Monthly Archive for February, 2008

Earthquake!

Published on February 27, 2008 in Babble and Life. 5 Comments Tags: disasters.

<–Cloverfield Monster!? YA RLY

I’ve gone and done it again. The moment something bloody exciting happens, yours truly sleeps right through it without a wink. Last time it was Buncefield, and now an Earthquake that measured a colossal 5.2 on the Richter scale last night at around 01:00 GMT. I crashed out on my bed at around 22:30 because I was so tired, and then woke up at 05:00 only to see the BBC News readers on TV going crazy about something that had happened in Lincolnshire, North East England. Then up popped a map with a bullseye on the ‘danger’ zone and immediately my thoughts were "Oh noes! Bomb!". Bomb indeed…

So I resumed my early morning duties of checking a few forums, as well as blogs. One of these forums was Overclockers UK, where I’ve hung around for a fair number of years now. Sure enough there was a bigarse thread there about the quake. Even funnier was the picture just below of many users all rushing to the forum to find out what had happened.

Its hilarious when you think about it – if a bomb or major accident etc happens the first thing half of us do is rush off to the interwebs! Balls to contacting loved ones to see if they’re OK, just post on forums instead! It’s amazing how reliant we are of the Internet now. At this point I thought I’d phone my lovely girlfriend who will have definitely been awoken by this event. Instead I got an earful of abuse for waking her up! Charming!

Valentines Day…

Published on February 14, 2008 in Babble, Links and WTF?. 13 Comments

It’s that time of the year again folks!

Time to give florists extra business. So break out those Tesco’s Valentines Cards, grab some flowers and show your loved one just how much they mean to you by printing out one of these gorgeously crafted cards.

So what have I gone and done? Well I’ve gone and bought a USB Moo Moo cow for Deena and I. "A what?" I hear you ask. Well it’s a bit hard to really describe properly. Check this YouTube vid to see how it works.

Moomoo is a USB-enabled cow that lives on your desk, and is somehow attached to software that lets it communicate with a second Moomoo cow. If you push a button on Moomoo, its companion (ideally located in close proximity to your special someone) will moo at them and start glowing.

Quiz Time!

Published on February 6, 2008 in Babble. 5 Comments

<—Spam, yum yum yum

Allo! No I haven’t died. I’ve just been rather busy both at home and at work. So to get myself back into blogging I have decided to reply to one of those utterly dumb spam emails that tend to occupy ones inbox. These normally get deleted on sight…so here goes.

1. Was 2007 a good year for you?
Yes. Got promoted twice at work, and have a great girlfriend with a fantastic ****. Aside from that things were ‘quiet’.

2. What was your best moment of the year?
Possibly going to Australia. It was a business trip but I had always wanted to go there. What little I did see of the place I really loved, and everyone loved my British accent! Aside from that it was my close friends Rene and Raj having a little baby sprog daughter.

3. What was your least favourite moment of the year?
Having to prepare to head off to Australia. I haven’t felt that nervous and uneasy in a long time as I hadn’t been on a plane in a long time. That was just one of my reasons anyway.

4. What are your plans for 2008?
Well on the work front, I’ll be heading into part time education come Sept 2008 to study Hydrodynamics. I’m quite excited, yet nervous because if this course is longer than two years – I am screwed. I hate the thought of returning to education, and I hate pesky teenagers even more. On another note I need to think about family matters….nuff said there.

5. What countries did you visit?
France, Italy, Australia, Venice and…Liverpool?

6. What date in 2007 will remain etched in your memory?
The 4th November – My birthday. At work it was prank after prank. I ended up going home unaware that I had a condom stapled to the bottom of my long coat….

7. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Completing a huge project at work after months of hard research and design. I have never worked long hours like that in my life.

8. What was your biggest failure?
Not fulfilling two of my New Yeas Resolutions – To get my own place, and to buy a car. Oops!

9. Did you suffer any illness or injury?
A killer cold after I returned from France in September. Had me knocked out for a solid week and a half. I never get colds and if I do, they’ll last about a day max.

10. What was the best thing you bought?
My 32" Samsung R87 HDTV. It’s lovely and has run flawlessly for hours upon end. /me scrambles for some wood…

11. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
My girlfriend Deena getting horribly drunk on a friends birthday. She then sang to me as we walked home, whilst other revellers looked on. She should hang her head in shame.

12. Where did most of your money go?
Mostly Clothes and Xbox 360 games, with HD-DVD’s following a close third. I went a bit nuts on spending in 2007.

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Christmas Holidays. I had so many plans, but those two weeks went by in a flash and before I knew it, it was time to return to work

14. What songs will always remind you of 2007?
Hmm, I listened to heaps of tracks this year! Killing Joke-The Death & Resurrection Show, a lot of the legend that is Richard Ashcroft – Live from London, and a lot of Lacuna Coil.

15. Compared to this time last year are you:

Fatter or thinner? ‘Tubbier’, because I never went to the gym in 2007 after getting my new position. That’s already changed over the past 3 weeks though!
Happier or sadder? Probably a bit sadder… I miss old friends.
Richer or poorer? Richer!

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Spent more time working out. I got slack in 2007 – never again.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Gaming on the Xbox 360. I played a lot of titles, so I’m quitting in 2008 to make up for lost time.

18. How will you be spending Christmas?
Christmas is always spent with my mother and father.

19. Which MySpace users did you meet for the first time?
None, Social Network sites are for stupid teenagers with no lives.

20. Did you fall in love in 2007?
With my Xbox yes, but in life er no as I was spoken for.

22. What was your favourite TV show?
Top Gear! "How hard can it be?"

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Hmm, nope.

24. What was/were the best books you read?
I surprisingly didn’t read much in 2007. The Gospel according to Chris Moyles was one of them, as was The Relic. I also bought the Mass Effect novel (Xbox 360 RPG), and On the Edge – By Richard Hammond but have yet to even read these two books.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Fray – I remember hearing some of their tracks before 2007 and thought they would be huge. Imagine my surprise when I found one of their videos on Xbox Live’s Marketplace, and then they became really well known after some successful tours.

26. What did you want and get?
A big, nice HDTV!

27. What did you want and not get?
A bigger, nicer HDTV!

28. What kept you sane?
Memories of special people in my life. They’re my strength.

29. Which celebrity did you fancy the most?
Ahhhww, Keeley Hazell

30. How mind numbingly boring was this quiz?
I want 40 minutes of my life back please.

Did Winston Churchill Exist?

Published on February 5, 2008 in Rants. 1 Comment

To most youngsters, the mere mention of the name ‘Churchill’, will have them thinking about that damn dog in the insurance adverts on UK TV. So imagine my surprise when I heard that UKTV Gold (a classics UK TV channel) had conducted a recent poll, whose results simply tell us that a large number of this country think that our WW2 leader Winston Churchill never existed. Never existed?! You’d not be speaking bloody English if he and all those who fought under him weren’t around! After 12 years of Labour rule, this country’s education has seriously shown how poor it has become.

The study, specially commissioned by UKTV Gold, tested the nation on its historical knowledge by asking 3,000 people a series of questions relating to famous factual and fictional characters.