Flight Of The Conchords

Flight Of The Conchords are an alternative folk comedy duo from New Zealand with a rather surreal, but absolutely superb sense of humour. If you're lucky, you can catch them at various venues around the world, or even, recently, on a couple of Sky/Virgin channels late at night.

Assuming you've paid to see them in both of these roles, you're naturally entitled to then go and check them out over at YouTube. I highly recommend 'The Humans Are Dead' (featuring one of the best binary solos in modern music) and 'Business Time' - but for now, here's an except from one of their television performances, entitled 'Albi, the racist dragon':

Preparing for the new year

2008 is fast approaching, and some of you will be seeing me precious little for a lot of the coming year. As such, my kind and generous nature has led me to produce a solution:



Now available to order - prices range from £0 (if I like you) up to £3 (if I don't) - which'll cover printing and postage and the like. Let me know if you want one.

--

Update: No, the 'up to £3' isn't legally binding and doesn't apply to people who live in stupid countries like Belgium. You have to pay full postage :P

Kettles, more kettles, and the Solar Death Ray

Back home in Cardiff I've been struggling to get my head around the gadgetry of my mother's Eco Kettle. The principle behind this bit of wizardry is that the water your pour into the top isn't actually the water that gets heated. Instead, you merely transfer the amount you need into the lower compartment, only heating what you need, and saving all the penguins and berries in the rainforest into the bargain.

Problem is, you can never quite get the right amount into the bottom. Anyway - I'll often want some very hot water a mere half hour later too, so not boiling the rest of the water simply causes me some more inconvenience. As such, I take great pleasure in filling the eco-kettle to the top, and then boiling it a few times before using the water.


_{At last, hippies can drink tea!}

An invention that claims to offer an even more eco-friendly way to heat up some water is Tefal's Quick Cup. The water flies up through a heating element, boiling on its way, and you're presented with exactly one cup's worth of boiling water.

At £60, with a £30 per year saving in energy bills (assuming, I presume, that you run a business selling hot drinks), it seems like an ideal buy. But, before you students all run off and buy one, consider this cunning comment left on a Gizmodo report about the Quick Cup:

I like the idea but my kettle cost £8 from tesco and therefore saved me £52.

You won't see a better review than that anywhere. Here's what it looks like:


_{Note that you need pricy custom filters}

However, an invention which bizarrely hasn't made its way onto the virtual shelves of EthicalSuperstore.com is the Solar Death Ray. Offering the power of 112 suns, this is surely the most environmentally friendly (and fastest) way to heat up your H2O.

Even better, unlike the other options, it can be used for a wide range of other purposes too. The videos are awesome and much worth watching.



'According to the watch it was 22:32, but according to the Solar Death Ray it was Time To Die'

Christmas Platitudes

The spoken phrase 'Merry Christmas' has become so ubiquitous now that it can often fails have to any impact whatsoever upon receipt - especially if uttered in passing by a stranger (such as a shop assistant, or friend of a friend), or merely used as the sign off to a conversation.

In writing too, 'Merry Christmas' can almost be overlooked - although this is even more context specific. This Yuletide I've decided to rank the ways I've received 'Merry Christmas's, according to what I find most important...

1. A hand-made Christmas card, given to me in person

Cost: 6/10
Effort: 10/10
Sincerity: 10/10

Overall: 26/30

Obviously this method suffers, with no postage cost involved - and was probably made with materials the sender already possessed. Top marks for effort and sincerity though.

2. A shop-bought Christmas card, posted to me

Cost: 10/10
Effort: 7/10
Sincerity: 6/10

Overall: 23/30

Cost of card, ~£2. Probably bought in bulk, so the effort rating here isn't great. Cost of stamp, ~36p, again probably bought in bulk. Then there's also the writing, finding of my address and taking the thing to a postbox to take into account, which gives this form a very respectable score for effort. It's nice to know I was thought of, but I doubt the sender would lose much sleep if I didn't get their message.

3. A shop-bought Christmas card, handed to me

Cost: 8/10
Effort: 6/10
Sincerity: 8/10

Overall: 22/30

Well, as you can see, marks have been lost for both effort and cost - but the sincerity factor makes up for that. A card that's physically handed to you is likely to be opened on the spot, so the sender will have written something fairly interesting, more often than not.

