Productive

Some weekends you get abslutely nothing done and then go to work on Monday feeling like it was a waste...but not this weekend!

Up early on Saturday and the house was cleaned and a lot of tidying up was done. Then managed to do the shopping, bought some fruit at the pick your own, bought various anniversary cards in town and then made some lemon curd (hint: never freeze then defrost lemons to use as normal, they were strangely rubbery). I also made a Raspberry Ripple Terrine and some marinated chops for the BBQ. The weather looked vaguely threatening so we had them on the grill instead!

Today we sorted and boxed some books, bought the lino for the bathroom and I made some jam from yesterday's pickings.

I've also managed to squeeze in a fair amount of video game playing and most of Season 2 of Scrubs, which is now finished! Also watched Howl's Moving Castle which was great.

I love this cartoon!

Unholy Alliance

Yay! Just discovered that this is on its way for my Birthday...cool!

Hot!

I've really been trying not to complain about the hot weather, we moan when its cold and wet so we should be glad that its warm.

But I just can't help myself. It's 10.30pm and the temperature in my study (and the rest of the house) is 32 friggin' degrees!

Top Marks!

To all those who got me fantastic presents I got for my birthday!

Special mention should go to K who, in addition to getting me some great gifts, organised the Belgium trip.

I also especially liked my 2 game related presents, Chronology and Bohnanza! Thank you guys, you know who you are!

Happy Belgium Day!

CIMG0106
Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

We had the great fortune (entirely by chance) to arrive at Belgium on Belgium Day, one of belgium's national holidays.

What this meant for us was that as we arrived at the train station and went in the wrong direction we ended up seeing part of a parade and our eventual trip to the hotel was punctuated with numerous fly bys of the Belgian air force, great stuff!

Also it meant that we were able to see what was quite possibly the best fireworks display I have ever seen! Constant barrage of spectacular fireworks for the full 20 minutes of Bolero (god that piece of music gets old very quick!). This was after we'd had a traditional Belgian meal of Mussel casserole for me and Flemish stew for Kath (both served with French Fries of course!)

What was slightly strange however was that there were trucks giving away plastic bags of water. Clearly Belgium takes its public health very seriously but you can't fault em for it...I didn't see anyone passed out because of the heat!

Stormy Weather

CIMG0300
Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

A picture of the Hotel de Ville in the Grande Place in Brussels. I was trying to be arty and use the B&W setting on the camera. This was actually taken at about 8.30pm I think. The sky suddenly went dark and wind started howling through the square.

We went around the corner for waffles and by the time we'd finished the streets were deserted and there was a torrential dowpour! It was strange as it seemed very apocolyptic. One minute we were eating waffles and the next people were running through the streets screaming. We dashed back to the hotel and got thoroughly drenched in the process (although several kind shop keepers offered us their doorways).

This storm (with full thunder and ligntning effects) carried on for about 2 hours.

Ok...I'll stop doing this now...

With music like this...this game should be ace!

Prepare for a deluge!

I've discovered YouTube!

Back from Brussels

And it was fantastic!

This is just a quick post to say that my new camera i ace and the battery lasts a very long time, very pleased. The only downside is my 1 gig SD card is rather full...I may have been over zealous with my picture taking. Will post again later, need to unpack and put my feet up for a bit.

My evil plans....

....for domination can begin now that K has left me alone in the house! Mwa ha ha ha!

Ermmm...not really. A lovely big headache has prevented me from venturing out this evening and K has gone to rehearsal on her own. Not sure what brought it on to be honest. Had quite a stress free day actually. Went to aerobics for the first time in months (good but sweaty!) and had to dash to the doctor's for an appointment I'd forgottten about. Went to the shops and did the shopping then, wham, headache central after I'd put everything away.

Sat with a ridiculous cool mask thing on my forehead and when K arrived home she said I looked awful! Oh well. I'll perhaps do a bit of reading and try to remember to record Part 2 of Silent Witness for K. Fingers crossed!

BBQ

CIMG0032
Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

Had a great time at Emma & Paul's birthday bbq in Derby this weekend, 2 whole lambs roasting on a spit, cous-cous, ice cream, fizzy wine, a WWII parachute being used as a gazebo and a collection of interesting music (we were all asked to rpovide some MP3s, mine seemed to have got lost in the mail!).

I also managed to pick up some of my birthday presents and get lost in mum & dad's huge new sofa. The only downside really is that we had to travel 3 hours each way to get there. My thoughts, of late, have been increasingly turning to when and if we need to move house and I can't help but think however nice Suffolk is our friends just aren't here.

The new camera is great as well...managed to get a good video of Kath, Emma, Alex & Paul dancing when they thought I was just messing about with settings...I'll try and find a way to post it soon!

For Queen and Country

Boys in blue

Bleh!

Had a terrible day at work today....the week started with so much possibility. No deadlines to meet and plenty of time to focus on the good stuff and the improvment actions to make my job easier.

It descended into pointless last minute requests and doing work that should be done by someone else but they're too stupid or lazy to do it. Shouted at my boss a couple of times and had to leave the office to go for a walk around site to calm down!

At least its the weekend now though....going to a BBQ to Derby tomorrow and doing some more birthday shopping in the morning.

Where can I get my paper clip!

http://www.oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5167388.stm

Revelations

It’s been a weekend of revelations in one form or another so I thought I’d share some of them. They range from the mundane to even more mundane but it’s a chance to glance inside my head!

1. Colleen’s Loft – After a stressful beginning we managed to clear it out. Very dusty but we did find award winning poetry by K (she was such a school girl swot) and minutes of NUT district meetings running back as far as 1920.

2. The Carphone Warehouse’s Broadband Package isn’t as easy to install as it seems. Ambushed into installing it for K’s dad…it didn’t work but I’m not sure if the problem was the package or the frankly bizarre amount of phone lines and sockets in his house.

3. K’s taking me to Brussels, I’m taking her to Paris. Hooray! And the luggage we’ve bought is great!

4. I really like Six Feet Under. Started to watch Series 3 that K bought me for Christmas (there was literally nothing on and we’d exhausted our July supply of DVDs, except for Ripley’s Game which we started to watch and couldn’t get into) and managed to find Series 4 for £25 in Virgin so bought that too. Must remember to remove it from my Amazon wishlist, so close to my birthday!

5. There’s an online ‘Theme Park’ for Origami. Lots of exciting looking models with a fairy tale appearance.

6. What happens to Rose Tyler. I was convinced the Daleks needed her DNA to make a Queen Dalek and she willingly trapped herself in the void ship for eternity to stop the Daleks ruling the universe. That didn’t happen in the end but it was a bloody good (and emotional episode). Thank goodness for the levity at the end. Can’t wait for the Christmas episode now.

7. My new digital camera is super. A significant upgrade on the old model (Nikon Coolpix 2100) and super slim ready for our hols. Just need to buy a bigger SD card and a spare battery.

8. We’ve run out of Leigh’s Super Lemon Curd (well its not mine but from a great book about preserving). I must remember to buy some lemons.

9. The world is full of freaks.

Dusty

We're off to Colleen's today to clear out the loft...which should be fun...and dusty. By all accounts the loft has not been entered for 16 years (I think it was something K's dad did but didn't teach K before he left, unlike the central heating timer switch).

It should be quite interesting but probably more so for K & B as each long forgotten toy gets squeals of delight (Playskool Pick-a-pair) and a lot of junk emerges....I might take a book.

Did very well on the Stalk market this week and have managed to pay off another mortgage! Hooray!

It's been a while...

...so this post might be quite long as I desparately try to cram everything in before having to go and make dinner for K.

Been a bit down to be honest and don't really know what's causing it. Work is OK, money is fine and K is great as usual but I just feel a bit limbo-ish. Hopefully I'll snap out of this fugg and be back to my tip top self soon enough, anyway onto an update!

Decided against buying a wormery and an iPod in the end but did manage to completely sort out the garden and buy the bathroom ready for the man coming soon. Although that was a bit of a nightmare as one B&Q didn't have all of the suite and the other had just the missing bit. Fortunately we got it all for much cheaper than we thought which is just as well as the shower broke last week and we need to get that fixed at the same time.

My birthday is in a few weeks and so the presents have been rolling in already. Mum has been and bought me some shoes (I bought a pair as well) and my stash is slightly embarrasing. Imelda Marcos eat your heart out! I did give 3 pairs away to charity though so hopefully it evens out a bit. Got my presents from Gerry & Becks but won't open them until the day. Well the evening of the day as we'll be away in some exotic foreign location (K's present to me). I don't know where we're going but I'm sure she'll tell me in plenty of time!

