E-biking

I have to tell you kids, it is sooooooo much fun. On the days I commute on the x6 I end up at my destination with a fucking great smile on me face. It's all about the fresh air I guess. And possibly the excercise too. The way I have the bike set up means I still have to pedal, and sometimes I'm pedalling hard but the bike takes the edge off, so I can do twice the distance I used to do on my old bike, but arrive feeling like I've excercised but not like I'm at death's door. It's also an amazing feeling cycling up a hill at the same speed you were managing on the flat, and cycling into a headwind (you try it!) is a piece of piss now. Seems like a win/win situation at the moment. The only downside is that the throttle is a quarter sized jobby that's operated with the thumb and forefinger. Fuck but it makes my hand ache after a while. Not nice.

Nuts on the radio

I can't believe I just read this

Torchwood star John Barrowman has apologised for exposing his genitals during a live BBC Radio 1 broadcast.

He got his dick out in a radio studio. The presenters didn't object. Indeed, it was due to the presenters raising the subject that he did it. One listener complained.

One!

Obviously in the wake of that Brand/Ross/Sachs/Baillie over reaction the beeb has chosen to completely over react again.

One complaint!

Anyone who buys the Daily mail is a cunt.

The Byke!

It's here, I am now the owner of an electric bike, and let me tell you, it's fabby!
It's also very whizzy! I kept thinking something was wrong with it cos the motor was cutting out. Then I realised it cuts out at 15mph and the power comes back in if your speed drops below that. It really is very cool indeed. Hills, no problem. Headwinds, no problem. I've still got to pedal otherwise the motor doesn't come on at all. I've got it set like that so I don't become a lazy cunt. I've only done a couple of miles on it so far due to not having the time to really let rip, but it's looking promising. Here it be, nowt special to look at, but that's the point :)



And here it is next to my old workhorse. Not a lot in it really is there?

A week ago

I had to have a tooth extracted. Upper rear molar. It was surprisingly painful. The tooth had been fucked for years. I'd had a root extraction and filling on it about 7 years ago, and it was never right after that. The filling would work loose, the tooth would get cracked. I was sick of having it repaired long before the dentist was. Three months ago I had to have it filled, again, a month after that the back fell away. I struggled with it, because I really didn't want to go back to the Dentist. Then, a week ago I discovered that the bit of food I had trapped behind it wasn't a bit of food. It was an abscess. It went pop! So, I called the dentists, they got me in on an emergency appointment and I went through an experience I would rather forget. The Dentist decided 'we' had been trying to save it long enough. I'd have been happy to have seen it gone long ago. So, having decided to have the bastard out he promptly set about drilling away the root filling, and then cutting the tooth out at the base. Then came the industrial strength pliers, as he set to on each root individually. It was at this point that I started making 'argh' type noises. I could feel the bastard root wriggling about in my face, and it fucking hurt. Not a twinge, not an ache. IT. FUCKING. WELL. HURT. Eventually, after I'd been reduced to a mewling kitten (about three or four 'arghs') the Dentist stopped and asked if it was hurting!!!

Another jab later and we were well away. At the end of it all he asked if I could bear to look at the extracted roots because they were very impressive. He implied they could be worn on a necklace. The irony, shit teeth, great roots! For fucks sake!

So here I am, a week later, a very tender gaping hole in the back of me gob, and trying desperately to keep food away from it. It aches like a bastard on fathers day at times, though I'm told that's normal.

Look after your teeth kids. Cos extractions are cunts.

On the bright side I'm finally getting my electric bike tomorrow. :)

Agh!

It's been bloody ages innit? Loads going on. Loads of poxy plastic kiddy crap. Bugger all time to write about it. I promise you (all one of you, and that's probably me!) I'll blog properly soon.

No god, only religion

I'm loving this :D No doubt it'll end up getting its windows bricked by fundamentalists.