4. An e-card

Cost: 0/10
Effort: 2/10
Sincerity: 1/10

Overall: 3/30

Seriously, just because I work in technology, and hang around on the internet all day, does not mean it's acceptable to send me an e-card for any reason. Ever. If I wanted flashing images and garish text on a badly coded webpage, I'd go back to the 90's. Or Yahoo. On the plus side, these sites are notoriously hard to navigate, and so there's a smallish amount of effort involved.

5. A text message

Cost: 1/10
Effort: 1/10
Sincerity: 0/10

Overall: 2/30

Your text message has interrupted something really important I was doing. My mother is now in tears, the windows are smashed and the kitchen's on fire. I hope you're happy, you've ruined Christmas.

6. Writing on my Facebook wall

Cost: 0/10
Effort: 1/10
Sincerity: 0/10

Overall: 1/30

I get it - you're bored and looking up people online. You want one of them to reply to you but you're not feeling quite pathetic enough to actually call them or send them a message. Or maybe you don't have their number or email address, because you're just some weirdo who stalks them online. So - you leave them a friendly wall post, hoping they'll feel emotionally blackmailed into getting back to you. Not me kiddo.

7. Leaving a picture on your blog for anyone who happens to visit

Cost: 0/10
Effort: 0/10
Sincerity: 0/10

Overall: 0/30

Ok, actually I've never been on the receiving end of this one. Unfortunately for you, that's a claim you can never make again:



Merry Christmas :)

Is It Christmas?

No.

I've been watching Is It Christmas for weeks now. I can't wait for tomorrow to come to see what happens. I'm really, really hoping it's nothing garish. In fact, this is how I would have written the site:



Screw presents, screw Christmas dinner. This is easily the most exciting part of Christmas.

---

Update: You'll be pleased to know, there's even a RSS Feed for Is It Christmas.

Midnight Shopping

Tesco's, not surprisingly, decided to open at midnight this fine Monday morning. After all, they are a 24 hour supermarket, and so when archaic religious laws don't apply, they might as well make themselves some money. Oddly enough though, it never seemed to occur to the wondrous overlords there that midnight on the 24th of December might just be a little busy - so maybe they should put a few more staff on.

It was quite refreshing to see masses crowding around a bag of sprouts dressed only in a coat and their pyjamas. The masses that is, not the sprouts. It was also quite amusing to see men hopelessly running around the homeware aisle - clearly wondering what the hell they should get their wives - a new soup strainer or a set of measuring spoons to replace the ones broken during their last drinking game.

Off to bed now, ciao.
Xx

--

PS: 500 posts. Go me. Prizes for anyone who can honestly claim to have read them all. Apply within.

Self-Reverential

This post, rather self-referentially, was typed, as many of my posts are, in size 4 font, in Notepad, whilst on public transport. It's a great way to do your work, blogging or other such things without prying eyes reading over your shoulder - but if you really strain you can still read back over the odd word if you absolutely need to. It also makes you look cool and secretive, like a spy. Plus, when you can touch type nice and quickly whilst looking out of the window, everyone looks at you and thinks 'bastard'. But, whilst they're doing this, you can look around at all of them and think "I'm better than you".

Does anyone else like sitting, or walking, or performing some other such activity in a public place, and glancing around them in order to rank every other person nearby on one factor or another, to see who is better at x - you or them? Or is that just me. I imagine it is, because I generally seem to win, and so for anyone else I can imagine it would be quite a depressing exercise - unless I wasn't around of course. I also sometimes look back at something I've done, or even something I'm in the middle of doing, and think "Wow, that's awesome" - I think more people should be like me. I'm great.

More inane ramblings...

Sorry, I appear to have written endless reams of complete and utter rubbish recently, whilst on trains, and then not even bothered to post it for a couple of days. Well, lacking anything better, here you go:

--

After a couple of rather tiring nights Ju and I managed to stay in bed all the way up to an impressive 2pm - which I imagine is fairly common for a student like her, but was certainly a novelty for such a hardworking professional as myself. From there we had the arduous task of buying Christmas presents for all the various people who were coming to the Birmingham Christmas party we were organising ('An Erdingthorpe Christmas' - Also, how did anyone ever organise any event or party ever before Facebook? Answers on my wall please). After a lengthy half hour in town we decided that simply wasn't happening and came back home (accompanied by sunset, which was a tad disturbing) to lounge about a bit and play some Guitar Hero III Co-Op.

