Christmas time, mistletoe and overeating
Another crimbo passes and this years highlights were: The Office Christmas specials, Big 'un after being utterly overwhelmed with presents saying "I'm still a little bit sad and upset that I didn't get everything on my list" (we pointed out that he did, but that didn't change his mind), Little'un being more interested in Big'uns He-man action figures than his own baby toys so much so that he has been taking them everywhere resulting in He-man already being missing in action (possibly in a pub/restaurant in Basildon), and the M-I-L trying once again to feed us all to death (she is Mrs Doyle from Father Ted).
Crimbo eve was spent at my parents (see Thu Aug 14, 08:08:06 AM for more details of my dysfunctional family) which was the normal cold buffet and boredom. My stepmum is in a wheelchair due to MS. This my seem a bit harsh but being in wheelchair and severely crippled does not automatically make her a nice person, she is very demanding and makes my dads already difficult life harder by getting at him all the time and criticising when he has to do everything for her. As we were eating the cold buffet she says "Michael pass me one of those mini-pastie things will you" I passed it over "mmnn these were lovely when they were hot" she says, which makes me think why the fuck are we having it all cold then?.

For god's sake just get a room
Last night wifey and I went out (a rare occurrence) to the cinema, while the world+dog were watching Lord of the rings we saw Love actually. Great. I was considering nipping out of the show saying I was going for a piss and then going into LOTR, but I think a 3 1/2 hour piss might raise some suspicion from wifey.
Love actually was good for a gentle, amusing, romantic comedy penned by Richard Curtis. Yet again Huge Grunt manages to play exactly the same character only this time were supposed to think he's the prime minister, wifey got seduced by Liam Neeson's lilting accent.
After we had taken our seats, loaded up with nachos and sprite, a couple sat in the next two seats and before the lights even went down they started snogging and they didn't stop for for the whole film, they snogged through the ad's, through the trailers and during the film he was even groping her tits!. We weren't sitting at the back we were actually the furthest forward people on our side. Wifey got the right arse with constantly hearing slurping noises and if the girl had moved her head suddenly wifey would have got his tongue in her ear!.

Big'un was in his school play today, he was a sheppard. Last year at nursery/preschool he was a sheppard, I'm a bit worried about him getting typecast!. But then again if Peter Jackson phoned and said they wanted him for a part as a sheppard in his remake of King Kong or the Hobbit I wouldn't say no.

Humility costs nothing
After winning the rugby world cup the England team were paraded around the West end of London on monday. I didn't go but there was lots of coverage in the media as you would expect. The players have found themselves flung from relative obscurity to national heroes overnight. The thing that struck me was how genuinely excited and honoured they were and the fact that they didn't expect all this interest and enthusiasm from the fans. What a difference from the overpaid prima donna's of english football who behave like thugs, throw tantrums when they get told off and treat the fans and the association with contempt (see post Sat Oct 11, 10:02 am).

updated template, hope to post later, very busy, bye

Wherethefuckarewe
Last night i got lost on my way to college. I've been going there 2 years so that would seem a bit stupid. Anyway, I was on lates, finishing at 19:00, had to be in Hockley, Essex for 20:00 40+ miles away.
I was a bit late leaving so I decided to take slightly different route, thinking that I was late anyway so what the fuck.
I was "making good progress" down the A13, when some git in a Ford Puma starts sitting right on my rear wheel so I blipped the throttle, wiggled through some traffic and left him behind, 2 minutes later he's back up me chuff. Another blip-wiggle and I'm off again, bugger me 2 minutes later Puma boy is back. So we are approaching Sadlers Farm, which is one those big roundabouts with little satelite roundabouts jobbies, I switch left and as I'm about to change lanes to do a right Puma boy comes up the inside and I get blocked by some dozy bint who can't decide on a lane. The red mist descends, I change to the left lane, get onto the roundabout behind Puma boy to do a right, lean the bike over, a twist of the wrist and I overetake him round the outside and hoon off up the A130 laughing manically. So far so good but I'm now in uncharted territory, riding faster than I would like to stay ahead of Puma boy. As I approach a roundabout, puma boy shoots past me on the inside. I quickly glance at the signpost and see a filter lane to the left which says A130, give it handful and tear off after the Puma. Now the road has no lighting and I'm plunged into darkness on a road I don't know. Common sense prevails and and I let go of Puma boy, many miles later I'm thinking that I should have seen my turn off by now. a few miles more and I'm thinking I've fucked up. A few miles more and I arrive in Chelmsford about 15-20 miles out of my way, Bollocks!.
So I back track all the way to the roundabout with the filter lane was and realise I should have gone straight ahead. So I went wrong because I had a tear up.
When I arrive at college it's only ten past eight, and my trip meter says 86 miles. 86 miles in less than 1hr 10 mins not bad going.