Just a quick edit to point out this article at my new favouritest website in the whole world ever. The Daily Mash

While you're there have a look for the story about Billy Bragg.

STOP!

Thinking of adding fuel to your car?
Please, wait until at least 5 o clock this afternoon.
I've got to fill up on my way home from work so the price of a litre is bound to drop by at least a penny about a nanosecond after I put the hose back in its holder.

Every. Fucking. Time!

I'm going electric

I'm buying an electric bike. Yes yes, apparently they're for old ladies who smell of wee to do the shopping on, but no, they aren't. They were, some still are. But the manufacturers have realised there's a market out there full of people who are pissed off with paying a fortune for fuel and the other costs associated with cars, and they've started to aim product at them. I had a go on a couple of e-bikes yesterday and they are just unbelievable amounts of fun. On my hybrid I was lucky to get 18-20 mph going downhill and pedalling like fuck. Yesterday I cycled at 18mph uphill and into a headwind. You still have to pedal, you just don't have to end up with your heart hammering ten to the dozen and your lungs straining to inflate. As the guy whose bikes I was using put it 'It's like having an invisible hand pushing you along'.

The way I see it I'll benefit from... Less fuel to pay for. Possibly getting rid of one car completely. Getting fit (again) after all, I still have to pedal, I just don't have to pedal as hard. Which means I can cycle further, especially hand seeing as my round journey commute has gone from 9-10 miles to around 15-16 miles. Doesn't sound a lot, but you try and cycle the extra, especially in the winter, into headwinds, going uphill and all the other bollocks you have to put up with on a pushy.

You may level accusations at me

Cheat being one, Hippy being another. I will merely invite you to kiss my cheating hairy hippy arse whilst cycling off into the sunset. :)

Seriously, I mentioned this to a friend of mine whose only form of transport is a pushbike and his immediate reply was 'That's cheating!' Is it fuck cheating. It's just another form of transport, and one that's certainly cleaner and greener than a car or a motorbike.

A funny thing happened on the train.

So, been a while again innit? I just never seem to find the time to blog and no fucker's reading it anyway. But I must share this little nugget cos It made me larf and larf. My missus took me to the Dr Who exhibition at Earls Court as an early birthday present. We had a great day in that London, the Who exhibition is well worth a look if you're so inclined, lots of interactive bits including being able to stand insided a mock up of a Dalek and talk into a microphone that distorts your voice. I have video footage of a Dalek squawking 'Wash my pants woman'. Well I found it funny anyway. Lunch in Convent Garden followed by a bit of shopping and then home, in first class no less. So, there we are on the train, in first class being all sumptuous and nice, when I decide to use the loo. A nice looking pod affair with automatic doors. Except dumbass that I am I can't find the button to open the effing door. That's ok, I'll use prole class. So I go down to the next carriage and wait for the engaged bog to become free. and wait for the engaged bog to become free. and wait for the engaged bog to become free. and wait for the engaged bog to become free. Seriously I waited a long time. Then, a woman comes out of the carriage and waits in the exit area as we're coming up to a stop. and wait for the engaged bog to become free. and wait for the engaged bog to become free. and wait for the engaged bog to become free. Eventually the door opens, then immediately slams shut. I look a the woman, she looks at me. We're both a tad perplexed. The door opens and slams shut again. This happens five or six times. Then, the door opens and a lad of about 18 comes out. Staring at the floor he avoids eye contact and scurries around the corner into the carriage. I go to step into the bog and the door slams into my face. KER-CHING! The woman waiting to get off at the next station has eyes like saucers. I'm killing myself laughing. 'Must be the Mile-Long club' I comment. This then has her cracking up laughing. Tears are streaming down my face, the door to the bog opens and slams shut a few more times and then a very very embarrassed young lady exits the cubicle, in much the same manner as her recent companion. I being a gentleman discretely looked straight at her with a fucking great grin on me face. She was rather red. :D

A very silly thing indeed

This is not in my opinion. A very good idea. The original novels had a definite finish. I wasn't a big fan of the finish but it was up to Douglas Adams and not me. I just bought the books. This smacks to me of a cash-in and I won't be buying it.

