I’ll obviously keep you updated on this. Bet you can’t wait.

Technorati Tags: lamppost, replacement, streetlight

“I cremate you Butler!”

FOR SALE: Tumbleweed.

Technorati Tags: blakey, butler, celebrity, died, on the buses, pegged out, reg varney, stephen lewis

18:54 The news is about to finish, and here I am, sat in front of the PC awaiting the dross…

19:00 Oh, it’s started. And apparently, it’s going to go on for the next 7 hours. I really don’t think I can do this for this long. It has started with McFly miming to some pile of old rubbish. Well, I hope they’re not minimg, because if this is how bad the studio version sounds, I’m surprised anyone’s bought it.

Daddykins is convinced one of them looks like one of the Beatles, but he can’t work out which one. This, my friends is where the similarity ends.

Thankfully, the music has finished. Whoopeeeeee.

19:08 The first technical glitch. A tiny bit of feedback on Wogan’s mic.

19:10 They’re going through what’s going to be going on for the next 7 hours. I need a drink.

19:13 The first film. I still think Rebecca Adlington looks like one off the big things from Fraggle Rock.

19:17 How can some guy from BT predict how many people will ring in?

19:19 Oh, god. The first “singing” celebrity. Emma someone. I think she’s from Eastenders. I’m going to open that drink now.

19:19 and 3 seconds…. AAAAAAAAAAARGH. The can’s not opened properly. I’m going to have to hammer it in with something blunt. No, I’m not using *that*.

22:44 I AM BACK, after several hours. I’ve just heard Girls Aloud Sugababes mime pathetically to their shitty version of Ernie K Doe’s “Here Come The Girls”.

22:47 Holy fuck, Enya is going to be on? My world, I will have to keep watching. I’ve just laughed beer through my nose as… er, that blonde woman said “Oooooooh, Pudsey Perfume? Can you squirt me up?”

22:52 Oooooooo, the top gear bit’s on now. I’ve seen Richard Hammond in the flesh.

22:57 Um, well that was short, and not particularly funny.

22:59 Well, they’ve gone back to McFuckingFly. This song is worse than the last one they did earlier.

23:03 Heeeeeeeeey! That cheque isn’t signed!

0:04 I didn’t mishear Enya. She’s definitely going to be on.

Technorati Tags: children in need, television

Note the jingle at the end… is this, or is this not part of the Family Guy theme tune? We, as a readership of… four… MUST BE TOLD.

Oh, the video?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=emRN8XiJMQw (Oops, would have helped if I linkified it!)

And, if you’re not sure what the Family Guy theme tune sounds like, watch BBC3 for 30 seconds.

Technorati Tags: 1980s, advertising, atari, celebrity endorsement, corporate, eric morecambe, family guy, fox, genre, jingle, media, Music, ohhhhhhhhhh what?, plagarism, product placement, television, theme, tune

Let me tell you about some good news. Now, you remember the headaches and heartaches I had when it came to the hard drives in Beastbits, and its other issues such as random crashing?

Weeeeeeel, it turned out to be the power supply gone to shit. Whist dropping me off or picking me up from somewhere the other day, he remembered about the power supply in an old machine that we’d got given to “recycle”. Could it be of any use? Hell, it was worth a go.

So, to cut a short story shorter, the PSU was removed, and slapped into Beastbits. And whaddya know? it worked. The voltages in the BIOS looked promising, which is always a good start. I’d always noticed that while these problems were going on, the voltage in the BIOS was suspiciously low. But still, it never worried me. Surely, if it was an undervoltage problem, the machine wouldn’t work at all. Clearly, I was wrong with that.

First thing I noticed is that the video card fan didn’t scream like a skinned child in a bucket of salt. I even had to stick my finger in it to make sure it was still going. It was.

The CPU fan itself must have also improved. The side of the heatsink could be touched. Before it was too warm to touch. I even slapped a CPU intensive java app on for a bit to see what happened. Not a peep, not a whistle, not a blue screen in sight.

Therefore it MUST have been the power supply. All of these months I’ve been blaming crap hard drives, faulty cables and general bad luck, the culprit turned out to be the power supply. Arrrrgh.

So, although this “new” power supply was literally going spare, I thought that the only way to fix it was to replace the power supply for a brand new one. Off I toddle to Ebuyer. I noticed that they had a special on blank DVDs, and DVD/CD wallets (the large type), so I slapped some of those in the order too.