The Climax
I just read the finale of Widowmania 's drunken night. Good work mate.

Over at the register they have added BOFH episode 26 and a bit further down is an interesting piece about an mp who thinks that as a solution to spam all e-mail address should include your postcode thus enabling you to be identied easily by the authorities and unfortunately by any weirdo, paedo, sicko or Michael Jackson.
The MP in question asks for feedback so if you feel the need to tell him what a twat he is then here you go wyattd@parliament.uk

Just been browsing the recent updates again and found the following
Widowmania This looks like it could get interesting.

Your limbs belong to me
Kill Bill is great. I love the explicit violence of Tarantino's film and the use of Sword play rather than gun play makes it all the more personal.
Although I don't find Uma Thurman particularly attractive (bit too skinny for my tastes) she looks very good in this and she plays the action scenes superbly.
The fights are choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping who also did Crouching tiger Hidden Dragon, Iron Monkey and the Matrix films amongst many others.
Now I love Gore films and Kill Bill delivers bucket loads. Since having Kids I rarely get to see gruesome films at home so this aspect of the film really got me going. My friend Mark who lives in Hong Kong once sent me some uncut horror films banned in the UK, all I actually got was a nice letter from Customs telling me the films had been intercepted and confiscated.
Quentin Tarantino is well known to be the uber film geek who uses little known film to inspire (read rip off) him and HK Flix has guide to the films that "inspired" Kill bill

Fair comment
Yesterday while browsing the recently updated blogs I came across bitter angry people and I left a comment. Today I find that the person running the blog has left a couple of abusive comments below and has typed out half a page of hatred about me.
This blogging lark is fun.

IT'S PAYNE!!!
What good service. On saturday I ordered Max Payne 2 from Games Planet and it's just been delivered to my desk. Not only did Games planet deliver quickly it was only £24.99 inc del. Game in canary wharf are asking £34.99!

A bit fishy
I took Big'un to see Finding Nemo on Sunday, I was surprised to see that it was a more grown up film than Monsters Inc and it wasn't as sweetly cheesy either. Finding Nemo carries some serious messages aswell about enviromental issues and about people invading other peoples space ( I can only hope that parents would notice and understand these ). Ice Age is still my favourite CGI film though by long stretch.
In keeping with the trend, Finding Nemo has a short CGI film before it called Knick Knack. This was also very good and I particularly liked the bouncy music, which I noticed accompanying an ad for Flash cleaning products on telly last night. These Flash ad's make me laugh as it's always the bloke who does the cleaning and the floor/ kitchen/ bathroom is always filthy which just makes think his wife must be some dirty lazy bitch, but she always gives him a look at the end which suggests that she's going to give him a nosh as a reward.

No near death experiences today (so far, I haven't left work yet!).
Yesterday was my birthday. I was 39. I was hoping to leave work early and wifey and I were planning to drop the boys off at her mums and then go out for food etc but on monday the BCH stated that he was going to a funeral and wouldn't be in. so that scuppered my plans to swap shifts with him. Cap'n Bob was his usual helpful self (see sept 30th / oct 02 ) hence I was as work 'till 19:00 and all we did was have a takeaway curry.

A close shave
I nearly got my knee down and a whole lot more this morning on a diesel spill at Goresbrook/
Dagenham on the A13.
As I came under the new(ish) flyover to do a right to join the A13 proper
there was a roadsweeper truck pulled over on the left, as I approached, it
pulled out from the kerb and into the right hand lane and stopped at the
lights. As I was slowing down the lights changed and the truck pulled away
revealing a large wet patch. Using the following mathematically incorrect
formula, 2 + 2 = 84, roadsweeper truck + wet patch = water, I slowed down a
little and as I just started to turn I woke up and smelt the diesel at
which point the front end went sideways closely followed by the rear end and
my nerves.
I instinctively put my foot down and managed to bounce myself upright again.
I was really, really, really lucky that I never interfaced with the road.
I wouldn't have been hurt particulary as was I only doing 15/20mph and I'm well armoured but the SV would have suffered some trauma.

