Call of Cthulhu : Prologue

Six years.

Six years since I entered that house in Boston. Six years since I was taken to Arkham Asylum suffering from acute schizophrenia and total amnesia. Six years missing from my life.

I remember the beat cops calling me to the house – I think I’d picked up something of a reputation as a hotshot detective. Five cases cracked in quick succession. Maybe they thought that joining them in the pouring rain that night would bring me down a peg or two. Maybe there was something more to it.

The house was owned by a religious cult. They been there for a few months, and there’d been plenty of complaints about them. Petty thefts and harassment of neighbors, strange lights in the night, chanting, music and, most disturbing of all, screams. When gunshots were reported, they couldn’t be ignored any longer.

I entered the house by the side door. It was a mess. Paper peeling from the walls, splintered floorboards, books and papers strewn all over. I made my way upstairs to find the first of many horrors of that night. A dormitory where five or six of the cultists had committed suicide. Poison it looked like. Their bodies all shared the same tattoos and scars, carved into their flesh.

In one of the rooms at the front of the house, one of the cultists was still alive. He appeared to recognize me and called my name as he stood up in front of the window. Before I could say anything, one of the cops outside shot him, spraying me with his blood. More death. More horror.

Downstairs, I found another room. On the walls were pinned a series of photographs of the same man. I felt my heart beginning to race as I recognized the face in the pictures. It was my own. Why were they watching me? What was happening here?

I found a cellar door leading down into the darkness and I could hear screams coming from below. The stairs collapsed behind me as I made my way through a makeshift tunnel to what looked like a morgue. More bodies were in evidence, and from their wounds it looked as though they had been …. experimented on.

Further down, I found somebody alive … barely. He was strapped to a slab, with tubes leading away from his body towards tanks. With mounting horror, I realized that the tanks contained his internal organs, his brain, his lights, his heart still beating. What in the name of god had they done to him. Electricity flickered and danced around him, and after a while the poor wretch was finally dead. I retrieved a green crystal from what looked like some sort of control panel in front of the slab.

The final room contained another control panel amidst some alien machinery. I felt strangely compelled to place the crystal in an empty slot and then operate the controls … 

Time slowed. Unimaginably bright lights shone from the machinery. I covered my eyes with my hands, but still I saw … things that I hesitate to describe. Creatures. Rugose cones, ten feet high, with tentacles. Horrors from beyond the stars …

Oblivion.

 "We eventually found him by following the sound of his screams -- I'd never heard anything like that before, and I hope I never hear anything like it again. When I first saw him lying there, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I've never seen a human being so drained of life, yet still breathing...he just kept chanting some strange words over and over again. It took three of us just to subdue him enough to carry him outside" – Robert Armstrong

 

 

Sweepies

Well, I'm just playing with the new preview of the flock browser. It's based on the firefox kernal, but it has in built support for del.icio.us bookmarks, flickr pictures and its own blogging tool. It's a bit wobbly as yet - it won't download previous posts for editing yet, but I think that it's worth keeping an eye on. I particularly like the flickr toolbar that displays all of your flickr images as thumbnails in the blog tool so that you can just drag them into your post when you need them.

I've had a couple of days off this week with one trip to Birmingham on Wednesday, where I managed to get loads done. Thursday afternoon was spent at Ikea, and it was a little bit stressful - there were clowns posted at the entrance for some reason, and half way round I started panicing because I thought we were going in circles and were doomed to wander amongst the showrooms for an eternity. Still, at least Jan got the office chair she wanted as well as a sort of shelf thingy to go over the bed, and I had fish and chips for lunch as a treat. Yaybo! Friday was Meadowhall day, and we completely failed to get the teapot that was the whole purpose of the trip, but instead we came back with chinese food, bodyshop deoderant and a Teen Titans comic for Jamie.

I played a bit more of Thief : Deadly Shadows, and after escaping from Pavelock prison and retrieving all of my thieving gear I found that I had been framed for a murder and now had telepathic assassins tracking me down. Hmmm, wasn't expecting that.