I also spent a few days trying to decide whether to book a long weekend for us August bank holiday. This time a surprise for K, can't wait! However this did cause some problems as on Sunday I discovered my passport had expired. 2 years ago!!! OH. MY. GOD. I always thought peopel who didn't keep on top of things like this are complete thickos and now its happened to me!

Anyway, had this afternoon off and pootled down to Peterborough to get it sorted. The RAC lied and it took me 1 and a half hours insteadof 2 and a half so I sat in my car in the multi-storey car park playing Animal Crossing for 45 minutes. The office is very strict about arriving too early and won't let you in until 10 minutes before your appointment. As far as I can tell there are 2 sorts of people in there...the genuine ones who discover that they need a passpot at short notice and are prepared to pay a premium and the losers who can't read fucking forms! Queued for an extra 10 minutes at reception as someone thought they could get a new passport without new pictures and someone else thought they'd be able to take their new passport away that day despite the MASSIVE signs saying that this is only possible if you have your appointment before 12 (this was at 2pm). Went through without a hitch and my new passport is guaranteed to arrive by next thursday which leave another clear week until we go away. Phew!

A whole new me

They say that money changes people and I have to agree that it does. It certainly affects our spending habits although not necessarily in the obvious ways. I remember a time when I was a student and then just after where I had barely any money and large debts as well. To be honest I didn’t really care, I kept spending. I’d inherited the Mother C spending vision of “if you’ve got it, spend it”. Although in this case it should be more like “if they’ll let you borrow it, spend it”.

Those of you who know me would probably find this quite surprising as in my family I am the ‘sensible’ one. The one who doesn’t drink at family parties, who follows the rules to the letter and generally does what is expected. That is certainly the view of my family, anyway. To my friends I’m the one who drinks, swears, says inappropriate things at parties. I still follow the rules but only where I think they apply to me and I have been known to flash my cash about. I remember buying 6 bottles of wine at Sainsbury’s and then only noticing that I got an extra discount for 6!

Anyway, the point is I used to spend money that I didn’t have. Now though I have money (including savings accounts!!) I dither over every decision about spending it! I’ve gone from easy street to penny pinching miser in the time it took my account to flip from red to black. There was no real change in my overall wealth but suddenly my attitude switched. There is something about watching a little pile of money grow on the internet to a pile a little bigger and something inside says “No!…if you don’t spend me I’ll get a little bigger”. I don’t know whether the Mother B ethic of “Save everything, you can’t spend your money!” has finally asserted itself via K (although interestingly Colleen seems intent on spending all of her money in the shortest amount of time possible at the moment) or whether my true sensibilities (allowed to flourish away from Home C) have stopped me in my tracks.

Either way it’s making purchasing this iPod a bloody nightmare!

3.25am

So the weekend has gone again and it’s another rainy Monday. Which is quite a relief to be honest as my garden really needed a good water! Spent the weekend engaged in valuable pursuits. Sorted the garden out big style…lots of weeding, mending next doors fence, constructing a new garden box (yes I bought one) and rearranging my garden. The best bit is that I’ve now got room for a wormery! Unfortunately I discovered that I can actually put my veg peelings and rotten fruit in the brown bin! So my primary reason for the wormery has gone…will have to ponder further.

Went to bed quite late as usual on a Sunday (and despite the fact we didn’t have our usual DM we had quite a bit of fun!) but woke up with a very tickly cough at about 3.15am. Went downstairs and returned with a juice drink (and trying to climb our stairs with a drink and no banister is tricky) to try and calm my throat. K was dead to the world and laying entirely on top of the duvet, oblivious to everything. Lay there coughing a bit more and decided to try cough medicine instead.

Then went and sat in the lounge to give it chance to work before returning to bed. I managed to learn the following things…

a) The light from a DS lite is enough to fill an entire room
b) It gets misty at night in Waterloo
c) Gwen, Chief & Mathilda are the only animals awake at 3.30am
d) I caught my cough from Gwen as she was having real difficulty. Shame Nookington’s is closed at night or I would have bought her some medicine.
e) The milkman makes a very scary shape as he looms by the front door delivering milk at 3.40am in the morning…WTF!!!

Staggered back to bed and K had managed to right herself and ask me if I was OK…although knowing her she has probably forgotten that we talked!

The Weekend

Hooray the weekend beckons!

Gardening to do and games to play...BBQs to have and lovely food to eat...

Er...that's it I think.....

And then He said "Let there be Lite!"

Wahey! My DS Lite arrived today...impossibly small, all white and stylish with screens soo bright they hurt my eyes (no kidding!) A nice fat stylus too...very very pleased. One downside is a stupid blown pixel on the touch screen. Only really visible when the screen is black (and its glaring red at me) but I'm not sure if I can put up with it....Nintendo are very good at exchanging them though so I think I'll wait until the initial release window has passed and then get a new one.

I've also got to update my friends lists and codes though because of the whole paired gamecard/system thing....bum!

In other news I finally finished Metroid Prime 2....hooray! Very enjoyable. You kinda take for granted a good game sometimes and expect all games to be top notch but this was truly great all the way through. I sometimes just boggle at how damn clever these people are who can firstly think up something like this and then translate it into pictures. Then someone else can make those pictures move and be controllable! Its just awesome! P.S. I love videogames!

And to celebrate I bought some new games (even though I have a stash waiting to be played on the Xbox). Chibi Robo and Prince of Persia Two Thrones are on their way. I loved the first new PoP and spotted the end of the tilogy on sale at Gameplay for £14.99. Bargain!

*yawn*

I had an odd day at work today. My main memory is the pain across my stomach when I had an accident with a baking tray and a wall yesterday. I have a nice long red scratch and bruise that I can feel pretty much constantly. Other than that it was bizarrely quiet with one whole team out of the office (for various reasons I believe).

Added to which my eyes are hurting and I’m quite tired (although going to bed at 12:30 is probably the cause of that). Got another cabbage in the veg box and boiled a ham on Sunday evening which means I can make my newly discovered ham/bacon & cabbage pasta dish…yum! Sounds odd but when you add onions, garlic, crème fraiche and parmesan it becomes something quite lovely.

Still scouting around for what to spend my money on…got thinking about my current garden storage situation and it might be time to expand from a basic chest where everything is piled on top of each other, to something with doors so I can stand stuff up in it. Just not sure about the price as the web is being pretty unhelpful to be honest. I don’t think I paid THAT much for the one I have at the moment but I need to have a wander around B&Q to check…

Too drunk to care

Have had a great weekend so far...it started on Friday with K passing her exam with flying colours and the going out to the Chinese with Becks & Ralph. The delay in their arrival meant that we could catch up on taped TV and even watch some more Life on Mars, which I'm really liking. Had a nice meal with very friednly waiters altough I te far too much and felt a little ill the next day, not great for a trip to London.

We got up very early and got on a early train (although still quite full...everyone clearly having the same idea as us) and thanks to some ticket jiggery pokery got a return to London for use on any trains for £13! Brilliant!

The sun was shining as we arrived and we then ate quite an expensive breakfast for 4 at the Tate Modern. To be fair it was expensive but not overpriced. Good tea and delicious bacon sandwiches! Spent a couple of hours in the Tate which is always good value (as its free!) and then headed over to Vinopolis. Again ticket jiggery pokery (and vouchers from Tesco's) meant we got the premium package for £13 each! I really like that place as after you'vehad the 'How to taste' wine session you suddenly turn into a wine snob and really do think you kow it all! You also start the audio tour vey interested but by the time you tasted wine at the first coupe of tables you stop listening because you're too mellow to care.

The premium table is always a favourite and you can really taste the difference. We also managed ot taste beers, whiskey's, absinthe and some Bombay Sapphire cocktails! Managed to avoid buying any wine at th Majestic wine merchants at the end of the tour and then had lunch in Pizza Express. We were fortunate to get a table outside and managed to squeeze in 3 courses, more wine and a lot of people watching. The drink and my natural generosity allowed me to pay for lunch (that and the frankly ridiculous bonus I got this year) which was spent lazily and in the sunshine. We stopped at the Globe to watch some morris dancing and then a brief stop at St. Pauls and then we were on the way home. Too drunk for driving and too lazy to wait for a taxi and we had a pleasent stroll back home from the station.

The camera had been packed to take some lovely summer shots in London but didn't make it out of the bag all day but when the weather and company were so great the title of the post says it all.

Weekend

What I forgot to mention in my previous post is that the match I watched was dull as anything! I had to go out three quarters of the way through so I missed the goals! Instead I got to watch half arsed attempts!