After a fun-filled trip to the local supermarket, in which we managed to drive around most of Tilehurst, and a few other fun bits of Reading - without finding the Asda I was directing Julie to, we finally managed to get enough veg to feed the 12 or so hungry students that would be turning up, and drove on back to Birmingham. I do love how simple it is to get between any two decent sized cities in Britain - I was always (for some reason) in the impression that any journey of length required a great degree of cartographic study and planning, but in reality you can just set off, find a road of decent size and wait for some signage.




Once back in Brum Julie naturally became completely unintelligible (see above) and I...something. It's actually really hard for me to write these posts, because I have a crap memory, which becomes even worse after a couple of days' drinking. So, things happened, magic wands were waved and it was Monday, and time to buy and wrap some presents. I'll leave those for another post though, because the people on this train are starting to look at me a bit funny, I think they want to steal my hair.

DPE Christmas Party

Last Saturday was the annual (well, how often did you expect it to happen?) Christmas Party for the Developer and Platform [Evangelism] Group here at Microsoft UK. I put 'Evangelism' in braces as I'd say a good half of the Brits who work there don't much like that particular Americanism and as such, drop it. I personally think it sums up what we do though....

Once Julie and I had spent many hours getting ourselves thoroughly dolled up - me in a tuxedo and her in a gorgeous, but simple purple dress (with accessories, of course) we joined a few others at Reading station and made our way over to Portland Street, near Regent's Park in London. For reasons still unknown to me the Royal Institute Of Public Health had hired out their building to us for the event - and a very nice building it was too.

As pretty much everyone had a partner I didn't know most of those who were there - which gave me an idea. If you can find exclusive little venues like this in London, and just watch for when people turn up, you've got a good chance of getting a great free night - with drinks and food all included. All you have to do is dress smart and look confident.

On the subject of free drinks, they were indeed forthcoming, with the waiters bizarrely seeming almost madly intent on ensuring that every wineglass was constantly filled. I think they lost some of their salary for every ten seconds that someone's wine glass was at 75% capacity or less. Like some bad 80's game show, but with more potential drink spiking and embarrassing behaviour, and less muddy knees and...embarrassing behaviour. Of a different type of course.

Once we were done with all of the inevitable introductions - which consisted of some banal small talk and mentioning of names, whilst the men compared their partner's against their colleagues partners, or female colleagues, to see who had the best trophy there. It was a bit unfair as the colleagues' wives had to dress relatively reservedly, whereas the office girls could 'let it all hang out'. As they did. Wink wink, nudge nudge. Don't think this is sexist and horrible by the way, because whilst the men were engaged in this the girls were being far more despicable, and quietly pricing everything the other women were wearing, checking that their bag and shoes matched (I was told by a complete stranger that this indeed happens upon *every* social meeting of two women whilst shopping earlier on the weekend), and doing whatever other underhanded things women do to eachother when they're not nagging men, or covering one another in whipped cream (which I assume they spend pretty much all of their time doing, unless I can physically see them).

After that, it was time for dinner, and I must say I was quite impressed that special girl (aka, Julie-oh 'the celiac') got served food which looked almost identical to that which everyone else was eating - despite often bearing little componential resemblance at all. Fairly standard stuff for a black-tie dinner - looked nice and pretty but there wasn't enough. Why won't they learn that wealth equates to giant plates of food, rather than small plates of art? And, more to the point, who the hell are 'they' anyway?

After a couple of speeches about how great I am (other things were probably mentioned too), dinner was over and it was time for the real fun. A roulette table and a blackjack table were set up, and everyone issued with some fake money, which I thought was rather cheap, given how much Microsoft makes every year. A small disco was also set up (think Wedding) and therefore most of the crowd simply stood around chatting and staring in bewilderment at their wine glasses as the night went on. Julie turned out to be quite a gambling shark and managed to nearly bankrupt a fake casino on the roulette table, and I had a conversation about the fragrance (perfume & flavourings) industry with someone extremely interesting.