I ordered it on Friday, and paid for delivery on Wednesday, the first day I was off work. Amusingly, it was also dispatched on Friday, and arrived at Mercuryvapour Towers this morning, at approximately 9:25:48, give or take a second.

I returned home, and unwrapped the power supply like a kid at Christmas. It was going to feel weird having old Beastbits back inservice after so many months of relying on the laptop.

I ran upstairs, and back down again, clutching Beastbits in my arms. I laid it gently on the floor, and began unscrewing the temporarly power supply. After a nightmare disconnecting the lead to the motherboard, I began to piece the connectors together. This is the first power supply I’ve had which has its own SATA connectors. All of the rest have been molex connectors, with SATA power connectors plugged into them. It also had something I hadn’t seen before. A slightly longer (by 4 pins) motherboard power connector. Oh noes! this means tht it didn’t actually fit. The extra 4 pins overlapped the IDE socket. Disaster!

I was about to sling the whole lot in the bin. That was,until I realised the extra 4 pins on the power connector actually detatched! Hilarity!

I could now connect it, and all of my drives in a flash. Within minutes, I was running back upstairs, once again, clutching beastbits lovingly. In went the mains cord, the LAN cable, monitor, etc. On went the power, and fhoomph, it once again had life!

I hope this concludes what has been a shitty period in my computing history. I almost lost hundreds of gigabytes of data. You can all come out of the woodwork. I’m hopefully finished talking about computers for a bit.

EDIT: To the persion who’s just searched for “what colour were pickled onion monster munch packets in the eighties” and reached this site, they were purple. The moster was orange with one eye.

Technorati Tags: beastbits, broken, computer, faulty, hard drive, power supply, repaired

I love the internet. I also love advertising execs with a decent taste in music.

Technorati Tags: advert, ford fiesta, Music, pluxus, television, transient, tune

It is currently in the process of being dug up. Blue temporary fencing surrounds the whole area, and a quick peek through the gates shows that building has started already, or rather the land preparation has.

It appears it’s going to be closer to Mercuryvapour Towers than what Netto is, with the added bonus of no uphill walk home.

Technorati Tags: building, construction, hartlepool, lidl, supermarket

Unfortunately, it appears that most of the “live” channels, such as BBC and ITV are dedicating their airtime to it. We also get the six billion news channels that are beamed around the world.

So, this is the state of play, at 1:30AM… BBC1 looks boring. BBC2 is showing a repeat of “Britain In the Red”. ITV is showing coverage. It keeps breaking down and suffering from technical glitches. C4 is showing a recorded poker match, and C5 is showing basketball.

I think I’ll start off with ITV…

1:32 (ITV) “ARKANSAS TOO EARLY TO CALL LEANING MCCAIN”…. presumably they didnt have enough space on the caption machine to make that into a workable sentence…

1:33 (ITV) Alastair Stewart is presenting. He seems to be getting more and more pissed off with the director every time I see him.

1:35 ITV’s getting boring. Going to watch BBC1. By the way, these times I’m quoting are from the only clock I can see, on the video.

1:37 BBC claim that OBAMA is projected to win Pennsylvania.

1:38 See, I’m only staying awake because I’m hungry. I’ve just taken my tablet and I have to wait and hour before I can eat. I have some chicken on top of the microwave. Might have some of that. Oh, the BBC are still whittering on about something. David Dimbelby presents. And I have a feeling I’ve spelt his name wrong.

1:41 I need to find the satellite remote… Oh, Pennsylvania’s confirmed.

1:42 ITV… Guy currently getting interviewed has a VERY FLAPPY NECK.

1:43: Well, I’ve just switched over to channel 5. I have no idea if this basketball is live or not. BOS v HOU if you care. It’s almost as exciting as OBA v MCC. Maybe. Houton have terrific deee-fense, apparently. Oh, back to the news. This is bollocks.

1:46 Flappy neck guy is still on ITV. It’s almost hypnotic.

1:47 John Culshaw’s on ITV. He’s doing a Gordon Brown impression. And now an Obama impression. I really, really need to find that satellite remote.

1:53 BBC - Jeremy Vine has some type of snazzy green screen effect. It’s touch screen too. I was waiting for it to go horribly wrong. It almost did.

1:58 - Oooh, two minutes until 15 polls close. I can hardly keep my excitement in.

1.59 - 10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 2… 3… oh, wait.

2:06 - Right, going upstairs to do something… back in a bit

3:26 - Predictably, I got bored of the idea, and bored of the coverage. I’ve had my grub,now I’m going to bed.