This morning though, saw the long awaited Call of Cthulhu : Deadly Shadows drop through the door and after doing the hoovering I've played through the prologue. Bloody hell, it's scary stuff. There are none of the usual first person health displays or numbers on the screen - everything you need to know is communicated by what you see. As you get injured, you see blood splatters and you start shaking and slowing down. More importantly though, as anyone who knows anything about the Cthulhu mythos will tell you, is your fragile grasp on reality - as the horror unfolds and your sanity is drained, the screen starts to blur and distort, the controller pulses in time with your heart beat, and the sound is muffled so that you can just hear your breathing. I think this is one to play at night time for best effect. Even on a short play, this game gets my highest rating of ACEBEST. I feel another gaming journal coming on ...

Lost Rhapsody

From b3ta.com this week, comes this very silly little flash movie for fans of Lost …

Flock

This is just a test of the flock blogging tool

Harry Potter Fiction

For them's that's interested Alicia has posted the first chapter of her new Harry Potter fan fiction - A Most Interesting Contradiction. Please let her know if you like it, and I'll nag her to get on with the next bit ...

Rate My Life

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	9.4
Mind:	8.4
Body:	7.8
Spirit:	8.1
Friends/Family:	6.7
Love:	9.1
Finance:	9.4
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

Sexual Identity

According to this rather intriguing test, I appear to be a well balanced individual … 

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 4  Part 5  Part 6  The scale below is an indication of where you fall in the male-female brain continuum. The results are based on the angles, spot the difference, 3D shapes and words tasks. Bear in mind that your performance may be affected by many factors in addition to gender, like age and intelligence. Your personal brain score: Average score for MEN who've taken this survey: Average score for WOMEN who've taken this survey:

Lump it or lump it

After three trips to the doctor and two courses of antibiotics, a trip to the dental hospital has finally uncovered the reason for the lump on the inside of my lower lip – a blocked saliva gland. Apparently I should get an appointment to have it removed within a month, which is a huge relief.

Fencing last night was ACEBEST fun again, although we are now in desperate need of a bigger venue given the size of the class now. We barely have enough room to get everybody in a circle to do the salute, never mind to allow everybody to drill at the same time. Still, it was all good fun with another potential recruit showing up, and the two newbies being introduced to the delights of British Bulldog with swords (and Andrew with the spoon of doom).

Today was a trip to Barnsley, so Jamie and me could go swimming whilst Jan and Alicia hit the flea markets. Good fun, but tiring, and I was flagging by the time it came to take Barney out in the pouring rain. Birmingham tomorrow … groan.

Vice City : Finished

After twenty or so restarts, I managed to beat the final mission in Vice City – an extended shoot out, shamelessly cribbed from the end sequence of the movie Scarface. It was a frustrating experience, not least due to the inadequacies of the auto aiming system when you are close to a wall inside and also to the ridiculous number of respawning mafia goons that you have to kill before triggering the next arbitrary cut scene. The game Mercenaries showed a workable movement and firing control mechanism for a third person action game, and it is only in San Andreas that the GTA series starts to match that.

Still, the game was a good experience in many ways – the definitive 80s soundtrack and style, the excellent voice acting in the cut scenes – particularly Ray Liotta as the anti hero Tommy Vercetti, and the open ended freedom of driving through a sun (or on occasion, rain) drenched Miami.

Thief : Deadly Shadows is next on the list to play, although in a moment of weakness I have preordered Call of Cthulhu which is due out next week.

 

The Mad, The Bad and The Dangerous

I have lost count of the number of times that I have seen John Otway playing live – in venues as diverse as smoky student union bars to an old time music hall to the rather grand Sheffield City Hall, with any number of festivals (folk and hippy) in between. I’ve seen him playing solo, as a duo and with his big band, and tonight's show at the Boardwalk was a collaboration between Otway, his partner in crime Richard Holgarth, Wilko Johnson and the Hamsters. Exactly which of them is mad, bad or dangerous is left as an exercise for the reader.

The show kicked off in traditional style with (as he delights in pointing out) Otway’s first hit – ‘Mull of Kintyre’ was number one, ‘Grandma we love you’ was number eight and ‘Cor Baby that’s Really Free!’ stormed the charts at number twenty-seven – and there were the usual death defying somersaults and pratfalls on the stage. The hit was followed by the B side (which sold exactly the same number as the A side), and then a few more from  a chart career spanning twenty five years before ‘You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet’ when the duo of Otway and Holgarth were joined on stage by Wilko Johnson and his band.

