I have found a way to blog from my phone

- posted by Buntifer Green @ 1/29/2012 08:23:00 pm

 
It's been a long time. And I'm probably not coming back.
But you never know. I exist elsewhere on the interweb, and sometimes I even hit meatspace too. Maybe I'll see you there someday.
- posted by Buntifer Green @ 1/20/2012 11:35:00 am

 
Muffins away!
So, this time, I am baking because it is Sianodel's birthday this weekend, and one of my earliest memories of enjoying his hospitality is sitting eating blueberry muffins and drinking caffe latte, usually qhile also smoking a cigarette. Since neither of us smoke any more, and making coffee is not as exciting, I decided to make blueberry muffins.




Success no?

I had to make them without muffin cases, as the shop was fresh out, but thankfully I was given a silicone muffin try for my birthday, so ahoy with the non-stick.

Due to my chronic inability to wait for the entire time the recipe says I should before taking things out of the oven, something which I must work on, they are a trifle moist on the bottoms, but hey, what's a muffin for if it isn't being moist?

So, I shall pick the best for Sianodel, and take the rest twerk.

Aah... a productive day. Now I can go play Xbox.
- posted by Buntifer @ 3/28/2008 12:10:00 pm

 
The Night Before Opening - a poem by Wheezil McFlynn
Twas the night before opening, not a voice could be heard,
Stage management working, sleep being deferred,
The silence of tiredness, beaten and cowed,
No music or chat, only tools working loud.

The set has been changed, so it fits now at last,
Nails, screws and now battens are holding it fast,
The first set of flats has been tossed in the bin,
Measurements being skipped meant the set was too thin,

A third coat of paint has been left to dry out,
With a slight change of colour that removes any doubt
of it being, "a little too bland for the play."
A director's opinion on the next to last day.

The stage manager coughs, in the theatre echoes
From cast iron furniture and boxes of gekkos,
All fake, of course, rubber and painted plywood
That upon close inspection stops looking so good.

The technicians grumble, and tend to agree
Upon lack of respect for the stuff you can't see,
Of course visible props and the dressing of set,
Is the province of ASMs struggling to get,

The right dolls for the play, which must look like a poet,
Also period condoms and non-alcohol "Moet,"
The designer stressed and "It isn't my job!"
He's trying to find a cheap wig he can bob.

Now tempers are short and deadlines are passed,
And it's reaching the point when no-one can be arsed
There is only one remedy, tried tested and true,
"Down tools folks, fuck it - let's have a brew!"
- posted by Buntifer @ 3/13/2008 01:20:00 pm

 
Baking again


I managed to cut myself while baking this time, by putting a very sharp knife into the washing up bowl and then trying to pick it up by feel. Bad idea. I did manage to keep the blood off the biscuits though.







I was given by my workmates a copy of How to be a Domestic Goddess, and by golly, I am one already. I thought I would try and make some biscuits out of what I have in the cupboard, and after a false start (turns out I didn't have any cocoa) I ended up with these. The first ones are trying to be really plain chocolate biscuits, so plain they are almost savoury, and they almost work. I remember them from being a kid, and they were good - the dough (first pickture) tasted about right, but the biscuits themselves are just fractionally too raised. Maybe if I made the same recipe with no baking soda they might turn out the same, then again they might turn out rubbish. Ms Lawson has the recipe fr just normal kiddy biscuits, but I swapped out a quarter of the flour for cocoa, which seems amazingly enough to have been exactly the right amount.

The second batch of things are oven baked donuts, called Chocodoodles, with nutmeg and cinnamon. Mmm. I reckon they will be best with milk. In fact both sets of bakery are a little dry, so milk all round.

Then, while I was making Lightly Curried Carbonara for supper, I sat down and wrote a story about a baker. A baker who's killed someone admittedly, but my day has been baking heavy.



I reckon i might go and find some vanilla ice cream, and see how well those Chocodoodles deal with that while I watch the Departed and wonder when the Brunette will be back.

Going to watch Involution again tomorrow. One review so far, the reviewer slightly misunderstood the play (and got Cloning and Genetic Engingeering mixed up (will these fucking morons EVER learn) but seemed to like it. Just a little web page tho, so fingers crossed for the big papers reviewers. If they are coming tomorrow I can give them cookies! but they'll have to bring their own milk.