Congratulations

To the Millers over at yurt16 on the arrival of a very bonny bouncing boy who was born on Saturday the 13th. You've no idea what you've let yourselves in for. :D

I could see it's hairy legs!!!

The glass is about 3 inches across. I, being a manly sort of man disposed of the beastie at my leisure. The Breadknife was not impressed. : )

More Nellies

As I'm bereft of inspiration here are some more heffalumps.

On a happier note (Big Game hunting in Norwich)

Last Sunday we took the little fella into Town (Norwichites hate that, 'It's a City!' they cry) for lunch. On the way we stopped and admired the herd of elephants that have trampled into town. These are just a few that we saw. At some point I'm going to make a point of visiting the Bus station so that I can get a picture of the heffalump with a Tardis on its' back. :)

You can see all the heffalumps here











More about 'Go Elephants' here

It's happened again!

Another one of my cats has been killed!
We'd had Gus four months and some bastard just ploughed through him right outside my house.
In a 30 mile an hour zone. Kids play in my street. What sort of a cunt drives so fast they can kill a cat instantly and not even bother to stop. There weren't even skid marks. I live in the middle of nowhere, my road goes nowhere, there's a school on the corner. Cuntcuntcuntcuntcunt!

Floored!

I wrote this back in 2006 about a weird dream I'd had.
Out of the blue I get a message on Facebook today from my old best mate. We've not seen each other for 19 years now, but it turns out both of us have been wondering how the other is getting on. More to the point, he's been trying to contact me but has been searching using my real first name, and I've been trying to find him using his old name, but he's adopted his stepfather's surname. It's all very odd but I'm relieved that a) We've finally made contact, and b) We're getting on well.

Lost in Translation

Scanning the news as you do, and I came across this snippet. Now I don't know all the facts regarding the conflict between the Phillipino government, and what appears to be an armed opposition. But my initial surprise at seeing that government appease a proto military organisation and giving them more land to self-govern, turned to laughter when I saw the acronym of said group.

New Adventures in Plastic Kiddy Crap pt2

Photo0115.jpg
Originally uploaded by Section 9ine

Now for a toy geek this is sweet as a nut. This figure is from the now defunct Marvel Legends Showdown line. It's very rare indeed, being a chase figure in a series that just wasn't produced in huge quantities. In the States it goes upwards of thirty dollars. I paid a fiver plus a couple of quid postage. For once e-bay came up trumps.

New Adventures in plastic kiddy crap

dc8.jpg
Originally uploaded by Section 9ine

Yaaayyy! DC wave 8 arrived.
Boooooo! DC Wave 8 is the final wave.
It's a shame the series is ending so soon. There was some amazing design going on in some of the characters, but it appears that the company who produced them just didn't understand what they had.

Fuckwits!

Gaggle

Anyone else get goosed on the way to work this morning?

Ooops!

Blimey. A month. A lot of the reason for not posting is not having time. The other reason for not posting is not really having much to say. Things are hectic. The new cat seems to like pissing indoors which I'm not at all happy about. On the other hand the little fellas seems to like pissing in a potty and has taken to it like the proverbial duck. Only downside is that he's waking up at 6:30 am cos he wants a pee. Fine during the week, not so good at the weekends! :(

Dr Who's been a bit fucking good innit. I want a toy Dalek Caan! :D

crapness

Haven't posted for ages due to having no time. That's not because I have a rich and varied social life,
I just haven't had any time. Most of last week I was up to my eyeballs in moving office to a shithole on the other side of town. Where I once had a 20 minute bike ride I now delight in a 30 - 40 minute car journey along some of Narj's most delightful aspects of carriage way. My journey is 12 miles.

