I've been playing with my Gameboy Camera. It's a lot of fun, if you're into terrible photos that you can do loads of whacky stuff with. And who isn't? Results, see pic.
I've acquired an Apple Powerbook 3400c for less than the price of a coffee, which is just as well 'cos so far the bugger only winks an LED at me. My second Apple!
Oh, and a friend pointed me at this, which is moderately diverting, if you're bored. More so than this 'blog, anyway.
That's all for now. As you were.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Monday, July 24, 2006
What did we ever do to Sundays?
I bloomin' 'ate the buggers. Horrible, turgid, near-death experiences. They've got it in for us. Sundays must have been the runt of the litter. I reckon they got bullied at school. Sunday School, ha ha.
I attempted to engage this one in traditional combat by preparing hefty chunkage of roasted cow, with trimmings. My first ever attempt at Yorkshire Puddings would have been quite a triumph in itself, had Sunday not managed to arrange for a greased, non-stick tray to still bond with the batter at the sub-atomic level. Arse.
Still, it served to fatten up the Loved One for another week of chasing micro-organisms; and to repay her in part for a spiffing repaste @ Kazha, Cardiff's new Kurdish restaurant, yesterday. Recommended.
I didn't really burn her, of course. I can prove it. I think...
I attempted to engage this one in traditional combat by preparing hefty chunkage of roasted cow, with trimmings. My first ever attempt at Yorkshire Puddings would have been quite a triumph in itself, had Sunday not managed to arrange for a greased, non-stick tray to still bond with the batter at the sub-atomic level. Arse.
Still, it served to fatten up the Loved One for another week of chasing micro-organisms; and to repay her in part for a spiffing repaste @ Kazha, Cardiff's new Kurdish restaurant, yesterday. Recommended.
I didn't really burn her, of course. I can prove it. I think...
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Stradlingvision
BBC - Wales History - Wales and the Spanish Civil War
My father's new TV programme. Well, it won't get plugged anywhere else!
My father's new TV programme. Well, it won't get plugged anywhere else!
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
One-nil to the Rational, One-nil to the Rational....
Further to this, today I recieved a nice letter, personally signed by the Chief Executive of the WMC, thanking me for my supporting e-mail, and describing their policy and the reactions to it.
How jolly nice of her - gave me a little lift, it did. Now that's good PR!
I've still only filled 4Gb on the iPod. 56Gb to go...
How jolly nice of her - gave me a little lift, it did. Now that's good PR!
I've still only filled 4Gb on the iPod. 56Gb to go...
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Friday, June 23, 2006
'S'kosher
Four somewhat spiffular days spent in the land of Scots, where the term midsummer's day is simply Name #34 for rain.
First there was Glasgow, wot I've never seen before, and would be quite nice in the summer. :-)
Then two lovely days in Edinburgh, me boring the cheesecake out of poor Hev by showing her all the things that would be happening, if it was festival time, but aren't, because it isn't. Still, it's as lovely as ever, even with the streets crawling with Australians who have suddenly - horror of horrors - discovered soccer! Well, we kept it from them this long...
Couldn't decide what I wanted everyone to get me for my birthday, so I got them all to chip in for something extravagant. Accordngly, Edinburgh airport sold us a cheap 60Gb iPod, so that'll keep me busy for a while. My first Apple!
Why is it cheaper to fly to Scotland than drive or take the train? That's got to stop. And no, I don't mean quadruple all air fares...
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Barefoot In The Emergency Room
"Never do the washing-up without shoes."
This is my new motto. I intend to spread its wisdom far and wide. Don't make the same mistake I made, kids.
If you do, this will happen; you will drop a large, stainless steel carving knife onto your foot. By the same laws that make the Buttered Cat Array possible, it will impact point-first. Your kitchen floor will rapidly fill with blood. You will then face the indignity of having to summon an ambulance - or, if you're really lucky like me, two ambulances - to your home, to take you away to sew your foot back together, and in all probability drop you off at the Funny Farm afterwards.
I do have the consolation of having actually achieved a rather excellent shot - making a 2cm-deep wound just behind my toes without damaging any major nerves, arteries or bone. I am under no illusions that I could have managed such a feat of knifesmanship on purpose. At least two nurses asked while passing , "Are you the one who dropped a knife on his foot?", so I'm consoled to think that I've provided some amusement.
But now the anaesthetic is wearing off, and I'm hobbling around like some semi-clad plonker with a club foot, and looking forward to the prospect of a tetanus jab tomorrow. So heed my words, ye unwary - if you must wash up, steel-toed boots are the way forward.
My next trick; cutting my toenails with a scythe...
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Cardiff, not Denmark.
I am, stupidly, rather proud of this;
BBC NEWS | Wales | Venue defies call to cancel opera
Backbone in the face of mystics? Whatever next?
Of course, they'll probably back down tomorrow and make me look stupid...
BBC NEWS | Wales | Venue defies call to cancel opera
Backbone in the face of mystics? Whatever next?
Of course, they'll probably back down tomorrow and make me look stupid...
Thursday, June 01, 2006
This beats a Blue Peter time capsule!
Now this is distinctly groovy - a light-free ecosystem sealed for 5 million years. Shame there weren't any amphibious sabre-toothed tigers, but hey, it's still the stuff of Doyle and Verne.
A whole world without the need for sunlight, the wheel, or Reality TV...
Read more at news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci...
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Hack Writing
I appear to be afflicted with "Man Flu".
It's not flu, of course. It's just an extremely bad cold. I will, most certainly, live.
But this hasn't stopped the fun at my expense from some of the ladies in my life - especially if I make the mistake of croaking slightly in public. "Ooh dear, got Man Flu, have we? Have a lie down, love, we'll take care of everything..." etc., the tone leaving no doubt as to the unspoken approbation - if I was a woman, I'd be getting on with life.
So, enough. This is bollocks, okay? I haven't slept for nearly three days. I can only breath through half of one nostril. My bone marrow is the temperature of liquid helium, my forehead could be used to fry eggs, and my eyeballs are made of sand. I can hardly complete a sentence without coughing up phlegm. And yet, supposedly, you X:X types could cope with all this, and still complete your tax-return while windsurfing.
No. You. Bastard. Couldn't.
There are big colds, and there are little colds. This is a big one. The windsurfing kind, they're the little ones. Got that? Good.
It's not flu, of course. It's just an extremely bad cold. I will, most certainly, live.
But this hasn't stopped the fun at my expense from some of the ladies in my life - especially if I make the mistake of croaking slightly in public. "Ooh dear, got Man Flu, have we? Have a lie down, love, we'll take care of everything..." etc., the tone leaving no doubt as to the unspoken approbation - if I was a woman, I'd be getting on with life.
So, enough. This is bollocks, okay? I haven't slept for nearly three days. I can only breath through half of one nostril. My bone marrow is the temperature of liquid helium, my forehead could be used to fry eggs, and my eyeballs are made of sand. I can hardly complete a sentence without coughing up phlegm. And yet, supposedly, you X:X types could cope with all this, and still complete your tax-return while windsurfing.
No. You. Bastard. Couldn't.
There are big colds, and there are little colds. This is a big one. The windsurfing kind, they're the little ones. Got that? Good.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Blues Sunday
The Cardiff Blues host Leinster at the Mill, and the enlightened decision to price tickets at £10 encourages me to take Hev along to further her indoctrination in the ways of egg-chasing.
A fun time is had by all as the Blues win a try-fest. A few Irishmen hanging around after the FA Cup final enhace the atmosphere with a bit of Blarney.
"I really enjoyed that!" says my beloved as we leave the stadium in the spring dusk. My work here is almost done!
Monday, May 08, 2006
Silly French
There is a word that has languished in the in-tray of my subconscious for some time, without my realising it. This word is Shampooing. Now, as a conjugation of the verb "Shampoo" - meaning to wash one's hair - it's common enough, but it's always had a weird, un-finger-put-onnable extra quality. Something haunting, elusive, and evocative of mystery barely understood, let alone explained.
So there I was today, sitting in a bath, searching for amusement in the absence of a rubber duck, a radio, or an erection. I alighted on one of those little sachets of complimentary hotel shampoo; liberated, no doubt, on some wild adventure behind enemy lines. The legend read "Shampoo / Shampooing". Given leisure to consider this, I realised that yes, they always say that, don't they? I had simply ever cared before. Logic therefore leads me to imagine that Shampooing must be a foreign word for the noun Shampoo. Most likely, French. A quick Google confirms this.
Well, come on - this is pretty wild, isn't it? Wouldn't we expect that most elegant of languages to have derived something more like Shampeau or Shampur? Shampooing is so daft, clunky, and un-French. And it's an ing word, for the love of... that can't be a noun, you daft messieurs!
Having, however, accepted this (very silly) fact, may I now suggest that time, resources and effort are spared by simply labelling shampoo sachets with Shampooing? A French speaker will think "Ah, it's shampoo", while an anglophone will likewise deduce "Ah, it's for shampooing" - job done, either way, and seven whole letters saved. That's got to be a couple of trees, or half a dolphin, or something?
So there I was today, sitting in a bath, searching for amusement in the absence of a rubber duck, a radio, or an erection. I alighted on one of those little sachets of complimentary hotel shampoo; liberated, no doubt, on some wild adventure behind enemy lines. The legend read "Shampoo / Shampooing". Given leisure to consider this, I realised that yes, they always say that, don't they? I had simply ever cared before. Logic therefore leads me to imagine that Shampooing must be a foreign word for the noun Shampoo. Most likely, French. A quick Google confirms this.
