grammar vindication (and pilau rice)

I draw your attention to two things.

First off, this. From 2006.

Second off, this. From today.

macgyver got fat

I’ve just finished watching the new Stargate: Continuum DVD movie.

It was brilliant.

A couple of things to note:
1. Richard Dean Anderson is now wide. Big wide. Should have a sign on hims ass.
2. Ben Browder is dying his hair. Badly. Should have a sign on hims ass.
3. Claudia Black is still a top lovely. And Amanda Tapping. But Claudia will suffice. And I’m not even going to mention their behinds.

in praise of pubthursday

Once there wasn’t ale
I was petrified
Thinking I could never live
Without beer in my insides

And I spent so many nights
Drinking drinks both short and long
Both weak and strong
And I learned how to get along

But now I’m back
I’m at the bar
I’m gonna drink and drink and drink
Cos I’ve walked here and left the car
I’ve got all this cash to waste
My plan tonight’s to be shitfaced
When they shout last orders please
I’ll be on pint two or three

Ooh must go
Walk to the door
Bash my head now
Then spew up all on the floor
Should’ve paced myself, dear me
Should’ve eaten me some tea
I’ll buy a pie
I will survive

(etc)

arthur dent: Mice?!

For the last few weeks and months I’ve had to put up with Sparecat bringing home mice and birds to play with.
The birds he kills and eats most of. The mice he leaves alive so they can run around my house, eat my stuff, play Wii, etc etc.
I have traps. Many, many traps. Oh yes.

I have 3 “lethal” SNAP-traps, and one “humane” when you go to let them out they’ve dehydrated/panicked/heart-attacked and died anyway trap.

The mouse Sparecat brought me last time turned out to be a canny wee bugger.

I set the LETHALEST trap with some chocolate on it: It stole the chocolate and escaped.

I set the LETHALEST trap on EXTRA SENSITIVE with some chocolate on it: it stole the chocolate and escaped.

I set the COMEDY BREATHE ON IT AND IT SNAPS trap with some peanut butter and Nutella, figuring it would have to interact with the trap mechanism to lick the luxury-but-deadly mixture. It licked the trapping mechansim and escaped.

I set the COMEDY BREATHE ON IT AND IT SNAPS trap with some doughnut put right at the back of the trapping mechanism. That was gone in 5 minutes: no kill.

Last night I set the HUMANE trap with Nutella and doughnut.

When I came down this morning, the trap was… gone.

Oh yes. Gone. There is nothing more spooky than a mousetrap suddenly not being where you left it. Especially one where the mouse is meant to be trapped inside and unable to interact with the outside world. A quick search of the kitchen and I found the trap under the kitchen chair on its side. A shake of the trap revealed there to be no mouse inside. However, an inspection of the insides revealed evidence that the mouse had previously been trapped.

The suspicion fell upon the cat. Oh yes I thought. Suddenly last night he had turned into kiddie on Christmas morning: I’d presented him with a fun present, neatly wrapped.

I figured the damned useless animal had let the mouse out and it was once more running free around my house. I even scalded him before his breakfast for looking so proud when I showed him the trap.

And then I went into the front room.

There, very neatly on the carpet, was a mouse-sized liver.

people think the funniest things

As I lay awake, insomnia sweeping over me in waves of panic and growing dread that I’ll only get 4 hours… 3 hours… 2 hours… sleep before the alarm goes off, I think curious thoughts.

Here is one which can be discussed openly on a family oriented (except for the excessive swearing) blog:

At what time of the day does my standard, digital, LED radio alarm clock give off the most light? It’s got the AM/PM indicator lights (it’s not a 24-hour display), alarm A & B lights, and a standard set of numbers as you’d find on any modern radio alarm clock.

I think it’s 10:08 pm on a work night.

Any advances?

a man needs a grandma

I buy Shreddies because I am reliably informed by the makers that they are knitted by Nanas.

And we’ve all seen the advert. So it must be true.

Let us examine a little photo-thing that I spotted this evening. First, here is a picture of a couple of Nestle Nanas:

To the left is Nana Ruth. I have no idea what her pal is called, but she’s a loud-mouth bossy boots. And probably pushes in the queue at the Post Office when it’s time to collect her pension.

Second, here is a picture of Girls Aloud:

To the left is, er, Nana Ruth.

So dear Reader. Please tell me, because I don’t know, which one out of “GA” is it acceptable to fancy?

m’linux desktop

Like a fine WINE (see what I did there?) my Fedora 9 experience gets better and better.

In the past 24 hours I have:

1. Updated my kernel, which in turn shafted my Nvidia drivers, oh yes.
2. Downloaded and installed the latest Nvidia drivers.
3. Sorted out the slight glitch with my xorg.conf file so when playing full-screen games they don’t sit in the middle of my two monitors.
4. Installed Tomb Raider: Anniversary. It works lovely-well. Good work WINE guys!

In all, I’m very pleased with Linux, there are a couple of things to iron out, but I’ll do it one day. It’s all good learning fun.

how to win at marketing

This week, two shops have had minor strokes of genius, and I’m not sure which one is the better.

First up is the entry from WH Smiths at Stansted Airport:

Swiftly followed, the next day, by Tescas trying their best to get you to buy a twofer without realising it: