Getting Back to It

You have got to wonder sometimes if whatever forces governs the weather has a sense of irony, especially today as what happens? We get the hottest day of the year and we have to go to church where the air conditioning consists of opening the windows. It was also pretty packed as one Family were blessing their baby so there were lots and lots of relatives about.

Fortunatly Physics and I were able to grab the pew near the door which meant we got a nice breeze all though out sacrement which kept the worst of the heat away.

Todays random fact for you, I only have another 6 posts to go before I hit the 900 posts mark and 106 before I hit the 1000 mark.

See told you it was random.

Well it's back to work tomorrow as my holiday is over, finished, kaputski ( which I know probably isn't even a word). Still it will be good to go back as a week is about just right to have off if your staying at home. I could never be one of those people who just stays at home, whilst living on benefits and not bothered about getting a job. I need to be doing something, to keep my mind active and working.

The BBQ was unfortunatly canceled on Friday night but it seems in it's place we will be heading up to Bradgate park tomorrow night for a picnic which if the weather stays the same as it has been, means we should have a rather nice evening.

Anyway,

Later folks!

Nice of Him to write but who paid for the postage?

With the next set of local and european elections just round the corner our mail box ( and we do have a mail box due to Owens love of eating the post if it's put through the door) is beginning to fill up with lots of flyers and campaign leaflets from the various parties telling us why we should vote for them and nobody else.

In most cases these leaflets are not addressed however I was surprised to recieve a letter this morning directly to me. Getting mail is a rare enough occureance and what I do recieve is usally junk mail, bills, or the latest offer from my bank promising me great great rates if I transfer my credit card to them. I opened it to discover it was a letter from the Prime minster. Yes somehow I managed to get on the list to recieve one of the thousands if not millions of 'personel' letter being sent out 'by' our Prime minster asking me to vote Labour.

So he's the text of the letter in bold with my thoughts in standard text,

Dear Mr Saxon ( well it didn't really say Saxon but you get the idea)

I know that people are angry about Mp's Expenses ( really what gave it away, the near 24 hour coverage of which MP had been the latest to get their hand caught in the cookie jar?) I apologise - on behalf of all parties ( well thats nice of you to say Mr Brown, or can I call you Gorden, although your a little late as the other leaders have already apologised for their parties but I can't remember you apologising for only your party, why is that Gordon?) - that the political systm has let you and the public down ( no it was whoever leaked the information to the telegraph that let you down as we were able to see just how deep your hands were in the cookie jars).

Whatever party they belong to, MP's should never have spent taxpayers money on clearing their moats( or had to get a dig in at the tories first didn't you gordon?) or swiming pools or paying phantom mortages(would these be the mortages that some of your MP's claimed for and then claimed they had no idea they had finished Gordon?) - and it's even worse at a time when ordinary families are worried about the impact of the recession.( especially as we know about it and you can't hide it!)

Labour are determined to put things right - not through words, but through action. (cue stirring patrotic music) This is not a time for papering over cracks ( no you can use that paper better by sending out letters to people) - it's time for root and branch reform( sounds like a man with a plan). And it's not just a question of paying back money( although they should). That's why labour have suspended MP's who are suspected of wrongdoing (interesting phrasing here, he doesn't say anything about the fact it's the system itself the public dislike, or that their angry what MP's could claim under the system, just that their punishing those who broke the rules of a already broken system!).

Now more then ever, families in this community( wait what happened to your big plan for reforming the expenses system?) need our help through this recission. Labour will stand by you and your family( is a paragraph missing here?)- not walk on by as the Conservatives did in the 1990s( better to collect taxes that way).

It is only by taking the right decisions now that we can hope to get through this recession quickly and give people the support they need. ( i know how you can support me stop raising petrol duty so often! Petrol is back up to a pound and were in the middle of a recession!) People are concerned about their jobs, homes and families. They do not want to be left behind like they were in previous recessions. that is why I thought it important for me to spell out some of the action we are taking.

(he then goes on for about three paragraphs about some of their initiaves which seeing as none affected me I couldn't be bothered to read.)

( still nothing about the action they will be taking to put things right. So they said their determined to put things right through action not words. Or to put it another way they've used words to say that they will be taking action but failed to mention what that action will be? Anyone else confused)

The measures we have put in place are there because we believe in supporting families and we believe in these values through the good times and the bad. We need to avoud the mistakes of the past( now I notice they've gone from referring directly to the tories to a generalisation. Is this because their afraid to point out anything specific from a old tory government as the tories could find something just as bad from a old labour government?) and ensure that the country is in the best shape possible to avoid the worst affects of the downturn.( cue patrotic music again)

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.

Best wishes

Gordon Brown.

So their you have it. A whole lot of waffle that did not make much impression on the slighist and probably hasn't affected my decision as to who I'm going to vote for in the slightist. But then again I have't definatly made my mind up one way or the other so I guess when it comes to me, if people are still looking for votes they''ve got everything to play for.

Later folks!

Very interesting

I was intrigued in the new series of Torchwood before but after seeing the new trailer which was released today I now can't wait to see it as it looks awesome! Torchwood is a good series, however the main problem with it is that it's so long between series which makes it very hard to build a good following.

Primeval reaches it's season finale tomorrow night. I think that it will be back for a 4th series and the major changes seem to have given the series some new legs. It still has problems, the expansion of the mythology is painfully slow, the characters still act with a worrying lack of common sense sometimes and it is becoming increasingly hard for them to explain how their covering the dinosaurs up but it still has a lot of potential. A interesting development with the series is that their looking into a possiblity of a spin off series set in the same 'universe' but it is produced by a American TV series. Which if it works would be quite unique as I don't think there are any other shows which use the same universe but are produced in different countries.

I also saw a news story about David Tennant today, apparently his tenure as Hamlet on the stage has been so successful the BBC want him to produce a new TV version. Which I'm sure Scully will be pleased to hear.

Well It's Friday all ready. I don't know where the week has gone! Although that does seem to happen whenever you have time off, the week seems to pass three times as fast as a regular week.

The Car came through it's service quite successfully, which I was quite surprised about as I was sure it was going to have some sort of problem. Not that I'm complaining of course. The service was slightly more exspensive then I was expecting but as it was it's nine year service the garage wasn't making sure they crossed every T and dotted every I.

anyway,

Later folks!

Keeping the theme

When they announced who would be taking over the role of Doctor Who from David Tennant there was general consensus from most people of " Sorry who?". This is likely to be repeated with the latest news from the Doctor Who camp. It wouldn't be Doctor Who without him taking a companion through time and space and they have just released the name of the companion who will be stepping into the big blue box along with the new Doctor.

And here she is.

Her name is Karen Gillan and if she looks familiar to any of you who watch Doctor Who that is because this is not her first part in the show, she appeared in the Fires of Pompeii as the Sootsayer.

Of course time will tell as to how good a companion she will be, but the early signs are good as she has appeared in a lot of other shows and thers been no immediate outcry along the lines of what happened with Catherine Tate. Although to be fair Catherine Tate did prove them all wrong as her character of Donna proved to be a incredibile companion who suffered a very tragic fate.

Later folks!

The start of summer?

I was feeling a bit nervous about the weather today as it did look like it was going to tip it down several times. However I'm pleased to say that I was proved wrong, it has turned into a very nice day indeed. In fact it's supposed to be a very good weekend for weather as well. So it's looking very likely that the YSA BBQ tomorrow will get good weather.


It's been confirmed that Spider man 4 is in the early stages of production. Hopefully it will go back to the good days of Spiderman 2 rather then 3 as that film was nowhere near as good as the first two. However now that the announcement has been most forums will probably be abuzz with guesses as to which villians will be appearing in this one. My guess is that the Lizard might be a good possibility as they have had Curt connors in the last two films. I'm sure a lot of people will also be hoping for the Black Cat to put in a appearence. Mind you I think most of those people will probably be male, just a hunch. :-)

I cleared the car out this afternoon and also hoovered it out as well! which I'm sure some people will struggle to believe. I also only found one item that made me go " I was wondering where that was" which maybe means that the car wasn't as in a bad a state as I thought it was. I know, I know leave me to my delusions!

I also found out some worrying news today. It appears that the rights for the TV series House has moved from channel five to Sky one. Usually when Sky one gets the rights to show a series first it disappears from terestial TV never to be seen again. It happened with Lost, Prison Break and now it seems House! Darn sky one! Now I'm going to have to wait even longer to see it on DVD.

As long as they don't nab the sole rights to NCIS I will still be happy.

anyway,

Later folks.

Retcon, relaunch, reimagine

It's hard not to notice a growing trend in the new TV shows and movies being produced these days that a growing number aren't exactly what you can call original. They are either a relaunch, or 're imagining' of a old TV show or movie. Of course some existing TV shows, movies and even comic books are exactly being what you can call original right now as a growing number of them seem to be falling prey to the evils of 'retcon'.