Well, come on - this is pretty wild, isn't it? Wouldn't we expect that most elegant of languages to have derived something more like Shampeau or Shampur? Shampooing is so daft, clunky, and un-French. And it's an ing word, for the love of... that can't be a noun, you daft messieurs!
Having, however, accepted this (very silly) fact, may I now suggest that time, resources and effort are spared by simply labelling shampoo sachets with Shampooing? A French speaker will think "Ah, it's shampoo", while an anglophone will likewise deduce "Ah, it's for shampooing" - job done, either way, and seven whole letters saved. That's got to be a couple of trees, or half a dolphin, or something?
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Random Acts of Violins
We certainly get a better class of busker on the streets of Cardiff of late. We are encouraged, naturally, to think of them as "street theatre", a distinction which many of them are actually coming to deserve.
Okay, the sliver-painted guy who's given up being a statue and started crooning with a Casio would be a bad example, but take the chap in our picture; now that's what I call a string virtuoso! So impressed was I, that I actually parted with a golden sovereign, as much as recompense for his patience in front of my lens, as for his acrobato-fiddular prowess, which was considerable.
More of this, and things like it, say I!
Okay, the sliver-painted guy who's given up being a statue and started crooning with a Casio would be a bad example, but take the chap in our picture; now that's what I call a string virtuoso! So impressed was I, that I actually parted with a golden sovereign, as much as recompense for his patience in front of my lens, as for his acrobato-fiddular prowess, which was considerable.
More of this, and things like it, say I!
Friday, April 21, 2006
The Crap of Christmas Past
The Book We All Got Last Christmas® was called "Is Is Just Me, Or Is Everything Shit?" It was perhaps something of a pleasant change from Jamie Oliver or Bill Bryson, but recieving it nonetheless signified a total inspiration collapse on the part of the giver. Now, not all of us always get The Book We All Got Last Christmas®, me unincluded. For example, I got one of the Jamie Oliver ones a few years back, despit Jamie being up an alley a few blocks down from mine. Yet, perversely, no-one ever bought me a copy of The Book We All Got The Christmas Before Last®, "Eats, Shoot, and Leaves", despite the fact that that one was fairly self-evidently so far up my alley, it had climbed my gate and eaten my begonias.
So anyway, the rub is that I've finally gotten around to reading "Is It Just Me, Or Is Everything Shit?" Amused though I was to discover that the authors had honed their polemical skills in the smoky corridors of University of Wales, Cardiff, less of the rest felt as familiar as I'm sure they would have hoped. Underwhelmed is a word that springs to mind, and I like the cut of its jib, so I'll use it here. I was underwhelmed. Musing, as I later did, on how this scruffy afternoon's work down the pub had netted its progenitors an indeterminate but undoubtedly poly-wadular shitload of dosh, I was moved to upgrade underwhelmed to an epithet more evocative of extreme displeasure and the intent of vengeful violence.
It was only a last-minute intervention by the intermittently-functional neural cluster that warns me of things like approaching lorries and unzipped flies, that alerted me to the notion that the entry title 'Is It Just Me, Or Is "Is It Just Me, Or Is Everything Shit?", Shit?' might not be a first in blogland. That was close, then.
Anyone fancy collaborating on The Book We'll All Get Next Christmas®? I'll get them in...
So anyway, the rub is that I've finally gotten around to reading "Is It Just Me, Or Is Everything Shit?" Amused though I was to discover that the authors had honed their polemical skills in the smoky corridors of University of Wales, Cardiff, less of the rest felt as familiar as I'm sure they would have hoped. Underwhelmed is a word that springs to mind, and I like the cut of its jib, so I'll use it here. I was underwhelmed. Musing, as I later did, on how this scruffy afternoon's work down the pub had netted its progenitors an indeterminate but undoubtedly poly-wadular shitload of dosh, I was moved to upgrade underwhelmed to an epithet more evocative of extreme displeasure and the intent of vengeful violence.
It was only a last-minute intervention by the intermittently-functional neural cluster that warns me of things like approaching lorries and unzipped flies, that alerted me to the notion that the entry title 'Is It Just Me, Or Is "Is It Just Me, Or Is Everything Shit?", Shit?' might not be a first in blogland. That was close, then.
Anyone fancy collaborating on The Book We'll All Get Next Christmas®? I'll get them in...
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Put her on Freecycle, Michael!
