our sellers, as indicated are frothing like an over-excited cappucino. This is the state of play and it's not fun anymore. Once it was, once I was excited, but that soon gave way to boredom. We're now desperate to move as our neighbours are pissing us off. I used to go around picking litter up off the communal grass but as I was the only one doing it and I was moving I stopped. Now it looks like we may be staying AND I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK TO PICKING UP LITTER. I want my own garden that only I'm responsible for goddamnit!

REVIEW: The Big Over Easy - Jaspar Fforde

The first book in Jaspar Fforde's Nursery Crime Division, detective series gets off to a roaring start. Written in ooh, 2003?, I'm a bit late reading this, let alone reviewing it but it's set in 'almost' the same universe as his Thursday Next books ie you get a lot of weirdness with a soupcon of modern and contemporary gubbins thrown in.

The main story focuses on Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and the murder of Humpty Dumpty, the large anthromorphosised egg. Did he jump or was he pushed? Or shot? Or poisoned? Or something else? There are a lot of elements combined into one here. On one level it's a straight whodunnit, albeit a certain definition for straight ie a bit bent. On the other, it's also a parody of the great sleuths Morse, Marple, Holmes, Poirot and I'm sure countless others I've missed. And that's as well as being a story of rivalry bewteen former friends, of ambition and morality, all in a world where the three little pigs are up for attempted broiling of the wolf and the Gingerbreadman is a psychotic inmate of the local nuthouse.

So, not the usual run-of-the-mill book then. But then if you've read any of Mr Fforde's works you'll know what to expect. There are puns galore, most of the characters names are plays on words (Friedland Chymes! Genius!) and jokes a plenty. Like Terry Pratchett his books are frequently described as 'hilarious' but I never find myself laughing out loud at them but it should be noted by the end my cheek muscles needed replacing from smiling so much.

9/10

Friday, October 13, 2006

Uniblog

I've decided I'm going to amalgamate my other blog (You've got another blog?? I hear you cry) with this as, as little traffic as this gets, it's a veritible hive of activity compared to the other. So my reviews will shortly appear here, dear singular reader.

A Christmas Endeavour

The wife and I sat down last night and went through the list of undeserving causes we should give presents to for Christmas and ended up not deciding anything. This was a wasted half hour in which we could have done something more fruitful with our time. I could have been playing Full Spectrum Warrior on my XBOX. I could have found out who killed Humpty Dumpty in Jaspar Fforde's NCD opus. I could have cut out my tongue and fried it - not with onions and a nice chianti - but in a flambe type bearnaise sauce. This I would have fed to my cat quite happiily, in the knowledge I hadn't JUST WASTED HALF AN HOUR OF MY PRECIOUS LIFE. Why can't the wife do these things?? I though we had a deal. I deal with the important housey stuff and she deals with the crud I couldn't give a toss about. Words will be had.

Hello!

Sorry. I know, I know. I've not been here for awhile. My apologies. My reader, for they are singular (prove me wrong! write a comment!) has been let down by my inactivity these past weeks.

What delightful occurencies have been going on? Well, my house sale is on the verge of falling through, my wife is getting more ill and I hate my job. Apart from that, life's peachy. Specifics to follow...

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

A choice

Option A

Have a job, a mortgage and live your life watching TV, reading books and have a long, stressful life.

Option B

Sell your house for the proceeds, buy a pushbike and a tent, and go travelling until the money runs out at which point you find yourself at the edge of the Grand Canyon. Having lived a life of adventure, doing something fulfilling, you throw yourself off the edge.

What do you choose?

Friday, September 08, 2006

Blogger Beta

Well, I decided to go for it this morning and wish I hadn't.

I've lost all functionality and can't even post a feed where I want it. Hate it. I am royally angry.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

The Adventures of 'Kate' - Part 3

The story so far:- 'Kate's boyfriend 'Ben', has moved his formerly autistic but now with ADHD (possibly some confusion on my part, or theirs) son, in. 'Kate' is not happy.