In contrast to Otway, Wilko’s R’n’B set was as tight as a snare drum, as he stalked the stage like a velociraptor with laser beam eyes unleashing staccato machine gun guitar riffs at the audience. Even a broken string didn’t stop him as he calmly re-strung the guitar whilst the drummer and bass player filled in with an extended riff. He was technically good, but lacking something vital – the interaction with the audience between the songs was limited to ‘One-Two-Three-Four’ and ‘nkyou’ to finish with.

After a short interval, Otway was back on stage for another set with the highlight being a performance of ‘Body Talk’ complete with theramin and drum pads in all of the pockets of his jeans (front and back) so that he could literally play a drum solo by hitting himself. Pure musical and comedy genius. It was then the Hamsters turn to join Otway in order to play his second hit, seeing as how they haven’t had a hit of their own, and so ‘Bunsen Burner’ was performed, complete with disco dance moves.

Compared to Wilko, the Hamsters are a little looser, a little dirtier and a whole lot more fun. They play a blues rock style, very reminiscent of early ZZ Top, and it is blisteringly good. One or two of their own numbers were a little weak, but things stepped up a gear towards the end of the set when they played a godlike version of the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ and ‘All Along the Watchtower’ followed by ‘Sharp Dressed Man’ where Slim and his bassist left the stage and proceeded through the audience still playing their guitars lit up with multi-coloured LEDs.

The show finished with everybody on stage for a superb version of ‘Born to be Wild’ and an encore of ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’ for Wilko’s bassist who had played on that particular million selling number one. I was hoarse from singing, my ears were ringing from the noise and even the drizzle outside couldn’t dampen what had been a superb evenings entertainment. Live music really doesn’t get any better than this …

Tour details available at http://www.madbaddangerous.co.uk/gigs.html

 

Pingucam

This pingucam does what it says on the tin. The image link for konfabulator widgets is http://antarctica.martingrund.de/ohig-pingi-z.jpg

Shamelessly borrowed from Creepy Lesbo 

Now, why am I not surprised at this result ...

You're Rupert Giles. You're old-fashioned and you
love books. Doing the right thing is very
important to you.

Which Buffy character are you?
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Up close and personal

Fencing today was mostly about close measure techniques, so we've lots of fun with pommelling, quillion strikes, disarms and some nasty little wrist mangling tricks. I was demo bunny for the day, so I was up close and personal with a sweaty prof for some real mano-a-mano action. The best thing was a nick on the shoulder from the prof's semi sharp, so I have a real life genuine duelling scar at last!

Right, now we're off out to see John Otway ...

The Caper Club

Based upstairs in the ultra trendy Takapuna bar at the end of West Street, the Caper Club is a regular event now running on the first and third Wednesdays of each month. The room looks like the inside of a Turkish brothel (not that I know what a Turkish brothel looks like and anyone who says I do is lying) and the stage is shoe-horned into the middle of a somewhat cramped seating area. Still, we got some good seats and settled down for the show.

The compere is Anthony J Brown and he handled the usual mix of drunk students and one or two leary hecklers with aplomb. He’s not quite up to the level of Toby Foster at the Lescar, but he was pretty good nonetheless. There was a good amount of audience participation with a round of the yes/no game and a caption competition to win tickets for future shows. My entry for the caption to a picture of Ken Clarke and David Cameron was a not very original “Do you know the Tories are screwed?” “No, but if you hum it. I’ll sing it”, but at least it didn’t get booed.

The first act was Stanley Knife – it was only a matter of time before somebody came up with a chav standup character and this is it. He bounded on stage with a very upfront and aggressive style and the material was well observed on the whole, although Jan reckoned that his Sheffield accent was not very convincing. I overheard some people who had seen his act before complaining that he hadn’t added much to the routine, so there is a danger of him being a one note character. Funny once, I guess.

Next up was Mike Newell, a much more traditional and laconic standup who went down well with the largely student crowd near the front. He took a few minutes to get warmed up, but then came up with some good observational material. Nothing revolutionary or outstanding but worth seeing, I would say.

Finally was the headline act, the mighty Richard Herrings. He really is a first rate stand up now with excellent and challenging material. He takes a simple idea and then proceeds to follow it to its logical extreme and then some way beyond until he’s hammered it to death and buried it underneath the patio. Rudyard Kippling (all the cool comics are now doing Rud-yard routines apparently), monkey fucking, trout sperm and dead popes provided the starting points for one of the funniest comedy routines I have seen in a long time. It does require a modicum of patience to follow his train of thought, and some of the drunker folk in the audience started losing the thread near the end. Still, at least the most irritating of them passed out by the ticket desk and had his back covered with inky entrance stamps.

