So, what was I referring to, when I talked about spambots and pingbacks? No, it’s not a remake of the song “Handbags and Gladrags for the ’00s, instead I was referring to… um, the following.

Right, your honour, what happened was…

There I was, sat in my comfy chair at work, munching a madras, which I really wasn’t enjoying, thanks to stuffing myself like an idiot for most of the night. I happened to be viewing some RSS feeds, and one on Techcrunch (I think) irked me somewhat, about last.fm “giving” users’ data to the RIAA. Therefore, I deleted my account. This was simply because I hated what the site had become. I was a great fan and supporter of the site when it was ran by “the little man”, but then I found out it was now ran by CBS, and that it served absolutely no purpose for me any more. It was no longer the quirky little site with useful, original features.

I have a screenshot of when it switched from audioscrobbler to last.fm. there was an advert on there for some indie band thing (I presume), with “I LIKED YOU BETTER BEFORE YOU SOLD OUT” written on it. It can’t have been more apt.

Anyway, I voiced my opinion on there, and “pingbacked” to the original article on Techcrunch. Within minutes, the hits went through the roof, and I started to get comments such as this, all from the same IP address, and all within the space of a minute. Initially, I marked them as spam, but eventually allowed them onto the site, after all, they weren’t hurting anybody, and I quickly filtered the IP address. Oddly, it was from a UK IP address. I’d have expected a lot more civilty, and much better contruction of sentences from a fellow Brit. They certainly weren’t as imaginitive as Chad’s eminently cutting and hurtful comments (only joking), but I guess that’s what the anonymity of the interwebs brings…

Wow, I can’t believe how much writers block I have at the minute…

Well, as promised, I got up stupidly early to go and witness the opening of the new Lidl store. I awoke, at 7:30, with the sound of my mobile alarm walking me up. I can’t believe I actually bothered to set my alarm for something like this.

After slapping a manky t-shirt and trousers on, and stuffed my mouth full of chewing gum in a vain attempt to hide the stench of last night’s booze, I walked along the road to the Lidl. I’m surprised how quickly they threw it up. Well, not really, as the only bricks used in its contruction would appear to be the ones on the perimeter wall.

I was surprised to find there was a queue outside of approximately 20 people. There were a couple of photographers there, and some kiddies enternailer, who named himself “Magic Steve”. Now, I always say there’s nothing like originality, and that name is nothing like originality. He walked up and down the queue, clutching some type of stuffed animal he named Rocky.

It was a little too high-brow for me, so I just looked away Unfortunately, it means that for the rest of the day, I am going to have the various incarnations of the “Magical Trevor” swimming around my head.

Eventually, after a little announcement, some guy appeared, blabbed about something, and cut the cheesy red ribbon that had been haphazardly placed across the door.

Now, Marko, of #speccy, informed me that they stocked Cherry jaffa cakes. I can’t remember if I mentioned how much I loved them during my massive Paris review last year, but let me tell you, I love cherry jaffa cakes. Therefore, they were one of the first things to go into the trolley.

Now, at this point, I did my good deed for the day, and helped some random old woman get her deep fat fryer into the trolley. I was happy with the amount of stuff they had in there, they even had several different types of curry, which means I shall be attending more than once.

Of course, once I’d gotten home, the first thing I tried was the cherry jaffa cakes. Unfortunately, they are slightly different to the ones I had in Paris. They’re considerably smaller, and there’s less of the cherry filling. But the taste is there, albeit not as strong as the Paris ones.

I have yet to sample the curry. I shall try this at some point where I can string more than three words together. I don’t think I’ve fully woken up yet.

OK, so I once again have struggled to think of a post title worthy of note, but it does show that in the previous post title, I broke the 900 post barrier. I guess this means there’s going to be a big countdown to the 1,000 post mark. I guess this means that I’ll have to start preparing for blog post #1000. Who’d have thought that when I started this heap of bollocks 8 years ago?

Anyway, moving on. In 12 hours time the Lidl in Hartlepool will open its door to paying customers. It’s quite funny, that 2 years ago there was only 1 supermarket around here (Kwik Save / Netto), but since then, there are three within a 1-mile radius. Sainsbury’s will have been open for a whole year very shortly (on Saturday).

Needless to say, I shall be attending. Andrew D said he will be there as well, but it depends whether a 8AM start will be too much for him or not. I’t s not going to be too bad for me as I only live around the corner. Saying that, he has been outside Lidl for the last couple of mornings, as they just happen to be replacing the streetlights at the roundabout just outside Lidl. He managed to acuqire one of the last 1960s lanterns around there, a fine axample of an Eleco HW something-or-other. Annoyingly, I doon’t have my phone on me, so at the time of typing, I can’t tell you the exact model number, but it’s not a Goldenray, as originally thought.