Another example of shitness is the way my work organised our move. To sum up they didn't.
We moved into a building site. We had no phones or computers for the best part of a week. To call it a shambles would give shambles a bad name. It was a monumental fuck up and I ain't at all happy. Even worse... I can't blog from work it seems. Every time I log in I get a curse of fatal death dialog box pop up and Internet Exploder implodes. It really is a bit rubbish. On a happier note I should be getting a very sexy phone tomorrow. Probably end up dropping it!

Gone fishing

Now I'm more than aware that the beeb have run this story to get the usual gang of idiots foaming at the mouth but honestly, what sort of moron trots this kind of crap out? The man's an elected councillor and he's got nothing better to do than bait the media/local right wing contingent with bollocks like this?

Nuffin's yer own is it?

Have a look at this.

Some cunt's lifting peoples gig photo's off of Flickr, printing them on photo stock paper and selling them on ebay as his own. And he's got the front to claim them as his own copyright. If you come across this willypenc anywhere make sure you tell him he's a thieving bastard.

Oh, and Flickr and ebay don't want to know. So if you've a Flickr account be aware.

Gus

There was a sense of inevitability when the Breadknife casually mentioned she'd seen on her work intranet that someone was trying to offload a couple of cats. One of them's a British Blue she said (knowing full well that I like that breed) He's four years old. Do you think it'd be nice to have another boycat around the place? Well yeah, actually it would. We've not had a boycat since Hobbes died and that was summer 2005. It was time we did something about that. So the Bread went to see him and came back full of how lovely he was.

So we adopted him. He's great, very affectionate, but by god he's fat. Blue's are a big breed anyway but this chap's arse is about a foot wide! He's also a bit of a puff. He's still not faced Isis down and she's barely half the size of him.

Here he be.

Remind me.

I need to blog about Gus.

Bizzy day

Very busy indeed.

Off to the village fete to do village fete type things, such as wait in line for an hour for a burger, and wrestle a very pissed off little fella out of a cop car. Then home to do some gardening. Mow the lawn. Bit of spot hoeing. Trim the borders. Bit of strimming. In all this time I was in and out of my shed swapping tools as you do. I'm not sure why I glanced up but when I did glance up I thought to myself 'Why is there half a birds egg hanging off of my shed ceiling?'. This thought was immediately followed by 'Fucking hell, that's a big wasp'.

2

+

2

Oh my fucking good gawd, there's a wasp building a nest six inches above my head.

It was a big wasp. I'm fucking terrified of wasps. I beat a hasty retreat and waited for the breadknife to offer to kill it for me. :D
I really am that scared of em. I do sometimes wonder how I stuck 12 years of working as a gardener.



This be it. My cameraphone doesn't really do it justice. It's so fragile, barely the thickness of a piece of A4 paper.

It never rains

but it pours. And no I'm not talking about jugs. And no, that wasn't a euphemism.

We had an absolute fucking deluge (including thunderstorm) yesterday. Obviously I was concerned that my broadband connection was going to get stuffed up again. When I got home the first thing I checked was t'internet and that was fine. Then I noticed the flashing clock on the microwave. Hurrah another powercut. A stray raindrop must have hit a powerline, or maybe a fag paper blew against a pylon? It didn't occur to me that the heating clock was up the swannee until much later in the evening when my bath runneth cold. So we sort the clock and wait for the boiler to fire but alack it merely makes an odd buzzing sound. Then we notice the water. It's pooling under the boiler. Not a huge amount of water but all the same it's not what you want to see.
Turns out the rain had come down so hard and the wind had been so fierce, that's it's sent water through the flue which has soaked the main printed circuit board. We had that PCB replaced 18 months ago at a cost of £170.00. Now we need a new one. It has to be ordered. It's Friday, Monday is a bank holiday. Thank fuck we have an emersion heater and a wood burning stove.

I hate my house. It's shit!

