Somebody Told Me

The garage have given me a second loan car. The first one was a rather underpowered 1.2 Polo, which really didn't inspire me, so I nicknamed it "the beast". It was quite well kitted out (air con) but I didn't really enjoy driving it, but one can't complain, it was on free loan afterall. On tuesday they rang to ask for it back as they had someone who wanted to look at it to buy *chortle*, I didn't have any objection as they offered to deliver the replacement to my door, which isn't bad. I was kind of expecting them to deliver a lupo or similar, which I wouldn't have minded so I could try one out (I don't think I've ever travelled in one). However, when the guy arrived at my door at some ungodly hour, he said with a slight smirk "here's the keys, this one's a little bit faster..." which had me intreagued. It turned out it's a 130bhp Polo GT Diesel, quite a splendid car, and I'm thoroughly enjoying thrashing it about :P

In other news, I'm off to Nottingham this weekend, where I shall be sampling the various ales and fine drinking establishments available in that neck of the woods. However, I've got to be back home for Sunday evening to wander pubward to smirk at a colleague's fancy dress for halloween. There's also talk of curry on monday too... hmmmmmmmmmmm currrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroi

Current Music: Green Day - Time of your life

Homer Simpson

It seems that Americans would like to see Homer Simpson as fictional president.
Ironically, it doesn't look like they're far of getting someone quite similar in real life.

The Weeked - and AvP

It's been a fairly busy weekend. It all started on Friday, meeting Chris, Pete and Mat in the pub and starting to sort out ideas for next weekend's trip to Notts, it seems like we finally have some floor to kip on, so that's at least a start :)

Saturday was spent in Worcester Chav spotting (I've found there's an optician which has an exclusive Burberry frames section *smirk*) and generally just milling about in the rain. Wandering around the pound shop (for amusement more than anything) I stumbled across a rather lame DVD section... With a particular disc standing out... "Graduation day" and "Nymphoid barbarian in dinosaur hell". Both of which are utterly lame, but in such a way that they are hilarious... I've not managed to watch all of either yet, I think I'll save that pleasure for the weekend.

That evening I went to see Alien vs Predator. Not being in the loop regarding film releases (I'm getting better though) I wasn't even aware that it had only been released on the day before or so, surprisingly, the cinema was fairly empty. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was indeed a good film.. Being the tech geek that I am, I found the opening scene quite fun, there's something cool about technology being used in situations like that :) I would have thought there'd be a bit of product placement there, perhaps there was just too much competition between the phone giants :)

On Sunday I took the parents to see the site where I managed to crash the car... Learned a bit more about how the different parts of the side of the road could correlate to the dents... It rained again. Also found a nice little pub on the way back, dad bought us coffee.

This evening I've generally been milling about, and I've finally managed to tidy my room up. I also saw Little Britain for the first time, can't say I've seen something that funny for ages, I'll certainly be watching the next episode tomorrow :)

Useless Warnings

Mum has a box of pot pourri (the smelly bits of dried flowers). The base of the box is clearly marked "not for consumption". WHO THE FUCK IS GOING TO BE STUPID ENOUGH TO EAT IT?? I mean, even if they were, and took it to court, they would get the case laughed out of court.

Comments

I suspect most people read this via various means involving feeds, so for those of you that don't see the normal blog page very often, I've added comments.

Froogle

I've been waiting for this a while, it seem that Google have launched a UK version of Froogle :)

Getting Old

I had a conversation about mortgages today.
Save me.

Quote

Additional. As the days go by, we face the increasing inevitability that we are alone in a godless, uninhabited, hostile and meaningless universe. Still, you've got to laugh, haven't you? -- Holly (Red Dwarf)

Excellent :)

Consuming Calories, then burning them off

Well, what's been going on in the world of Burt at the moment... Went to the pub on Weds, another random evening involving a few work pople and a few of the guys from school, was nice to see people again etc, had some rather nice ales :)
Somewhat bizarrely for your average geek, I've never seen more than a few bits of the Star Wars films... this was deemed unacceptable, so I've been lent the DVDs... and I've been slowly making my way through them... Its also now apparent why I missed out on the whole thing, I'd seen bits and bobs of IV and VI, but not V, which with some of the cross-references must have just confused the hell out of me, hence I never really continued to watch.

There's also an excellent quote from "the empire strikes back" that still rings true today, over 24 years since the original film:

"R2, you know better than to trust a strange computer" - C3PO

I went to our local Morrisons last night, which used to be a Safeway in days passed. Not all that much has changed really, apart from the signs, a bit of the "store furniture" and a few prices. The eggs are now located below a large sign "HEN HUTCH".. this leads me to think who the fuck do they think they are kidding? "hen hutch" implies something relatively small, wooden, with a nice little area outside where the hens do their hen thing all day and peck away at seeds. We all know full well that the majority those eggs haven't been anywhere near a "hen hutch", most of them were forced from the vaginas of innocent little hens kept in tiny wire boxes at "ideal" laying temperature with the lights on all day. Hardly a "hutch" now is it. They do have a good beer offer, though.