For the non geeky among you who think that retcon sounds more like a cough medicine then something which happens in fiction allow me a moment to explain. Retcon stands for retroactive continuity which is a posh way of saying that something that has happened in a work of fiction is later changed or is retold in a new way which basically says " It didn't happen that way it happened this way". One of the most famous examples of retcon is Bobby ewing from dallas where the entire series after he had 'died' was shown to be a dream when his wife found him in the shower.

Another example of this was Spiderman where I'm sure most of you know that Peter Parker married Mary Jane parker. However what the non geek among you might not know that in a effort to save his Aunt Mays life, parker agreed to a deal which meant that his wedding to Mary Jane never happened. So in the new retconned universe Peter Parker is currently single and appears to be likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

Well this little geeky rant was bought on by news that they are planning to relaunch " Buffy the Vampire slayer" as a movie, however it will not involve any of the original cast or even the creator who made the TV series. Now star trek you can relaunch quite effectively as the recent movie has shown, but I don't know if buffy will be as effective as Geeks can be quite passionate about their TV shows.

The relaunched Battlestar galactica is a prime example as when it was announced fans of the original series were screaming from the rooftops as to what they saw as heresy.

We almost didn't have a institute class this evening as the sub teacher thought the class started at 7pm so after waiting 25 minutes he was on the verge of leaving when Physics and I arrived. We were also very thin on the ground as only 7 people turned up. Our guess was most of the missing students were probably at home watching the football.

Speaking of which for our activity afterwards we played chair football in the cultural hall. Each player had one chair and had to defend that chair from all other players. If another player kicked the ball at you and it hit your chair you lost a life. Each chair had three lifes before you were 'dead'. The winner was the last player left standing as it were. It was actually a really fun game even if No Fears and physics competivness shown through especially in the second game.

anyway,

Later folks

Do you see what I see?

Grumpy and I have just been watching the latest episode of CSI and it's the one that focuses on Wendy and hodges when they attend a sci-fi convention and of course CSI being CSI there's a murder. Grumpy found it amusing but slightly baffling as he wasn't getting a lot of the in jokes. I however seemed to be getting all of them which did make me wonder if I need to get out more, or less depending on your opinion.

The car goes in for it's annual service on Friday and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it gets through okay and they don't find anything that bad. I have a feeling that it's going to make one more MOT then I will need to think about getting the money together for a new Car. Not that I'd mind as he has proven to be a dependable car even if I get a lot of strange looks as to some people it does look a bit odd to see me crammed into a KA.

I discovered something today which might proven to be a bit of a obstacle to my aim of getting lots of very constructive stuff done. During my previous holidays I have been fairly successful in avoiding loosing myself to the evils of daytime television and all the dangers there in. However one of the freeview channels has recently changed it's schedule so it is avalabile all day and what does it play all day? Star trek and not just one series, it has the next generation, Deep space nine, voyager and enterprise. With chuck also coming back to this channel fairly soon it's rapidly becoming the next best thing to the sci-fi channel. Not that we're ever likely to get the sci-fi channel as Grumpys never going to pay for any of the Sat channels.

We're going to be having a YSA actvitiy on Friday, a barbacue so hopefully the weather will be good. It is going to be starting earlier then usual but on the plus side I am off all this week so that won't be a problem.

Anyway,

Later folks!

Better then I feared

Despite it beign a bank Holiday I still ended up waking at my usual time for 'work getting up time' which was annoying but I suppose it couldn't be helped as Irony must have been in one of those moods.

Grumpy offered to let me take his car to the YSA conference today which I wasn't going to turn down as I do like driving his car and I don't seem to get enough excuses, erh I mean chances to do so these days.

I arrived at the glenfield chapel at about 10 to 10 and there was nobody there, which got me rather worried that I may be in the wrong place. KmcR turned up fairly soon though and let everybody in. We then waited with baited breath to see how many people would turn up. People slowly began to trickle in until everyone arrived who was going to. 15 people in total, that's right a massive 15. However 4 of these came from March Branch which is at the far end of the Stake so we were quite pleased about that. Everybody else came from Loughborough. There were no YSA from any of the Leicester wards which did confuse a couple of people as they wanted to know why we were meeting in a building which didn't 'belong' to anyone there.

After waiting for half an hour for our speaker for the devotional to turn up we managed to find out that no one was coming. So we decided to have a quick opening which featured some singing which I'm sure we'd all rather forget about and we moved into our service project which was cutting up cloths and putting them in bags for use at a school. It was quite fun even though I was having great difficulty cutting them up. It was then pointed out that this was because I was trying to cut using left handed scissors. Now I'm sure some of you will say " So? You are left handed after all" but at Primary school due to being the only left hander I wasn't taught how to write in the 'left handed way' and was instead taught the right handed way but using my left hand which as you can guess means my hand writing is not the worlds best. So as I wasn't taught how to write the correct way for lefties I certainly wasn't taught any of the other left handed ways of doing things. So I will use scissors in my right hand, use the computer mouse in my right hand etc, etc.

After the service project we played a quite bonkers board game which was a lot of fun even if I can't remember the name of it. Following the game we made a quick trip to a local Tesco which had the worlds worse designed car park as the queues were terrible, to pick up lunch which consisted of pizzas, fizzy, gaelic bread and lots of other goodies which tasted very good and we made a concious effort not to look at the GDA information as we knew it wouldn't be good.

We then headed into town for the highlight of the day which was the trip to mega quest. I got a lift with KmcR as there was no need for me to take my car. However the trip there (and back) was quite 'unique'. I feel that the ancient rule of " What happens in the car stays in the car" must apply here for reasons of sanity but suffice to say KmcR was laughing so hard at what happened I was surprised she was able to keep the car straight.

For those of you who don't know Mega quest( or laser quest) is a game where you wear electronic packs and have laser guns and try to shoot at each other, scoring points for when you hit someone, as you run around in a darkened arena. It's been a long time since I've been and the arena there has undergone some significant changes. The overhead walkways and stairs have now gone ( health and safety I bet) and the arena is more lit up then it used to be. Still it was an awful, awful lot of fun and I was really enjoying myself a few minutes into the first game. Overall I came second in both games, my points were roughly the same but my accuracy improved over 5% for the second game, I guess I was getting my 'eye' in as it were by that point. Maybe we can do a few more activies there.

I got home to discover Media had popped by for a visit as he had hired a car for the day. Owen was also very pleased to see me back. A little too pleased as he started to pee everywhere, starting on Media's shoes then he ra around the lounge, still peeing the entire time! This did mean we avoided one giant wet patch but we got a trail of it all around the lounge instead. Grumpy was not pleased initially but quickly saw the funny side.

I also caught the repeat of the latest primeval tonight as I missed most of it on Saturday. It was very good especially as there managed to pull off a great twist as I was really expecting something else to happen. Lets hope the season finale is equally as good.

Anyway,

Later folks!

I'm not crazy, the voices in my head told me so

Well it was hot today, in fact according to the weather people today was the hotest day of the year so far. Fortunatly it was a dry heat as I don't think I would have been very comfortable in church today if it was a sticky heat plus the fact that the chapels air conditioning consists of opening windows.


It did also make me realise that our car park sucks when it comes to shade. No matter where you pack your car is going to be in the Sun for near enough the entire morning. Which couple with the hot day meant that when I went out to the car after church I had to lean in very quickly open the sunroof and window and wait for a little bit to try and let it cool down. Although the gear stick remained extremly hot so I had to keep making very quick gear changes all the way home.


In priesthood somebody made a rather embrassing slip of the tongue whilst trying to talk about a dance which is going on next weekend. The dance is a themed 60s 70s 80s dance and this member of the activities commitee was saying how they wanted people to come in fancy dress. he pointed this out to the Bishop but managed to get his words mixed up, so rather then saying we expect you to come dressed as a Hippy what he actually said was " We expect you to come dressed as a Bishop, Hippy"


Teaching the class in EQ was a lot easier then I had feared, plus I think everything made sense so double yaah!


I got home to discover Grumpy had collected Owen from the kennels but Owen was not 'talking to us'. Now I know using that turn of phrase sounds rather mad in as much saying that a Dog isn't 'speaking to us', but there was the best way of describing his actions as he kept going into the other room and seemed to be determined to look everywhere but right at us.

We have a one day YSA conference on in Leicester tomorrow as it's bank holiday monday. I have the horrible feeling that the fact it is bank holiday Monday will severly thin out the number of people coming and it may well turn into a Loughborough Ward YSA Conference rather then a Leicester Stake conference.