- posted by Buntifer @ 2/23/2008 08:21:00 pm

 
Look look! A giant Jaffa Cake!
A combination that puts most men into a catatonic state of shock. Well I'm not most men, which is a good thing, because if I were most men, there really wouldn't be many men left, because despite the fact that I'm a fairly large chap, you could only reasonably have two other fully functional men (and they would have to be quite small) if you were to call me "most."

I appreciate that's not very funny, but cut me some slack, I've been baking all
morning. I have been baking an idea that I found on www.pimpthatsnack.com - a site I have long admired, although I prefer the "pimped" snacks such as the Burberry Curly Wurly to the giant snacks, which technically, at least in my humble opinion, are not "pimped" but "supersized" or if you prefer, "Americanised"















I have simply supersized a Jaffa Cake. A fairly easy procedure, prompted by our a prediliction to Jaffa cakes spotted in someone at work. It's press night tonight, so I thought I would take the opportunity to make a cake.

The sponge I made went a little flatter than I had hoped - perhaps I took it out of the oven too early, but a skewer came out clean, and it sprung back when pushed, so I thought it were ready. Nigella said it were. Anyroad - it's not biggie, Jaffa cake cake bits are a bit chewier then sponge cakes anyway, so I figure it doesn't matter hugely. The other issue I had with the sponge was the typical Jaffa Cake profile. Some clever people on Pimp My Snack (it was better when it was Pimp My Snack, Pimp That Snack just doesn't have the same ring.) baked their cake in a cast iron frying pan which had the right slightly-curved-at-the-edges profile, but unfortunately everything i have with the right profile has plastic handles, so I figured bugger it, it's a cake, people are going to eat it not look at it that hard. I hope I'm right.

The jelly I made double strength with some lemon juice to give it some kick, I tried a corner of it neat before I made it and it didn't taste of anything, so it needed something. Tasted much better once I had the lemon juice in, hopefully it will give it the necessary bite to compete with the cake and the chocolate. It set nicely and didn't melt too much when I put the chocolate on it, which was nice, because I had been informed that would the most difficult part due to the jelly's habit of melting under heat. I had just taken it out of the fridge, which might well have helped, and I found out something very interesting. Melted chocolate stays melted a lot longer than I thought it did, which is a lesson well learned - next Christmas I might be able to make truffle without them melting all over the bloody shop.

I had lots of melted dark chocolate left over. After debating having it for breakfast (I start baking early) I decided this would be a bad idea, because a sugar crash during my driving lesson has the potential to turn into a less metaphorical crash.

What could I do with them. I made a coconut and chocolate turd look-a-like at Christmas with left over things, and that was very nice, but I have no coconut left, having used it all at Christmas. But I have walnuts!

So I took these tiny tree-brains and dipped one lobe (the creative side, I like to think) into dark chocolate, a type of brain surgery I think I should pioneer. There are plenty of people out there who would pay vast amounts of money to have their brains dipped in chocolate.




Walnuts




Then I took some pictures, and stuck them up on here. A bake by bake account of my morning.

In other news, I am supposedly getting married next Christmas. **DISCLAIMER - reading this is no guarantee of being invited, except for you, Mum.**

The pics below are the front and back of the hotel we're heading to. They have a view over Lake Windemere, and if it rains, we'll get very wet, but it's beautiful inside too, oak panels and all. I post this now, because it's too late for anyone to object - hah! We have our license to marry, I think, ready to pick up from the glamourous Hounslow Registrar's Office, which could be exciting, or just mundane, does licensing something take all the glamour away? It did for owning firearms, maybe it does for marriage too.

We would have run away to Vegas, but I lent my Elvis costume to someone and haven't had it back.

Langdale Chase




- posted by Buntifer @ 2/08/2008 10:50:00 am

 
It's interesting how stupid people can be, isn't it?
Like the phrase, "It's a long story."

It's used instead of the words, "I don't want to tell you."

It's a stupid phrase. I've read War and Peace, Lord of the Rings, I'm a patient guy.

ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION!
- posted by Buntifer @ 1/11/2008 11:23:00 am

 
A long time coming
I have been away for a long time, and I return only because I have an urge to make my head work at something, as the work I am currently involved in is stultifyingly dull. It will liven up soon, once we get something to build and time to build it, but at present - not so good.