We went to say hello at the end, and I think Richard was pleased to hear that at least his virtual self in the Blogs is getting some … :-)

Ouch

I was a little worse for wear this morning after drinking more than twice my usual amount of beer at the Caper Club last night … hic. Still, it was an excellent night out and we’ll certainly be going again some time. I opened one bleary eye this morning to look at the clock and noticed that it was nearly half past seven and that I had overslept by more than an hour. It was all systems go – get the kids moving, make a cup of tea, jump in the shower and then out of the door by five past eight. Not bad going, although Barney had to wait for his walk until I got back from dropping the kids off at school.

The hangover muzziness hung around for most of the day. I managed to smash the handle on the tea pot when trying to move it out of the way so I could wipe the kitchen surfaces. Doh!. I also managed to update the supplier analysis codes in the database with the wrong values after failing to spot that excel had stripped the leading zeros off the ‘01’ – ‘09’ codes. Doh again!

Cold mornings and hot chocolate

This morning was cold and crisp, with the full moon peeking through the clouds to illuminate the path through the woods, in contrast to the chill mist and darkness of yesterday. I think I'm starting to adjust to the lack of light and I think that I am sleeping a lot better in the new bed. However, I've got a horrible feeling that the clocks will be going back soon and I'll lose what little light is left in the evenings.

Spooling back to sunday, we had some fun and games. The fun was making some chocolate chip flapjacks from a packet mix. The only problem was melting the chocolate to go on top - I put the chocolate in the microwave for a minute on defrost, being ultra cautious and all, but it didn't seem to have had any effect so I put it back in for another zap. There was a sizzling noise and a quite dramatic plume of chocolately smoke started rising from the dish. Ooops. Down to shop for another bar of chocolate and try again, this time with more success.

The games started with our first go at the Mechwarrior:Age of Destruction miniatures game, and I can exclusively report that it is ACEBEST. The rules were pretty straightforward, although the tactical implications of some of them were quite deep. My Copperhead Mangonel went toe to toe with Jamie's Jade Falcon mech and got quickly turned into radioactive slag by his long range missiles, leaving my support troops and tank looking very exposed. I think that sacrificing troops to tie up the mech and then outflanking with the fast tank to get a shot from behind might be a better strategy, so I think this is one we'll be going back to.

On the xbox front, I loaded up Vice City and quickly remembered why I had abandoned it six months ago. I'm stuck on one of the Malibu Club asset missions - The Driver - where you are in a race where the other person has a much better car than you and quickly leaves you standing. Just to make it even more frustrating you have the police chasing you as well, with just one touch sending you spinning out of control. Grrrr. I gave up after five or six attempts, and put Doom 3 on instead. It still made me scream, but after a while I got stuck on a difficult bit with three of the rocket launching skeleton doobries in front of me in a narrow corridor, and a zombie sneaking up behind, and I was reduced to the (not very) quicksave and retry method which spoilt the immersion somewhat. I much prefer games with seamless savepoints at regular intervals (as with Halo) and different ways of tackling tricky sections so that you don't get into the rut of repeating the same actions over and over again until you get it right.

Last night was fencing, with more fun with feints and taking advantage of the conceit of the parry. After a year of learning how to parry automatically, we now have to unlearn those instinctive reactions and instead defend with voids and footwork whilst attacking in the same time. The automatic defensive reaction is a good way to stay out of trouble, but it doesn't win you any fights though. The two newbies had a great time, even without picking up swords, particularly in the game of tag at the end of the session. They've got their first workshop on Saturday, so it will be fun watching them to see how they get on. The only drawback to the night was the gang of moronic kids who set fire to a box of fireworks in the carpark at the end of the road, causing several huge explosions and leaving a large bit of the waste ground on fire. The police eventually turned up an hour later, by which time the kids had long since scarpered.

I've been on a roll with CNPS recently. After being stuck looking for a 123 for about six weeks, I got all the way up to 130 last week and disallowed myself a partial spot of 131 that I wasn't sure about. The CNPS gods rewarded my honesty with a 131 in the car park when I took Alicia to the orthodontist yesterday, followed by a 132 on the way out. This morning I saw a 133 and a 134 in quick succession, as well as five more 131s for good measure. All hail the gods of CNPS.

mechwarrior2
Originally uploaded by neilh.