In the news today a nine year old boy has lodged a official complaint with the BBC over their Robin Hood series saying he is unhappy with the series as there is too much Snogging! His mother said that he wanted to complain as he was at a age where girls didn't interest him so he didn't want to see snogging and much preferred seeing the fighting. There's a whole line of reasoning/discussion that I'm staying well away from there.

Later folks!

If I were a monster

Not quite a T-800

Find you own cyborg name at the cyborg name decoder

A taste of things to come?

It's been a bit of a uncomfortable day weather wise as although it's not been really hot it's been very 'close' as it's been feeling quite sticky . This may will be a taste of the promised heatwave this summer but I was hoping if we were going to get a heatwave we would get a dry heat as that I can deal with, it's sticky and hot that I can't deal with.

I'm hoping it might be better tomorrow as I am supposed to be teaching the lesson for EQ and I'm going to be feeling nervous enough with out sweating loads as well!

Anyway it was quite nice waking up this morning when I wanted to and not being woken up by my alarm or by Owen going berserk as the post arrives. Another benefit was that I had plenty of time to have a sedate breakfast and go into town when I wanted to get the shopping.

Loughborough was quiet, which allowed me to get the shopping done quickly. I did hear a interesting conversation in the local Games store about the new Terminator film. It seems to be getting very mixed reviews, some people love it others don't. Interestingly enough it does seem to be the die hard fans of the series who are being more negative because ever since the series started the film makers have been teasing at the 'future war' and everybody has always wanted to see it. Now it's here is it a case that it simply can't live up to the expectations that people have built up in their own minds.

anyway,

Later folks!

Mine all mine

It's slightly disconcerting at the moment as for the first time in a long time I truely have the house to myself as Grumpy has gone away for a couple of days and as I wasn't going to be around to look after Owen, he's put him in the kennels. So the house is mine all mine.

Not that I'm probably going to make much use of that in the slightist asides from enjoying the time to myself and having complete control over the TV. And if that didn't sound sad enough I spent a large part of this evening whilst watching the TV polishing my new pair of shoes. Yeah, it's Friday night and I'm polishing shoes! Something has seriousily gone wrong social wise somewhere hasn't it. And before any of my long term readers ask yes the YSA did say we were going to try and have an acitivty every Friday and no we didn't have one today as that plan seems to have come to a bit of a stop right now, but hopefully we'll get it going again.

Still I found it a challenge doing my shoes anyway as I was having to think back quite a few years to my ATC days to see how much I remembered about preparing a new pair of shoes to get the best possible shine. I know I could have slapped a couple of coats of polish on and called it quits but that wouldn't have bugged me everytime I looked at the shoes. So I have to remember how to prepare them. And did I remember? Well not as much as I should have as I did accidentally set fire to a bit of polish at one point. Don't worry it was only a very small piece and I quickly blew it out before it did any damage. ( don't try this at home kids). The shoes are not finished but their getting there.

Work was good if busy making sure that everything I could get clear was cleared as I am off all next week ( yaah!). I've also got a couple of manuscripts to read through next week so I shouldn't be short of reading material.

The bad part was coming home as I also rammed side on by a idiot who tried to overtake me in a place where two lanes merge into one. I was barely able to get out of the way in time and I'm sure he missed me by inches. I thought they were going to have problems at those lights when they put them in and now I'm sure of it. After seeing several near misses I have the horrible feeling that it's just a matter of time before we see a serious accident there.

Best line on the simpsons this evening between Homer and a Lawer;
Lawyer: You sir are a moron!
Homer: Mormon? But I'm from earth!

We got a letter from the town council today advising us that vistors to our residence we're parking on the grass verges and damaging them and we were to stop them immediatly. Now intitially I was very confused as we rarely get visitors yet along enough for them to have to park on the grass verges. It was then I noticed that the letter was hand delivered but addressed to the residence. Which made me realise that either they don't know who is responsible for the parking or they do and they've decided they have to send a letter to every house as otherwise they might get sued for only going after 'the culprits' and not anybody else.

Nice to see that their spending our money wisely on important issues and not non important things like facilities or repairing the roads.

Oh wait.

anyway,

Later folks!

It's all quackers

It's getting very hard to believe the stories now about the whole MP's expenses row as they seem to be getting more and more unbelievable yet somehow their not. For example one of the stories today was about a MP who tried to claim for a duckhouse and before you ask that's not the worst part. No, somehow he spent £1500 on this Duckhouse ( literally a house for the middle of his lake at his home for ducks to leave in) and thought this was a legimate expenses claim!

You can't help but wonder what else their might be to come out. We've had MP's claiming for home cinema systems, cleaners, for mortages that their didn't know had ended ( yeah whatever) and now Duckhouses!

Although there was also one of the funniest defences from one of these MP's that had been claiming for a mortage that had ended who claimed he shouldn't be blamed as he had simply made a mistake. However he claimed that this 'mistake' was filling in the wrong address on a form 23 times! I'm guessing that this guy really doesn't want to admit to having his hand caught in the cookie jar good and proper.

The trailer for the new Sherlock Holmes film has been released and it looks good. For a action adventure set in victorian times. What it does not look like however is a Sherlock Holmes film and that will probably be a problem for a lot of the potential audience.

In space news today, the Hubble is fixed and Atlantis should be landing shortly. The space station crew have tried their first taste of water made from recycled urine and NASA is about to launch a robotic mission which will be heading to the moon. Now the LRO will have cameras on board that are supposed to be powerful enough to take detailed photos of the Apollo landing sites. Which I'm sure they'll take pictures of in a effort to prove the conspiracy theorists wrong. However in turn I'm sure the conspiracy theorists will claim that the government has made fake images to cover up that the landings never happened. And the whole cycle will begin again.

Well one more day to the weekend then I will be on Holiday for a week. Yaah! Not that I'm going anywhere in particular, I just need to use the last of it up before we get into the new holiday year.

anyway,

Later folks!

Just not his month

Grumpy has a theory about our previous prime minster Tony blair in that he knew all these problems facing the government were coming so decided to jump ship as it were at just the right time. And it's possible that this theory could be correct in as much that Gordon Brown has seemed to face one disaster after another since he came to office. The latest was today where he seemed to let slip in the mother of all faux pas that he believed that the tories would win if they were to call a snap general election.

It's at times like this where it's easy to see the benefits that the US election system has over ours in the sense of that yes although they have to put up with months of campaigning to choose candtidates to run for president at least they know precisily when the election will be and they get a choice of who gets the top job. We're beholden to whenever the government decides to call an election which is sure to only be at whatever point is most advantageous to them! We only know they have to call it with in a set time limit but not when.

Of course almost eclipsing this stories in some papers is the ongoing sage of Katie and Peter. In one of those pointless train of thoughts that sometimes happened I noticed that they had decided to call one of their kids junior. Not Peter junior, just Junior. So this kids full names is Junior Andre. Now if he has a kid and also called him Junior, he would then become Junior Senior and his kid would be Junior Junior. If his kid then had a kid would this make him Junior Senior Senior or Junior III?

I then realised that this was a pointless train of thought and needed to get on something else rapidly. But then again it has been one of those days.

Season 2 of chuck is finally going to start as they've just started to show adverts for it. Hurrah!! About flipping time, I was starting to wonder if they were ever going to get round to it and would just show repeats of Star trek the next generation for ever more!

anyway,

Later folks,

Over the side

The news has been filled with the story tonight of the Speaker from parliament resigning his postion having been essentially forced out due to the outcry over Mp's exspenses. He's only the 2nd speaker in 300 hundred years to be forced out. Now I know some people would argue that he should have fallen on his own sword when the extent of the problems became apparent but it's hard not to feel that he's been made a scapegoat and thrown over the side in a attempt to save all the other MP's.

Now some MP's have done the honorable thing in stepping down when it became apparent that they had been milking the system and you have to at least respect them for that. The one's who have been milking the system and try to shelter behind the thin excuse of " everything we did was in the rules and you should blame the system" are the one's really getting everyone's back's up.

The weathers been also playing up again. It was raining really, really hard on the way home. We're talking Mega-death rain, which meant lots of surface water which in turn could only mean one thing. Lots of idiots speeding around gleefully failing to notice the dangerous conditions. My route home was on the very edge of this bad rain and you could see the dark clouds rolling in over head. It was sort of liek the start of independence day only without the flames or aliens.

Anyway, Institute tomorrow which should be interesting as always. Hopefully the weather will improve as I don't fancy driving into Leicester if the rain's that heavy again!

Later folks!

Well at least their catching up

In what must rate as one of the biggest “d’oh” moments of the day workers from a council in Scotland painted a yellow zig-zag “ School keep clear sign” on the road outside of a nursery that has been closed for ten years. That’s right ten years, the school was even boarded up!
The council without a trace of irony said that “ Staff have been instructed to check orders for all outstanding works to ensure they are still required” Which begs the question if they have a outstanding order for work outside a nursery that shut ten years ago just how far behind is this council in getting work orders completed?