Over the past few days, 'Kate' has moved in, out and back in and no doubt if stress reaches acceptable levels, which is magnitudes higher than she can cope with - She's got epilepsy! Oh my God! She might have another fit like she did.....six months ago! Dear God...then she'll probably be out once more. 'Ben' is desperate for help. 'Psycho' wouldn't be too strong a word for Jordan. He's uncontrollable and runs around the house with knives in hand, kicking, screaming and throwing abuse at whoever is on the same planet. They literally pin him down. 'Kate' feels 'unsafe' - wuss. Does she not like excitement??

Plymouth Social Services, Snail like Sloths that they are, are dragging their feet in providing day care or 'school' as it's known. 'Ben' would like to put Jordan into care but Plymouth won't do it because Jordan comes from Wales and Wales won't do it because he's not being abused. Just doing the abusing himself, which is fine.

This is like a soap opera on my doorstep. Never did I imagine the entertainment value of my sister-in-law. I feel better as a person just watching her flap selfishly. Only last night she and her mother were deriding 'Ben' for not coping better. 'Ben' was almost begging Jenny for some support and she refused. A more loving woman you're very likely to meet.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Steve Got Stung

Seemingly the fashionable thing of the moment to blog about is the death of The Greatest Showman Formerly Alive Steve 'Mad as a Croc' Irwin.

I'm sure you all know by now that he got stung in the heart by a Sting Ray, just as you all surely know this was only beaten in the likely stakes by the one-legged man playing chicken.

Steve, we loved ya for your bravery and courage but mostly your stupidity. You'll be missed.

An impossible task

Having been made redundant we've become aware of the need to save as much money as possible. This becomes a tad difficult when your cupboards are bare though, as we've been ruinning them down in time for our Big Move. Mis-timed it as it happens.

So off we toddled to the shops with the intention of doing a 'small shop'. Experience should have told me this would never happen, especially if I'm going with the wife. After a new cardigan and various pots, pans, kitchen accessories were put in the basket we then did the shop proper and it came to £127.93. A small shop indeed.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Someone is at fault

I don't know who to aim this at. It could be Plymouth City Council who will ultimately pay (not in a vengeance type way but that'd be nice), Social Workers in general for being too slow, or the Government for making an overly complex system.

One of those three is responsible for me not being able to care for my wife via the system of Direct Payments (If you live with the person you care for, they won't pay you the quoted £8.44 per hour. Instead, they'll draft in someone under-qualified who my wife doesn't know or trust for...£15 per hour. Sense? Not in local government.) which is about giving control to the person that needs the money - instead of giving you products and services they'll give you the money instead. Easier said than done. Five months down the line with my wife's health ever deteriorating, they're still dragging their feet and going to yet another meeting (their fourth) before coming back to us for a meeting (our fifth) with more hollow promises that it'll 'be soon'. And monkeys might flight out of my butt.

Low Paid Jobs

It's only this week, since I was made semi-redundant, leaving me to scrabble for other temporary locum work at the Hospital, that I've appreciated the low level 'scum' jobs that people do.

My life currently involves a combination of a sick wife I care for, moving house, two cats and no proper job, all of which combines to mean I don't have the time to work somewhere that pays a decent wedge, I don't have the time to work somewhere that wants a commitment to staying on the promises for more than three hours at a time, or indeed turn up at all. My former temporary boss (temporary meaning there for eighteen months in this case) didn't care, when or if I turned up. It was a job that could be done at midnight and if I didn't turn up, it meant he didn't have to pay me out of his budget.

Now, I'm taking whatever work I can get in the Hospital, which generally means 'Dogs Body'. This week I've been mostly working in Physiotherapy as Receptionist. Me, 30 year old, semi-intelligent male as a receptionist...I'll take you through my day. I arrive. I sit at my computer/window and say the following: "Hi. Name? What time's your appointment? OK, that's fine. Take a seat in the waiting room down the hall to the right. If you're still waiting ten minutes after your appointment time, let us know. Thank you". A hundred times a day. I did this for 6 hours which, although coma inducing is all the time I can get. Next week, I'm working at the Notes store, doing something with notes presumably but I've got no idea what. And this is for £6.40 an hour!! Admittedly it's better than minimum wage but if someone wanted to make use of my talents while I worked from home I could earn much more but no one does, so I'm stuffed.

 
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