Technorati Tags: bbc, boredom, coverage, itv, late night, mccain, news, obama, politics, television

I was in the bath, and all of a sudden, I noticed blood leaking from the sore, and running down my nail. It appears that all of the skin around it was completely dead. The hot water had softened the dead skin to a point where it just had to release the contents. It really wasn’t nice. Apparently, there WAS pus still in there, and that also leaked out.

This is what it looks like now. I won’t show the picture, you have to click the link, as it’s not pretty. I really don’t know whether it’s good or bad that everything has leaked out. It certainly ruined a night out in Newcastle, as it was on my mind all night. Bastard.

Anyway. I’m going to start a new blog post about this election thing and hope that it takes my mind from it…

Technorati Tags: bad, finger, septic

I might do a video log to celebrate, assuming I can get the computer to work at some point.I also look (and feel) exceptionally scruffy at the moment, so it also depends on whether I can be arsed to have a wash or whatever.

Oh, and whether I can find the webcam, it’s gone missing.

Technorati Tags: anniversary, Webcam

(Quick edit… to the person who searched for “top gear live will it be recorded”, and found this site… um… I think the clue is in the name, especially the word “live”. I’m probably wrong. And to the persion who searched for “top gear live is shit”… well, I disagree, but you can’t please everyone I suppose.

As mentioned previously, Chris’s brother Jonathan had secured three tickets to go and see Top Gear Live. Now, some of you have thought I meant I was going to see the TV show being recorded. No, that’s recorded in Dunsfold Park, Guildford. This particular one I went to see was in Earls Court.

The day, as you can imagine for this time of year started off cold and rainy. You may remember in the previous “long” post, that I mentioned I’d been at a halloween do the night before… needless to say I was still feeling the effects of this. Anyway, after typing up that particular blog, I went for a shit. This particular fact has no relevance to the story at all, but it seems like an age since I’ve mentioned a bowel movement in this blog, and we can’t let a tradition die after 7 years and 365 days (leap year, anniversary tomorrow)…

Erm, moving swiftly on. We went down to Chris’s house, to pick him up. Our original plan of getting the train directly from Hartlepool was scuppered by the fact it was at about 7AM, so we were getting the 11:27 from Darlington down to Kings Cross.

The journey down to the station was unentertaining. Daddykins was playing one of the CDs he’d picked up while on Holiday, from some guy who may, or may not have appeared on the X Factor. He can do Ronan Keating spot on, but his Neil Diamond sounded worse than me on karaoke ^{[citation needed]}

So, we arrived in good time to catch the train, and had about an hour to spare.

Darlington station is very, very boring. There are a few shops there, including an anti-Tardis WH Smith. And by that, I mean, fron the outside, it looks huge, but when you get in there, it’s tiny.

Chris had booked the train tickets online, so all we had to do was visit a machine to collect them. Strange that these machines were called something like “Fast Track”, yet there was still a queue.

After collecting our tickets, the walk to WH Smith was halted by frantic banging on the window, and a little kid running after us. Turns out Chris had left one of the seat confirmation things in the machine. Ooooooo. Lucky.

Off we went to browse both of the shops.In the end, I bought a bottle of water (to take my sodding tablets with later on), a packet of Quavers, and a copy of The Sun. Chris bought a coffee and a copy of Private Eye. It’s the first time I’d ever seen one of those “in the flesh”. A bit above my intelligence level, I’m afraid. Imagine that episode of Family Guy, where Peter’s staring at a comic outside a newsagent for several days, before saying “Aaaaah, now I get it…. yeah, can I have a copy of Jugs?” Unsurprisingly, I can’t find the clip of that on Youtube, so if you haven’t seen it, that’s tough.

On the subject of Jugs, after buying our merchandise, I noticed that someone had left a copy of the Saturday Sport in the waiting lounge. So, yes, I had a look through, but decided against keeping hold of it, for obvious reasons.

Eventually, after what seemed like an age, the train arrived. We located our seats, and found that we were, once again, facing somebody, just like that trip with Coatesy to York. These two people were clearly twins, which made it harder to even look in their general direction.

Shortly after the train set off, Chris went to the bog, and I didn’t see him again until we arrived in York Station. Amusingly, he got stuck behind the food trolley.

The rest of the journey wasn’t just mind numbing, it was arse numbing too. The only piece of excitement was the recogntionof somewhere I’d been before - Stevenage. On Boxing day last year, I went down to Stevenage with Daddykins and a few other people. I remember as we entered the estate one of the people lived on, we went under a narrow railway bridge, and the estate had particularly old, probably still mecury vapour, streetlighting. So, after a bit of a rummage through the archives, I’ve found the bridge, in Stevenage, where I have now been over, and under…

See, who said it’s pointless taking a photo of absolutely everything?