Anyway, my brain age is sticking around 30...I thought I'd done really well but I'm still being caught out by that damn Stroop test! Plasterer all done now and was even left on his own to let himself out...see I can trust some people!

Got the inlaws coiming over tonight...R&R...I think we're going to the Chinese then off into London tomorrow...fingers crossed the weather stays nice!

Football

On the instructions of my boss at work I did watch the England match today. He'd ben spreading rumours that the only reaosn I was working from home today was so I could watch the match but in fact it was so I could make sure the plasterer didn't steal my stuff. Which is really unfair and judgemental as he was a nice chap who has done a good job so far.

I don't know what it is but I think we've stopped trusting people, society in general I mean. I think there are many things to blame but ultimately I think we get what we deserve, civic karma, if you will. We want to be able to move to and work from where we want, consequently we don't know or trust our neighbours. We want to be able to know what's going on from our newspapers, hence we live in fear of crime that statistically happens to barely anyone. We want to earn lots of money, and so we feel bad when someone earns more than us. We want to have children but we feel we need more money to support them although our parents managed just fine with barely half what we have now.

Don't get me wrong I'm not sure I'd want to live in another time but I can't help feel sad for what we've lost. The obvious benefits are that I don't have to worry about how I'm going to feed and clothe myself, I can eat food from all around the world, I can find out just about anything about anything without 14 volumes of Encyclopeadia Brittanica weighing down my bookcase, I can play games with people in the US & Scotland as if they were in the next room. All in all I don't think I'd live anywhen else!

Memo to self.....

.....only test my brain early in the day and before drinking wine! After achieving 30 over the weekend I've now slumped back to 38! The Prof. seems unperturbed however, telling me to try again tomorrow. This is against K with a consistent score of around 25! Curses...competitiveness rising, sabotage thoughts whirling.

Onto other news you can tell the summer's here (besides the glorious weather that makes leaning on my desk with bare arms not pleasant) as all the good telly is about to finish. ER ended last week and (as with all good cliffhangers) left Kath shouting at the TV "That's just wrong!!" as the end credits rolled.

House, & Desparate Housewives are about to finish as well and I get the sense CSI is about done too. That leaves CSI: Miami which hopefully will start soon and the last half of Lost. Good job we've got the DVD rentals to keep us going....just watching Prison Break & Life on Mars...both great. We also still need to wtach the end of Six Feet Under but that might take longer as there are 3 seasons to get through!

Good news though is that I've discovered a fellow Animal Crosser at work and his town has Apples...Yay! The last fruit I need! We've got Peaches so he'll finish his set too! Brilliant!

72!!

This apparently is the age of my brain!

I got home after a long day on Thursday and "Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old is Your Brain?" had arrived.

After a quick introduction of the science behind I got my first Brain Age check....I though I'd been doing OK, shouting out the colours of the words and not the word itself but alas no...my brain age is 72! Which is not good as I am the right side of 30 still!

Firtunately the daily exercise programme and the new tasks has helped me score a brain age of 30 this morning...not as good as Kath's 25 however...must train brain better!

Finally

DSCN2081
Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

Ok so I've finally posted my photos of the break over on Flickr. Had a great time and it was good to see everyone again.

The house was fantastic and Emma is a star! (she organised the whole thing). The length of time was jus about right as well as I managed not to fall out with anyone..although I think there were points for us all where it could have gone either way.

A highlight for me was the outdoor hottub...especially as it has the ability to sooth away my aches and pains. The problem is I have the twin demands and laziness and extreme competiveness at work. This is fine when it comes to Boggle (which I won) and Triv (which we won but it went on far too long!) but not so for Rounders. In Claire's absence I was the captain of the Idiots (having served this role in 1997 when I was skewered on stage and stayed put bleeding into a puddle) and I wanted to win. Picking my wife as the first choice was a shwo of loyaylty but I though it was going to be my downfall...not realising Chris was still available was my second mistake.

4 of my team were out and we'd only scored 3 runs. Somehow, out of nowhere Emma, Rachel and I stepped up to the mark and finished with 9 runs! Amazing! After a very long rest the other team had their innings and after their star players were knocked out with only 2 runs scored I was confident of success. A bit of unfair play kept us going for a further 20 minutes by which time we caught em all out with 3 runs...Yay!!!

Then played vigourous 'Extreme Frisbee' and then hiked the hard way back to Monsal Head....to be honest my body has only stopped aching today!

Madness

After a hectic few days at work I'm now enjoying a day off prior to our weekend away in Derbyshire. Our friend Emma has done a fantastic job organising it all and I need to make a big list of things we need to take...including what we need to make starters for 20 people!

I was actually playing on teh XBOX but I've switched to doing this as I'm avoiding the window cleaner....I get uncomfortable in a room when the window cleaner is cleaning the windows! Good job I got up early and got dressed!

Givin blood this afternoon so might treat myself in town with a new pair of shoes...well I have just been paid after all! Annoyingly K caught me out with first of the month shenanigans this morning when I was still half asleep. My record was running at 3/4 months as well! Just wait until the 1st July!

Also the start of the month means my pickled shallots are ready....bit of pork pie and salad should do for tea then!

Bank Holiday Monday

Phew...its 3pm and already we've packed loads in! We were away on Saturday & Sunday visiting Colleen and getting into argumets about wormeries.

She thinks I shouldn't waste my money but I see it as helping the environment! I think she felt pretty bad about it in the end and offered to buy it me for my birthday...politely declined (as its expensive) but I'll definitely be putting the money towards it. I don't know whether I should wait until my birthday or get it now....

Anyway back to today...we were supposed to be looking at bathrooms but we've decided that as we haven't confirmed the man yet it might be premature to buy a new suite in the B&Q sale! Instead we went to see Xmen : The Last Stand and it was great! Usually I end up seeing spoilers for films and ruin the endings but I didn't this time and it was great! I won't spoil anything by writing about it here but it really was a great film. I think that because I'd been hearing mixed reviews I went in with lower expectations which helped.

After much toing & froing my XBOX is going back and I'll be getting a refund...had decided to forego getting a replacement until I'd cleared some of my game backlog but then saw a brand new one in Game for £80! So now I have a new XBOX and my game pile has suddenly got much larger!

Fortunately K is watching Diagnosis Murder at the moment so it means that I get chance to update my blog when i would otherwise be playing videogames. In a way its good that we only have 1 TV in the house...means we tend to do things together instead of one person in one room and one in another!

Better go as I can probably squeeze in some Animal Crossing before the XBOX gets set up!

Man of Steel!

Your results:
You are Superman

Superman 85% Green Lantern 65% Iron Man 50% Supergirl 50% The Flash 45% Batman 45% Spider-Man 40% Wonder Woman 40% Robin 37% Hulk 35% Catwoman 20%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Argjghgh!

Work is nightmarish at the moment. Spent all monday desparately trying to ru reports because all tuesday I was in Fleet (3 hours there, full day 3 hours back). Got into an argument with my department head in a meeting when I actually agreed with him but was trying to point out the flaw in a plan that had been put into place.

Yesterday was at Brentwood discovering that something I'm expected to do is in fact impossible to do (although meeting the person that helped me realise this was a highlight, another person doing the same crap I do and knowing that she'll be in BT for the next 30 years because its too damn cushy!)

Today was just long...had a fall out with another general manager and exchanged snipy comments over email. Also expecting department head to drown us in requests for reports my boss has already sent him before he went on leave...added to that I need to finish my actual routine work and some of next week's as well as I'm off for 3 days!

The good news is that the XBOX seller has agreed to give me a refund so I just need to parcel up and post. In a way its been good as I'm hoping to finish Metroid Prime 2 before I get a replacement XBOX. Not sure where I'm going to get it from though...I may just bite the bullet and buy a new one...less hassle methinks although due to the fact I didn't win my award I may have to spend some bathroom-earmarked-bonus to do it.

Bong!

Some people are just too damn talented!

Bum!

My eBay XBOX arrived and worked for 10 minutes before refusing to read any discs! Waiting to see how the seller responds to my poilte enquiry...

I reckon I'll be going for my money back...eitehr the seller has sold me a duff product or their courier broke it in transit. Either way I think I want my dosh back...I only hope they are going to be reasonable...I don't want to leave arsey feedback and lose my £60!

Good Food Summer Festival

Had a great time at the above mentioned event despite turning up late and my dad falling asleep at the show. It kicked off with Gordon Ramsay in fine form and us discovering that he doesn't just swear for the camera!

Managed to eat and drink a lot and thought I'd share some of the highlights of the show (also known as the stalls that I remembered to get fliers from!)