Goodbye Abbie

Thanks for all the good times. ;)

Albert Hoffman dies

You couldn't make it up

So I have my broadband back. Fantastic.
And it's three times faster than it was before. Incredible.
This morning out of courtesy I ask my neighbour if her broadband is still working.
It went off yesterday. Probably at the same time as mine was fixed.

Hmmmm....

So, on the 19th of April my neighbour's connection is sorted out and my phone and broadband are down the shitter. 10 days later I get my broadband back and my neighbours goes down the shitter. Neither of us are impressed. I called BT to try and see if we can prevent it from happening again and was told that there's no one I can talk to about that. They can only respond when things go wrong, they don't do preventative.

How shit is that?

One of the largest companies in the world, making more money per second than I'll make in a lifetime and they can't (or rather won't) get their act together to make sure that they don't cut me off again in the near future.

Utter utter inept cunts!

Me and the neighbour are going to make the next engineer aware of the potential problem. I may be holding secateurs at the time.

Reeeeeeesult

The internet is saved. I'm back online baby!
Someone had fucked up a connection in a junction box. It's sorted.
As a bonus the engineer reckons he was getting 1.5mps when he was testing the line.
Slightly better than the 256kbs my ISP says I can have.
We'll be having words.

Gr@@@@@@@@@@hhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

Still no fucking broadband.
Spoke to the isp on Saturday and the guy I was talking to expressed disbelief at the fact that a)BT hadn't sorted it. b) No one had arranged for an engineer to come out. c) That no one had thought to at least give me a dial up number to use. Which he did. And I have a BT engineer coming out tomorrow morning.
I'm hoping to be back online by tomorrow.

I'm deluded aren't I?

Hulk Smash!!!

It's times like this you really want to 'Hulk out' and smash the shit out of something corporate. Unfortunately I'm as puny as puny Banner so all I can do is be forthright on the phone and try not to lapse into default sweary mind, but for fuck's sake... I'm still without net access. The DSL light on my modem blinks at me like a stupid child. I called my ISP three times yesterday. The first time I had the standard foreign call centre working from a script bollocks. The second time after some stern negotiation :D I got through to someone who knew what they were on about but still gave me corporate bollocks while promising to keep me apprised of developments. The third attempt I got a result. I was polite but firm. Expressed my frustration and displeasure in the nicest possible way. Got the guy to admit that they hadn't actually called BT but were using the automated fault reporting system that BT wholesale (the cunts that sell the internet to all the other isp's) have in place. Was assured that BT wholesale wouldn't favour BT Internet customers over those of other ISP's (yeah... Riiiiiiiiiight) and that he'd call BT himself and get back to me within the hour.

And he did! :o

It turns out there's a complex fault on my line and it's been referred to BT's complex fault people. What this actually means is, that there's something wrong with a circuit at the phone exchange and they have to send in a real human engineer to do some actual work, rather than turning things off and on again via a computer.

I still have no idea when I get my home connection back.

I'm very very pissed off.

Cunts!

Six days

GLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! CUNTSCUNTSCUNTSCUNTSCUNTS!

And still...

No internet connection at home.
It took me the best part of an hour to convince my ISP to take it up with BT. At one point they told me that after I'd plugged the modem into my BT test socket I should wait 3 hours to see if the connection stabilised and if it didn't I was to ring back.
Fuck that! It took some gentle persuasion but eventually the call centre chappy saw my point of view.

The breadknife took a call from them (the ISP) yesterday. The guy she spoke to was pretty good (for a change) he's identified a rather large problem with the line. I think he went to turn down the gain and ended up cutting the connection, which is interesting. I obviously have a shite phone line.

I'm investigating mobile broadband now. It appears I can pay less and get a better connection speed using the mobile network than I can using BT's infrastructure. I'd absolutely love it if I could ring BT up and cancel the phone completely. :)

update: Perhaps I won't bother looking into mobile broadband right now. This is a reply from T-Mobile to my enquiry

"Thanks for your email Rad, asking me if you can try our Mobile Broadband service without going to any commitment. Also asking if our Mobile Broadband service is better than his landline service.