I have been finishing my third novel, which still needs another five thousand words or so. I got stuck in yesterday, and was then brutally distracted by Mr Goulden Moments, and then this morning, other events conspired to prevent me from doing more, so tomorrow is the plan, it should finish, which will be fun.

I am adjudicating a game of Diplomacy, and trying to start another, for which I need a couple more players. We're playing with a fog of war and spies. If you are up for it, drop me a line. Email based, deadlines enforced.


I'm also organising technical things for the Brunette's new show being done at the Old Southwark Playhouse by a company of lovely people called Mokita more info after the jump. It's called Involution, and it's good. Very good. Go on. Book a ticket now. [hypnotic noises] In fact, book several.
- posted by Buntifer @ 1/10/2008 05:37:00 pm

 
God must be a Magpie
One of the [many] things I hate about Christmas is the amount of crap you accumulate. I'm not talking about the unwanted speaking socks that Uncle Eric bought you, or any of the commercial gift packs of girl smellies/boy smellies/razors/chocolates/booze that you now have cluttering up your front room. I mean all the accompanying shit.

Tinsel.

Ribbons.

Those stupid bundles of twigs with glitter that shed like a dying cat.

Around 90% of the debris we have suddenly accumulated on the floor of the sitting room is shiny, and it's all for Christmas, which leads me to my conclusion. God is a magpie. He wants us to celebrate Christmas apparently, and I think it's all an excuse so that he can collect all the shiny crap when it gets thrown out and use it to line his nest. Jesus sits at God's right hand, surrounded by interwoven strands of threadbare tinsel, on a throne of slightly crumpled cracker tubes.

Why the shiny shot, Lord? Really, why not some nice brown paper. Recycled even, or do you want us fucking up the planet just to make stuff shiny?

Honestly.

Aah well, another New Year, another chance to get stuff fini
- posted by Buntifer @ 12/31/2007 02:53:00 pm

 
Merry Christmas, I suppose.
It's official. Christmas makes me feel hungover, even when I haven't had anything to drink, the saturation levels of pre-recorded good cheer and saccharine Christmas wishes just drain the essential vitamins from my body and try to shrink my brain.

I believe the way to avoid this feeling is to watch it's a wonderful life, but that has been proven to shrink your brain by ten percent every time you watch it.

So, first Christmas in the house. I feel sorry for the Brunette, it's just me and my conviction that Christmas will be crap. So far, it's looking good. She's been in tears three times already, and not because of me. Mater's Christmas present too much trouble, we theoretically ran out of truffle mixture and she's lost a necklace her sister gave her and expects her to wear. Bless.

I am sinking myself into cooking things. Bread sauce ready to rock and roll, providing it can survive the depredations of my insatiable bread sauce appetite for the next 18 hours, joint out of freezer, beef. Turkey is just like crap chicken. I have made 70 truffles (we didn't run out) and the whole house smelled of chocolate yesterday, the spuds are ready for their par-boiling, I have Nigella on call for chocolate pudding (there's a reason we only eat it once a year;) and waaay too much chocolate in the house.

The odds are on our side. Fingers crossed I don't bollocks up the roast.

Have a fun one.


"Peace be with you."
- posted by Buntifer @ 12/24/2007 08:09:00 pm

 
Welcome back
Greetings once again.

I realise that I have stopped updating my blog, as you may have done. I am making no promises to return, but the fact that the last post I left on here was a foul fingered rant about postmen kept bugging me, so I decided to come back and post again, just to get rid of it.

I'm making hummus, which is exciting, and I had an argument with Ikea, because they're crap, so they gave me some money back. I completed Nanowrimo again. which was nice, but I still have ten thousand words or so to go before I complete the story. I have had a persistent headache since last Friday (It's Wednesday) and I am waiting for my head to explode, or for a doctor to come up to me and say, "You have brain cancer, we diagnosed it from a little over a mile away."

Anyway, enough about me, where've you been, what've you been up to, and why're you still wasting your time visiting my site? Who's your daddy? and what the f*** is wrong with you? How are you feeling, what's your favourite music track at the moment, and why? What was the last book you read? Was it good? Was it as good as you thought it would be? Was it as good as people told you it was going to be? Would you cry if I told you I hadn't read it? Why would you care? How has your day been treating you? Well, I hope. Anyway, enough of this crap, I'm off to surf some goats.
- posted by Buntifer @ 12/05/2007 08:42:00 am

 
Ok, so I'm an idiot.