However this wasn’t the only “d’oh” moment committed today by part of the government. Obviously taking a page out of the advice on Swine Flu, where we were advised to set up a network of ‘flu friends’ to help you if you got ill with flu, the government issued new advice regarding heatwaves. According to the weathermen there is a chance that we will get a long heat wave this summer and there advice is to make sure we can all deal with the heat wave is for everybody to set up a network of ”Fair-weather friends”.

Who ever wrote this little gem of advice and probably got paid a whole lot of money for it had probably had never checked to see if the phrase was already used. As it is! According to the dictionary a fair weather friend is;

A friend who supports others only when it is easy and convenient to do so: “I thought Gene would always stick by me, but when I got into trouble, he turned out to be a fair-weather friend.”

So if you wanted to follow the advice from the government exactly we all need to get a group of friends who will only support us when it is easy and convenient to do so which I could be wrong but I don't think you could describe a heatwave as easy or convenient!

It's still not made up it's mind

The weather has once again changed it's mind. Now I know that I do a lot of moaning about the weather as I never seem to be satisfied. If it's too cold I moan, if it's too hot I moan, if it's windy I moan, if it's still and muggy.... well you get the idea. Well this morning ti was very cold when I got up, I mean really cold, so cold I started shivering and jumped straight back into bed somewhat surprised as it's May for goodness sake. It shouldn't be that cold. What's happened to the glorious summer we've been promised?? Oh wait, there's my answer now we've been promisesd that we're not going to get one.

Well I suppose there's not a lot I can do about the weather. Not unless I invent a weather machine or get Engineseer to make one.

Terminator the Sarah connor chronicles is officially dead. Yeap it's been cancelled just when it was getting really good darn it! Still to balance that bit of news out Chuck has been renewed for a third season. Yaah!

I've just discovered that the national YSA convention this year has some 'competition' in that several groups of YSA have been organising 'un official conventions' for the same weekend. Apparently excuses for organising their own range from describing the official convention as a meat market, too exspensive, in awkward place and a long way for some people to come. Well I bet the leaders are going to lloooovvvvee this. YSA organising their own unsupervised conventions I bet they'll be thrilled (rhetorical question by the way)

I found out that Marcus aka smooth who was writting the McChicken Nuggest diet blog has started a new blog. Apparently his old blog was a attempt to earn some money through ads as he was hoping that everyone visiting his blog would click on the ads. Unfortunatly he came up with such a wacky idea to write about for a blog people were more interested in that. Well his new blog is all about him wanting a ferrai and he's basically asking for donations. That's right, that's basically all the blog is he wants to buy a ferrai and he wants money from you to help pay for it. He's even set up a paypal donation button and everything.

It's a crazy idea but it's so crazy it will probably work!

anyway,

Later folks!

Early morning wake up call

Well yesterday was rather a busy day as in the morning we had to rush around and do the shopping and get everything we needed to do, done by mid day as TapDance and I were heading up north to one of my nephews baptism.

Despite fears of us not getting there in time we did manage to get there with time to spare even if we missed the entrance to their chapel on the first pass, as it's really obscure and actually looks like part of someone's driveway. In fact I think we almost turned up someone's driveway by accident.

Still we got there which was the main thing and it was a really lovely service. I also felt really privilaged to help in the confirmation of another one of my nieces and nephews ( 4 down, 2 to go from the techno clan)

To simplfy logistics as it were and as Tapdance had promised to stay over rather then taking two cars up there and I would then come back on Saturday night I stayed over at the Driver Clan household. Now I say simply logistics as it did take a lot of running around trying to find someone to cover for me with the ward bulletins. Fortunatly I managed to find someone right at the last minute so all's well that ends well).

I stayed in my nephews room as it has bunkbed so I got the bottom bunk which Tap dance usually uses when she stays over. Which my main concern was trying to remember that when I woke up not to try sitting upright otherwise I would probably knock myself out.

Now I was expected a early morning wake up call but not as quite as early as I did get one as I was woken up just before 6am by one of my nieces wanting me to read her a story. My first reaction was " Oh look this time of the morning does exist more then once a year". Of course once I was awake that was it, there was no way they were letting Uncle Saxon go back to sleep.

The funnyist thing was the upside down head that kept appearing from the top bunk, as my nephew seemed determined to play the 'perfect host' as was keen to know if I wanted a cold drink, then a hot drink, then was I sure I didn't want a cold drink, then what did I want for breakfast? and finally why didn't I like porridge as there was nothing wrong with it as far as he was concerned and I should eat some.

We left about mid afternoon as I needed to get back in time for the institute graduation. Now I knew I was the only person getting a advanced certificate of graduation but I thought that was just for the advanced bit. I didn't realise until I got there and saw the program that I was the only person graduating in any fom at all. So I would be the only person up there and I was having to talk as well.

Yeah I was as nervous as hell. Still I managed to speak quite successfully and I think I was mostly understandable so it could have gone worse.

However when it got to when they read out the people who have completed the years course from Leicester, everybody seemed to be missing. There was only two people present from leicester everyone else was MIA which was a little embrassing as everybody from Nottingham seemed to be present.

Oh well, I suppose it doesn't matter much in the long run but I guess Brother H will have one or two things to say about it on Wednesday.

Morning tomorrow, so another work of week begins.

Later folks!

Cheating perhaps?

Okay, I know that this could be technically cheating by posting a post to say I am unable to post a proper post today and thus fulfil my goal of doing one post a day for the whole year. Because in order to say that I am unable to post a post I have infact posted a post even if said post that advise I can not do a proper post is not a post I would consider a poroper posting even thought it is in fact a post.

Well I don't know about anybody else but I've lost myself after that parapgraph and I'm the one who wrote it!

I'm currently away from home right now and quickly borrowing a internet connection so I don't have time for my usual ramblings, even though that first paragaraph...( arggh, danger, danger don't go there!)

Suffice to say I will do a proper post explaining things tomorrow.

Until then,

Later folks!

Could be true

Whilst trying to deal with a very un co-operative computer today I was reminded of a theory that one of my friends at uni once put forward regarding all electronic equipment. He had a theory that he had come up with to explain why electronic gizmos always seem to go wrong at the worse time possible. His theory was that all electronic gizmos have a secret 'emotions chip' that can read the mood of a user. So the more of a rush your in, if your having a bad day or just in a bad mood it can sense this and reacts accordingly by becoming more and more awkward.

He then theorised that printers and photocopiers have emotions chips that are twice as sensitive.

To slightly paraphrase that great 20th century philospher Homer J simpson " It's funny because it could so easily be true"

I woke up this morning to find our nice weather had disappeared and been replaced with a sight that has become all too familiar over the past couple of summers. Rain! In fact rather a lot of rain as the drains on the main road had become blocked and that road was flooded.

As you can imagine the trip into work was rather interesting ( glad I got my wiper fixed) as you had the usual fun and games of trying to drive into nottingham complete with those idiotic drivers who only seem to appear in the worse of conditions who can see nothing wrong throwing themselves about the road with scant disregard to the fact the road conditions are terrible.

Well it's going to be a busy weekend. I'm going to have to get up early tomorrow ( no lie ie :-( ) so Grumpy and I can get the shopping done. I will then be heading up North with Tapdance to my nephews baptism. Then Sunday night it will be Institute graduation and I'm still not sure what I'm going to say . Eekk ! I'm hoping that inspiration will come easier for that, that is has done for my next modelling project.

Later folks!

One of those weeks

I've been having one of those weeks where it seems like some universal force has decided not to leave me alone and keep throwing things at me which all seem destined to remind me that I'm not as young as I would like to be anymore.

First up there w the YSA that was saying she was getting old as she's now 25 ( and of course there's social who at one YSA activity said she was glad I was there as it meant she wasn' the oldest) Second up there was the realisation that it's been the best part of a decade since I started at university and institute. Next there was the realisation that Two of my youngest nephews are now both old enough to be baptised and will be getting baptised in roughly a month of each other. It was one of those moments where I almost turned round and said " Baptised? But their not eight. Are they? Are you sure you haven't miscounted and accidentally added on a couple of years"

Then there was the phrase that somebody used in the stake meeting on Tuesday to describe how we would approach a project to offer assistance as a service project " Tell them that we could provide them with able bodied volunteers, 18-25 years old" Did I miss a memo? You get over 25 and you're no longer able bodied.

And then of course there was Grumpy re-iterating his comment about wasn't it time I got started on grandkids as it were so that the number would be into nice round double digits. He then said that then again he wasn't sure what I might have got up to at uni and for all he knew there might one day be a knock at the door and wouldn't that be a big surprise for him.