I can understand how concerned you may be about accessing internet with the Mobile Broadband of your choice. I'll surely advice you on this.



I'd like to tell you that our Mobile Broadband service will be better than your landline based service. As you'll be able to access internet on your mobile phone at a fixed price of £7.50 per MB extra every month. However I'm afraid to tell you that you'll not be able to use it for trial without going to any commitment.



However if you wish to view our various price plans with this service please click here.



Alternatively for any further information you can contact our customer services on 150 from your T-Mobile phone or 08454125000 from a landline (Landline calls are charged at local rates if you're a BT customer but if you're with another provider it may cost a bit more, so do check). We're available everyday from 7am to 10pm.



Thanks again for taking the time to email me Rad, I hope the information I've provided you regarding the Mobile Broadband service and its plans will be useful.



If you have any further questions, please feel free to email me and I'll be glad to help you.


Kind regards"

Doesn't really instill confidence does it? I didn't ask about mobile phone broadband, I asked about mobile broadband via a usb stick or dongle that you plug into your computer. I've also done some digging today and it appears that a lot of people using mobile broadband on all the networks are not best pleased with their service. Ho hum!

Cut off my right arm while you're at it.

BT: British Telecom; What a bunch of cunts.
My poor old next door neighbour has had no internet for a month. Kind of their fault for going with Talk Talk but they saw the error of their ways and signed up to BT again. BT turn up saturday morning to sort out their line. Saturday afternoon they have their internet, I have no phone and no internet. Now it doesn't take a degree in advanced mathmatics to add 2+2 and conclude that BT fucked up my phoneline on Saturday morning. So when will they fix it I ask the lovely Scottish person who's talking on BT's faultline. MONDAY AFTERNOON!!! WHAT THE FUCK! YOU BREAK IT AND THEN FUCK OFF FOR TWO DAYS? Ah silly me, of course, you endeavour to fix things in one working day. Tomorrow's Sunday. Therefore I can sit and spin. Well thank you very fucking much. State approved monopolies. Doncha just love em?

An old git writes...

Kids and mobile phones. Specifically kids playing their music aloud from their mobile phones. They're cunts really aren't they?

No mate, it really was funny

He got cautioned for anti social behaviour for doing this

Seems strange that people on council estates that get their windows put through. Graffiti daubed on their walls, and their children picked on, get fuck all protection against anti-social behaviour. But pretend to sneeze on some posh cunt's back and you're public enemy number one!

Poor cunt would have been hauled off to the Gulag if it'd been Brown.

Last week, I yar mostly being

... In Darzet! Which is in the Wez Gunry and is very nice.
We had weather. It was mainly sunny but a bit chilly. We had fun. We had booze. We had Fish and Chips at the seaside. Well, I had Sossinbatter and the Bread had Pineapple fritter, but you get the general idea. We had curry at a most excellent curry house in Dorchester. It's called Masala but don't let that put you off. Very good food. We also had a 12 hour journey to get there. Oh how we laughed when at 11am we came to grinding halt on the M11 just outside Harlow. We tuned in to the local news and discovered there had been a nasty accident at 8:30am and the road was closed. So it had been closed since 8.30 and yet they were still allowing cars to join the M11.

How efficient of our police.

Being in a huge traffic jam is bad enough. Factor in a two year old in the back seat and you have the definition of hell. To be fair to the little fella he was as good as gold. But obviously he got bored and he'd lose it. I have to admit to losing it myself on a couple of occasions, the pressure was a bit intense. At 3 o'clock, yes that's right Three 'o' clock in the afternoon we finally reached the outskirts of Harlow where our brilliant Police force were happily diverting all the M11 traffic through Harlow Town centre... On a Saturday. How clever!

