Monthly Archives: June 2007

Local graffiti

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I like graffiti. I don’t mean random vandalism with abuse sprayed on houses, I mean ‘spraying with style’. When there has been large construction work in the city the wood boards they put around are soon decorated. While some paint is crude and forgettable other work has style, sends a message, shows talent, should be kept.
Living in this village there is less style most of the time. One bridge I walk under with the dog has had a lot of random abuse sprayed in black along the concrete. Their spelling is atrocious – I don’t mean badly spelt as in cool, I mean just bad. Some years ago it had some excellent political graffiti there – the council cleaned it off unfortunately. The above image is from another bridge we went under for the first time. There were a couple of other items sprayed but this image I liked – that image is much better than the photo suggests.
Maybe it’s my prejudices but it seems that this graffiti sits wrongly in between the two villages. Not the abuse I mentioned – I think that’s everywhere – but the better stuff. Seems that the local kids just couldn’t have the talent I suppose.

Blended Food

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The new thing in my daughter’s lives is a place called Shakeit Baby. You wander in and ask for a Ginger Cake milkshake. So they drop ginger cake, milk, icecream and ice into a blender, blast it to mush and give it to you. Bakewell Tart milkshake? No problem. Oreo cookies / Any cookies ? Just lob them in. Take anything in and they will blend it. I’m surprised they don’t call it “CaloriesRUs”. So D has bought a present for a friend’s birthday. A blender and some bakewell tarts :)
I think the most adventurous I got when I was a kid was Banana milkshakes. And popcorn! Big pan, little oil, heat, add prescribed amount of popcorn. Look scornfully at almost empty base of pan, examine packet and determine there must have been a printing mistake. Only happened once – it was like something out of Fantasia. Everyone must do that though.
Bacon and banana toasties was a short-lived – yet tasty – experience, as was toffee in various exotic flavours.

Food….. school food. Things I remember:
- always wanting and eating the skin off the custard
- a strange brown and green sponge pudding
- a vile thing called curried eggs
- those funny shaped glasses on the tables that only ever exist in school dinner halls
- watching that no-one has unscrewed the salt and balanced the lid back on
- looking inside the water jug before pouring a drink
- being part of a scam where we forged dinner tickets and sold them cheap
- having to run from classrooms far away to get there as soon as possible
- dumplings. Here I am years later and I still don’t like them.
A place that shaped my tastes for years….

Sugar-free wings

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Red Bull – or any generic equivalent – has sugar as it’s second constituent. I assume the thinking is that the sugar give you the hit while the caffeine makes you buzz and the resultant activity leaves you at zero increase as the sugar fuels that activity. The combination does two things therefore. That make sense? But I dislike sugar so I get the sugar-free version. So when I drink the yellow liquid my sugar levels do not increase but the caffeine makes whatever works work faster. So it’s a way of losing weight then, yes? Admittedly it’s a dodgy one that wouldn’t pass any sort of critical analysis but as a theory it seems to work.

An unusual elbow

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This morning I woke with a normal elbow. It now looks like I have slid half a tennis ball around the elbow. Very odd. It squishes if I put my elbow on the desk. It has this odd creaky feeling when I prod it. And it itches. Aside from that it’s fine, just fine.

Played FFXII last night. I was around 8hrs in – I spent far too much time trying to find the switch for the massive gate in the underground part. I find the switch, go through gate and get to save crystal. Wandering a bit further I come across the Mimic Queen. Big, colourful and lethal. I tried twice to defeat and failed. Third time tried magics and different gambits. Fourth time tried other combos. Failure. So it looks like somewhere I missed something or should have practised using magic so tonight I roll back to somewhere around 5 hours and continue from there. The guide I bought is still sealed….. maybe I should open…
And I found my SSX On Tour game save with me at #1. 55 seconds outside the legend full race so I need to work on that.

Predicting illness

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I shall feel ill all day 28 June. I know this because on 27 June I will be having the tattoo on my right arm completed. Neil has said he will stay until the job is done. Given the length of time since it was started it’s about bloody time too :) So it’s in at 3pm, they shut at 5pm and I think Neil is looking at 9pm as a finish – that’s with a food break in there too.
I say I’ll feel ill because I have done after each occasion I have had work done on my arm. Feels like flu. Horrible. So this time I’ll prepare with sleep, no caffeine, decent food. I really don’t see it helping but I’ve got to try.
Must take some decent music too. If the camera on my phone was better I could moblog the process.
I think he thinks I want a lot more work than I really do though. Some small details would be good, one very small patch needs re-doing but all I really want is colour. Not Pop-Art stuff, but I do want vibrancy in there. If I can complete the image in my head of what I want my left arm to be like I’ll nag about that too.
It’s good timing though. It gives 21 days before I head over to San Francisco for WordCamp so the worst of the scabbing should be over.

Panic Support?

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Panic. I like Panic stuff. I’ve bought Transmit, Candybar and Coda.
I really do like Coda but I hate the way it auto-opens what you last looked at. This default behaviour drives me nuts with any such app and it’s the first thing I stop.
But I can’t see a way of doing that.
So I emailed Panic on May 25 asking how to stop it.
I still haven’t had an answer.
They have no forums. Why?
The only way to get in touch is to use the email that has been lost / ignored / trashed.

So where is the incentive to spend money with them again when the first problem I have is met with silence? The excuse “We were busy” doesn’t really work does it? Get better support.

Update:
This was detailed in the first email to Panic.

Update 2: 21 June. Reply that the feature has been requested :)

scientology needs Victoria Beckham

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Victoria Beckham craves publicity – that has to be an accepted fact by now. She has no desire for privacy because she wants to be everywhere in that surgically enhanced body of hers. I would be amazed if she really did love David – he was just a route up for her. So.. they move to Los Angeles because she wants the publicity of the move, she wants a reality show, she wants to be seen with others who want to be seen because she draws life from the photographer’s lens.
The reality series isn’t going to happen – it’s going to be a one hour special. Given adverts it’ll weigh in at less that 50 minutes. Knock off the opening / end / break sequences and it’ll be even less. Bet that hurts. So.. she needs another plan and Mr Tom ‘curing the world with every toothy smile’ Cruise rides to her rescue.
Seems that Tom and Katie (where IS their daughter?) have buddied up to Victoria and David. Which can only go one way. Tom needs more high-profile victims for scientology and Victoria wants the massive coverage that would bring – imagine the headlines if David Beckham joined the cult. But will he? She can still join, the interest wanes, she then leaves, she then sells (ghost-written) book, does the round of interviews and then decides to become an unofficial “Clambake Queen“. If David refuses it’s more publicity, if he does it’s even more, if they leave then that publicity just keeps on coming.

There’s are some things to be envious of David Beckham for. His wife is not one of them.

(Don’t forget to watch the South Park episode Tom “call me Mr Tolerant” Cruise freaked over)