24 Feb 2007

Can we have a stop please?

Posted in People at 9:24 am by alby

Last night saw some scary fillums once again.  We saw a new sighting of Nicky and one of Rod too.  Coo.

We watched Funny Games and were doing well with the atmos until a quiet bit towards the end when everyone (else) decided that throwing grapes and popcorn around was more interesting than the fillum.  I like this one but not because of the fashion sense of the characters.  Honestly.

After a break they chose to watch Ghost Watch.  One I’d forgotten I had.  So that was spookeh so Clurb, Lizzah and Nicky spent some time cowering.  But the best was yet to come.

Pee went to bed after a busy day and Nicky had to leave to pick up a friend so we ended up as a foursome and we watched The Grudge. I’d forgotten huge bits of it. But boy is it scary. Lizzah and Clurb spent so much time “aaarrrghh”ing and cowering they’d nigh on missed most of the fillum. I reckon next time we need to get a sound recorder in to keep a record of this sort of entertaining diversion.

A good evening.

Have fun.

22 Feb 2007

Downed

Posted in Comedy at 8:43 pm by alby

There’s a show on the beeb called “Down The Line”.  It’s one in a series of classic spoofs by the beeb.  The first was probably “On The Hour” and then the Alan Partridge progs but this goes in a little different direction by spoofing the phone-in genre.

Mostly I’ve found it a bit dull but this week’s show was excellent.  It reminded me strongly of the tv show GhostWatch (the ones with “Pipes”).  It’s nice and spooky and I heard it on my own in a dark room.  Spookeh!

Anyway if you fancy a listen then the link is here (click on “listen to the latest edition”).

It’s a bit slow but finishes well.

Have fun.

20 Feb 2007

Potentially really bad

Posted in Life at 5:27 pm by alby

The stupid chav showed up again today.

“Is Simon in?”

“Look this is the second time in 3 days you’ve come asking for people who don’t live here.  You don’t know anyone in this house ok.  Don’t do it again.”

“No need for the fucking attitude.  Is this not a student house?”

“Bye”.

So I called the police again.  Apparently similar calls have come through from other householders today so they’re “on the case”.

I didn’t manage to get a photo of him though.  If he does it again or I see him around then he can expect a quick snap.

Sigh.

19 Feb 2007

Racists!

Posted in News at 5:26 pm by alby

This news story here is a disgraceful attack on WASPs by the malevolent forces of this racist state of ours.

As can clearly be seen the arrest of a WASP is clearly an attempt to tar all WASPs with the mantle of being letter-bombers.  Racist thugs these police.

Why else the attack on his house at 3am?

Why else would all his neighbours say he’s a lovely chap who wouldn’t say boo to a goose?

It’s clear the white, working classes are being targeted in this war against terror fought by the UK state nazis.

Let all us WASPs band together, adopt a victim mentality and sing to the heavens that if this carries on then we can’t be held responsible for the consequences!

Have fun.

Is this news?

Posted in Work at 10:29 am by alby

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6369047.stm

Chronic back pain sufferers brains aren’t normal eh?  I’ve been saying that for years.

Have fun.

18 Feb 2007

Potentially bad

Posted in Life, Self-indulgence at 7:21 pm by alby

Shite.

Just had a chav knock on the door.

“Is Ben there?”

“Err no-one called Ben here.”

“You sure?”

“Err yes.”

“You just moved in?”

“Nope been here about 5 years.”

“Oh right”.

And that was it.  He looked nervous throughout and was a bit side to sidey you know.

There are 2 options going on here.

  1. He wanted this Ben and had been given the wrong address.
  2. He’s scoping the place by either seeing if anyone was in. Or by having a quick shufti over my shoulder to see if there’s ‘owt worth nicking.

I’m tending towards thinking the latter.  So I phoned the police and told ‘em all about it.  They said thanks for phoning.  Don’t I feel good?

Am I going to get burgled again soon?  They say that it’s more likely after a burglery [sic] as the insurance stuff comes through.  New door and nothing worth nicking now though but let’s hope not.