We thought 'bollocks to that' and headed for Royden in Essex where we hoped to be able to find another way on to the M25. Before that though we stopped to change the little fella's nappy. Poor little mite had been in the same nappy since 9 in the morning. Luckily we'd opted to go disposables for the holiday (we use linen nappies at home) because quite frankly carrying a stinking nappy bucket around for a week didn't sound like a barrel of laughs. We stopped in a little strip mall type place and the little fella had his first ever McShit :D. Poor little fella was absolutely soaked, his nappy had finally given up the ghost so we had to change his vest and trousers but really he'd been so good not to complain about it. Now then, I've not been in a McDonalds for years. Partly because of the food (Burger King's much yummier) but also because of the McLibel case from a decade or so back, when McDonalds went after a couple of Greenpeace workers through the courts. However principles be damned. I was hungry. Gimme a fucking quarter pounder and some chips.

BEST. BURGER. EVER! :D

Mind you, I was so hungry I'd have eaten a horses arse. To be fair to McD's it wasn't a bad burger at all and the staff were fucking excellent. The breadknifes food was going to take a while so they said to sit down with our drinks and they'd bring it over. I've never experienced that in a fast food joint before.

Anyroad up... Royden... We sort of went through it, very expensive. Could we find the turn off we wanted? Could we bollocks! We ended up in Epping and picked our way down to the M25. The rest of the journey was thankfully uneventful. Even around Heathrow it was quiet. Not a suitcase to be seen. But, we finally found our place (in the dark) at gone nine in the evening. We were all shot through. Absolutely brain dead, grumpy and frazzled. And the fucking garage up the road from us had just shot so we had to drive to the next town to get some milk. Gah!

It turns out the whole nightmare was down to these cunts. They'd twocked a car in Twickenham, looks like they may have also burgled the house for the keys, and ended up smashing the shite out of it in Essex. I hope the two cunts that survived feel guilty for the rest of their lives and end up getting very sore bottoms indeed.

Still after all that we had a nice holiday. I might even post pictures at some point.

Leg-End

Well the end may be in sight.
After 16 months of what has at times been quite excruciating pain I finally have a firm diagnosis.

It's taken 16 months 3 GP's, One Urologist, 2 Physiotherapists, X-Rays, Ultrasound scans, and finally a consultation with an orthopaedic registrar. He tells me that I've damaged an adductor muscle where it attaches to my pelvis. It's very very common in cyclists (which I am) and will get better on it's own, but I'm welcome to go back any time and have a steroid injection if I don't feel it's healing fast enough.

The pain's not been that bad recently so I've opted for the time being to see how things go. I've also been told to go swimming as low impact exercise will promote the healing. The thought of me in public in nothing but swim trunks fills me with dread. Add to that the fact that I'm really shite at swimming. I told the doc I'm really uncoordinated, he said he could tell as despite my having very large leg muscles I couldn't push his hands much more than six inches above the examination couch. He was only using his index fingers to push against my shinss and I was straining like billy'o pushing against them. That's a bit crap innit?

I really really don't want to go swimming. But I'm going to have to. Aren't I?

(ooh look, less than a month between posts too!)

An entire month!!!

That's appallingly tardy even for me.
Still at least I have something to blog that doesn't involve unsolved pain, depression, or how crap my family can be at times (not all of them). It snowed. It really really snowed. Thankfully I didn't have to go to work in it. So this is what I did.











We called him Eric.

Milestone

Good god has it really been twenty days? I've been shamed into posting! :D
Actually I do have something to blog. The little fella slept in a bed for the first time last night. I've been dreading going from cot to bed, but he was as good as gold and apart from stirring a bit around 10pm he slept right through until 7am. I am chuffed.

In other news ... Toys toys toys. I really must update with a few more of my recent goodies.

New acquisitions, excellent.

Just a couple more Clone Troopers. I think they're rather snazzy.