So, today, I went down to the flea market. I thought it was best to make as much of my last day off as possible, before I end up festering at Employment Palace again. Andrew D was also there, as I’d talked to him about the floodlight which was there last week. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn up this week. Luckily, someone who did turn up, was Eric, and his 50p CDs. After stocking up on these, and getting some classics as an “Outkast” CD (OK, I didn’t mean classics), I headed off for a look around.

This weeks’ market was far superior to the drudgery of last weeks collaboration of crap, and I happened to spy on a few boxes of singles. I was in my element, until I asked the price.

“Tell me what you want, and I’ll give you a price”.

Yeah, righto. that’s one way to put a potential buyer off. Technically, I could have dug through the box of records, found one I wanted, and then she could have charged me £18 for it. Or, I could have pulled out about 15 good ones, and she may have only charged me a quid. There was no way for me to know, and therefore I passed on the available Howard Jones singles (which I would have bought if the stupid cow had gave me a straight answer) and moved onto the next stall hosting records.

Now, although I didn’t have time to mention him in the last flea market update, this next guy was at the flea last week too, but his pricing scheme was also a bit daft. £1 each if the record is in a picture sleeve, 50p if it was in a plain sleeve.

Thankfully, he had 7 days to restructure his wacky price plan, and all singles were now 50p. Bimler. He was also selling some CD singles too, for 50p, which I don’t think he had last week. Overall, I spent £4, and he even gave me the opportunity to take a free one. Worra nice guy.

Andrew walked around the town centre with me, in my search for razor blades and tinfoil, the two things stuck in my head which were both desparately needed.

After continuing the shopping spree, I returned to Andrew’s house, carrying my shopping with me. I, for a split second, thought it would have been a good idea to return to Mercuryvapour Towers, and then make the journey back over there. It had been so long sicnce I was last there that I’d forgotten his house is 100 yards from the town centre, while mine is over a mile away. I blame the fact I was still half asleep. Or something.

On the very short walk over there, I realised something. It turned out it was exactly 1 year since I had last visited his collection, and to prove it, here,s quite literally the worst photo of me ever taken, on February 18th 2008….

You know, I have no idea what compelled me to make that photo public. I might as well put myself down as some type of internet “phenomenon” with the catchphrase “Yellow man is yellow.”

Or maybe not. Let’s hope not anyway.

At this point, I am about to shoot off to bed, after getting something to eat. The new Lidl opens in 7 hours, and I want to be one of the first there. Oh, and for those of you wishing to see the postcard Chad sent me in the previous couple of postings, well, it seems that I made a typo without realising. So, to correct that, here it is in all of its glory…

It’s that time of year again, where I watch the front door expectantly, awaiting the arrival of the postman, and then shedding a small tear as he walks past the front gates of Mercuryvapour Towers, and I once again, notch up another mark on the “Years without a Valentines Card” scoreboard.

But that’s irrelevant. It means that I don’t have to spend any money either, so that’s a plus point I suppose.

Sigh.

So, what’s been happening since the last proper update? Well, you may remember that I mentioned doing overtime. This went surprisingly well. It was the first time in a good while where I’ve actually sat at my desk and NOT thought “Well, this sucks”.

There seemed to be a good atmosphere, brightened by the inclusion of a little fairy cake delivery by the makers of our database software. I even offered to do some overtime the following day, by working from home. This was something I thought I’d never do. It was incredible. I really enjoyed it. Now that’s probably because it’s the novelty factor, and the fact I can listen to what I wanted and know I wouldn’t be disturbed by someone asking me an inane question every time I begin to look at the monitor, and I know that the computer is going to work. Oh, and the fact that I did the first hour whist completely bollock naked.

Therefore, my “high score” is 158 in 3 hours.

Just as I was “finishing off”, for want of a better phrase, I looked out of the window, and noticed it had began snowing. And snow it did.

Within a few hours, it had accumulated to a few inches, as proven by my primitive, yet accurate masuring device…

Andy The Iridium Fan also went out and took some photos, which are now in their own gallery. It still amazes me how clean Hartlepool looks when it gets sprinkled with a little snow.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the aftermath, when all of that snow melts in such a small period of time. The streets become horrible, slushy rivers. and with the drop in temperature, this slush freezes over, leaving the paths about as slippery as a well-buttered ice rink. Nice.

I almost broke my neck going down to the shops and back.

A geeky post, I’m afraid. In just over an hours time, thanks to the Unix Timestamp, it will be 1,234,567,890.

The timestamp is not measured by dates, it is simply measured from the amount of seconds since January 1st 1970. that’s 1 trillion, 234 billion, 567 million, 890 thousand seconds. 1 billion, 234 million, 567 thousand, 890 seconds And that’s a lot.

EDIT: I was only several hundred billion off the correct amount of seconds.

The exact moment takes place at Friday, Feb 13 23:31:30 2009 UTC. I find it a bit odd that something so geeky takes place on Friday 13th.