Have fun.

Uncle Al 3

Posted in Life at 2:00 pm by alby

Stop the presses!

Seems I’m an uncle again as of yesterday.  Daughter to the Murray-Beerses over there!  No name yet as far as I know [update: her name is Lola, she'll be a showgirl!].

Nice news on a slow day.

Have fun.

17 Feb 2007

Ouendaaaan!

Posted in Games, Rants at 11:14 am by alby

Right now I’m annoyed.  I need a besuited team of male cheerleaders to help me out.

Just taken Ouendan (broken game see below somewhere) to 2 shops.  First one refused even to try the thing in the shop’s DS.  ”We’re not allowed to have anything to do with import games.  If we break our licence we’ll lose it and be unable to sell Nintendo stuff.” he whinged.  Oh right.  Just like the unauthorised selling of second hand games your shop does as well yes?  Git.  All I wanted was a swift favour and he went all defensive and fighty.

So to Forbidden Planet. Tested perfectly, works perfectly, no problem.  Bugger.

So I have a game that cost me £30 that doesn’t work on my machine but does on other machines.  The seller (Play-Asia) have told me that if the cart is ok then they won’t exchange it and if they test it and it works then they’ll send me the original one back and charge me for all the postage.  Yippee.

So I’m left with a useless piece of plastic that I can’t return or play.  Whooppee.

Anybody want a copy of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!?  It’s better than Elite Beat Agents (at least the music is).  £25 to you.

Have fun.

16 Feb 2007

Misrepresented

Posted in People, Rants at 7:06 am by alby

I hate it when I’m misrepresented. Andrew Collins has a blog which I read avidly as I like his writing. Recently he put a post up that has attracted lots of comment. Basically he was slagging Ben Goldacre off for slagging Gillian McKeith off.

Cue lots of people disagreeing and stating why they think it’s important that charlatans shouldn’t be allowed to get away with charlatanism. Where you lie with this argument is neither here nor there as far as this post is concerned.

Someone posted a comment that seemed perfectly rational talking about how people should look for the evidence for themselves and make their own minds up.

This is where I commented. My point was that you should do this but you mustn’t assume that all opinions are equally valid. I harked back to a post I’ve written before re MMR and decision making re whether to take it or not.

Andrew’s response to my comment was to say that I was disagreeing with the comment that people should take a look at the evidence and then make their minds up. I really wasn’t at all so wrote back and explained a little further.

Take flight for instance. You want to build a flying machine you consult someone who’s spent time learning and researching what works and what doesn’t and ask them. You don’t seek out and listen to those people who think flying machines can’t work because they’re “unnatural”. In other words their points of view are not equally valid. That’s the point I was making. You can’t dismiss science because “they don’t know everything”. “They” do know a hell of a lot though. And plenty more re nutrition and medicine than homeopaths, and magic potion salesmen.

More to the point these charlatans can be dangerous. Note John Diamond’s notes when he was dying of cancer that these creeps crawl out of the woodwork to sell miracle cures for cancer just when you’re at your lowest with the chemo. So not simply deluded.

He hasn’t printed my response (although to be fair he’s had a lot of response so I’m not overly surprised). So that leaves me apparently “disagreeing” with a perfectly sensible and innocuous statement.

OOOeeeerrrr! I hate being misrepresented. ’sprobably my own fault for not being clearer but that’s my problem as writer.

Have fun.

14 Feb 2007

Annoyances

Posted in Games, Life, Rants at 8:21 pm by alby

  1. Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! clearly does NOT want me to play it.  The first copy I had was nicked 2 days after I got it.  I got the replacement today.  It doesn’t work.
  2. Just had a salesman round at our house.  It’s after 8pm on Valentine’s day.  I’ve been in conversations with them before that leave you struggling to get shot of them.  Hence my response was to loudly say “NO!” and shut the door on him.  Cue one annoyed salesman shouting “All righty then!” at me through the door.  And now I feel guilty for being a rotter.  Why should I be guilty?  He’s the bloody intruder and I didn’t ask him to come round.

Sigh.

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