Sammy's Couscous : Almost the first thing we had to eat (but not the first stall, most of the initial ones were alcohol based!) and subsequently purchased. Not really sure why to be honest. The cupboard at home is now bursting with extra couscous. It must have been the desire ot spend money I guess.

Cusquena : The only beer I tried at the show and surprisingly I really like it! I've going to use the six pack I bought to train myself to like beer. I'm sure it's just an acquired taste. Never again will I need to order a VAT or a wine in a bar!

Jewel Isle Rum Punch: Surprisingly strong beverage that looks like an alcopop! Reminds me of my honeymoon in St. Lucia where we went on an excursion and strated drinking very strong rum punch only to realise it was only 9.15am in the morning!

Revive Power Paste: Wonder cleaner that Kath really likes...watched the whole presentation because we didn't want to stop teh man mid flow to say that we'd bought the stuff before and was going to buy it again anyway!

Thatcher's Cider: Missed out on buying some lovely cider because I didn't want to carry it around...must remember to buy some from their website.

Fatboy BeanBag: The show tickets got us free entry to BBC GoodHomes Live It! exhibition and these caught my eye. Surprisingly comfy and expensive and its only because we don't have space that I stopped myself buying one. Almost the only good thing in the Live It! show that seemed to want us to buy property abroad and not much else!

Dickinson & Morris Pork Pie: Mail order pork pie! Brilliant (and tasty!)

Toffoc: There seemed to be an over representation of welsh liquer drinks at the show...this one was pretty tasty but you could probably make it yourself.

Greek Yoghurt & Honey Ice-cream: Now I don't like honey or greek yoghurt but together and cold this was a real treat!

Rose Wine: This man did a lovely tasting session...we basically stood round for 20 minutes drinking 6 different rose wines and getting a history of the region of origin and some insight into wine making!

Snowdonia Cheese: Wales again, but they can be forgive for a lovely selection of cheese...4 of which are sat in my fridge as I type...Pickled Onion cheese? Yes please. Stem ginger cheese? Why thank you!

The show was sadly lacking in BBQs of any shape or from so I picked up my dream BBQ at the gareden centre when we got back....now we just need some good weather!

Samus

Managed to get into Metroid prime 2 and am working my way through it at a fair old lick. Good job as my Xbox is sat in a DHL warehouse and will be collected tomorrow...and then its bye bye Samus until I get tired of Halo 2 & Jade Empire...and I still need to do the proper shopping as well...see my previous post on Lidl!

Lidl

Now I didn't think anything could be worse than Asda in terms of white trashiness but I've found it...Lidl! Just tried to do the week's shopping in there and was expecing it to be quirky, cheap and interesting. Instead I found it to be awful. From my list I managed to get juice and butter, that's it! The fruit and veg section was non-existent and it was full of pikey people!

I do realise I'm a snob...I just can't help it...

Samus & Pork Pies

You ever have those days at work where you set yourself a goal only to know that you probably won’t achieve it and it won’t matter and you only set the goal to stop you browsing the internet all day anyway?

The work I do contains a bit of ‘black magic’ i.e. stuff that only I understand or can do…this means sometimes you can get away with not doing as much as you should and still appearing to be a miracle worker. Hey, if it worked for Scotty!

Despite this I did manage to complete the thing I'd set for myself so it wasn't all bad....

I’ve also discovered that I really like pork pie. Ask me a week ago and I’d have said “No thanks, greasy pastry, nasty meat and too much jelly” but now I’d be “Yes please…have you got any more?” Still not too keen on the jelly but the meat is tasty and very savoury, the pastry is lovely and the overall experience is a good one. Morrison’s snack pork pies have only fuelled this further and I keep thinking of them when I should be working.

Further to my post yesterday I have made an effort to get re-acquainted with Samus Aran by playing Metroid Prime 2. I had already started this game but decided that as I was only 6 hours in to start a new game. Enjoying it so far and hopefully will get enthused enough to finish it this time. Well at least until my Xbox arrives. Annoyingly there has still been no contact with the seller despite me having already paid so it may be a while before I get it…which is a shame as I’ve already received 2 games from Amazon for it!

K is away tonight so my routine is likely to be all over the shop. I didn’t realise how much of a routine I had until K is not there. There’ll be no reason for me to have dinner at 6.30pm because that’s when K gets home. Last night she was at a course so I didn’t really have a meal…I just had pork pies, cereal and toast spread over a couple of hours. Perhaps I will make a meal tonight…we’ve got enough veg to use up!

Ooooops!

eBay can be a very dangerous thing….Sunday night I was suffering through the post-E3 drought of information and was starting to think what a good idea it would be to get an Xbox 360. Some of the games coming for it look great. Oblivion, Mass Effect and Gears of War look brilliant. A reality check later says that it’s not a good idea to spend £300 on a console for only 1 game that is currently available.

My mind then strayed to the Xbox. Not really the most attractive of consoles aesthetically but well into its life and there are some great looking games. I watched some video reviews over on IGN (Ninja Gaiden, Halo 2 & Jade Empire) and started to get excited about the types of games I could get on an Xbox that I don’t own.

I happened to visit eBay and noticed that there was a second-hand Xbox for sale for £45 with a reserve and lots of bids. Not thinking that my bid would be the highest one or would meet the reserve I plonked down a bid of £50. Hmm so now I’ve got the current winning bid that HAS met the reserve and there only appears to be 16 minutes left on the auction (and its 11:30pm). Needless to say I won the auction and emboldened by this I ordered a couple of Xbox games from Amazon. My only problems now are realising that I didn’t have quite as much money left in my account as I thought (fingers crossed I’ll win my GS Award for Excellence) so I’m going to have a lean couple of weeks, the fact that a hulking great Xbox isn’t going to fit into my sleek entertainment centre (guffaw!) and that I don’t know when I’m actually going to play the thing!

I really do have to focus on completing games before I buy any others….currently waiting in my uncompleted stack are….

Baiten Kaitos (GC)
Metroid Prime 2 (GC)
Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat (GC)
Xmen Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse (GC)
Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls (GBA)
Sonic Rush (DS)
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS)
Trauma Center: Under the Knife (DS)
Metroid Prime Hunters (DS)
Ultimate Spiderman (DS)
Kirby: Power Paintbrush (DS)
Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! (DS)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (DS)

Soon to be added are Jade Empire & Halo 2…oh the joy! And this list doesn’t include games that I still play but don’t require ’finishing’ like Tetris DS, Animal Crossing: Wild World and Meteos. In preparation I’ve been spending only a brief amount of time in my village each day and cracking on with Phoenix Wright. Finished Chapter 4 last night and only have one chapter left! The last chapter took K ages if I remember rightly *sigh*.

The problem is there are games coming on the horizon that I might just have to buy….Super Princess Peach, Brain Age, Chibi-Robo, and New SUPER MARIO BROS all come in the next couple of months. Added to which its summer and I should be making the most of it!

Thankfully K has been thoughtful and managed to be out for the next couple of evenings so I’ll have some free time to fill with gaming goodness. Although I tend to enjoy games less when I’m forced to complete them! The spell World of Warcraft had on me has thankfully waned, I know if I log in again I’ll be drawn back so I’ve done the sensible thing and cancelled my subscription! I am now saving £8.99 a month and can concentrate on the rest of my list!

On a completely unrelated subject K and I got parts in the upcoming shows we’re doing. I’ll be playing Edwin and K is the interestingly titled ‘Groupie’.

Also we go to the BBC Good Food Summer Food Festival on Friday with my parents. This is handy as they’ll be driving so that I can get sloshed on free wine! I’ll be on the lookout for a new BBQ and because we’ll be in the car I can buy loads of stuff that I wouldn’t usually be able to carry! Hooray! I’m actually slightly surprised that my Dad is still coming. Usually something (work or golf) comes up which scuppers any plans. Not this time it seems. Although he is managing to get in a game on Thursday night when we’re driving over…I’ll not repeat what K said when she found out Dad was going to be at the golf course on Thursday night (mainly because I can’t really remember what she said, only that it was funny!)

Well worth the effort!

FSCN1987
Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

Going to the trouble of making a stake for K to be tied to was well worth it....that alon with our other costume bits and pieces and we had a great time! Obviously it was good to see everyone else and their costume efforts as well!

Now I'm very tired so I'm going to play some video games and hopefully have a nap!

It's over

Well K is on the train after her exam and sounding well relieved! Afetr all the revision and study days this past month I know she's well and truly fed up of exams! I'm sure she'll have done great , so we just need to sit back and wait for the results to come.