We arrived in Kings Cross at approximately 13:57. Everything was how I remembered it. Busy, mainly. The old mechanical destination boards, however, had been replaced with the now standard orange LED display. The announcements are also done by the same guy who does the announcements on the Weakest Link.

We were going to meet Jonathan at Waterloo station, as he already lives down south and so got a separate train down.

Chris’s pigeon-like sense of direction made sure that we didn’t get lost. Now, remember the tapdancing busker that we saw in Paris? The one that was actually quite good? Well, on the tube down to Waterloo, there was one that was really, really bad. And still, some people gave him money.

That’s it. I’m quitting my job and becoming a busker.

Eventually, we made it to Waterloo. It took longer than usual, as one of the lines (I forget which) was closed for maintenace, or as they like to call it, “service improvement. Most of the afore-mentioned orange LED signs were out of order, thanks to some type of software error. I’d have gotten a picture, but we were in a rush, and couldn’t get the camera out in time. It was only a generic preset message anyway.

Off we go to Earls Court. It was a number of stops away, so we braved the underground again. I say braved, because I really, really dislike it.

After what seemed like an age, we ended up at the Earls Court tube station. In my previous two trips down to the big city, the weather was acceptable. Today, it wasn’t. It was absolutely tipping it down. In the 100 yards from the tube station to Earls Court, all I could think of was “London Rain” by Heather Nova. I really like that song.

So, we entered through the huge doors and into the foyer. The tickets were scrutinised, and we entered into the huge display area. And I mean huge.

That photo doesn’t really do it justice, but unfortunately, none of the photos do the place justice! I only took my little Acer, as I wasn’t too sure whether cameras would even be allowed or not, It seems they were and I really wish I’d taken my Canon now, as I didn’t take one good photo of the show itself. Bah!

After a very quick look around the display area, we made our way to the entrance to the main “theatre”. I use quotes, as technically it isn’t a theatre. It’s a big building with temporary seating and a stage. We made our way through what was quite literally, the biggest queue I’ve ever been in. It was massive. Remember the one for the Eiffel Tower? Forget it. This one seemed to go on for ever.

Turns out we had really good seats. High up, and dead centre. Perfect.

A few pre-recorded car adverts looped through for about 20 minutes. One of them even broke down, turning the two huge LED displays random colours, and emitting ear piercing squeals. We thought that was part of the act, but no, it just appeared to be a technical glitch as the adverts looped through for another 10 minutes or so.

Then, the lights faded…

More adverts, but this time in the shape of live adverts on the stage.

Then, we got the introduction. On came Clarkson, May and Hammond. Now, I’m guessing that most of the shows are going to be very similar, so if you’ve found this via Google, and are planning to go and see it, then I suggest you click the back button, or something… In fact, I won’t go into too much detail, just in case.

It contained all of the things that make Top Gear great…

First off there’s the challenges…

Then there’s the whole interaction with the audience…

You know when I said the photos turned out really, really bad? I clearly wasn’t lying.

Er, anyway. There was also the Cool Wall. An interactive version of it. You all get cards given when you enter. Red on one side, green on the other. A computer monitors the input from the camera, and can calculate the amount of red or green in the picture. Green = cool, red = not.

There’s also stunts and stupidly impressive car displays, as you’d expect.

You’d thinka stage of that size would also not be able to handle a game of Smart Car Soccer. and you’d be wrong.

The Stig finishes the show in another impressive display.

That’s all I’ll say for now. I’ve still got a load of pictures which have yet to be uploaded, these will get done today. This particular one is also a highlight for me, personally.

How cool is that? I managed to get my photo taken With Jeremy Clarkson……………..’s cardboard cutout! The rest of the photos need to be uploaded, so I shall do that and return with Part 2…

Technorati Tags: darlington, earls court, england, james may, jeremy clarkson, london, mph, part one, quavers, richard hammond, top gear live, train journey, twins, wh smith

Technorati Tags: british, formula 1, formula one, lewis hamilton, winner

I’m currently in considerable pain both because of the halloween party,and my infected finger. It OFFICIALLY can’t have came at a worse moment. See, I’m off work for a week.

Yesterday, after finishing a diabolically unimpressive shift at Employment Palace, I started examining the infection in the finger. It was getting bigger by the minute. “Oh, I’ll just stab it with a pin again, release some of that pus.