By 1am everyone was rather tipsy indeed and the night wound down, and those of us that weren't staying in hotels set off for the coach back to Reading station. I imagine the people who were already starting to gossip about the fact I'd brought someone who clearly wasn't my girlfriend (and on my girlfriend's birthday no less), and who had been acting very...affectionately...towards me, would probably have exploded if I'd taken her to a hotel, so we went back to my bed instead. The time inbetween the night winding down and us setting off for home was extremely fun, but I'm not going to post about that here for various legal reasons - IM me or call me or something if you want to know. Don't talk to me in person though, that would default the entire point of blogging. The coach journey somehow managed to last nearly two hours and involve a break halfway, which was quite impressive for a short hop from Reading to London - and then it was time for some sleep before yet another busy day...

--

Wow, this is really long. I bet no-one read this far. Sorry about that ^^

More Excuses

In West Wales, no electricity - updates soon.

Xx

Friday - Other Stuff (Jazz 'n' Shops)

Wow, I really have been busy, I forgot these bits about last Friday - thanks to those who reminded me. I'm sure people only read this thing to tell me when I get something wrong.

Well, once back from work, Julie & I popped into town and hired me a lovely tuxedo¹ from Moss Bros, which even came with 30% student discount - highly recommended kids.

After that it was time to move the various musical instruments from my house into my room and introduce the origins of the Tie-Dye Quartet to the modern incarnation. That's a fancy way of saying I had a little jam with Will & Julie. I also got her to put some words and trumpet to a little jazz guitar song I've been working on, which should be pretty cool once I get it finished.

I really miss playing music with people over here in Reading, I just don't seem to have the time, or the company to do so. Never mind - back in Brum in half a year, and living in the old house with Terra, Julie and Tim too, so there'll be plenty of that. I'm also planning on getting a few folks together to record an 'album' of my various compositions and jams over the summer - more on that later.

For now though, here's an old video I found of us playing 'Ina's Jam'. Before I get to that album, I really need to start thinking of some better names for my songs. I don't think 'Jazz Guitar' or 'Trumpet Led Jazz' or 'Skeleton Jazz' will really cut it.


_{Tie-Dye Heart - Ina's Jam. Sometime in 2006}

--


_{1 - Firefox thinks 'tuxedo' is a typo of 'outfoxed', 'redoubt' or 'untaxed'}

Saturday, seniors, shopping, smashing...

As you might have guessed, Saturday didn't have the earliest of starts given the antics of the night before, which meant we were kept rushed off our feet, for the portion of the day that we were off our backs for.

We went to visit Julie's grandparents who lived relatively nearby, in the 'morning'. They were fairly generic old people, with biscuits and tea. They also erm...yeah. Old people. Very pleasant though. Oh, and there were cats.


_{This is an old person. They're not related to anyone I know.}

So, moving on - for Christmas, Julie had provided me with a lovely set of shot glasses, and a chess board. The two had cunningly been combined into a single box to make 'shot glass chess', a bizarre game in which the odds are evened by the fact that upon *taking* a piece, one has to drink a shot.

This doesn't seem like most drinking games I know, where the loser gets punished by drinking, and so I've added an additional rule, that the loser has to finish the rest of their colour's shots when checkmated. The game therefore, is now an exercise in gaining checkmate whilst leaving your opponent with the most remaining pieces possible. Also, 'Suicide Chess' has taken on a whole new meaning.


_{Red vodka, blue vodka...does this ring a bell for any of you regular readers?}

Unfortunately, despite being packed in many layers of polystyrene, a fair few of the shot glasses were smashed when I opened it. When we took the box back to the Reading branch of 4Front (multinational branding and globalisation pushing out independent shops does have its advantages), the staff were a bit dubious about our claim that the glasses were broken when we opened the box. That is, until they opened a box at their end and found the same thing. We managed to piece together one whole set between the two that were now open, but I'm still fairly bemused by the fact that the glasses could get smashed in such a protective environment.

Well, that's enough about shot-glasses for what was meant to be a non-alcohol related post. We spent the rest of the day getting ourselves spruced up for...

Wait for it ;)

Interns' Night Out

So, the reason you've only had one, rather cryptic post in the past 5 days is that Julie's come down to visit me, and kept me rather busy. Apologies for that.

Being the bad influence that she is, she turned up to my workplace on Friday afternoon, and after a tour of the Microsoft campus, dragged me off shopping. It's the first time I've shown the campus off to someone in quite a while and I didn't realise how novel most of what I now take for granted really is. Most people, for example, apparently don't have pool tables lying around their offices, or remote control boat racing on their office's lake.