And so are you...

Blogger lets you do it yourselves now... apparently.

So.

Here's the only picture I took of my holiday.

Actually that's a lie. I took lots, but I;m not here to bore you with endless photos of views and lizards and thinks I took pictures of. Nevertheless, that's proper Pisan Graffiti.

I have finally turned the damn desk my computer was on around so I can actually type. And instead of throwing myself into a short story, or something equally productive, I made a Playlist and decided to blog.

The other reason I am blogging less frequently is that Blogger has yet to make it possible for me to be logged into my blog and my email at the same time. The only reason I really have a problem with this is so I can avoid giving my mother my email address... I'd never hear the end of it.

Anyway.

Playlist includes, "It's Only Mystery," from the film Subway, Mos Def, "Sex Love and Money," Robert Cray and Peter Gabriel. Am I gay or what?



That's a picture of some mess at work.

I was going to post a picture of some bread I baked and try a Marks and Spencer Parody, but I'm not sure I can be arsed, and I am damn sure you lot wouldn't be interested. Except maybe Mum, but then only from a professional standpoint.

Another thing I demand you waste your time with (except you, Mum, it will take hours to load and you probably won't get it anyway) is this.


These guys are prisoners from Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines.

Britain's finest talent may be a fat guy with fucking awful teeth, but the Phillipines have real talent.
- posted by Buntifer @ 7/23/2007 05:30:00 pm

 
Back, briefly
Right. Long time no sea.

I am growing painfully aware that this is turning into a diary blog, albeit an irregular and slightly bizarre one, and I don't want that to happen. So, dear reader, don't expect anything radical soon. I don't want to post short stories, because it then prevents me from being able to enter them in any competitions or for any webzines that I might try for.

In other news:

Another seasons over at the LFBTV, and we have an awful lot of lights to clean.

I have discovered the joy of cycling, which is fantastic, and I am gently becoming bikie. I changed my brake levers the other day, which is a level 2 difficulty out of three in the book I bought to tell me how, and I am seriously considering trying to integrate my gears into my brake levers next time, only I have yet to find a way of doing this without spending more money on a pair of brake/gear levers than I did on my bike when I bought it.

Had a nice week in Italy with family and the Brunette, very good food and hospitality in Volterra, let down in Pisa by a restaurant known as La Pergoletta where we experienced the worst service I have ever encountered outside of Richmond Odeon (and that's pretty bad) but ended being quite a fun evening as when we tried to leave, having waited unsuccessfully for two hours for our main course they tried to charge us for it, and this scenario ended up with the chef coming out of the kitchen (minus cleaver unfortunately) and shouting at us, then cursing us as we left... which was fun.

So please, don't go there unless you are prepared to spend a week of your holiday waiting for food. The food we did receive was very interesting, but only starters and Primi, so it's difficult to judge whether it was destined to be any good at the end of the wait. This is only really here so that hopefully people who google La Pergoletta will find their way here and realise what they are in for if they go.

I'm desperately sorry, but my knees can't take any more of this. The new house is slowly (very slowly) taking shape, but we have no computer desk at present, and I am stuck trying to type at something I can't put my knees under, so it limits me to about two hundred words before I'm in agony.

More when I have something better to type at, and yes, that could be a while...

***plus, quick whinge at the end, what's happened to Picasa and bloggerbot? I can't post pictures any more. Bastards... if anyone more technologically inclined has actually figured out another easy way to post pics now blogger has shafted simpletons like me, please let me know.***
- posted by Buntifer @ 7/18/2007 06:28:00 am

 
I'd value your opinion on something...
I want a question answered.

When did it become a bad thing to have an opinion?

I was asked today, mockingly, "Is there anything you don't have an opinion on?

I had, perhaps been rather free with my low opinion of Russell T Davies' writing talent, in front of someone who was a rather ardent (new) Doctor Who fan, and I must admit, because if I don't it will be pointed out anyway I am sure, that I am free with my opinions, and I enjoy arguing over matters of opinion.

But surely anyone who thinks has opinions about anything they have ever thought about.