We're also waiting for the results of the auditions for the upcoming shows we're doing...long old evening with a scarily few amount of men auditioning but hopefully thy'll pick up a few more before rehearsals start. We should find out any day now.

E3 is in full swing as well and I enjoyed watching the Nintendo conference live on the internet. Wii will only be the second console I will be buying at launch! I got a DS even before they came out in teh UK but I'll be pre-ordering a Wii just as soon as we know when the damn thing is going to be released. I guess that's the beauty of savings and having spare disposable income! I know a lot of people have been going on about the graphics but I can't remember any game I've bought because the graphics were good. Sure graphics can help but I'd rather have something that is enjoyable to play. Super Mario Galaxy looks ace as do a lot of the other games on show. Hopefully once the journalists get out and play some of them we'll get a proper feel for what its gonna be like.

I'm hoping it'll be a chance to get more peoeple I know hooked on games but we'll have to wait and see.

Had a frantic day and ended up staying late but in the end it was quite good because it meant I felt like I achieved something. We're in a down cycle and I can't get motivated to do the long list of stuff that needs doing but isn't really that important.

I also need to do some stuff to get together our costumes for the fancy dress party we're going to at the weekend. The theme is heroes & villains but we're doing somethign a little different that what I expect everybody else is doing. The real reaosn behind this is we've left it woefully late to get proper hero/villain costumes so we're going to have to make do.....it should be good though. I just hope I don't have to explain to everyone what K and I are....

Damn good read

Finished To Kill A Mocking Bird a few days ago (memo to self: remove it from my links). That was a great book! There are books hanging around that I just don't seem to have read and I'm always suprised when I read them juts how good they are. TKAMB is one of them. Great story, excellent dialogue and the ability to make you feel like you're there....highly recommended.

Just attacking my book pile and reading the latest Kathy Reich paperback, cross bones, next. Nice spaced out big writing so I should be finished in no time.

Waterloo is starting to drive me crazy...the animals cleared out my house at the flea market yesterday and it now looks bare and empty. My whole town seems like an orchard and I'm finding it hard to keep on top of selling all the fruit. As well as this I've managed to pay off another mortgage and now have an extra room to contend with...not sure how I should deck my pad out...am tempted to sell everything I own and start from scratch with partial sets of furniture...keeping only the stuff I can't buy anywhere else (my mario pipe and animal pics for example). Also need to expand my museum collection so better get fishing! *sigh*

Also played my first few games on Metroid Prime Hunters WiFi...needless to say I sucked big stylee...must practise more....

Heady days of summer

We've just enjoyed a few days on sunshine and it made me remember how much I like it in thsi country when the sun is out!

If only we could have a guaranteed 4 weeks of sunny weather each year then no-one would need to go abroad on holiday. This country is full of great places which are REALLY great when the sun's shining and not that great when its pissing down with rain....like it is now. Although since its late I'm not too bothered.

Fortunately the rain held off for K and her sister and aunt when they ran 5km for Cancer Research this afternoon. They even managed it in a respectable 41 mins...I was very impressed! Well done!

Did something foolish a few days ago and now I have yet another brand new game in my DS pile to play...Metroid Prime:Hunters.

Also starting to get quite excited as E3 is coming around this week. This is where the video game world goes crazy and we get to see a load of new cool stuff. Nintendo should finally be revealing its games for Wii and hopefully we'll see a load of new stuff for DS as well.

Not bad, as bank holidays go...

Even though we didn't really do anything, it didn't feel like a total wash out!

The weather was even good enough to finish off my planting and chnage the exterior light fitting. Now the light sill doesn't work but at least it looks classy! Since the other fitting had rusted shut and the bulb had blown we assumed that chnaging the whole lot would fix it. We were even lucky enough to pick a new fitting by the same manufacturer which meant I didn't need to drill new holes in the brickwork. Wired it all up correctly....I think, but still no light. Will need to get Tricky the electronical engineer to come and have a look!

Popped into town today and managed to buy 8 paperback books! Well I have just been paid and it was better than buying a single pair of jeans for £60! I managed to pick up Ultimate Spiderman for the DS for £15 too...not bad.

Had an enjoyable lunch at the Food Company shop in Marks Tey and bought 3 small items and it came to a tenner! That shop is pricey but nice. Spent the rest of the day baking and have got a lovely lemon curd sponge wth 2 jars of curd left over for another day. Brill!

Back to work tomorrow but it's only a 4 day week so it can't be all bad.

I'll have a 'P' please Bob

Oohh a meme not taken directly from Niles!

This task was set for me by neil h.

Leave me a comment and ask for a letter, then think up 10 things beginning with that letter than mean something to you or you life.

Here goes...

• Pikmin - Little flower plant people you run around and do your bidding in the sublime video games Pikmin & Pikmin 2.
• Pizza - Ever since we discovered Domino's deliver pizzas to us in about 5 minutes flat we've found it hard to resist their normal crust Texas BBQ pizza. A pizza with bbq sauce instead of tomato sauce is a thing of wonder.
• Piano - I have a lovely mahogany with mother of pearl inlay piano that I don't know how to play. It's about to be sold because it has nowhere to live.
• HMS Pinafore - The first (and only) show I directed at University. Freakishly bizarre story where the heroine ends up with a man old enough to be her father (and that's because said man and father were swapped a birth). Great music though and I loved the whole semaphore bit I had going in the middle of Act One. And I put it on in little over 8 weeks! With a female chorus of 5!
• PC World - Employer when at University. Made me cut my long hair to get a job. I worked in Customer Care. We'll not dwell on this.
  
• Terry Pratchett - As much as he re-uses plots and tends to use the Guards far too much some of his books have been great. Particular favourites include Small Gods, The Truth & the one set in the Opera house with the witch with great hair.
• Pokemon - Couldn't resist putting this in here. Very childish looking but deceptively deep and fun and massively profitable for Nintendo so they can make other great games for me to enjoy.
• Jean-Luc Picard - Superb. The Next Generation along with Deep Space Nine are 2 of my favourite shows ever.
  
• My Parents - Bit of an easy one for me to put in this....I couldn't ask for better parents really. I never really understand why people don't get on with theirs.
• Plants - As I grow older I find that I appreciate my garden more and more. There's something really satisfying about planting something 3 months ago and then seeing it slowly transform into something else and change the mood of my 'outdoor space' entirely. Brilliant!
  

Anyone else want a go?

Check these out.....

Nicked from a post by K....easy peasy....managed to get 116.5, get you get a lower score?

Who has this much time? I can't think what it must have taken toput it together though...pretty awesome!

Those Japanese...crazy! I wonder if that's actaully possible to do?

Yay the tulips are up!

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

Pretty happy about my tulips...just planted them a few days ago (already sprouting) and now they've gone and sprouted some more...hooray!

Looking forward to the long weekend and have got the tough stuff for this week out of the way (my conference call performance being one of them). Am going to have a go at some pickling...which should be fun.

On a completely different topic Nintendo have finally revealed the name of their next generation console. For ages its been codenamed Revolution as its supposed to hark a revolution in gaming...but the new name is Wii (pronounced We). Hmm...I can almost hear the Sony/Microsoft fanboys pissing (or should that be wee-ing) themselves as I type. Brave move Nintendo...very brave...although I am quite enamoured by the little i characters in this promo vid.

My wife the addict

Ever had one of those days where you are rushing from job to job to fit in all in and then feel like you've achieved very little? Me too!

Memo to self: Never go on holiday and expect the first week back at work to be anything other than a complete ball-ache!

Am doing a talk tomorrow on a professional community conference call and it was suggested that I might want to do it with the other presnter in a room in London! 2 hours on the train for an 8 minute talk that I can give from my office! Seems like I've spent most of the day talking and staring at my computer screen and I'm bush-whacked.

On the plus side the things I planted at the weekend are coming along nicely...the tulips are popping up already! As soon as there's a bit of sunshine I'll take some pics and post them...lovely.

K's had a hectic week as well, what with seminars and meetings all over the place and its only Wednesday, we've got 2 different things to do tomorrow night as well...arggghghg!

On the plus side my campiagn to get K hooked on video games is coming along nicely. Quite unprompted she initiated a conversation about AC:WW and how she wanted to know which furniture counts as 'red' so she can send some to Puddles. Geek!

Not too shabby

My first day back was OK in the end, helped splendidly along with an award for being an Agent of Change (don't ask)...thats £100 to spent on crap then!

In fact I do have my eye on a couple of things....firstly is a new BBQ and not just a flimsy B&Q job. Hardcore BBQing methinks! But since I don't have room for an outdoor kitchen or fancy lugging bottles of gas anywhere my current ideal choice is this one, which has the advantage of being compact enough to get in teh car and my tiny back yard.