It was also quite touching to see the level of detail the facilities folk had put into Christmas - even on the far side of the lake, in the woods, where no-body walks now that it's gotten rather cold, there was still a beautiful Christmas tree, with little fairly lights powered by a generator, and steel guy lines securing it to the path. No-one's ever going to see it unless they walk around the lake, and I don't know of anyone who does that in this season - but someone still went to all that effort. Quite sweet really.


_{The red circle is about where the tree is}

Now, I don't believe the phrase 'organised as a bunch of students' is yet a common simile, but we (the intern community) certainly advanced the cause for that Friday night. Four of us got to Nando's at the 'agreed' meeting time of 7.30, booked a table for 8, and waited half an hour for it. The four of us then sat there for a while, whilst other patrons stared angrily at our remaining spaces until the other four turned up. And then a few more, and then a few more...

Well, once we'd ruined Nando's seating plans for the evening, and had a couple of Savanna Ciders (which our resident South African informs me is actually quite an 'alternative' drink over there), it was time to hit some bars. Bar 38 (now rebranded to something else) was as expensive as I remembered it, but pretty good fun, but I was mostly looking forward to Mango, which had been billed as a 'dance/trance club'.


_{Obligatory picture for those of you who can't read large streams of text}

Unfortunately, the trance was lacking and the dance turned out to be generic modern house and r'n'b but a few tequilas and that wasn't a problem. A few more tequilas and things started to get really fun. I'm not entirely sure what time we stumbled out of there (or how we got home), but I can't say I really recommend going there again, unless you're prepared to intake your RDA of salt as a by-product of tequila slammer drinking.

If that's fine with you though, you'll have a fab night.

Too busy for you

Tequila, roulette, black-tie, magic, girls and rumours. Real updates later.

Xx

Dancing...socks

If there's anything better than turning off the lights and dancing in your living room to some jazz and soul classics then I'd like to know what it is. Unfortunately, my feet do rather hurt now, since the floor's just laminated wood, but I couldn't be bothered with the noise of my shoes on this floor.

Anyhow, if you decide to take me up on this wonderful recommendation¹, then I highly recommend the following:

Jive:
Jackie Wilson - Reet Petite
Blues Brothers - Everybody Needs Somebody
John Coltrane - Blue Train (if you're feeling brave)

Waltz (Swung):
James Brown - Sex Machine
Commodores - Brick House
Miles Davis - So What

Swing:
Duke Ellington - Take the -A- Train
Charlie Parker - Billie's Bounce
Stevie Wonder - Superstitious

And if you're not sure on how to dance any of those, then there's some great videos over at Expert Village - highly worth a visit.

--

_{1 - I take no responsibility for anyone following any recommendation I make. Ever. Especially if it involves drinking.}

Five amusing news from around the web

1. Microsoft accuses kids of bullying Santa into sex chat

El Reg's shock headline aside there, this is actually a pretty poor reflection on Microsoft that they let their 'ai' chat bot representing Santa get away with foul language. Still hilarious though :)

According to the BBC, it seems there will soon be a revolution in digitally broadcast entertainment. As well as the sounds that we're used to hearing from technology such as radio, we'll soon be able to receive pictures too!

2. Coming soon...moving pictures and sound - in one!

Digital radio has wild plans for a new future - broadcasting pictures alongside the sound we expect from them. Now aside from the obvious conclusion that they're simply re-inventing television, I can't actually see why anyone would want this. When I'm listening to my iPod, or the radio, I'm generally doing other things. If I have time to sit down and pay visual attention to something, I'll watch TV!

3. McFines for slow eaters

It seems people have been getting fined recently for spending too long in McDonald's car parks. I would feel some sympathy for them - but does it really take longer than an hour to wolf down junk food? Then again, it's not just McDonalds...

A Tesco store in Wiltshire recently warned an elderly couple that they took too long to do their Christmas shopping - after the couple had spent around £200 in-store.

4. Schumacher commandeers a taxi

Late for the plane? Get a F1 driver to break all the traffic laws (and probably some other ones too - I doubt he had insurance to drive a taxi) and get there in time. It's an amusing story, but you have to wonder how the fascist strict folks over in Germany haven't picked up on it.