A Poxy car driver
This morning I was travelling to work at 10:00. I was going through 'Nam, on the bit past Dagenham motors the central reservation is flat and there is a big chunk missing from it, as I blatted along some fucking retard pulls a slow lazy U-turn from the other side. Now there was no other cars on my side, no other cars on his side and no railings or anything to obscure his view and I had my headlights on. Cue much stress, jamming of brakes, snaking and a little bit of sideways action on my part and abso-fuckin'-loutely no reaction whatsoever on his part.
Once I regained my composure I looked at him (I was at the side of his Jag) and in my nicest possible voice shouted "fuckin' look you fuckin' c***" while gesticulating with my fingers towards my eyes. A while ago after 2 scary road rage incidents (not me doing the raging) I said to myself that I wouldn't shout or stick my fingers or give the all powerful wanker sign to anyone anymore, but I felt this muppet was a special case. The next set of lights were at red and as I approached (after calling him a fuckin' c*** twice more) he held right back and stopped a full car length behind me in the other lane, so I shouted out "you c*** to him once for luck and calmly waited for the lights to change.

The second war begins
Well I've finally finished Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix and I have to say it was great!
Looking back over the 700+ pages I thought to myself, compared with the last book not much actually happens but thanks to JK (loved your work with Jamiriquai) Rowling's entertaining writing I wasn't bored once and was eager to keep reading.
With regards to "the death of a much loved character" I honestly never thought it would be that person, even with JK's red herrings galore, I didn't even consider this person.
So, many questions and thoughts for book 6, I definately think Luna Lovegood will play a more important role and perhaps we could find out some history on her, Umbridge I think will return and I wouldn't be surprised if muggles play a more noticeable role.

The register have added BOFH episode 24.
Also I have added a couple of sv650 related links to the bottom of the sidebar.
I probably won't be seeing Finding Nemo now this w/e as I 've got a lot of stuff to do at home, so if Big'un doesn't mention it, I wont and we'll see it next week.
PotW will be changing soon.
I've bollocks'd up my new pda by accidently resetting it and now I can't sync it to the pc at home.
I expect to finish Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix tonight.
I have work to do now.

Film news
So far in recent months I've managed to not see Terminator 3. Oh hang on a minute the fire alarms just gone off!. In the large American investment bank where I am a resident engineer when the fire alarm goes off the message over the Tannoy say's "please remain at your workplace while this fire alarm is being investigated" which to me is translated as "Actung! the building is on fire, keep working 'till your keyboard melts and please save your work before fleeing the building in a panic" this message is repeated, but even though it's exactly the same recording, it always seems to have more urgency each time. Which tranlsates to "The building is on fire keep typing" and "it's getting worse TYPE FASTER!" "SAVE YOUR WORK TO A SECURE NETWORK DRIVE THEN RUN AAARRRGGGHH!!!!"
I digress, so far recently I have managed to not see T3 which although I was convinced was going to be shite I was looking forward to and Pirates of the carribean which looked great fun. Other films I plan to not have time to see are, kill Bill - love Tarantino's work, the trailer looks great and the music sounds fantastic and it's got Samurai sword action. Actually the other films I probably will get to see, these are, Finding Nemo, I'll be taking Big'un to see this and LOTR The Return of the King, I'll see this even if it kills me (if that happens it might get made into a film, Kill Mick :volume 1).
Any way check out movies.com for all the latest film news.
They've just sounded the all clear, so I get to repair copiers for another day HURRAH!

I'm looking forward to some new games to arrive shortly;-
Max payne 2, can't wait for this, Max payne is one of the best games I've ever played, stylised violence and slo-mo bullet time, it's fantatastic diving sideways across a room full of baddies with twin Uzi's blazing. The sequel looks great I hope it delivers.
Half life 2, apparently delayed possibly 'till April because some scumbag stole the source code and released it on the web.
Halo, not sure about this one. Copper say it's the best game he's played on his X-box, PC Gamer gave it 91%, but there seems to be a lot of dissent on the gamer forums. People say, actually it's a bit shit and for a 2 year old console conversion it causes even the latest spec, killer Ninja PC's to grind and slow down.
I need to spend more time playing Splinter cell and try to finish it before I rush out to buy MP2 next week.