Went to a computer fair this morning, which was an utter waste of £3, all the stalls were selling stuff that was cheaper on Ebuyer after delivery costs, and it was all dodgy makes like "Office Tech" and "Klick". Oh, there was also some 15 year old selling a rather comical array of hooky software. It's not like the old days.

This afternoon, I finally bit the bullet and started with my cycling... went on a little tour of the local area, and stopped for a can of sprite at one of the little newsagents. I don't currently have a cycle computer that works (perhaps something to buy tomorrow) a later check with the car speedo indicates that it was 8 miles, which I'm quite pleased with as I wasn't a complete wreck afterwards this time. Perhaps tomorrow I'll do another one. Also the phone served as an excellent MP3 player for the ride, so I might just justify getting a bigger MMC card for it, maybe.

I've also been listening to The Killers' album "Hot Fuss" quite a bit this week, splendid album.

Current Music: The Killers - Somebody Told Me

Caerdydd

I've just returned from a weekend in Cardiff to see Pete, Dan and Alun who made his way from over in Hampshire where he's working at the moment. Can't really be bothered to write all about it right now, but it was a good few days, we sampled several of Cardiff's bars (including 'Reflex' an 80s themed bar, and the rather nice Richard's) and frequented Creation on Friday night…

While there I noticed that I’m starting to feel separated from being a student now, which is sort of good in a way... not having to worry where the next loan to fund a night out is coming from is certainly a pleasant change. Also spotted a beggar with a Burberry rug, I'm sure that does wonders for their brand image.

Tempted by the 24 box set, need to augment the DVD collection – possibly one to look out for in the new year sales etc. Need to reinstall computer, need to set a date and really do it this time, possibly once I've got some CDRs to put everything on.

I've been listening to my Svenson and Geilen album again, I really like the way that that track 'Fujirama' reminds me of a cold winter's morning driving down icy Welsh country roads. I'm not totally sure where this mental association comes from, but if I remember correctly it might be from my little trip out to Strata Florida in the snow earlier in the year, but who can say.

One more thing, 'riot' 'shot' and 'pint' are all on the same key presses in the T9 predictive text dictionary on my phone. I find this amusing.

A Rubber Chicken With a Pulley in the Middle

This last week or so has flown by. Alas, I've not really had chance to do much in the way of blogging, so this is a catch up.

My weekend started early, I was on leave on Friday, giving time to have a lie in and then make my way over to Ceredigion. This, however, entailed cycling up to town to get my car that I'd abandoned in town when going for drinks that previous evening... During this brief period of activity I managed to have an asthma attack and discover (the hard way) that I really do need to improve my level of fitness. (cue operation BurtFit III) Made my way over Aber and met up with quite a lot of people I'd not seen in a long time, it was a really good night apart from my phone dying on me.

The original plans for Aber that weekend were cut short due to a few people dropping out/not being where they were going to be, however, this worked out for the better as on saturday some friends from school were going to be in the area, and suggested that we meet up for drinks. It was good to see people again, and also good to talk about the old days of school and the various characters that we once knew there... sometimes I'd really like to find out what some of them are up to, then again, I probably wouldn't be all that interested when I did find out.

Making my way back from Aber, I decided to take the mountain road, as there were a lot of people moving into town that day, and I thought that it might make the journey a bit more bearable to drive through the Elan valleys. However, in true mid Wales style, there was thick fog up there and I couldn't really see much further than the side of the road. this proved to be interesting when a startled sheep decided to run out in front of the car, luckily I managed to avoid it, but it did startle me as I was quite spaced out from driving through thick fog with very loud JMJ playing :)

I got Monkey Island running with the help of ScummVM which allows you to run other lucasarts games too :) Oh, does anyone have a decent MI ringtone? All the ones I've seen are shit.

There's been a few cockups with pay at work, and after also having my phone temporarily disconnected, I pointed out it was a bit like Milton in "office space" (they stop paying him after he's fired and just hope that he stops coming of his own accord). This prompted me to watch the film again tonight, and this little gem is so true, they've clearly worked where I do...

"We don't have a lot of time on this earth! We weren't meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day... filling out useless forms... and listening to eight different bosses drone on about mission statements." - Peter Gibbons

Well, that's more than enough for one evening, it looks like I'm off to Cardiff again tomorrow, however this time Al is coming along too :D There's clubs, pubs and dodgy 80s bars on the cards, woo!


Current music: Svenson & Gielen - Fujirama