Copperhead Mangonel vs Jade Falcon

San Andreas

Well, I’ve finished it. Seventy something hours of play and seventy three percent completed. I feel at a bit of a loose end now. It is far and away one of the most engrossing gaming experiences of my life. The sense of scale when flying around with the jetpack, the sheer rush of driving a bike the wrong way along a busy freeway, the freedom to go anywhere and do just about anything. Absolutely unbeatable.

I fired up GTA III and it felt so small, and I really missed the camera controls from San Andreas. I might spend a bit more time in Vice City – I think that I’ve still got some missions to do there, but we shall see. Still, now the nights are drawing in, I think it’s time to go back to either Doom 3 or Thief : Deadly Shadows, both of which need a darkened room to play properly.

End of the line

The city was in flames.

When the court dropped the charges against Officer Tenpenny I guess that everyone just went a little crazy. If the law didn’t count for nothin’ for somebody like that, then it didn’t count for nothin’ for nobody. Sweet made me see sense – when your back’s against the wall then all that counts is the hood. Nowhere else to run, nowhere else to hide. We had to come out fighting.

We fought our way through a world gone mad to Big Smoke’s hideout. He was always on his own, always out for himself, and in the end that damned him to hell. I don’t even think he ever realized how Tenpenny was jerking his strings. Poor bastard.

I chased Tenpenny through the flames as the crack house burned – that time spent up in Tiera Robada driving a fire engine paid off big time. It’s funny the things that stick in your mind – stay low, stay out of the smoke, watch the way the fire moves and breathes and then choke it off.

Tenpenny drove his fire engine like a man possessed. He tore up the streets of Los Santos and I stuck to him like glue. Sweet was fool enough to try and hang on to the ladder at the back of the tender and I wasn’t going to let him die. No way. Not ever. I’m not burying another brother.

It ended where it began.

Grove Street. The hood. Tenpenny’s body by the wreck of the fire engine amidst the rubble from the overpass. I was going to put a bullet in him, just to make sure, but there was no need. Bastard was dead and gone.

It wasn’t over though. The car exports in San Fiero are waiting, I might check out some of the races down at the track, roll some dice with Woozie up at the Four Dragons. Maybe I’ll start with buying myself a ten thousand dollar tux up at Didier Sachs …

I’ve learnt a lot these past couple of months. Cesar taught me that family is more than blood, Woozie taught me that honour is blind, the Truth opened my eyes and Mike Toreno gave me my wings. Most important of all, Sweet taught me to put the hood first and last and always.

Right now,  I fittin’ to hit the block. See what’s happening.

See you around, homie.

Plan for today

• washing machine loaded
• dish washer loaded
• floors hoovered and wiped

check, check and check – hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to San Andreas we go …

Friday night

It’s been a long week, but we are finally here at Friday night. I’m sat outside, with a glass of beer and a blazing chiminea and life is sweet.

Our new bed has been delivered today, so at lunchtime I dismantled the old one, took the mattress to the dump and hoovered five years of dust from the bedroom floor. The new bed arrived on time and when Jan got home we set to mantling it together and got it sorted in less than an hour, so we now have a shiny new king size bed in ultra kinky leather … ;-)

Time for some marshmallows I think …

The final life

Wow.

Twenty Lives is over and I have just been in the final - a gameshow hosted by the uber-smarmy Phil Blitz where I got to be myself, chat to other contestants, sing live with Bobby Hay and answer questions about all of the lives I've lived. I answered all of my questions correctly, so I'm in with a chance of one of the grand prizes! Yay me!

What an utterly fabulous game - marvelously inventive, cleverly plotted, funny and engaging in equal measure. I was most impressed by the way that each of the lives intersected with the others to show the same events from different perspectives. Some of the mini games were a little tricky (although nowhere near as tough as the snowboarding game from a couple of years ago), but the creative segments were a really nice touch.

Roll on next year ...

Up before the dawn

It's dark outside. It's so dark that the dawn chorus hasn't even started yet, nary a solitary lark or even a farting sparrow. I'm tired as well - disturbing dreams and broken sleep.