Some definitions of opinion are as follows:

Hyperdictionary:

	Definition:		[n] the reason for a court's judgment (as opposed to the decision itself) [n] a vague idea in which some confidence is placed; "his impression of her was favorable"; "what are your feelings about the crisis?"; "it strengthened my belief in his sincerity"; "I had a feeling that she was lying" [n] a personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty; "my opinion differs from yours"; "what are your thoughts on Haiti?" [n] a belief or sentiment shared by most people; the voice of the people; "he asked for a poll of public opinion" [n] the legal document stating the reasons for a judicial decision; "opinions are usually written by a single judge" [n] a message expressing a belief about something; "his opinions appeared frequently on the editorial page"

I don't quite know why every word there is a link, but hey. Numbers 1 and 5 are legal definitions, number 4 only applies in the phrase "public opinion," but you get the general gist. A couple of other dictionaries use number 3, down to the question about Haiti, and I reckon that is the closest to how I tend to use the word.

I have an opinion about everything I have ever thought about, and I formulate new opinions as I think about new things. I have thought about most of the stuff I know, and I know a lot of things, ergo, I have opinions about almost everything I know about, which makes for a lot of opinions.

Many of them are unqualified rubbish, and a good few (including my opinions of the new Dr Who series) have formed themselves into rants or raves.

But surely anyone who thinks has opinions, and only people who don't think can not have opinions?

Does that not make sense?

Admittedly, I should probably shut the fuck up more and not waft my opinions about so flagrantly, but I enjoy slating Russell T Davies, he's a twat, and I preferred it when he wrote horoscopes for the Sun ;) He can't write sci fi to save his life, and he should be put to death in an inventive and painful manner for making the British Public equate Dr Who with science fiction.

And I was asked for my opinion about Dr Who.

So No, there isn't anything I know about that I don't have an opinion about. There are things I don't care about enough to bother holding a well thought out opinion about, and there are things that I hold deliberately aggressive opinions about, because I like arguing their areas.

I felt put out, and put down, but I don't think I should have done.

Fuck em.

I think, therefore I have opinions, I think.

Do you agree? Let me have your opinions. Except for you Sianodel, you'll just say something nasty, and then I'll cry.

In other news. I am cycling to work which is lovely, I love my bike. The house is looking better. The weather is too hot, and there was something else which I have forgotten.
- posted by Buntifer @ 6/13/2007 05:21:00 pm

 
I've had a short story published online.
Which is exciting.

Go here to read it.

I quite want to know what people think, but there doesn't seem to be a way of leaving comments, or anywhere else to leave comments either.

Aah well. Probably better off not knowing.
- posted by Buntifer @ 5/23/2007 12:02:00 pm

 
Smurdi Fshoolay
The house has been moved, it now resides in Houn Slow, that places of thieves and brigands. Now it is filled with Brown chavs who, in a bid for racial equality, are as annoying as White chavs.

Congratulations, you're now no better than the natives.

Am I being racist here? I don't think I am, I think I'm just being classist, which is ok, because it is a well established fact that people with brains are better than people with R'nB. (and I'm not talking North Mississippi Allstars here, I'm talking Beyonce)


The house is good. It's small, full of cardboard boxes, and the plaster in the room we have started stripping the wallpaper from is shite, but it's ours. I owe the Royal Bank around five and a half times my annual salary, which is nice, and the Brunette owes them almost all her annual salary. We've got a burglar alarm, a mortgage and a room with no wallpaper on the walls. It's like we're a married couple.

I have almost completed Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic, which is very good, but I think I may have made a terrible mistake, which means I can't actually beat the big bad chinless dude at the end. Aah well, I'll have to play it through again.


In slightly better news we had a radiator burst the other day, which cost us a little over my weekly salary to fix. It took the plumber two hours. I need a new job. The way I figure it I can do one day's work a month and make as much as I do in a month, that way I have between twenty seven and thirty days a month to play Xbox.

Sorry - that wasn't good news at all. It was simply a cunning ploy to do something or other.

I have recently bought the new Linkin Park Album. My task today is to listen to it as many times as possible to see if it takes multiple listens to become good. So far, disappointing.

I also found City of Lost Children on DVD, with the proper French voices, and subtitles. Unfortunately, in their bid to make it impossible for me to enjoy this film on dvd, the subtitles are rubbisher than those on the VHS. Why, I asked myself. Is it because DVD is a revolutionary new format with possibilities to have multiple audio soundtracks along with interchangeable subtitles? Well, unlikely, because DVD isn't that new any more. What's more likely is that They did it to piss me off. [That's the Them that are out to get me, not the the Other Ones]

I now own four versions of City of Lost Children.