I assured him that if that were to happen it would be noway as big a surprise for him as it would be for me.

Finally lets not forget that people seem to have decided that I need help and started to offer suggestions of match making(not that I would turn down any serious attempt) ( in the dating sense not the literal match making sense because that would just be weird . Although probably no weirder then making little models and I'm digressing).

But then after thinking about all that I did realise that I am in fact only 27 and not ready to move into a OAP home even if some people at church call me a 'menace to society'. Which coincdentally I once explained to some members of my team at work who found the whole thing hysterically funny especially when I explained what I had done ( or not done) to 'earn' that title.
" They consider you menace for that? what would they call you if you actually did something bad?"

Well anyway, one more day until the weekend and in a slight change to the norm rather then the usual Friday of working in the office the whole team will be joining with another department to do a day of training. Which I'm actually quite looking forward to as we don't know what activities we will be doing so it will be a surprise. Which I'm choosing to believe in this case will be fun :-)

Anyway,

Later folks

And I thought nothing weirder could come that country

I was listening to the radio on the way into work this morning and I heard some clips of a new ‘system’ of learning in languages in Japan, where people learn to ‘music’, by singing language phrases. Now this clips were from the course for people who are visiting the UK to learn the phrases that their most likely to use during their time here.

So far so good I’m sure you’ll agree. What I was more intrigued/worried about was the list of phrases that they think Japan people visiting the UK will need to know ( I’m paraphrasing here in a couple of phrases as I can’t remember the exact words.) Here’s a selection of some of the phrases;
“ I’ve got a bad case of diarrhea ”
“ I’ve been mugged by two big men”
“ Take what ever you want”

This reminded me of the time I went to the USA and was a camp counsellor in Wisconsin . One of the kids said to me in all seriousness,( which made it all the more scary) that I must be feeling very grateful for the chance to come to the USA as unlike England they had running water and toilets.

I declined to reply.

While the row about Mp’s expense’s continues to rumble on for some bizarre reason the other story which seems to be taking most of the headlines is the spilt of Jordan and Peter Andre. Now I think it speaks volumes to the perceived view of those two being only interested in all of the media attention they can get that some bookies are already taking bets on the two of them getting back together. The audience for their reality show on ITV2 apparently doubled after the spilt was announced, which lets be honest was probably down to lots of people just wanted to watch and see if they could see any signs or reasons for the spilt.

Mind you with their fly on the wall reality show being in something like its six series and them seemingly being in the paper every other day I think most people found the statement from Jordan asking the media to respect her privacy deeply ironic.

The most important lesson from tonights institute class? Why make sure I always have a back up activity planned just i nthe case the person I ask is a no show for what reason. That happened this evening and left me a bit stuck. Oh well you live and learn as they say.

Later folks!

Reflections

I’ve been thinking about this address I’m supposed to give on Sunday night as I will be getting my advanced diploma, despite only graduating ‘normally’ last year.

I’m also trying not to dwell on the fact that I’m the only one graduating as it was nerve wracking enough sitting up there last time with cordelia , this time I’ll be up there by myself. But I suppose at least this will give me lots of room.

So I was reflecting back on when I started institute when I was 18 and something hit me. In September that would have been 10 years ago, 10 YEARS!

This also means that it’s been ten years since I started at uni and it really, really doesn’t seem like it was that long ago. Ten years, that seems like a ridiculous amount of time to have passed, when it only seems like three or four years at best.

Now I’m sure some of you (mainly the church members as my non LDS readers might not have realised that) have wondered why exactly it’s taken me nearly a decade just to graduate let alone get my advanced diploma.

Well there in lies a tale (cue flash music and special effects).

When I first started uni I ended up in the area of a small branch. There were two other YSA at the uni at the same time as me, one of whom we rarely saw she went home every weekend. Now the president of the branch we were in was very nice and couldn’t do enough to help us out. He would keep checking we were okay, come and pick us up for church and run us into institute. We used to give him petrol money but we then found out at Christmas he had simply been saving it up and gave it all back to us.

So we attending institute in Liverpool at the stake centre there until Christmas. As it was 1999 we also added stuff to a time capsule which was being placed into the stake centre walls (oh I think that might be getting opened this year, must remember to check thatt out).

So it was shortly after Christmas that the branch we were in was dissolved as there were not enough to Priesthood holders. As the boundaries were redrawn we found ourselves in a new ward and bid a sad farewell to nearly all of the members from the old branch as they ended up in a different ward.

Now like most churches, heck in fact anyplace, church, society, office etc we have very good people, good people, medium people and not so good people. The leaders in our new ward were, shall we say not as helpful as our old branch president. The YSA who did go to institute from our new ward did not want to come and pick us up as it would add 15 minutes to their journey each way. So we were left with the option of public transport. However this would have entailed us having to navigate an area that most church members would have rather stayed away from on a Wednesday night. So it was with great reluctance that we decided to forgo institute as none of us believed we could get there with out putting ourselves at great un necessary risk.

So after uni had finished and I moved back home, I started to attend Leicester institute and was able to finally complete a full year. However it was at this point that I changed jobs in my old department which meant I switched to rotating shift patterns. As there was no set pattern to these patterns initially I either worked 9am to 5.30pm, 11am to 7.30pm and 12.30pm to 9pm, five days out of every seven. As you can imagine this wreaked merry havoc with being able to have anything approaching a social life and although I tried to attend Nottingham institute when I could the rotating shift patterns were so exhausting I found it too much effort to do so at times and preferred to go straight home and sleep.

This continued for several years and then finally a new job opportunity opened up in my current department and luck being on my side I managed to get the job and move to whenever I’ve been ever since. As well as gaining new responsibilities and the opportunities for learning new skills I finally got off having to work Shifts, moving to Monday to Friday 9am to 5.30pm hours. I was extremely grateful for these new hours as I don’t think I would have been able to keep going on shift patterns much longer.

So with a standard Monday to Friday job, my evenings became free and that meant I could finally start attending institute once again and that’s basically what I’ve been doing every since.

Now I know you could say that it hasn’t technically take me nearly ten years to complete institute as I wasn’t studying for every year of that time period but I prefer to count from when I took my very first lesson, even if that doesn’t make it sound like a incredibly long time. Which it is, but I’d like to think that it isn’t no matter what the passage of years may say : - )

Now I suppose I could relate that whole spiel as part of my address which would probably take up all of the time they want me to speak for (and more) but I don’t think Bro H would be too impressed if I sent everybody to sleep.

I suppose the main thing I can say about institute is that completing it isn’t easy. But then again completing anything worthwhile never is.

Later folks,

Too much red

I remember when I was a lot younger ( longer ago then I care to remember precisely) someone told me that there was a a control room where a man sat and controled all of the traffic lights all over the country. Now being somewhat young and naive I did believe this person and was most disappointed to find out that this wasn't the case as that sounded like a pretty cool job. Now it's sometimes easy to imagine that this story might not be so far fetched when your trying to hurry to get somewhere and no matter how hard you try that next set of lights always turns red just moments too soon for you to get through. It could be bad timing or maybe just maybe it is that man in his control room deciding to lighten up his day by ticking you off.

Now all that was a somewhat rambling way of saying that I encounted a bit of difficulty getting to the stake centre tonight for my meeting as every single traffic light I came to was red. It was starting to get just a mite annoying.

Of course I wasn't in the best frame of mind at this point as I had got stuck in a traffic jam on the way home and was stationary for nearly 25 minutes which with the sunny weather we're having at the moment was just long enough for the car to start getting a bit too hot.

It's also starting to look increasingly likely that I will once again be attending the national YSA convention by myself. Opinion seems to be split as to whats putting people off. Some people think it's the cost other think that it's that they don't like the idea of a 'meat market' on a national scale with people only attending with plans of coming away with a wife. I find that last remark quite worrying. Because that means I'm failing in the whole point of the convention :-) Maybe there's a workshop I'm missing? Or maybe as this is my fourth year it means the odds are going to be moving in my favour:-)

Who knows.

I also found out that at insitute graduation this Sunday I will be the only one graduating and rather then just a testimony they want me to give an 'address' for five minutes about institute etc. It was roughly at this point my mind decided to go completly blank. Really, really blank, super empty. In fact so empty if I were to yell inside my own head I would probably go deaf from the echo.

Well I think you get the idea. I'm just going to hope that inspiration strikes before Sunday otherwise I'm sunk. Unless I try to give my address in the form of interpretive dance.

Well it could work! But then again it would probably make more sense then me yakking away for five minutes.

anyway,

Later folks!

