Archive for February, 2008

Does this look like a man who irons his underpants?

Published by
Dan
at February 29, 2008 in General. 18 Comments

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It’s 10pm on the 29th of February and I’m sitting in another service station, this time on the northbound carriage of the motorway. Other than “somewhere on the M1″ I don’t actually know where I am. My attitude towards the M1 has always been “just keep going until you see Sheffield” and I don’t see why I should change now. If tomorrow’s post comes from Northumberland you’ll know I’ve overshot.

Of course the above paragraph will mean nothing to the chronically American amongst you. But I have to read about your bloody election all the time so the least you could do is learn some basic British geography. I wouldn’t mind so much but you don’t even go to the polls until November!

Anyway, I’ve decided I’m voting for John Kerry.

I had a great time in London. Rather predictably I didn’t end up doing any of the things I’d planned on. But I got to play on the underground and saw Nelson’s Column. I also got to trawl around various pubs and restaurants with my friend Rob, which was most enjoyable. Rob and I went to the University of Sunderland together and we spent a very pleasant afternoon reminiscing about our time there:

“Remember when we got mugged and they stamped on my head and punched you in the face?”
“Ah yes, happy days”

I also got to make appropriate cooing and gurgling noises at Rob’s 3 week old son. I took a picture but inadvertently also captured a rather large proportion of his partner’s cleavage. I’ve decided that it would not be appropriate to publish it here for public consumption, so I’ll just keep in my “private folder”.

Rob’s called his son Daniel, which is a fine upstanding name if you ask me. He may well change his mind once he sees this post however.

Making a leap

Published by
Dan
at February 29, 2008 in General. 19 Comments

So it’s Febuary 29th, a day that exists only once every four years. The kids are at nursery, I’m not working today, and I’ve a hankering to do something outside my usual routine.

At first I thought I’d be really adventurous and get a early morning plane to Amsterdam. I’d spend the day seeing the sights and then fly back in the evening. Unfortunately it appears that in order to do that sort of thing you need to be a little more planned in your spontaneity. Last minute plane fares are astronomically high, so regrettably it doesn’t look like I’ll be taking any tours of Anne Frank’s house today.

I also thought about having a go at walking up Snowdon, the highest mountain in England and Wales. However the forecast is not good and the prospect of walking 10 miles to the summit with freezing driving rain smashing into my forehead isn’t particularly appealing.

So instead I’m sitting here in the service station on the M1 motorway, nursing an overpriced cup of coffee and waiting until the rush hour traffic dies down. I’m going down to London to see my friend Rob and his 3 week old baby, then I’m going to go into the city and see the sights. I’ve been down to the capital a few times, but never really done the tourist stuff. It’s a toss up between the Tower of London or the V&A museum at the moment, but I’m pretty open to anything really.

I like the idea of doing something special with February 29th. I admit that traveling a couple of hundred miles on a whim isn’t the biggest of leaps. But if the sunrise at 6:30am this morning is anything to go by I’m going to have a pretty good day.

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D.O.U.S (Duck Of Unusual Size)

Published by
Dan
at February 28, 2008 in Photo posts. 16 Comments

Big duck

Our village’s answer to Godzilla

When earthquakes attack

Published by
Dan
at February 27, 2008 in General. 15 Comments

We had an earthquake last night. It measured 5.2 on the Richter scale. Now that may not sound much to the Americans, particularly those Californians amongst you. But it was big enough to wake me up, and I’m a man who has slept through fire alarms.

We do tend to have more sedate natural disasters in this country. Kansas has hurricanes that rip off entire roofs, but when it gets a bit windy in England all that happens is that a couple of chimney pots get blown into next door’s garden. When Bangladesh floods thousands loose their lives, over here some woman in York has to re-plaster her living room. And Tokyo frequently gets terrorized by a rampaging Godzilla, whereas in our village we just have an unusually large duck (it is a very big duck though).

Which is not to say I would actually like more dramatic cataclysms obviously. Even when playing SimCity on the PC I used to play with the disasters switched off. Who wants to spend hours designing an intricately laid out transportation system only to see it burnt to a crisp by an exploding volcano. And anyway, if you turned disasters off you could reduce the budget for the fire service right down to zero. There must have been a lot of cats left to starve in trees in my city. But alas the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. I’m sure the good citizens of Dansville would prefer being hit with the occasional falling cat corpse than live in a city like this:

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Locate TV

Published by
Dan
at February 26, 2008 in Mini blog. 1 Comment

Locate TV. Type in the name of your favorite show and it will search the tv listings to tell you when it’s next on. Very useful for finding out when you can get your next dose of Columbo or the like. Has versions for both UK and USA viewers.