I was ready to fall asleep at half past nine last night but instead I downed a cup of coffee and set out in the pouring rain to pick Alicia up from the theatre where she had been to see 'Much Ado About Nothing' for her English course at school. It was slightly stressful as i wasn't entirely sure which way I was going round the one system in town - I avoided my usual route due to some football match or other - but I got there on time and found a space by the side of the theatre. I phoned Alicia and told her to turn right when she came out and then go round the corner, and then had to call her again to tell her "No - the other right!".

I got home just in time to see the end of this week's episode of Six Feet Under, which was moving and depressing in equal measure when the final credits rolled and I realised from the dates on Nate's tombstone that he was the same age as me. Vita Brevis.

Work is a piglet as well - I was in Leeds yesterday for a meeting which had been postponed several times and turned out to last just ten minutes and could easily have been dealt with over the phone. Still, at least I got my statutory sushi from Little Tokyo. Today I've got to go to Birmingham and see what we can do about our expenses invoicing. Yet again, we have taken a simple system and tried to use it for something it was never designed to do. What makes it worse is that we designed it ourselves last year, and if my boss had asked for it we could have built in the necessary functionality to cope with our stupidly convoluted expenses structure.

Hope everybody has a good day today!

Birthday Girl
Originally uploaded by neilh.

Alicia and Jan with a scarf built for two ...

You are the Lovers card. The Lovers card is about
union. Each of us carries in our DNA the
ability to be the opposite of what we think we
are. Often our romantic attachments grow out of
awe and respect as we see in another the
characteristics we repress in ourselves.
Society often presses us into molds of what it
thinks masculinity and femininity should be. As
a result, many of us associate with our gender
certain positive characteristics and call
others negative, when if these same qualities
were held by a person of the opposite sex, our
attitude towards them would be reversed.
Getting in touch with our inner animus and
anima, (Jung's terms for our inner male and
female), allows us to see the whole of our
personalities in a positive and constructive
light. When you draw The Lovers card in a
reading, you are working with balancing these
forces. Depending on where the card is, you
have either achieved balance or need to. The
Lovers could indicate a romantic or even a
platonic relationship. Ask yourself is this is
a positive relationship that contributes to
your growth as a complete human being, or if it
fills an emotional craving within you that is
actually detrimental to your personal growth.
Image from: The Iranian artist Riza.
http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/view1.asp?dep=14&item=50%2E164

Which Tarot Card Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Birthday girl

Well, Alicia is fifteen now. I think that she had a good birthday weekend, despite the predicatable and painful disappointment of her mother having no idea of what Alicia actually wants to do when she goes there to visit. Alicia’s idea of a perfect time is listening to records and pottering around, her mother’s is to focus all attention on her new boyfriend’s five year old son before rushing out of the door to a noisy chav party. As I am wont to say, grrrr.

Still, at least we had a good time on Saturday night – we abandoned the original plan to go to a restaurent when we saw how busy it was and ordered pizza from Pizza Hut instead, followed by melting middle chocolate puddings. Sunday morning was present opening in bed with everything being just as Alicia wanted – a Doctor Who scarf, dalek keyring, some books and a dvd, a new digital radio music system and a charm bracelet from her granny.

After a bacon sarnie I dropped Alicia off and picked up some bits and bobs from B&Q so that I could fix the light switch in the bathroom. It was an awkward and fiddly job that took ages, and when I’d finished the bathroom light worked perfectly. The only problem was that none of the other upstairs lights then worked. I could have cried, but Jan spotted my mistake and sorted it out. Hurrah! I then set to sorting out Alicia’s tangle of wires and junk behind her desk so that I could set up the new music system and had just got it working when I got the call to go and pick her up.

Sunday night was a combination of setting the world to rights with a plateful of chilli and the promise of an extra chocolately cake to make up for yet another one of the disappointments of the day. Apparently the chocoholics cake that she was given sounded like it was more suitable for a chocolate addict looking to kick the habit by going cold turkey.

Aaargh

Biddy the elderly cat has brought a (live) bird into the house, Barney the dog has a sore patch on his shoulders that he keeps scratching and there’s no more twenty lives to play until next wednesday … :-(

Robot Dog Dress Up Day

How are you marking Robot Dog Dress Up Day?