The VHS - the only version worth watching, proper subtitles and no dubbing
The English DVD mk I - no subtitles, dubbed by Janet Street Porter (probably)
The French DVD - Due to a lovely person in France who sent me this limited edition French Edition, I can now watch it in it's full original glory... which means I can't understand it, because I am stupid and don't understand French.
The English DVD mk II - subtitled by someone who has no poetry in their heart. (but speaks better French than me.)

In other news, the Shyster card strikes again, and we're not talking Ewoks here people. Firstly, how come a bus pass costs more than pay as you go? Bastards. Sure, if I was taking buses to Milton Keynes and back eight days a week, it might be worth the money, but otherwise? Wankers. Secondly - I like the innovation of "Automatic Top Up" or whatever they have decided to call it, probably something "funky" like "Cool Groovy Topping", where you can make your oyster card top up automatically once it gets down to less than a fiver. Very useful, but why do all the oyster card innovations ONLY WORK if you're ONLY commuting to Zone 1, or friends with the mayor. Why can't me, a humble bus user use this service? Because Oyster cards are shit?






wait for it...










wait for it....









Yes. Probably. So basically, my oyster card will automatically top up once it goes below five pounds, and I go past an Oyster card machine in a tube station...where I could have topped it up anyway...

Ok, and in other news, ASDA has started doing Auto Shopping, where you're shopping will automatically do it itself, provided you go to ASDA and put everything into a trolley, take it to the checkout, pay for it, bag it and take it home.

Great.

If I was going through tube stations on a regular basis I would be able to top up my Oyster card myself, unless I was criminally stupid or pathologically lazy, so why would I need Automatic Top up? The pathologically lazy should be made to walk, and the criminally stupid should be forced to stay at home. Bastards. I take the bus? Why does that make me a second class citizen? because Shyster cards are shit, but we have to use them, because the government wants us to. That's democracy at work. Use an Oyster card or we'll take all your money away.

But I don't, I take the bus, and because Oyster cards are shite, you can't top them up on a bus, or in fact, at a bus station, in fact, the nearest newsagents that tops them up is the other end of town! Great.

ooh - but I can do web top up right? And I can do it over the phone? Perfect, that's fine.

Oh wait... It says it will top up my card next time I go through a tube station...

But I'm not going through a tube station. If I was going through a tube station I could top up my card myself. In fact the only reason I could possibly have for needing to Web Top Up, Phone Top up OR Automatically Top Up is IF I WAS TAKING THE FUCKING BUS!!!

AAAAAAAARGH!

FUCKWITS!

The "great value" that Oyster promotes is like a Moss Bros sale - "Everything Half Price." It's true, but only because they doubled the price of everything in the store just before they had the sale. Great.

Oyster cards are the cheapest way to travel, because travelling without an Oyster card has been made about as expensive as taking a taxi. They are also really quite shit unless you're travelling almost exclusively in Zones 1 and 2.

Fuckwits.

There are better things going on in my life, I think. I just can't remember them in the red mist of rage that has descended over me.
- posted by Buntifer @ 5/17/2007 08:55:00 am

 
Scary things
Yea, est is season for the verily scary things.

Oh, it is, trust me.

The Brunette and I are buying a house, and as the date approaches I find myself having to play more and more Xbox to blank the terror from my mind. We transferred money to the lawyers the other day for deposits etc. It is more than the Brunette's parents paid for their house in full. It's more than my parents paid for our house, and they got three acres of land with it, and a six bedroom house. We get two up two down and a tube line spitting distance from the back door. I'm not sure I'm convinced.

On the plus side, it is freehold, so at least we get to keep it and hand it down to our children, in the days when Hounslow is a fine, upstanding beautiful part of the world. [Which means either it gets a lot nicer fast, or the rest of the world turns into poo.]

I took my theoretical driving test the other day, glorying in the hazard perception test, which is like the worst computer game ever designed, one which comes with a manual which only serves to confuse and further obscure what it is precisely the player is supposed to do. Apparently you're supposed to click whenever you see a potential hazard and then again every time that hazard changes in any way, and then when it develops into a full blown hazard, but if you click too much then it fails you for clicking rythmically. Now I clicked along to "Enter the Sandman" and it didn't pick up the rhythm, but when I clicked for every potential hazard I saw it failed me.