The innate crapness of Britain

It snowed yesterday. It was a bit windy too. We had massive amounts of snowfall. Some people say it was possibly an entire inch, maybe less. It was a bit windy too. The trees opposite were moving a bit. I was in the bath doing bathy things. The power went off. It was 7:30 in the evening.

It came back on at 2:30am. I'd left a lamp on so I'd wake up. We went and sorted the heating clock, and the microwave things like that. at 2:45am the fucking power went again! We only knew this because the phone peeped in the phoney fashion when you place them back on their dock. So we got up and sorted all the clocks. Again!

This will be our 4 or 5th major power cut in about three years. I suspect our privatised electricity companies are possibly not investing in the infrastructure they got for fuck all money.

Britain can be really shit sometimes.

Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

Finally I gets me a Wii. It's been a journey.
I asked for and received Amazon vouchers for my Buffdy and Xmas, these were going to be put towards the purchase of a Nintendo Wii. I had no idea at this point, that a console that was released mid to late 2006 was going to be more scarce than a Labour politician's integrity. Christmas came and I went online, no Wii's in stock. At least not direct from Amazon. There were plenty of marketplace sellers listing them at anything upward of £230.00 for a £180.00 console. Cunts!. Every day I'd log on to Amazon, every day nada but the marketplace sellers were doing just fine. Prices were stabilising around £250.00 there was no way I'd even entertain buying from one of these parasites but as it was I couldn't have if I'd wanted to because you can't use Amazon vouchers when buying from marketplace sellers.

So I kept checking, and kept checking and then discovered the discussion forums where daily tales of wiiless woes were swapped. T'was no fun. Finally on the 18th of January I logged on and there it was a Nintendo Wii £179.98 hurry only three left.
So I clickied one clicky and there it was... Confirmation! Huzzah!

So imagine my delight when the confirmation e-mail landed in my inbox with an estimated delivery date of ... 20th March 2008.
I wasn't happy, then I was resigned. At least I'd got one... Right?
I checked the forums and there was another bloke in the same boat, so I left a message saying it wasn't just him. Then, after that people started popping up saying they'd ordered the day after, and the day after that, and their Wii's were already on the way. I emailed Amazon customer services I heard nothing. The next day I called them spoke to a bloke who sounded as though he were several miles away. He explained that although Amazon said I'd got one I hadn't as several other people clicked on one clicky nano-seconds before me. I wasn't happy. I asked why people who'd ordered after me were getting their stuff? He couldn't answer me and conveniently the phone line dropped out. I composed a very very stinky letter to Amazon customer services. I didn't swear but was not very polite. I expressed my disappointment at the lack of contact. I demanded my money back. I stamped my feet and scweamed and scweamed and scweamed.

I clicked on send. Then went back to my inbox. In my inbox was a very apologetic e-mail from Amazon saying it was a glitch and my Wii was on the way.

I felt foolish.

Then I thought nah bollocks to that. They should have got back to me much sooner. It was probably only because of the phone call that the matter was investigated. It's too coincidental. So anyway finally I has Wii. Was it worth the wait? Oh yes! Fucking hell but it's good fun. Updates to this blog may be even more sporadic than of late. :D Expect one in March.

A really good way to integrate diverse peoples, communities, and cultures in a secular society

Is to make sure that special dispensations or considerations aren't constantly dished out to one small sector of that society.

I despair!

TV & Movie Minimates

TV & Movie Minimates
Originally uploaded by Section 9ine

Bored and wanting to muck about more with this blog function on flickr. Here's more Minimates. Faboo!

24 MINIMATES

24 MINIMATES
Originally uploaded by Section 9ine

These are pretty funky. A buddy over in the states sent them to me gratis. I wasn't going to collect this line but I think I'm hooked already. Jack Bauer's brilliant but Stupid Kimmy is fantastic

(posting this direct from Flickr to see how it works)