Well, it may not be one of the 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover that Paul Simon recommends, but "Freecycling" seems to be catching on, and it's certainly been profitable around here of late. Today, for example, I got rid of a bag of VHS tapes (remember them?) and got a lovely smile from a cute blonde in exchange; lovely smiles from cute blondes are definitely worth having, trust me. Later on, I relieved a technology hoarder, with even more space issues than myself, of a swanky AIWA 3-head cassette deck, thus freeing up my more everyday model for down-handing to my deckless Dad. Everybody wins.
It's a simple concept but it works; don't throw good shit away just because you can't use it, give it away to someone who can. You get to resolve a potentally tricky disposal issue, they get a freebie. My top score so far is a pair of his'n'hers mountain bikes for the folks - for no pounds & no pence, I jest ye not. Meanwhile, I've got fewer tatty bookshelves clogging up space...
If it's all new to you, I heartily recommend it. Have a look at http://www.freecycle.org , find your nearest group and give it a try. Sure, you'll get a few jerks asking if you have a spare Rolex, but it's an ultimately rewarding experience. Plus you get to feel all righteous about being nice to the planet. Bargain.
It's a simple concept but it works; don't throw good shit away just because you can't use it, give it away to someone who can. You get to resolve a potentally tricky disposal issue, they get a freebie. My top score so far is a pair of his'n'hers mountain bikes for the folks - for no pounds & no pence, I jest ye not. Meanwhile, I've got fewer tatty bookshelves clogging up space...
If it's all new to you, I heartily recommend it. Have a look at http://www.freecycle.org , find your nearest group and give it a try. Sure, you'll get a few jerks asking if you have a spare Rolex, but it's an ultimately rewarding experience. Plus you get to feel all righteous about being nice to the planet. Bargain.
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Four Go Mad In Cardiff
Today it's the turn of the charming Edmond family to brave the dimensionally transcendental thrills 'n' chills of Cardiff. Bold adventurers Kyle and Milo sally forth with nary a flinch into the maw of the rift, with bemused mum Mary and father "it's for the kids really" Ian clinging to their coat-tails.
Kyle gets into the spirit of things by wearing a handsome anorak on a sunny day, and there is much wonderment as little Milo turns out to be indestructible. The services of Albion Hospital are not required.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Bright Shadows
Thanks to Hev's seemingly incurable wanderlust, I spent most of this week in Prague - for no reason, which is usually the best reason. As a first-timer, I was gratified to discover that Czech beer is indeed all that legend portends...
It is of course a place so photogenic it practically sucks the photos out of cameras, so check out the flickr link for the eye candy.
Almost a generation now since the "velvet revolution", the place still hides the occasional echo of communist austerity under the bubbling maelstrom of nascent, unfettered capitalism. It's a bittersweet, bewildering place, so many centuries old and yet still seeming somehow unfinished. I sense that it and I are not quite through.
It is of course a place so photogenic it practically sucks the photos out of cameras, so check out the flickr link for the eye candy.
Almost a generation now since the "velvet revolution", the place still hides the occasional echo of communist austerity under the bubbling maelstrom of nascent, unfettered capitalism. It's a bittersweet, bewildering place, so many centuries old and yet still seeming somehow unfinished. I sense that it and I are not quite through.
Monday, March 13, 2006
"...And We Know We Are!"
Gawd, it was a bad weekend to be a British rugby fan. Scotland chained and whipped by the Irish, England dealt an unprecedented stuffing by the French... and our lot becoming the first team to fail to beat Italy at home. Draws in rugby are rare, so I suppose we got a collector's item. Lucky us.
These guys didn't mind, though. They came, they saw... well, two-and-a-half out of three ain't bad.
These guys didn't mind, though. They came, they saw... well, two-and-a-half out of three ain't bad.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Wasps eat Tigers, Scarlet has Bath...
Jollity galore as Cardiff hosts the semi-finals of the Powergen Cup. Fans of London Wasps, Llanelli Scarlets, Leicester Tigers and Bath.. erm... Bath, descend upon us in swarms. Or packs. Or whatever the collective nouns for the other things are.
There are cheers and tears aplenty as Leicester and Bath are evicted from the house, but not without giving our little city a welcome splash of colour to remember them by.
There are cheers and tears aplenty as Leicester and Bath are evicted from the house, but not without giving our little city a welcome splash of colour to remember them by.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Oh, you mean THIS gate key!
Via the courtesy of the University Hospital of Wales, I today completed my personal set of Intimate Invasions by Trained Professionals TM. I'm wondering whether I now qualify for a free binder... In the process, several new words for pain were discovered and a lifetime of trauma stored for future cashing-in on psychiatrists' couches.
On the plus side, I now know precisely where my threshold of I-will-kill-babies-to-make-this-stop is. Should I ever, therefore, be captured by a hostile power whilst in possession of your vital secrets, rest assured that they will be safe for at least 3.8 seconds.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)