Another car: potential hazard - my brother could be driving
A bus: potential hazard - a bus driver might be driving
A tree: potential hazard - it could fall onto the road
A bird: potential hazard - it might fly into my windscreen
A horse: potential hazard - it might kick the car or run into the road
Pedestrians: potential hazard - they might run into the road.

It had one scenario driving through a town centre. EVERY pedestrian is a potential hazard, but if you click once for every pedestrian it fails you. What the test demands of you in order to pass is to judge which hazards have been specifically placed into the clip [probably played by paid actors] by the DSA and click the mouse when you detect them, but not to click when you detect a hazard that just happened to be on or near the road while they were filming.

I think they should have done it properly and got Bioware to design the game.

[Game opens with the player character carrying a sword through a jungle teeming with hostile alien life. He/She comes across a car.]

Dialogue - "Aah, a contraption to ferry us safely out of this foreboding place."

[Player climbs into car]

Dialogue - "Aah, and automatic guiding mechanism so I do not have to control this hell bound contraption."

[Driving screen pops up]

***Player character must now point out potential hazards to their companions, who are on the roof of the car armed with bows and arrows.***

Dialogue - "Die Die foul beasts of the forest. Potential hazards all and now laid to rest for all time!!!"

Or something along those lines. I would have enjoyed it much more if I was able to shoot the hazards or at least see something explode every so often, and I would have been better at it.

"Watch out! There's a demon reversing out of that side road without checking his mirrors!!!"

BOOM!

"Oh no, a small child demon has chased a soul destroying bomb out into the road! Shoot it!"

BOOM!

"Watch out for that ammo truck parked on the side of the upcoming bend, thereby obstructing our view of oncoming hostiles!"

BOOM!

Yeah! Wooooooo!

And then they could have a clip at the end of you battling desperately but coming through against all odds.

So I just booked my practical test, and I am going to practice playing "Burnout Revenge" until it happens, that and bettling my way out of forests by blowing things up. Although the practical is a fairly scary prospect too, not as scary, I dare say as the prospect facing the Brunette.

Me insured on her car.

hehe **evil Calvin face**

and worse...

Me driving, her passenging.


hee hee hee **rubs hands slowly in a sinister fashion, despite using both a left AND a right hand**

We have an inspection of our flat next wednesday, which is also scary, since we are hoping to have our deposit back to help pay for things in the new flat, but it means we gots to paint things this weekend and make the flat real neat and tidyified. We have given notice, which means if the house falls through we'll be homeless, possibly living in a VW camper van.

Can you feel the fear? The FeAr. PhEAr! pHeAR!!!!!!

Which reminds me of that series I was going to do on twatmagnets of the nineties, beginning with No Fear T-Shirts. "If you're not living on the edge you're taking up too much space."

Hmmm.. If you're living on the edge I'm going to fucking push you off you twat.

"Second place is the first loser."

No Fear T-Shirts mean you weren't even first loser, you followed all the other losers to the No Fear store and bought loser clothes.

"Does not play well with others. Seems other's have a problem with losing."

Does not play well with others. Seems others have a problem with losers.

I do have to say I like the fact that there is a Christian spin off of No Fear called "Fear God"

Which presumably has slogans like:

"Does not Pray well with others. Seems others have a problem with being bombed."

and

"If you're living on the edge, you might be gay, and will probably burn for all eternity for not conforming to human imposed out of date gender stereotypes."

or maybe

"Second place is the first loser, only winners go to heaven."

Hmmm...like it.
- posted by Buntifer @ 4/20/2007 01:29:00 pm

 
I hope my lawyer gets hyperalgesia and then falls in a bath of acid.
My lawyer is a FUCKING CUNT!

I have never so seriously wanted to cause someone pain as I do him. I genuinely hope he dies a painful, lonely death, preferably in the next three months. I hope his loved ones desert him when he needs them, and those that don't, die in front of him as he watches, powerless to save them.

I never used to use the C word - I don't like it, it is an ugly word. The Brunette will confirm that I have even in the past chastised her for the use of it in her plays, as I think it is a blot on the linguistic landscape, ugly in a way few words are, but since I have started dealing with this lawyer I have felt the need to use it more often, it is the worst word I know, and now even it cannot plumb the depths of my hatred for the man. I genuinely don't know words that can describe him, I have not the vocabularic depths to plumb - I just don't think language can do it.