A week is a long time

This has been a bit of a weird week. Work has been a bit fraught, with our query software for the accounts system stopping working for no readily apparent reason right in the middle of half year reporting. Cue lots of worried calls from the FD and other pointy haired management types, and finding out that our software supplier didn’t have a clue about the cause of the problem and took two days to escalate it to a company that did. We got it sorted on Thursday, just in time to find that the expenses recharging invoicing has turned into a complete nightmare since project managers have been responsible for inputting their own timesheets and are incapable of following simple instructions as to which days need to be marked as having overnight stays and travel expenses. Akkk.

I’ve also been to the doctors with a weird lump on the inside of my lip. It’s now about the size of a pea and I keep biting it when I’m eating, which is bloody painful. It won’t go away despite throwing antibiotics at it and it is irritatingly sore pretty much all of the time now. Apparently, it is classed as ‘non-urgent’ so if the doctor can’t get it reclassified, I’m going to see if I can get it looked at privately.

What else? My car had its first service today, and Reg Vardy of Rotherham came and collected it and delivered it back all clean and shiny, so yaybo for them. I know that I pay a shedload of tax for having a company car, but it doth hath its privileges with not having to worry about big unexpected bills for servicing and such like.

Right, time to walk the dog, feed the kids and then play today’s Twenty Lives …

Thanks to Southern Bird for this link to a rather nifty poetry quiz/meme thingy in the grauniad

Sometimes you just feel like getting away from it all - to some pure, solitary mountain top where you can wander, free as a bird... but if you're stuck behind a desktop instead, take some solace in this.


The garden

How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
And their uncessant labours see
Crown'd from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow verged shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid;
While all flow'rs and all trees do close
To weave the garlands of repose.

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear!
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men;
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow.
Society is all but rude,
To this delicious solitude.

No white nor red was ever seen
So am'rous as this lovely green.
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress' name;
Little, alas, they know or heed
How far these beauties hers exceed!
Fair trees! wheres'e'er your barks I wound,
No name shall but your own be found.

When we have run our passion's heat,
Love hither makes his best retreat.
The gods, that mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race:
Apollo hunted Daphne so,
Only that she might laurel grow;
And Pan did after Syrinx speed,
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wond'rous life in this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons as I pass,
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness;
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find,
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide;
There like a bird it sits and sings,
Then whets, and combs its silver wings;
And, till prepar'd for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was that happy garden-state,
While man there walk'd without a mate;
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there:
Two paradises 'twere in one
To live in paradise alone.

How well the skillful gard'ner drew
Of flow'rs and herbs this dial new,
Where from above the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run;
And as it works, th' industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckon'd but with herbs and flow'rs!

Andrew Marvell (1621 - 1678)

The Heist

I've come a long way baby.
 
From the dead end streets of Los Santos, from the world of liquor store hold-ups and tagging walls with a can of spray paint. Now, I'm in the big league, respected by the mob and planning a million dollar heist of one of the biggest casinos in Las Venturas. I've got a good team - Zero knocked out the power bang on time, and I met Woozie's crew coming through the security doors as planned. I have to say, I sure was glad I was now packing a military grade M4 rather than the micro smgs that we used to think were so hot, back in the day. The Leone goons were no trouble at all.
 
One or two minor hitches, but everything went smooth as silk until the cash was out of the door. That's when it all started to get hot. I was the distraction to give the truck time to reach the airfield, and boy, did I bring down the house. I hit the roof and found two choppers circling - easy work for the rocket launcher, but it was all taking too long. Long enough for a swat team to get to the roof as well, and bang me up some before I could get to the parachute stashed by the ledge. I jumped into space, but something went wrong. I could see the chopper waiting on the pad across the street, but I realised there was no way on God's green earth that I was gonna make it.
 
Change of plan. Hit the car park and jack a Hustler - small and fast - and hit the back streets to shake off the pursuit. Too many of them for comfort, and I got spun around and missed the turning for the freeway, and ended up in a parking lot, slamming into a concrete wall, totalling the car and setting it on fire. No time to think, palms sweating, jump the wall to the freeway and grab the first thing I see. Drive against the traffic, flat out, listen to the carnage behind me. Not far to the airfield now, take the back road and launch the car off the cliff.
 
Too fast, and the car spins as it slams into a fenced off storage area. I crawl from the wreck, and a cop car lands inches from my head. I run for the rendezvous point - every hour in the gym now paying off as I sprint for my life.
 
I made it. Woozie was there with the money and the muscle. The cops were outgunned, outmanoeuvred and outclassed. A hundred gs in my hand, sweet as you like. Pay day.
 