Sweet

I've just seen the new four minute long, that's right four minute long trailer for the new Terminator salvation film. It looks awesome and I can't wait! Apparently it 'ignores' the events of terminator 3 and Terminator the Sarah Connor chronicles. Which means yet another 'timeline' for the terminator series exists. Which I suppose does mean if the new movie bombs at least they could choose a new timeline and try going with that one as well.

I've also learned that the Wolverine film has two 'endings' as it were after the credits. In the version we saw, you saw Wolverine drinking in a bar in Japan. Was that Lady deathstrike behind the bar perhaps? In the other version apparently it shows the 'deadpool' isn't quite as dead as you were lead to believe. Which is good news for the deadpool spin off they've jsut fast tracked otherwise it might be a bit difficult to make a film about a character who is dead.

The new star trek film had a good opening weekend, I think I might go and see it on Thursday and unless the rest of the YSA have a massive change of heart I'm probably going to see it by myself. Oh well at least with such a good opening weekend it's almost certain that the new crew who are boldly going will also be boldly coming back.

Work was interesting today as one of my projects has moved on to it's new version. My role has changed slightly but I'm still writing/creating the items so the end result is still more or less the result of my twisted mind. And I better not recommend that phrase as a marketing slogan. Something tells me it wouldn't be that effective :-)

There was yet another protest on the industrial estate across the road from us this afternoon but a bunch of students who keep protesting about a gun manufacturers design studio being in Nottingham. Now I'm sure they think their clever by always protesting near the time everybody leaves work to try and gain the maximum amount of attention but all their doing is annoying people who unlike the students have been in work all day and would like to get home.

Wow I think that just made me sound really old. ( That's a rhetorical question by the way).

I'm struggling with the search for inspiration again for my next modelling project. My last set of inspiration didn't last nearly as long as I thought it would meaning I'm now searching for something else. Which hopefully won't take as long as last time to find.

I also read today that one of my favourite shows 'jericho' which escaped from the land of cancellation once but couldn't avoid it a second time is being continued. Sort of. It's joining a new trend for TV shows that have ended or been cancelled to continue in comic book form. Buffy has had a 'series 8' in comic book form going for sometime ago. Likewise 'Angel' season 6 has also made the jump to comic book form and I think Firefly is also making the jump if it hasn't already. So does anybody have any suggestions of shows cut down before their prime that they would like to see returning in comic book form?

Anyway,

Later folks!

Unexpected lessons

I was in for a surprise this morning when I got to the chapel as the car park was already half full. But I should have really been expecting this as it was our ward conference today so people were aiming to arrive with plenty of time to spare.

The new photocopier had also arrved. Yaah! Although it did prove a little temperamental initially I was able to fix it. Not that I know how I actually managed to do that mind you as I took a decidly engineering style approach to getting it to work. I just pressed all of the buttons I could see and eventually it worked.

As you can imagine with it being Ward conference the chapel was more then a little packed. I ended up stuck in the overspill corridor, although it a slight change from the norm they have actually got some new pews for this area rather then just normal chairs. However these pews aren't the big solid ones with the deep thick cushioning, rather the rather thin ones with next to no cushioning and a awkward gap at the back. Maybe it's all they could afford or maybe it's just the bishoprics way of saying " You shouldn't cut your arrival time so fine".

There was a CES broadcast tonight and so it was off to the Leicester Stake centre for my first of three trips to the stake centre in four days ( good timing is really not my friend right now). However we discovered that there was a certain problem with us recieving the broadcast. Someone had managed to turn the channel from the English language channel to the Chinese channel and no one who was there had any idea how to turn it back. Now I'm sure if physics had been there he would not have minded the improteu Chinese lesson we were all getting and he might have even understood it but the rest of us were a bit on the confused side. Finally after half a hour, umpteen phone calls to various members and the satelite helpdesk later we finally managed to get back to the english languge channel and at least managed to catch the last ten minutes.

We do seem a bit fated with our CES broadcasts as this is the third one in a row where we've had problems. Well at least we got to see some of this one and Bro H will no doubt be wanting to have words with whoever was messing with his TV.

Well work tomorrow and a full week of possible opportunities lies ahead of me.

Later folks!

Their like a bunch of Parrots

One news items continues to dominate some, no wait scratch that all of the news outlets here in the UK and that is the outcry over MP's expenses. The Mp's defence seems to be to do a very good impression of a flock of parrots and repeat over and over that they have done anything wrong and it's all with in the rules. They don't able or willing to get that people aren't accusing them of doing anything which wasn't in the rules they have a problem with the rules themselves.

Take the example of a local MP in Leicester. In one year he claimed £16,000 on expenses for his home in Leicester which also included £200 a month maintence costs and £200 a month for a cleaner. He then had a second 'home' which was flat in London which was only 12 miles away from a £1.5 million pound mansion where his wife lives. Now all of these expenses were with in the rules, as he took great pains to point out whilst scuttling away from the media.

Of course this just seems to be the tip of the iceberg and revelations seem to be spilling out on a almost daily rate much to the delight of the opposition parties. Now I don't expect in the slightist that their Mp's will come out much better but people will probably stay firmly fixed on the government. The opposition can smell blood in the water and their going all out.

One of the funnist quotes of the day was from one MP who claimed that the paper who got hold of these leaked expenses and published them early was damaging democracy by not waiting until the official release of these expenses. I was always under the impression that having a free and open media was a example of democracy and if you had a media which only did what the goverment wanted that was a sign of something else.

Now usually I'm not vindictive, but I have to admit I'm really enjoying this as after having years of tax rises and fuel duty rises it's good to see the Mp's squirm whilst trying to justify the obscene amounts of money they have been claiming. £9000 for a kitchen? £6000 for a cleaner. I'd rather you didn't do that with my taxes mate. Learn to clean your own house like the rest of us.

Loughborough was very quiet today which was surprising. It wasn't bad weather and as far as I'm aware nothing was on sporting wise. It was just very quiet.

Primeval was godo this evening. It might have finally started to find it's feet. There was some good banter " I'm in hell. No your actually in London but it's a easy mistake to make" , the storyline was actually quite clever and used the shows mythology well, the characters actually thought things through for once and the ARC the only top secret government installation in the world with a worse security record then CTU from 24 did not get invaded.

Anyway,

Later folks!

Who are you?

Way back in the mists of time before Facebook existed, we had to find other ways to waste our time such as watch the evils of daytime TV or play computer games. We also only had friends reunited which although limited was fun as it did enable you to get back in contact with school or college friends that due to the inevitable march of time you had lost contact with. Now you could be fairly certain that the people contacting you via friends reunited at least knew you fairly well.

This however doesn't seem to be true with facebook because as well as getting freidn requests from people I know really well I also get requests from people I don't. Now don't get me wrong I'm not knocking facebook in anyway as I do spend a awful lot of time using it. Probably too much if I'm honest, it's just very awkward when I get a friend request from someone I don't know as I feel really bad having to send a message back saying " Who are you?" It's even worse when they list friends we have in common as that makes me feel worse as I feel I should know them. Usually I take a good long look at their name and hope that at some point my darn near photographic memory will suddenly remember this person and the memories of them will come back to me.

However I don't even have this option to fall back on with one of the latest friend requests I've recieved as the person is simply down as 'jazzy rose'. Now I'm chosing to assume that this isn't there real name, but I'm not going to send them a email asking is that a fake name as knowing how irony likes to play with me it will probably be her real name and I will spend the next few days trying to unjam my foot from my mouth.

However on the flip side of this facebook did allow me to get back in contact with a old friend from uni which pretty much made my week.

As a small aside I am now up to 130 friends. I feel so popular!

It's been highly entertaining watching all our MP's squirm today as information about their exspense claims leaking to a newspaper. All most of them can say by way of a defence is " It's with in the rules" That it maybe but I think most of them realise that they've been caught milking the 'rules' for all their worth.

The new star trek film is out today. However with Engineseer now out of the country and out of his new country as well, he's in france according to his facebook status, physics not a fan well of pretty much any western films actually, he says he likes his films kung fu with subtitles, most of the other YSA not seeming that interested ( I hate to embrace a stereotype but I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that their all girls) I have the horrible feeling I will have to go and see it by myself.

Well it's the weekend now. Another end to another week of work and who whole days all to myself head.

Life is good.

Later folks!

Now I know I parked around here somewhere

I saw this in the news the other day. This girl painted the car so it would blend it with the background as part of her art project. Some nifty fun with photoshop then allowed her to be in four places at once ( if only we could do that trick in real life)

I do hope she got a first for this as it's awesome

Well now I feel much safer

We recieved one of the main weapons in the governments fight againist the spread of Swine Flu in the post today. And what is this weapon we hear you ask??? Well it's a leaflet.