I'm also intrigued by this Nintendo DS game, lostmagic being released on Friday. Unusually there have been very few reviews prior to its release (which can either mean its something really special or ropey as hell!) but the one review there has been gave it 84 out of 100. It does seem like my type of game and I can't decide if I shoudl buy it anyway or wait to see it get reviewed. I should wait but....

First day back

I'm back to work tomorrow after my week off so expect the updates to become much less frequent. All in all its been a good break and hopefully there won't be too much to do in the morning. I do have a 2 hour meeting about international resource measures though, oh the joy!

Finally finished all my Zul Farrak quests today on WoW so I can focus on the joys of the Un' Goro crater this week. Also just finished a session with my Dalelands group (hence the late posting), enjoyed it lots and we got mashed real good, the pay off was ace though...not sure I've ever seen that much treasure in the Dalelands before!

Damn you Samson!

His sea bass was 46 inches and mine's only 44! He's currently top of the table in the fishing tourney and I've given up for a bit. Nook's is closed (for refurbishment) so I've got a load of insects, fish and other stuff and no-one to sell it to! Did manage to get a picture of Vesta though (they only give them if they really like you) and pay some more money off the mortgage!

In the real world its raining so I can't finish the gardening...oh well...just have to play more video games then!

Can't...stop...taking....online...quizzes

What a let down

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

I've been waiting to try out a recipe I saw in the April issue of Good Food magazine since I saw it. But now that I've finally made it, what a disappointment! It may be my inept skills, but I'm hoping that someone else willtry it and let me know how they got on.

Its for a Dark Chocolate Sorbet (odd I know) and its supposed to be smooth and velvety but mine just tasts grainy. I suspect it has something to do with the temperatures when the chocolate and syrup were blended but I did follow the recipe properly.

If anyone wants to use the recipe its basically just syrup (225g white caster sugar dissolved in 500ml water) and melted chocolate (200g good quality dark chocolate). Both cooled then mixed, chilled then put in the ice cream maker. I suppose it could be the chocolate I used (Tesco Finest 72%). I don't understand why I couldn't have just heated the whole thing up to ensure the chocolate and syrup were properly blended but the recipe was very clear about this...they should both be cool when blended. Anyone got any ideas why this turned out wrong?

Note this blog entry can also be seen over on Nibblous, a cooking/recipe forum I'm part of.

The witching hour

It's odd for me to be posting at this late hour but our wine drinkig shenanigans have thrown off my body clock slightly so I'm only just starting to feel tired...I think the gallons of tea consumed today have also had an effect!

Spent an enjoyable 45 mins in the Roivas mansion investigating the paranormal and then played Resident Evil 4 for 20 minutes...god that game scares me! I don't know how I managed to finish it...I keep shouting at the TV!

My house has got fruit all over the floor too as Nookway was shut and I'd been shaking trees with wild abandon! And I think Vesta is starting to stalk me...2 visits in as many days and about 4 letters...all with gifts. I think I need to keep this sheep at arm's length for a while.

Although I am strating an active campaign to get some of my villagers to move out...I want to see new faces but my town is at top capacity...perhaps if I ignore Rocco the rhino he'll just move?

Connected

Apparently I'm connected to my World of Warcraft server but can't do anything! Oh well...I may have to forfeit my gardening tomorrow for a spell in Azeroth...*fingers crossed for rain*.

Since the Missus is out I'm now at a loose end...looking at random gamer blogs reminded me of Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, one of my all time favourite games.

Now there are only certain games that I have played through multiple times...I seem to recall that Shadowrun on the SNES was one along with Legend of Zelda: A link to the Past, System Shock 2 on the PC was another. When it comes to the Cube there are only 2 that I have played through and finished more than once. One is Beyond Good & Evil, man that game was fun and rumours abound of a sequel in the works. I played that through twice. Another is Eternal Darkness which I played through a staggering 4 times! And given that I'm at a loose end I think I'm going to fire it up again! I shouldn't, I should finish Metroid Prime 2, Pikmin 2, Baten Kaitos (all started, yet to be completed) or on my DS, Kirby's Power Paintbrush, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Sonic Rush, Osa! Tatake! Ouenden! or tinker in my town in AC:WW but the lure is just too much....wait for me Alex Riovas I'm coming to get ya!

Come with us on a journey through time and space....

Yay, discovered Emma & Paul love The Mighty Boosh too! And they were lucky enough to see them live! The Boosh is one of those shows that is brilliant but it appears my friends haven't yet caught on...usually I pick up new shows from them but they are missing out on some real gems. The Boosh is one, My Name is Earl is another and Arrested Development is just fab. Smart, witty and very very funny! My campaign to get everyone to watch it has to step up a gear!

Just spent a day with Emma & Paul and had a great time. We went over to see Emma in Jesus Christ Superstar and stayed with them drinking wine until the early hours of this morning. JCS was good but does suffer from being a Tim Rice/ALW collaboration...and by that I mean bizarrely short, poor lyrics and the same tune recycled endlessly! but there were some memorable numbers from a very enthusiastic cast and a good time as had by all.

Spent the morning in bed and then went for a walk into Melbourne and found a nice tea shop with a very new waitress, forgot the cutlery, teabags in the tea pot and the bill! Despite this it was nice to spend time with Emma & Paul.

Have come home to disappointment however...Gameplay haven't delivered my copy of Tetris DS! I know technically it isn't released until tomorrow but Gameplay are usually good at early delivery. A quick check on the website reveals that they haven't even shipped it yet! I may have to pop into town tomorrow (seeing as we're still on holiday) and pick it up.

Also I managed to find a coconut washed up on the shore of my town...lovely! Palm trees here we come!

Ooops.....this isn't right...

It's not that I'm a proper fanboy...I just made the decision that I only have time for a single system...I chose Nintendo is all.



This is better...although I did have a worringly long conversation with my wife about Animal Crossing: Wild World when we were out to lunch yesterday. Is that a bad thing?

How will I fit it all in?

Alex has pointed me to this blog/forum which looks really interesting...also by following blog links of his blog I've discovered some gaming people that he knows....yay...tentative links to other gamers!

Easter Weekend

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

Finally getting around to updating my blog after an exciting weekend away.

Spent a few days camping in Norfolk with friends (that's us at Hunstanton seafront, although Emma didn't want anyone to see her raincoat and I suspect K is taking the picture) and it turned out pretty well.

The weather held for us and was bright and sunny most days. Although it was freezing at night! Thankfully a few adjustments made us toasty warm for the rest of the stay. Had some nice meals out, saw the Queen's car and bought an inordinate amount of sweets!

Getting there was another problem entirely however! Never put oil in your car mere seconds before you were expecting to depart. Butter-fingers here slipped and dropped the oil filler cap and it went scuttling into the engine block. Fine I thought...it'll be under the car, but no, it was somewhere in the engine compartment hidden from sight. A few forward and reverse manouevers in the car failed to shift it and so we had to come up with a plan.

Plan A was to drive to Halfords in K's car and pick up a new cap, they didn't have one. Plan B involved phoning Vauxhall dealerships to get a new part, all closed on Good Friday. Plan K was to phone garages and see if they could route it out for us. Hallelujah! Kwikfit said they'd have a look for us. A slow drive with eyes on the back of the car (in case it fell out) and we made it. Part identified, removed, replaced (along with a full quantity of oil) and a mini lecture on the dangers of vauxhall filler caps and we were off again. And all with no charge too! Thank You Kwik Fit!

Coppers? I think not

Now I knew that 1 and 2 pence coins weren't actually made from copper (more like a mixture of copper and zinc) but I was gobsmacked to learn that since 1992 that hasn't been the case either.

Since then our 1 and 2 pence coins are actually made of steel with a copper plate over the top! This doesn't seem right to me, but does explain why some coins will stick to a magnet and some won't. I can't believe we didn't know this. Its also possible that they may change it so that they are copper plated aluminium. Aluminium coins? we must be in the future!

An interesting article here details it all and is of interest because in the US their 1 cent coins are made of nickel/zinc and they are facing a crisis because of the rising zinc prices. Soon the metal will be worth more as scrap than its face value! (ie more than a cent) This causes all sorts of economic problems and it may casue them to either phase out or replace the 1 cent coin with something cheaper to manufacture.

Anyway...I thought that was quite interesting...

StumbleStep

The dancing exam on Sunday was...interesting.

Nerves seemed to make K and I forget how to Quickstep and we had to stop on numerous occasions to right ourselves. On the plus side our Rumba was pretty good and we'll be marked separately for both dances.