On Wednesdays I never feel inclined

Published by
Dan
at February 26, 2008 in Multimedia. 9 Comments

Phil over at A Family Runs Through it has just wrapped up a week of posts based around music he and his family enjoy.

Never being one to let a good idea go by unpilfered, I thought I’d share some music that we’ve been enjoying recently at our house. They Might Be Giants have been a favorite of mine since my early twenties, and through a strict program of brainwashing I’ve ensured that my kids are pretty into them too.

Of course it helps that they put out albums aimed at children as well as adults. Their most recent, Here Come the 1,2,3’s, is based around a number theme - although you do get the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme tune and hotdog song thrown in for good measure as well. As with all TMBG music it takes a little bit of listening to in order to “get it”, but once you do it sinks it’s melodic teeth in and never lets go.

I’m in love with one track in particular. See if you can guess why.

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In July of this year I shall be walking 78 miles in 6 days in aid of the Joseph Salmon Trust, a charity founded by my close friends in memorial to their son Joseph who died aged 3 in April of 2005. Please look here for further details and consider sponsoring me. Thank you.

Love, Hate, and Indifference

Published by
Dan
at February 25, 2008 in General. 12 Comments

We didn’t have satellite TV in our house until I was about fourteen. Up until that point my parents had avoided poring their pennies into Murdock’s coffers, but the lure of tennis on the sports channels became too much for my mother and she relented.

I quickly became addicted to a whole new vista of TV programing. Mainly on the Nickelodeon channel. The Adventures of Pete and Pete was a particular favorite. I never tire of telling Kerry that one of the characters in What About Brian is in actual fact Pete and Pete’s mortal enemy Endless Mike. Damnit that show was good! Even the theme tune was fantastic.

Sky TV wasn’t all quirky comedies about two identically named brothers though. What fate gives us with one hand it often takes away with the other (just ask gibbon featured millionaire Andrew Loyd-Webber). Just as it brought joy, our satellite also brought sorrow. There descended a blight upon our lives that scars my soul to this day. A television program so dire that my fingers tremble as I type its name: Clarissa Explains It All.

There are many acts in our childhood for which I curse my sisters name: for somehow tricking me into choosing the smaller bedroom, for deliberately and spitefully breaking her arm when I pushed her over, and for hiding her secret diary too well. But I think the one thing for which I will hold a grudge until my dying day is the introduction of Clarissa Explains It bloody All.

Oh sure, I could have not stayed in the room while it was on. I could have gone out and done something else instead. Read a book, play some sports, do my homework. I could have done any of those things. But, you know, it was the telly. You’ve got to watch the telly haven’t you.

So I gritted my teeth and endured the incredibly irritating Clarissa and her even more irritating ginger brother Fergusone (who was just a cut price Alex Keaton from Family Ties rip off). I suffered through each and every episode, probably at least three times. And I would like to say that I’m a better person for it, but sadly I don’t think I am.

I once saw an episode of Cribs where Milissa Joan Hart showed the camera’s round her home. I had not previously thought it was possible for my desire to give her a good hard punch on the nose to be any stronger. But when she started bringing out her extensive Shirley Temple memorabilia collection my vision went white with a unrestrained fury. I think that we can safely say that I do not have any latent super powers, because if I did they would have surely manifested themselves at that point such was sheer amount of hate fueled adrenalin pumping round my body.

No, I didn’t like Clarissa Explains it All much.

Yet strangely enough my sister’s other favorite, Saved By The Bell left me emotionless. All the ingredients were there for me to get up a healthy dose of hate: crap child acting, lazy unimaginative writing, and just a general feeling of smugness; but yet nothing. I remain as indifferent towards Saved by the Bell as I do towards rice cakes. It’s just too bland to loath. Even the revelation that the actor who played Screech went on to make a porn movie leaves me cold.

 
icon for podpress  Adventures of Pete and Pete Theme [2:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (151)

 
icon for podpress  Clarissa Explains It All Theme [0:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (129)

 
icon for podpress  Saved By The Bell Theme [1:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (89)

“It’s all Greek to me” Sunday

Published by
Dan
at February 24, 2008 in Competiton time. 10 Comments

Here’s how it works. I’ve take a short film synopsis from the listings page of a TV guide and fed it into Bable Fish, an online translating service. I then translated the synopsis from English into Greek, and then from Greek back into English. The resulting gobbledygook is posted below and your task is to try and identify what movie the passage refers to.

This weeks review is a pretty easy one really and has been lifted from one of those “what’s on TV” web pages.