Now I'm sure there are some people who will find the leaflet useful " I'm supposed to cover my mouth when I cough who knew?" but to myself as a rabid news reader it really tells well basically nothing I already knew. Well I didn't know there was a Swine flu information line where I can ring to get the latest information on the flu. Or I guess I could just watch a news programme where they all seem very keen to take the view of Frazer from Dad's Army. " 30 people have been infected in the whole of england. We're Dooommed! Doomed!

Now when most films are released these days there is usally a glut of accompanying merchandise which covers all sorts of things from lunch boxes to prequel novels and comics. But I saw two seperate items today connected with the new star trek film that surprised even me. The first item was these two guys;

On the left we have 'captain kirk' and on the right we have 'spock' complete with pointy ears. Now they do look quite cute even if they do seem like a odd tie in. But to be honest no weirder then the toy of the monster in cloverfield which came complete with destroyed statue of liberty head. What I was completly gob smacked at was the price tag. Both bears are a mind boggling $99.95 each!

The second item is a line of fragrances that they will be releasing. There will be three in total, the first one is for women and is called the Pon Farr Perfume with the tagline " leave logic behind". The other two are for men, the first is called Tiberius (after kirks middle name) and the second is Red Shirt Cologne with the slogan "because tomorrow may never come" although if you are a red shirt in star trek you might as well accept that tomorrow will never come and you might as well change your name to Ensign expendable.

It was a nice day today Weather wise. The sun was shining for most of the day and we actually had bright blue skies. Just the kind of weather you don't want to see on your way into work. Unless you work outdoors then you're probably loving it.

anyway

Later folks!

Out there even by our standards

Marketing is a funny old game. Sometimes it's really easy othertimes it is not. Take the Da Vinci Code film for example. It got lots of free marketing by all of the furore surrounding it as the catholic church complained about. This probably also helped it be as successful as it was as people started to wonder 'just what was it' the church' didn't want them to see.

However if the marketing gurus were hoping for a repeat of this for the films sequel it looks like their going to be sorely disappointed as the catholic church has barely commented on the film. I can just picture a group of marketting execs now sitting round a table saying " Now what? " especially as the film is supposed to be a bit rubbish.

I borrowed Grumpys car today because I thought their might have been a good chance that I would need to give people lifts tonight and it's slightly easier to do that in his car then mine. My KA is fine, just not really built for passenger comfort.

As it turned out I only needed to give one person a lift and that was Physics who has returned fresh from his chinese adventures. The first thing he said when I picked up was " Oh I wondered who was picking me up?" Slightly bemused I asked him what he meant and he said he didn't have my number in his phone and was wondering who I was. After checking that this meant he actually accepted a lift without knowing who was giving the lift he said that, that was indeed the case but if I was going to institute I couldn't have been that crazy.

On the way into Leicester he was telling me about his trip but Physics being physics waited until I was in the process of eating some of my (rather quick) tea before adding " The most exciting part was the ten minutes dealing with the two hookers". I wasn't sure whether to choke or laugh, first. He then explained that he had learnt a valuable lesson why you shouldn't answer your hotel door at night even if the women looks like a member of staff. Apparently once he opened the door they got their foot in the door (literally) and he said his main difficulty was deciding where to push them when trying to get them out of his room. He didn't know whether to push her on the back or neck would have been too manly and mean. He decided not to push her on the front as he was worried she might have charged him for that. At which point I was giggling so hard I was having trouble keeping the car straight.

I was quite surprised when I sat down in class and out substitute teacher Bro RH looked at me and said " We're waiting for you". I looked at my watch in surprise and asked him what he meant as it was almost fifteen minutes before the start of the lesson. " The lesson should have started at 7" he replied making me realise that somewhere in the communication between Bro H and Bro RH, Bro H had forgotten to mention we started later in the summer. The students who were already there hadn't realised this either. They thought we had started half an hour late last week due to technical problems.

Physics then came out with what must be one of his all time classics. I don't remember how precisily we got to this point and I'll try and remain basic as not to confuse my non LDS readers but we ended up talking about the spirit world (Heaven in other words) and how things might be different up there compared to life down here. Bro RH said something along the lines of we don't know what thigns would be like Day to day and we could well spent our days walking along having deep discussions and eating grapes. Someone then asked would there be food then? and Bro RH said well they could be spirtual Grapes. Physics with a totally straight face then said
" We drink the spirit of the grapes"
" Yes we could" Bro RH agreed and I mentally started counting to see how long it was before he realised precisily what Physics had just said.

I think I got to five before the penny dropped with a resounding clang and Bro RH quickly corrected himself.

For activity AF was running things, I'm still trying to think of a nickname for him, Mr Modesty is coming near the top of the list right now. It was a really bizarre and different activity but I haven't laughed so hard at a activity in a long time. AF had basically borrowed a parachute from his Mum's school/playgroup, you know the kind I mean one of these multi-coloured ones with handles which I think I last used back when I was in primary school, and he proceeded to run all these games involving the group and this parachute. It was utterly mad but also utterly funny.

I think I might well put him on the list to run an activity again.

anyway,

Later folks

What?

So with all the problems facing the world today you would expect scientists and engineers to be really busy little bees struggling to find the solution to that problem which will be the next great discovery and might even put one of those shiny nobel prizes in their hands. Well that's what you would expect but the truth is sadly different as apparently scientists and engineers have created the worlds first race car that runs on chocolate. That's right, chocolate. But that's not all, the steering wheel is made out of a polymer made of carots, the wing mirrors are covered in potato starch core and the brakes are made of cashew nut shells.

Now even though the idea of a car powered by chocolate sounds interesting, it would certainly make cleaning up any spilled fuel a lot easier you have to wonder how the heck they came up with this. Even if they had a brief to come up with a more ecological race car which one of them sat there and suggested to try building a engine that runs on chocolate?

In this weeks "possibly the most completely pointless survey we could do" survey a magazine has found that men want to sing proper 'Macho' hymns in church and feel uncomfortable with hugging, sitting in circles, holding hands, discussing their feelings, didn't like having flowers or banners in the church and really disliked dancing. Well I guess that means we should cancel the EQ lesson where we were going to do the hokey cokey, followed by a group hug and flower arranging whilst we talk about our deep feelings.

Seriously they needed a survey to tell them men don't like sitting in groups talking about their feelings? It sounds like some people need to get out more. Or less.

Getting into work took slightly longer then normal as it took longer then normal to get out of geektown due to a rather bad accident in like the worst possible place as i think it's about the one place in that part of town where there's no road to bypass that point. The police who were there trying to direct traffic did not look like they were having a fun morning.

We spent some of this morning talking in code in the office as we were aware that some people have been to wolverine and some people haven't. So those of us who had were trying to have a conversation on another level compared to those that hadn't so we didn't give anything away. Now I think we were successful unless it turns out someone was talking about a different film entirely. Which we won't worry about too much unless it was one of the high school musicals then that would just be even more scary then the most scary film you ever did see.

Well Institute tomorrow. The second night of my reign of terror.... Erhhh I meant power.... ehhh I mean horror..... I mean being in charge, yes that right being in charge, as that sounds less creepy then anything else.

anyway,

Later folks!

Y is for

Quality control, quality control wherefore art thou quality control? The supermarket chain Morrisons had been left slightly red faced by a set of childrens blocks they have been stocking. On each side of the blocks was a letter with a picture, i.e A is for apple and so forth. However although the pictures on all of the blocks the spellings were less so. Y was apparently for Yatch , U is apparently for Umberlla and somewhat bizarely X is for Xmas tree.

Well I guess it made sense to however designed the blocks.

Well today's been a pretty easy day even if the wonderful weather that had been forcasting totally failed to materialise.

I got the windscreen wiper sorted on my car and decided to take the slightly easy route of paying to have it fitted rather then trying to do it myself. It was only a couple of quid and knowing my luck with irony if I had tried to do it I would have probably ended up breaking the darn wiper off!

We also went up to the borders book shop and unlike the other day I had plenty of time to have a nice long look round. Which was just awesome as unlike Waterstones in Loughborough Borders actually have a pretty good selection of books. I ended up coming away with a couple of sci fi books and a new book by Alison Weir about Elizabeth I. She wrote two books on Henry the eighth which were very good.

I headed over to the twins house this evening for a YSA activity. They had said they were going to have a barbacue and despite the weather they pressed ahead with it. Although it was a interesting sight to come into their back garden to see AF trying to cook food with what looked like two foot flames shooting out of the barbacue and L trying to spray water onto the barbacue from a old cif bottle. Still I suppose the plus side was with flames that high the foot got cooked quickly.

It was a fun evening, sitting on their patio, chatting away with their patio heater keeping us all warm.

Well it's back to work tomorrow for another slightly shorter week but I'm sure there will be many oppotunites to deal with. Plus two of my projects are moving onto the next stage which I'm very, very pleased with. Their going to be great!