Weather

It's raining, the five day forecast looks poo and already we're disagreeing on food arrangements...this should be a holiday to remember!

On the plus side, I won't be at work, we'll be near the seaside and I'll be able to eat as many Cadbury Creme eggs as I like on account of it being Easter!

Besides compared with being trapped in a house with no kitchen, visiting B&Q 8 times and having my parents in close proximity for 4 day,s camping at Sandringham should be a breeze!

Mario Mario

I didn't realise that there was so much information on Wikipedia about Mario of Super Mario Bros. fame....wikipedia is great!

Birthday meme

Ok...so this is Alex's fault...and Kath's for following suit. If you don't know what a meme is Wikipedia tells you. Speaking of Wikipedia here is a meme that Alex picked up from another blog based on my birthday....If you want the full details see here and here

Anyway...back to me...

Birthday 23rd July

Events (nothing too earth shaking for me here)

• 1829 - In the United States, William Austin Burt patents the first typewriter.
• 1962 - Telstar relays the first live trans-Atlantic television signal.
• 1973 - Robert Anton Wilson, the occultist/philosopher, either achieved contact with extraterrestrials from Sirius or started a long-term period of having wild hallucinations, depending on which way you want to look at it.

Birthdays (not that exciting either)

• 1888 - Raymond Chandler, American-born author (d. 1959)
• 1973 - Monica Lewinsky, White House intern

Deaths (almost the only name I recognised)

• 1885 - Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States (b. 1822)

Little and often

That must be the trick to updating my blog more often! I should add it onto the list of things I have to do every day.

Currently that list includes

• Clean teeth. As I get older I can't believe how I used to not clean my teeth every day *shudders*
• Wash. Another one that I used to do less frequently as a child...
• Visit Waterloo, my Animal Crossing:Wild World town. The inhabitants get surly and move away, weeds sprout and insects infest my home. Must make regular visits.

Also another thing...should I consolidate ramblings into one large post or many smaller ones?

Grass Green

You Are Grass Green

Down to earth and a bit of a hippie, you are very into nature and the outdoors. You accept the world and people as they are. You don't try to change things. You are also very comfortable with yourself, flaws and all. Optimistic about the future, you feel like life is always getting better.

What Color Green Are You?

The Games

No, not the awful celebrity TV show where has-beens try and kick start their careers by doing pointless things on TV but my obsession with these kind of pastimes. I just love games! The most obvious manifestation of this (as in evidenced by my multiple posts on the subject) is video games. Sometimes I just can’t get enough of them. My passion for WoW has been re-ignited when I finally finished of a string of Mage quests which resulted in me getting a swanky new wand, but that’s not what I want to type about today.

I’m talking classic games, board games if you will. Now I have a friend who proclaims to absolutely hate them (although I’m sure it’s all a front) to the extent that whenever he gives one to me as a present it’s on the condition that he never has to play it! But I just love ‘em! I currently have in my house 4 versions of Monopoly (I think, it might be 3 actually) including Nottingham and Justice League of America. The problem with these games is that they have pretty complex rules and no-one (except me) wants to play them as they can take ages. Although the only time I am able to convince my mother to play, she beats me every time!

Current game favourites at the moment are Perudo , no complicated rules, no boards, just some dice. This was a present from R&R and everyone we’ve had play it, really enjoys it. It’s about bluffing, lying and odds.

Milles Bourne is another favourite. Originally we were introduced to this by the chap above (which seems odd given his aversion to games, it’s all a front, I tell you) who would only let us play with his ancient set if we washed our hands first. It’s essentially a team game about traffic and its all in French! Pretty good though one you get the hang on it!

Another one I want to get (as soon as I'm paid) is called Fluxx. Its a card game where the cards that are played chane the rules of the game! Sounds like there only one rule to learn at the start and then new rules are introduced by playing certain cards...sounds like fun! This same company makes one called Chrononauts as well, which looks pretty good.

A bit bored

Feeling a little bit bored this evening...I had assumed with the concert out of the way, Kath would be in of an evening and we could perhaps what a film or something. Turns out the rehearsals just carry on ready for the next one!

Tiring of World of Warcraft...getting to a high level and running out of stuff I want to do. There are some other games to catch up on, on the DS or the Cube but I can't really be bothered tbh.

Found these on the web today, pretty cool attempts to recreate the public information films. The pantomime dame one is great!

This is great as well for any Simpsons fans.

Another day

Another day of writing lots of reports and manipulating data…am I starting to get jaded? I don’t know but my upper arms ache, that I do know!

Spent some of today looking at frying pans on the ‘net, god, isn’t my life just chock full of thrills? Anyway I do want to get a new one as the non-stick is starting to go a bit funny on mine. In hindsight we should have put more expensive pans on the wedding list, but we didn’t think anyone would want to buy them. As it was the whole list went and we ended up with loads of vouchers as well, maybe next time….

I can’t decide between the Circulon 2 or the Anolon Professional. What I did find surprising is that almost all the different pans I looked at are made by the same company! Meyer UK. The ones we have at home and both of the ones mentioned here are all made by the same firm. I wonder if its like washing machines where they are all the same inside and just look fancier on the outside to capture a different market? I’m not sure that applies to frying pans though. It’s a shame there’s no way to try them out before hand. Anyway not sure why I’m looking as because of my furious spending I’ve got no money left until pay day.

BT shares seem to be doing bizarrely well at the moment. Usually whenever we announce results they take a nosedive but they’re hovering around £2.30 at the moment. This is good as I own a few shares outright and significantly more as Options at £1.99. Hopefully they’ll keep on rising!

Mondays

Work was deathly dull today, I hadn’t realised quite how much time I spent on the phone to my colleague. She’s off and now I’m languishing a bit. You can tell we’ve managed to get more organised as this week is supposed to be the busiest of the month but I spent a lot of it doing admin-y things like responding to very old email and checking out links I should have looked at ages ago.

It’s frustrating because it’s clear that I thrive on the havoc of setting something up from scratch and find it hard to get motivated about the documentation and stuff. I want problems to fix! The big problem is that the problems I want to fix are most definitely the responsibility of another team and I have to keep my nose out!

Had a great if very tiring weekend. Three birthdays in March (Emma, Paul & Rachel) and we hadn’t bought a single thing. Up early on Saturday and trawling the shops, we had to buy something today as the main reason I’m so tired is that we went to Nottingham to see the aforementioned birthday people. The presents were all bought and Kath had managed to find a top to buy to wear and I was mooching around trying to get enthused. The shirt I wanted to wear is bizarre and just won’t get clean! Each time it goes through the machine it comes out dirtier!

In an effort to get excited about it picked up 5 things I kinda liked and went to try them on. 10 minutes later and I’d spent £220 on a jacket, 2 shirts, a jumper and some jeans! Eeek! My little early month spending spree (the clothes were just part of it…got a little carried way online) has wiped me out and so I’ll be buying very little at the supermarket this week. Kath seems a bit put out that my spending extravagance means we’ll be eating ‘Value’ food this week but my view is that it’s a good opportunity to use up some of the stuff that is bulging from my store-cupboard and freezer.

Went and had cocktails at Santa Fe at the Corner House in Nottingham. Mohita, Chocolate covered strawberry and Carrot Cake for me and lots of other lovely things for the others. Then had a great meal at a place called Punchinello’s (apparently the oldest restaurant in Nottingham). Made the mistake I always do of ordering too much wine and was very hungover. This in itself wouldn’t usually be a problem but we had to be up at 6.30am the next morning to drive back to Ipswich to get Kath to a concert rehearsal for 10am. Fortunately the roads were clear and we managed to squeeze in tea, toast and an episode of Arrested Development season 2 before I had to take Kath to the rehearsal.

Attended said concert in the afternoon with Becks & Ralph and spent most of the time trying to persuade Rebecca to go to the doctors/dentist to get her swollen cheek looked at (apparently calling her ‘Becky Big Mouth’ didn’t help). The concert was good and then it was home for a chance to sit on my backside and snooze. ‘Watched’ (tried to stay awake and missed 5 minutes of the finale) Elektra on Sunday evening and was a bit disappointed to be honest. Jennifer Garner was good (although can’t shake the feeling that she was just Sydney Bristow on a slightly longer mission) but the story was a bit weak and having Goran Visnjic playing an all American dad with his own eastern European accent was just odd. Can’t he do any other accents?

Went to bed and read The Ultimates vol 2: Gods and Monsters and was left with a massive cliffhanger, hope I won’t have to wait too long for some sort of resolution. Felt knackered this morning and going to a step class at lunchtime didn’t help!