Great idea. In went the pin. Out came nothing but blood, and a string of expletives as I let out the loudestscream of pain I’ve ever done. Something wasn’t right.

So, off I go to the qucks. After sitting in the quacks waiting room for 45 minutes, I get seento. It took no more than 4 seconds for the doctor to prescribe me some antibiotics and some cream to rub into it. What wasn’t awesome is the price the medication came to… £14.20. I have a job, what a mug I am.

I’ve just taken the first tablet. If there’s no change to it by Monday, I have to go to the hospital. Therefore, it means a week off work without any drink. LOOOOOL. What good timing. Apparently, one of the side effects of these particular tablets is fits. Things just get better and better. I just hope that they don’t turn my piss pink like the last ones did.

Last night, I attended a Halloween party, which is the reason for the bad head. I went in fancy dress as a Roman. Unfortunately, some idiot managed to delete all of the images I took from the camera. It was probably me and my big fat faulty finger.

What was even worse was actually getting to the party.

I’d arranged to meet at MS’s house. Now I’ve never been there before, so I didn’t know where he lived, so I got the address, and got Daddykins to drop me off. MS sent me a text…

“When you get here, just come in, the door is open”

So, I arrived, and entered through the front door. I was confronted with a woman, who had just got out of the bath, wrapped in a dressing gown.

My jaw dropped, and so did my arse. Turns out MS lived a couple of doors away.

The party was good, from what I can remember of it. Normally, I have my photos to look back on, but the only ones that survived appear to have been taken by someone else. I think it was when I accidentally downed 7 different varieties of schnapps, that things went hazy.

No, really. Accidentally.

I thought I was trying different varieties of alcopop, as I’d never had schnapps before, I didn’t know what it tasted like. Upon my realisation of this fact, I could almost hear Scott Bakula saying “Oh boy…” before the quantum leap credits rolled.

At some point I remember losing my bag containing my shoes and camera.

I honestly didn’t intend to get drunk, for today I’m off to London. Earls court to be precise, as Chris, via his brother Jonathan, has managed to secure tickets for Top Gear Live. Awesome.

Unfortunately, Chris has something planned tomorrow, so the original plan of getting down there, watching the show, then getting the train back the following day has been condensed into one day, meaning that I’m going to spend a hell of a lot of time on the train today. I guess it saves the cost of a hotel room for the night though.

Needless to say, I’m taking my camera. I shall return with photos tomorrow, presuming I don’t delete them all…

Technorati Tags: chris, drank, drink, drunk, embarrasing, halloween, london, ms, party, roman, schnapps, wrong house

And no, I wasn’t the one to get so palatic that I “tripped over” a seven foot stepladder in the kitchen and had to be picked up by two of my mates. Oh, no siree. That wasn’t me. It was Daddykins.

I really cannot describe how I feel at the minute. I’ve not spoken to him since the incident, maybe because shortly after he went to bed and has yet to surface.

He suffered a considerable gash to his left arm which may, or may not require stitches…

In other news, which normally would get a blog on its own, I popped my septic finger yesterday too. Pus spurted about 6 foot across the room, and I think I went into shock for a bit.

SO, that’s the news. I can’t put into words how shit I feel at the minute. It truly feels as if my world has ended. Lovely depression, here we go again!

Technorati Tags: daddykins, drunk, finger, pus

I have an infected finger. and it hurts like buggery.

See, I’m one of those scruffy gets who bite their nails. I don’t call it scruffy. I like to think of it as giving my immune system a boost every so often. Unfortunately, this does mean that every so often, you’ll get a “wicklow” as Daddykins calls it. And they also hurt like buggery. Unfortunately, occasionally, it goes beyond a wicklow, and you endup with a buildup of pus and other nasty things in there

I was hoping it was going to go down on its own, but this time it didn’t. This happens every couple of years, and it’s nasty.

The other night, I was in Employment Palace, and it reached the point where I just couldn’t take it any more. I sterilised a pin and stuck it in there. Oh, man. The stuff coming out of it looked like rasperry ripple ice cream. Unfortunately, I feel as if I may have to do it again shortly, as I don’t think I got it all out. Maybe next time, I’ll film it and put it on Youtube. I’ll see if it goes down any before then.

Oh, I’ve also noticed Chad may be back from his holiday. It’d be interesting to see how long it is before the comments start reappearing again… I miss them, in a strange, .htaccess editing sort of way.

And remember! The clocks go back tonight!

Technorati Tags: blood, chad, finger, green, infection, owwie, pain, pus