Anyway,

Later Folks!

Is it like a status symbol and no ones told me?

I had to get up slightly earlier then I have been the past couple of Sundays as the new photocoper was delivered this week meaning it was back to doing bulletins.

However it wasn't as plain sailing as I'd hoped. Despite getting there nice and early I had to wait for the Liberian to arrive. Who then promptly discovered that she had left her keys at home and had to turn round and go and get them leaving me hanging around for nearly fifteen minutes. Still she did get back as soon as she did and I was keen to see what the new photocopier looked like (sad I know).

When she opened the door I was surprised that we had got another photocopier of the same make, in fact it look pretty much identical. "BANG" (that was the sound of the large penny dropping) it was in fact not a new photocopier it was still theold broken photocopier which lead to the question where the heck had they put the new one.

No where in the building was the rather simple answer as it hadn't been delivered. D'ohh!! Oh well, hopefully it will be in place next week.

The YSA class in Sunday school was rather large. So large in fact they had to open the dividing blinds and use the next classroom along as well. Our poor teacher seemed a bit nervous at the prospect of teaching a class that big. His nerves probably weren't helped when the bishop decided to sit in. Still he probably did a lot better then if I had been in his shoes.

I then got a big surprise as HR ( the person not the department, :-) ran into me in the corridor and asked why she doesn't have a codename on here when lots of other people do. Which did make me wonder whether or not getting a codename on this blog has become some sort of bizare status symbol for people in our ward.

Anyway, no work tomorrow as it's a bank holiday. There's nothing quite like getting a 'free day' off.

Later folks!

Useful for something

Well As I stated in my last post, Wolverine was quite good. As I said it wasn't perfect but it was still better then I thought it would be after reading some of the reviews.

I'm also no closer to get a answer to that riddle that plagues me everytime I go to the Vue cinema. Just which end of the spoon that you get in the tubs of ice cream is the actual spoon and which end is the handle?

Quite a few YSA turned out to watch the film and it did make me realise that Loughborough YSA now more or less constitute the bulk of Leicester YSA. Social also came as well which was quite nice as it's been far too long since she was coming out to things. I did wonder if she is also still glad that I still go to things as she told me before we had that YSA get together at the Twins house. She said she was glad I was there as then she wouldn't feel old by being the oldest.

Well at least I'm useful for something.

The new star trek film is out next week which looks awesome, although when I suggested it to the rest of the YSA the response was less then enthusastic. Too many girls I guess and not enough geeks now :-)

I've also just seen the trailer for GI Joe which is looking well, a bit underwhelming to be honest but I'm more then happy to be proved wrong.

I've also seen the final trailer for Transformers two and it looks really, really cool. I also noticed that they've obivousily been working to one up themselves from the first film. How are they going to beat the totally gratious shot of Megan fox bending over a car engine? Why put her in denim hotpants and have her drap herself full length across a motorbike. I'm sure that the makers decided that the Job's a good un! after that little brain wave.

Owen made a new friend whilst going for a walk this morning. For some reason he doesn't like bikes and we don't know why, obivously something spooked him before we got him from the kennels but we'll never know what. When Grumpy was taking him for a walk he passed by some young kids who were playing on their bikes. Owen started pulling on the lead and tryed to jump up and one. The little five year old lad, asked Grumpy why Owen did that and Grumpy told him that Owen didn't like bikes. The lad then cycled off.

On their way back they ran into the same lad again who had obivously been deep in thought, who waved hello to Owen and asked Grumpy did Owen want a go on his bike as he didn't used to like bikes until he rode one and he was sure if Owen had a go at riding his bike he would then like bikes:-)

The weather seems to have been struggling to make it's mind up today between Sunny and being cloudy. Maybe it's because it's a bank holiday it can't decide whether it should be raining or not.

I heard some of the the new Lilly allen song today and my first reaction was is she singing about what I think she's singing about?! It also made me laugh that if some people didn't like Britneys spears latest single theirs heads would probably explode from outrage if they ever hear this one.

I am also starting to wonder if there is some national overstock of Magnum ice creams. Not only are they seemingly on offer everywhere, they've been on offer in morrisons for over a month and they keep reducing the price down and down. It's now only 90 pence for a box of three.

That does remind another sign that spring is here appeared at work this week. The catering department has started bringing the ice cream trolley round again. Must resist, must resist.....

Later Folks!

X-force

I've just got back from seeing the new Wolverine Film. I won't go into any details as I don't want to spoil it for Scully or anyone else who is planning to go and see it. I thought it was very good, it's not perfect but it's no where near as bad as it could have been. Plus I thought the use of some classic x-men characters was very good.

I didn't see Stan Lee though. I wonder if this is one of the first marvel based films where he doesn't have a cameo.

If you do go and see it stay until the end of the credits as there's not only one 'clip' in the credits but also another one at the end as well.

I'm fairly certain that we will see a sequel, my vote for which character to appear in a sequel would be X-23 and my vote for actress to play here would be Michelle Ryan.

Which if you don't know anything about marvel that probably means nothing to you.

anyway,

Later folks,

Banking on Holidays

It’s slightly weird that after being on Holiday all of last week, I’m getting another Holiday as it were on Monday as it’s a bank Holiday. The first of two in May. Actually come to think of it I can’t remember why we have two bank holidays in May, I must really remember to look that up.

I drove Grumpy’s car to work today because as one of the windscreen wiper blades was starting to spilt I didn’t want to risk driving in if it rained. As if the wiper spilts I have no idea what might happen damage wise to the windscreen and lets face it if rains you kinda need to see how of your windscreen. Apparently driving is a lot easier if you can see where you’re going.

Or so I’ve been told

I’m off out to the cinema tonight with the other YSA to see the new wolverine film. We might be going to one of two showings depending on what happens. Yes as you can see the usual YSA style of planning is still very much in vogue. We’ll either get the earlier showing, or we’ll get the later showing and go and get Ice cream in Frankie and Bennies while we wait.

Ah, Decisions, decisions.

In the news apparently the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls is thinking of quitting to go solo ( yes because her first solo single sold so well didn’t) which lets face it if she did was probably pretty much finish off the group because as Engineseer once put it whilst one of their music videos was on “ If you think about it this group is really just one main singer with several rather nice backing dancers”. Apparently her boyfriend Lewis Hamilton is keen for her to leave the group as he doesn’t like the outfits or the raunchy outfits she wears. Hmmm, if you had a problem with that it doesn’t rather beg the question why did he decide to start going out with one of the Dolls in the first place. It’s not like he didn’t know in advance what they were like? Of course most men would likely just tell mr Hamilton there in response to his gripes that he should shut up whinging and be happy he’s dating one of the pussycat Dolls at all!

In the USA if I understand this correctly there about to announce the fall schedules for a lot of networks and this is where people find out if their favourite shows are returning. Looking at what on’s ‘offer’ as it were it made me realise that the amount of sci-fi on TV is starting to decrease rapidly.

Battlestar galactica is gone and there is nothing on the horizon that seems capable of picking up the torch as it were. The third Stargate series might but I think it’s going to suffer from the inevitable comparisons and accusations of stealing from BSG.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor chronicles is looking almost certain for the chop but at least the season finale gave a more definitive ending then most shows get. Dollhouse is apparently classic Joss whedon which as well as being its strength might also be it’s downfall as too many non geeks can’t understand it.

Fringe is apparently chugging along but doesn’t seem to be getting much attention and the least said about Heroes the better. It went from being must see and talk about TV to never mentioned TV. Unless there’s a drastic change I don’t see it getting another series.

Medium is buried in the deepest darkest depths of the BBC Schedule where only people on night shifts, insomniacs and students will ever see it. Supernatural does a little better over on ITV3 but not by much.

Lost is getting well and truly lost. I don’t care what the writers of that show claim, I don’t believe for a moment they got to where they are in the storyline having planned it from the start of the first season and chuck seems like it’s going to be chucked ( okay, enough with the awful puns I promise).

The outlook is a little brighter for UK sci-fi. Doctor who continues to do well although whether or not it’s currently popularity continues when it changes Doctor’s remains to be seen. Primeval is improving but it’s still far below it’s potential and Ashes to Ashes continues to chug along with it’s gloriously politically incorrect humour. Survivors is coming back for a 2nd series but I would say due to obvious reason’s it’s unlikely to get shown anytime soon. Torchwood also improves but it's main problem is the quite baffling amount of time between series.

Demons is almost certain not to come back, which is good in it’s way as even with a overhaul I think it would have still struggled. The central idea just couldn’t work in the constraints it’s time slot placed upon it. It’s hard to take the bad guys seriously when they can spend more then two minutes in the company of the infinitely annoying Ruby character and not kill her.

And on that note I’ll end it there,

Later folks