He has been lying to me for two weeks, not lies about anything worth lying about, he's just been promising me he'll put the paperwork in the post, and then EVERY FUCKING TIME I SPEAK TO HIM he tells me he hasn't, it's been delayed, he'll put it in the post today.

If he is to be believed, the clerks working in the firm who employs him are also either liars or entirely incompetent, as none of my messages ever get passed on, he never calls me back, and occasionally he sees fit to blame them for not having posted it as well.

I recommend anyone not to use this firm, but I'm going to hold off until we have finished with them before I put their name or his on my blog. Then I'm going to read the libel laws, just in case.

But for now, if you're a lawyer the safest course is to kill yourself, safe in the knowledge that you are making the world a better place, and if anyone knows any words which I might be able to use to describe the lawyer, please let me know, because even the c word doesn't feel strong enough any more.

Now I'm off to plan revenge stratagies involving the lawyer, barbed wire dipped in canine faeces, and surprise enemas.
- posted by Buntifer @ 4/12/2007 10:12:00 am

 
Next on the menu - Iran
Well, the propaganda machine is gearing up to take us into Iran, with Bush and Blair desperately trying to make sure that this time we have something to find, or that the premise upon which we go in doesn't require any further justification. I'm sure they'll come up with something.

And in New Scientist recently I was flabbergasted to read an article suggesting that humans have an inherent tendancy to categorise people and things, which leads to Racism. Of course this is news to nobody, I imagine, but what truly flabbered my gast was the following description of some research that had been done.

"Hirschfeld found that by the age of three, most children already attribute significance to skin colour. In 1993, he showed a group of children a drawing of a chubby black child dressed up as a policeman, followed by photos of several adults, each of whom had two fo the following three traits: being black, chubby and dressed as a policeman. Asked to decide which person was the boy as a grown-up, most children chose a black adult even though he was either not overweight or minus a police uniform.

"Kids appear to believe," says Hirschfeld, "that race is more important than other physical differences in determining what sort of person one is.""

Before you ask, this was not the April 1st Edition.

I cannot believe that research like this is being allowed to slip through the net - I'm kind of assuming anyone reading this sees the problem, but I am going to put it down here anyway.

Surely this research shows that three year olds already know that people can change their clothes and their weight easily, but can't change their skin colour? Apart from vitilago sufferers (or whatever that disease Jacko claims to have is called)

How can this research be being considered by intelligent human beings? It baffles and upsets me.

In other New Scientists News - they have named the phenomenon of owning a website one letter different from a real one and making it something relevant but subversive "typosquatting" - my favourite example being the blogpot family - any blog address with blogpot instead of blogspot directs the user to the "Abundant Bible Mega Site"

I'm going to email them - but since my blog address and my email address are not the same, I'm going to have to go now.

Fuck Blogger Beta, and all who programmed her.
- posted by Buntifer @ 4/08/2007 10:56:00 am

 
Mitchell and Webb PC Ads
Really make me want to buy PCs.

Where do they sell PCs that can't do video editing... oh wait, they don't.

And the ones where you can't make picture albums and podcasts, or play music? Wait hold on... Are Macs trying to make us believe this crap? Aah. So that's why cretins own them.

I wish I was a good enough programmer to write viruses - then I would specialise in writing them for Macs. The reason there are so many more viruses for PCs than for Macs is because there are proportionally more PC users.

And if PCs are only for office time and Macs are only for leisure, why do almost no PC games support Mac OS?

So Macs allow you to make movies and do podcasts, and PCs allow you to play the latest games, surf the internet AND do work?

Bonus - order me another PC please.

I like this video

I also think it is quite funny the way there are shedloads of Mac users in the comments going, "I've only ever used a Mac and it's running ten programs WAAY faster than Windows...like WAAAAAAAY faster."

Right - you've only ever used a Mac... so how do you know dickwad?

Yes - Microsoft is an evil money grabbing corporation, but hey... Apple isn't? Oh wait, all their stuff is white... it must be good...

Or is that racist?

I think it's racist. Except for the Macbook Pro [Black Edition] for homies everywhere. And the black U2 Ipod. For African American U2 fans. Ummm...
- posted by Buntifer @ 4/02/2007 08:53:00 am