5. Man trapped in toilet for 4 days

Nothing like a bit of toilet humour to round things off eh?

Hello - Everything is fine. Goodbye

I got quite a bizarre call from O2 customer services today. A thoroughly nice British chap rang me so that we could have the lovely, but slightly pointless conversation paraphrased below:

"Hello"

"Hi, is that, Mr. Ian MacGillivray?" (He even pronounced it ok)

"Sure is"

"Hi Ian, my name's <x> and I'm calling from O2 customer services, is now a good time to talk?"

"Yeah sure, I've got a minute..."

"Great, I just wanted to call to tell you that I've been having a look at your recent bill usage, to see if we had a more appropriate package for you"

"Oh ok cheers - so is there a better package then?"

"No, everything's fine, the package you've got is the best deal for you given your usage"

"Oh right, thanks"

"No problem, have a great day"

"You too"

--

Reminds me of the Everything's OK Alarm as invented by Homer Simpson (can't find it on YouTube! - "This alarm will sound every 5 seconds so long as everything is OK!")

Brain Bones

Another great game I found over at OneMoreLevel, Brain Bones is a bit like Yahtzee - but with a lot more strategy involved. There's still a bit of luck involved, but I challenge you to try and beat this :)



Enjoy.

Lance Gambit

Picture Loans have gained a degree of fame for having what are publicly acclaimed to be the most irritating adverts on TV. A particularly hated one is 'Josh, Dad's found ya scootah' - you know the one I mean. Well, like everyone else, I hate that advert, and the awful acting within, but I do really like the vibraphone music in the background, and have never been able to find out what it is - until I decided to give it a really good search after it appeared on Top Gear.

The song is 'Leftbank 2', written by Wayne Hill and played by the Lance Gambit trio. You can even find the album, Cocktail 2000 over on Amazon - it contains such greats as Barbie Girl and Return Of The Mac - played in a smooth, chilled style on the vibraphone.

I can't find any of the tracks online, but I'm really tempted to get the album, for pure comedy value if nothing else. Let me know if you manage to track any of them down before I resort to the archaic method of actually paying for music before I hear it.

Sawse - Design and Art

Sawse is a blog I've recently stumbled upon that offers A Healthy Blend of Design Inspiration, New Technologies and Offbeat News. As well as offering some of their own stuff, they do a great job of compiling some of the best bits of funky art from around the web too.



The above's from one of my favourite posts on the site - 20 photographs taken at the exact right angle, which is absolutely kickass, and well worth a look.



25 Photographs Taken at the Exact Right Time is another great post along the same lines.

One final link before I leave you to go and discover their site myself is going to have to be a recent post, Stop motion animation, which has some absolutely brilliant videos on there. I particularly like the ones from damnfunnypictures, like this one:

No more detox

Well, it's been a fun experiment, but yesterday I decided to end my detox after only two weeks. It wasn't the depressing experience of watching other people eat gorgeous food whilst I sat there with some nuts and berries. It wasn't even the fact that every meal required a degree of effort - there was never a quick solution or the option to eat out. No, the main factor in my decision was that my body decided it would be fun to faint on Wednesday night.

Now, a common question I got when I said that to people in person was 'Why?' - to which I'm still unsure of the answer. My body doesn't exactly have a LED readout that justifies its actions...

Despite giving up early I'm still happy I gave the whole thing a try - I certainly did feel a lot better in myself after a few days, and I've learned some really nice recipes and meals that can be made with absolutely no bad stuff at all. I'm also sure that I've processed all the 'bad stuff' that was leftover by now, giving me a clean start before I go and fill my body with crap all over again.

Would I recommend it? Certainly - but perhaps only for a week or so at a time. And certainly not in December, that was just silly. If you fancy giving it a go, get in touch, please, because I've not bothered to mention on here some important stuff, and if you just go at it with what I mentioned you'll probably get very ill.

Back to work...
Xx

Harmonica Hero

Why do I not already own this game?

The world's strangest laws

Cheap post here, but I couldn't resist linking this. From The Times online:

The world's strangest laws

Enjoy :)

The Calamity of Ina

Thanks to Anthony for the post title, it made me giggle :)

So, following on from all locked up, I had an eventful early morning start today for my trip to London. My key was actually found during the day by my housemates by the way - stuck deep inside the folding mechanism of the bed part of the sofa-bed.