Leigh’s Offline Blog

I’m writing this on what I’m going to start calling “The Dark Ages Day 5”. You see we are sans phoneline at the moment and that also means sans internet. I didn’t realise quite how much I relied on the internet for entertainment at home! From checking my email, to playing games, getting train times, checking an address and location and posting my blog. Well that last one isn’t really true as I’ve been remiss lately. In fact if I had the internet now I wouldn’t be blogging I’d be playing on World of Warcraft. That game has been described as World of Warcrack and I know what they mean! I was cross when I couldn’t get my fix on Wednesday and slowly coming to terms with the fact that I still can’t play it! Perhaps this is actually a good thing though…when I return to it my contempories may have levelled to such a degree that I have no-one to play with. After all that’s what happened to City of Heroes….

The reason we have no phone is that someone in the street decided it would be a brilliant idea to pull down a load of phone lines and not bother to report it. An engineer came on Thursday to make the street ‘safe’, but since all the cabnle was either looped around the lamppost or coiled in people’s front garden I’m not sure what he did exactly. Apparently a pole team are coming on Monday to have a look. They probably won’t fix it but BT are “very sorry”. Hmmmm!

Now this internet drought wouldn’t be so bad if not for the fact I am desperate to plan my spending as I am about to get paid and for the first time in ages have no outstanding debt to put my wages onto. Also Kath has been little Miss Social and has been out almost all the time I’ve been here. To fill the time I’ve undertaken a number of other activities. I did some washing up, watched some TV, baked a cake, cleaned up a PC so we could take it around to a smelly woman, read a book and played on my DS.

Got the whole afternoon stretching out ahead of me and I don’t know what to do with it. Kath is off to a music group thing so I can’t spend it in her company. Already today I’ve finished a DS game (Mario & Luigi Partners in Time…not as good as the first one but a fine romp nevertheless) and thought about making a cake. The cake might not be such a good idea as we’ve still got half the orange marmalade loaf left from earlier in the week. I suppose I could try and mend my grapefruit marmalade. Its too runny at the moment and I can’t see any reason why I can’t just shove it all back in the pan and try to get a better setting point.

I was going to go and do the weekly food shopping but we did that yesterday. I could go and visit the garden centre for spring garden ideas but with no money I don’t really like browsing. I could go and check out sofas as we might be getting a new one (the springs on my side of the current sofa has finally started to give way). Anyway better go as I hear the front door going and no doubt the lunch needs making….

Spend spend spend!

I'm currently fighting an urge to spend some money. An overspend in January (the excess christmas credit cards and the wife's birthday) have left me with little disposable income for February (two weeks to go and only £150 in my account).

The problem is the rather sizable chunk of cash in my savings that seems to alternate between willing me to spend it and saying "Save me, save me!". I'm not really sure how it has happened but I seem to be saving a frankly large amount of money each month. It might be that the house is so full of crap that I can't buy big items (nowhere to put them) or that once I have started to save I never want to be in debt again. Either way I'm finding hard to justify buying something unless I really want it.

I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of it is due to boredom...hopefully spending will give me a thrill....but if I can just make it 2 more weeks then I will have been paid and I can spend my usual disposable income instead of my savings...I wonder if I'll make it.

Just in case you're wondering I'm only likely to spend it on DVDs, books, video games and comics. Perhaps I should focus my efforts on the games unfinished, the pile of books not started and the DVDs yet to be watced since Christmas. That might be a better use of my time instead of thinking of new shiny things. Although an iPod Nano is looking quite attractive at the moment.....

Much shorter hair

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

And my hair afterwards!

Longish hair

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

This is my hair before my exciting visit to the hairdressers....

Buttery Boxers

Ok so I’m finally putting in a blog entry that is meaningful and longer than a couple of sentences!

Kath has spurred me into action with her flurry of activity, which I think in turn was spurred on by Alex’s classic offerings. The Laundrette entry was pretty special! It reminded me of my laundrette experiences at Uni as well. Firstly the laundrette was a last resort, jeans are great for wearing to death! I even remember buying an extra large pack of butter from the supermarket to get the free boxer shorts. I had Golden Churn on my boxers and they were blue and yellow striped. It didn’t seem odd at the time but thinking about it now…free boxer shorts with a tub of imitation butter?!?! What were they thinking?!?!

Anyway Chris and I used to load everything into machines at Broadgate flats, late of an evening, secure any necessary change from Eula and Mula (Mother of Eula) from the Broadgate Flats shop and then drive my car in a random direction for an hour. I remember getting fairly near to Loughborough one time before turning back to collect our washing…ahh, those were the days!

Sharing

I'm off work today with a persistant headache that won't go away...my neck and shoulders hurt as well...god I feel old.

Just thought you'd like to know....

Nothing to say really

I wish I could be more motivated to fill in my blog! My wife has all but given up on her's which is a shame as she does come up with some gems. Think kind thoughts so she'll tell us all about 'Textures of Pears'. I would but I think I got a little hysterical about it and I don't trust myself not to go off on one!

You have the pleasure of my blog as I'm waiting for the weekend to start...my boss IMed me (I know IMisn't a verb but I can't be arsed to type the whole thing) and said he would call me at 16:50 just before I shut my PC down. I'm at home now and its 17:15 and still no call...the weekend can't start until I can relax!

Although I do need to leap into action and make dinner as soon as I'm finished. We wasted our one takeway a week on pizza last night as I didn't get home from work 'til 7 and nothing was gonna make me cook after the shitty day I'd had. Especially as the journey home from Leavseden gave me ample oppurtunity to fester on it and then Kath's Textures of Pears debacle topped it all off.

On the bright side barring 3 gifts Christmas shopping all done and we're really swinging into the Christmas season. We have the KCJ works Christams do tomorrow and in a break from tradition is actually near to Christmas. Not sure what I'm going to wear but I'll have to have a look!

Better go and find out if the boss still wants to talk to me!

Another Blog Filler

Your Inner Child Is Surprised

You see many things through the eyes of a child. Meaning, you're rarely cynical or jaded. You cherish all of the details in life. Easily fascinated, you enjoy experiencing new things.

How Is Your Inner Child?

Update pt 3

Oops...been a bit lax with updates...I could say its because of the heady euphoria we're feeling because the show has been doing so well (and it has) but the real reason is because I'm lazy! And exhausted...doing the show really takes it out of me. Coupled with the last few months of work I have spent most of the time lolling around the house!

The reviews from the press have been fantastic and we're looking forward to another 2 good shows...although today is quite tough with a matinee and a regular performance.

The central heating has been a godsend! I don't know how we managed without it before.

Also we had an exciting trip to a violin shop to get Kath a new bow and case for her viola. Lovely shop and a lovely man who, when we realised we didn't have a cheque book with us, waved us out of the shop with over £200 of goods saying "Not to worry, juss pop me a cheque in the post"! Now that's good service!

Diary of a Show pt 2

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

The first theatre rehearsal is either great or terrible depending on whether the good outweighs the bad.

Fortunately in this case the good DID outweigh the bad!

Yes, it took some getting used to with the sloped stage, the setting is different than in the village hall, not being able to see the conductor is a pain but on the other hand, the entrances are easier, there's more room and you get to see everyone's costumes! The attached photo is me as a runner in the Overture...not sure how much you'll be able to see as I'm behin a screen but it should be OK.

Its 1pm and I've done nothing but play half-life 2 so far today! I need to go out to the supermarket so I'd better dash. I'll post another update tomorrow but between you and me I'm expecting it to be awful!

Diary of the Show pt 1

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

I'm off work for a week! Hooray! Had a truly terrible day at work on friday so am very glad to be off for the next 7 days. The reason? It's show week!

We're performing in The Mikado at the Ipswich Corn Exchange and I thought I would keep a track of the week using my blog and so provide blog updates at the same time...something which I've neglected over the past weeks.

First things first...show week starts the friday before with the lovely costume pickup...my wife is modelling her wig so beautifully in the photo you see here. For the full set of Mikado photos, including my wig and costume click here.

This week will also give me a good opportunity to relax and put in some serious videogame time. My plan is to try and finish as many as I can so that the inevitable onslaught of new christmas titles can be bought and enjoyed!

I'm currently enjoying Half-life 2, Nintendogs, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, X-Men 2: Rise of Apocolypse, Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones, James Bond: Everything or Nothing plus I've still got to finish Baten Kaitos. If I'm very good I might even play Resident Evil 4 again!

Other things that need doing include my time recording and expenses for work (forgot to do them on Friday) and a lot of origami for the show.

We have the first rehearsal in the Corn Exchnage tonight so I'll post my impressions later.