I get the feeling I ain't gonna be too welcome in this town no more.
 
Time to head back to Los Santos.
 
Time to go home ...
 
 

Twenty lives

The more I play Twenty Lives, the more impressed I am with the thought that has gone into it. Each day is a different life, but the lives all intersect in some way - the business tycoon Victor Connoly has a sister who is a chef, and she is trying to stop a fight breaking out in her restaurent with singer Bobby Hay, who is in negotiations with Cat Wolfe of CatStatic records. Then we have the lothario, the movie director, the aspiring actress, the casting agent, the stuntman, the roadie turned dj and the papparazo photographer, and let's not forget Steve Sunday, the ultimate radio chat show host. As with previous Nokia games, this is really pushing the boundaries for the technology of internet gaming - some of the segments take a while to load, but after that the experience is something else. I am honestly not bothered whether I win any of the prizes or not - this is easily one of my top gaming experiences, up with Baldur's Gate, Interstate 76, Aliens vs Predator 2 and even the mighty San Andreas ...

Turning over a new leaf

've just been playing with my new toy, to whit a leaf blower from Home Base purchased for the princely sum of £29.95. I can exclusively report that it is fab - contrary to what Jamie might say, I did not buy it because it looks like the BFG out of Doom and I don't make 'KCHOW! BUDDA! BUDDA!' noises when I'm using it, and anyone who says I does is lying. I'm now looking expectantly at all of the leaves on the tree at the end of the garden just daring them to drop on my lovely new lawn. Feeling lucky, you leafy little punks?

Lock and load!

A Me Meme

---

1. Name someone with the same birthday as you:

Simon Bolivar
Jennifer Lopez
Amelia Earhart
Alexandre Dumas (most appropriate!)

2. Where was your first kiss?

At a party when I was fifteen - not repeated for another four years ...

3. Have you ever seriously vandalised someone else's property?

No.

4. Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex?
 
No. I've never hit anyone of either sex, unless you count fencing and live role play

5. Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people?

A drunken rendition of 'La Bamba' at a pub kareaoke night

6. What's the first thing you notice about the preferred sex?

Their writing style.

7. What really turns you on?

Jan.

8. What do you order at Starbucks?

Mint Choc Frappaccino

9. What is your biggest mistake?

Staying in a loveless marriage long past its sell by date.

10. Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose?

No

11. Say something totally random about yourself.

I keep an old palm computer by the loo, just for playing solitaire

12. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity?

No.

13. Do you still watch kiddy movies or TV shows?

Yes, at least the ones that work on multiple levels. Dexter's Lab, Teen Titans, Spongebob Squarepants, anything from Pixar. I would not class The Simpsons as a kiddy show though,

14. Did you have braces?

Yes - I had six teeth taken out, and the rest juggled around with braces for two years.

15. Are you comfortable with your height?

Yes.

16. What is the most romantic thing someone has done for you?

Bought me a bag of sherbert lemons from Marks and Spencers ...

17. When do you know it's love?

When it endures.

18. Do you speak any other languages?

I did a Spanish GCSE four years ago, and I can get by in French and German if I have to. Do you count languages like SQL, Pascal, VB, shell script and so on?

19. Have you ever been to a tanning salon?

No.

20. What magazines do you read?

SFX and sometimes Official Xbox Magazine if there's a demo I'm interested in. If you include web based things, then I read Slate, The BBC News, Wired and Slashdot.

21. Have you ever ridden in a limo?

No.

22. Has anyone you were really close to passed away?

My Nan.

23. Do you watch MTV?

No - I prefer the multi choice music channels.

24. What's something that really annoys you?

The grocer's apostrophe, people who use the word 'of' instead of 'have' and anybody who thinks that being ignorant about maths and science is something to be proud of.

25. What's something you really like?

Swords and video games.

26. Do you like Michael Jackson?

If somebody had assassinated him just after 'Thriller' then he would be held in the same regard as John Lennon. Now, he is a pitiful train wreck.

27. Can you dance?

Big Fish. Little Fish. Cardboard Box.

28. What's the latest you have ever stayed up?

I used to stay awake for entire weekends playing games and doing live role play. Now, I tend to fall asleep by half past ten unless I drink coffee to stay awake for Lost.

30. Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into casualty?

No.

31. Do you actually read these when other people fill them out?

Yes.