This wasn't my only calamity today, I also kinda failed on my detox. As such, the new plan is to have two short stints of detox - most people only do 7 days anyway. I've managed 8 days before my failing today, and I've got another 12 days until the departmental Christmas party.

Today was my team's little Christmas-celebration day in London, and the welcoming of our new manager. With all the festivity in the air, it completely slipped my mind that a nice steak and 7 cocktails at lunchtime weren't allowed under the rules of my detox. It also made for an interesting first meeting with the new boss, who arrived quite late into the celebrations.

Bit of a spectacular failure really :( Oh well - I'll start again tomorrow with some lovely hummus and raw veg. I've got to say that I could really feel the difference eating 'real' food, but I should hopefully process it quickly and get back to my airy and light detoxed state within a couple of days.

Comments on Tie-Dye Heart

A few of you have requested it, so with some help from the friendly, fun & talented admin (Steve H) over at ComicCMS (which powers tiedyeheart.com), we've now made it possible for comments to be added for comics over at Tie-Dye Heart.

Now, given that barely anyone comments here, I was a bit dubious about taking the time to add this functionality, so please go and prove me wrong guys :)

Xx

All locked up with no way to go

Yesterday, around tea-time, I was happily sitting on my sofa, watching repeats of Top Gear on Dave. To my right was a bowl of red pepper houmous (which I'm growing to tolerate, if not actively like), and a plate of cucumber wedges and sliced peppers which I was dipping in said bowl. To my left, on the arm of the sofa, was my laptop, and next to it, my front door key.

_{This story does get better, promise.}

Having gotten all the entertainment I could out of Facebook for the day, and with Top Gear hotting up, I decided to move my laptop to the floor. Whilst leaning over to do this, I knocked my key off the arm of the sofa. I know I did this, because I heard a metallic 'ting'.

_{Oh well.}

So, I then proceeded to get up so I could pick up the key...and couldn't immediately find it. Half an hour passed, with me turning the living room upside down, taking the sofa apart and even checking the kitchen, in case of a miraculous bounce.

_{I've managed to lose my front door key, in my own living room.}

Now, with my housemate arriving home the next day, and having no need to go out that night, this wasn't really going to be a problem. When he got home, he could let himself in, and I could then simply get a new key cut - once he'd checked over the living room to make sure I wasn't being completely insane (he has, by the way, checked it, and also can't find the key). As such, I happily went off to bed at some hour and thought little more of it.

_{Sweet dreams...}

Until I got woken up by a phone call at 9am this morning from that housemate, telling me that he'd been up all night in London due to various mix-ups, and was on his way home having had no sleep. Oh, and, his house key was currently in a flat in London, so could I let him in.

_{Yeah right.}

Naturally, I thought that one of the people I'd complained to about my missing key had told him, and so he was winding me up. Also naturally, he assumed I was merely winding him up when I said that the door was locked and I had no key. So, a few minutes passed until he actually got to the door...and then we were faced with a predicament.

_{A cunning plan was in order.}

As it was, he eventually managed to clamber in through a window I opened for him, and we're now both stuck inside a locked house with no key. Tomorrow we've both got to be in work by 9am (and for me, that means getting to London) which should be quite fun. Current plan of action is to set the alarm and then leg it to the window and jump out before the alarm goes off on us. Then, hope no-one decides to clamber in until our other housemate arrives at midday.

_{If you're a burglar in the Reading area and don't mind loud alarms, please disregard the above.}

The Pirate Bay speaks up

With music, TV & guitar tab sites dropping like flies, it's nice to see one which is fully prepared to take responsibility for their actions and defend themselves in an educated manner. It's also hilarious to see the Swedish public defending their local torrent site.

From BBC News:

The views from The Pirate Bay

Highly worth a read if you're into this kind of thing :)

Spacedust

A chap by the name of John recently left yet another comment on my timeless anti-BT post, and, interested to see if he'd blogged in more detail about his experience, I had a click on his profile.

Well, I can't find a blog, but I did find his brilliant website, Spacedust, which does something I've always vaguely wanted to but never had the time for.

You know all those signs you see dotted around that are just hilarious? Well, he's gathered a bunch of photographs of them together - go take a look, there's some corkers :)