Trying it assembles the money for a game high stake, the enchanting card sharp [character] ([actor]) is mixed with one double-transaction adventuress ([actor]). He’s took also it supports with the vile [character] ([actor]) and the old leathal buddy [actor] of arms [actor] it is presented also. [actor], that played the [character] observation in the initial line of TV of decade ‘50, it is flown as [actor]. A pleasant slice of westerner hokum.

Last week’s winner was Pandora Caitiff, who is one of my legion of transvestite readers. Well, ok there are only two of them but I still bet that’s more than you get. Going for the niche markets, that’s me.

This week Pandora has been musing on the recent revelation that two of the characters from the video game Final Fight have been outed as pre-op transsexuals. They were no doubt trying to win enough prize money to pay for their highly expensive pixel removal operations.

Funds

Published by
Dan
at February 22, 2008 in The Dales Walk. 14 Comments

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This is Oli. He likes cake.

There are many ways that Oli is my superior. He understands how to use his camera flash, has 448 friends on facebook, and has an extensive knowledge of marine biology. And if that all weren’t enough he also has marginally more hair than me. Marginally.

When the whole idea for the Dales Walk was proposed Oli came up with the suggestion that we should hold some sort of contest to see who could raise the most money. No doubt he was anticipating mobilizing his 448 friends into some sort of elite fundraising team in order to grind the rest of us into the dust.

But he had not counted on the overwhelming generosity of the internet. To date through my blog I have raised an incredible £689. That’s over $1350 A sum that I’d never even dreamed I’d be able to achieve. Everyone who has donated has been wonderfully magnanimous, but there are some who’s kindness has been simply breathtaking. I don’t want to name names for fear of embarrassing them, but they know who they are. Thank you so much.

I would however like to give a special mention to Morticia, as she persuaded her office to take up our cause and raised over £230. No doubt there will be a special place in Goth heaven set aside for her, bedecked with all the coffin shaped coffee tables and kitschy religious paraphernalia she could ever desire.

Mind you, declaring my fund raising victory now would be a little premature. There are still five months left until the walk itself and plenty more fundraising opportunities. In truth nothing would make me happier than to see my current donation record smashed into smithereens by another member of the team.

With that in mind I am issuing a sort of call to arms. I wanted to start fundraising early in order to get some sort of momentum going, but now it’s time for all the participants to start gathering in some cash. There has been discussion of a concert from Paul and Rich, talk of targeting local businesses from Sandip, and a proposal for some sort of naked sponsored run through the town center by Dave (go on Dave, you know you want to). It’s time to gather these ideas together and work out what to do with them. Lets meet up over a few beers and agree a plan of action.

Time: Saturday 8th March, 8pm
Place: Rat and Ratchet, Huddersfield.

I even have some beer vouchers left over from last time we won the quiz, so the first round is on me.

And for anyone else out there in blog land who hasn’t yet donated, you can do so at the top right corner of this page. Go on, take the plunge. All the cool kids are doing it:

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In which I cunningly avoid having to come up with any original content

Published by
Dan
at February 21, 2008 in General. 25 Comments

I recently sent Jeff a parcel of delightful English delicacies as reward for winning my “About me”competition. Here is his video review of some of it’s contents - a sample pack of Marmite (the moment of truth is around the six minute mark).



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Which all put me in mind of a post Greg did way back in June 2005:


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It blows. It sucks. However you want to say it I now have proof (not that I required it) this stuff is nasty.

I brought a jar of Marmite to work along with some Wheat Thins. I spread some of the sticky, brown goo on the crackers and left them on a plate. Next to my unholy appetizers I placed a pad of paper that read, “What do you think of Marmite?”

Here’s what they wrote:

  1. The worst chocolate sauce ever.
  2. EWW - - - -
  3. So that’s what happens when you mess up a batch of wort. . .
  4. Get your money back - this jar has gone bad!!!!
  5. Whoa.
  6. Tastes “funny.” Paradoxically, both funny weird AND funny Ha Ha. That’s all. Gotta go to the vomitorium.

My friend Donna wrote a haiku:

Smoked, salty yeast sauce
Hardens to a deep brown glaze
More like brine, or bile?

Then she wrote another one:

Lower fat wheat thins
Adorned with dark brown yeast sauce
No one liked his treat

Marmite is so bad a person was moved to commit haiku. That pretty much says it all.

Originally from “Marmite taste test #1“, Greg and Deb on the Web, 26 June 2005

America has spoken. It votes a resounding NO to Marmite. Which is a bit rich coming from a nation willing to accept that brown waxy stuff they laughingly claim is “chocolate”. I mean seriously, Hersheys? Beeswax more like.

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