Feels like it's been a long day already. Having to work for a couple of hours was not a good start. Then a look around the sales in the city centre. Then mucking about with our new wireless network and trying to get that to work (rather than leeching off the unsecured network we found nearby tee hee). And then in a bit I have to start making the glogg and mulled wine ready for the party that we are hosting tonight.

Not sure how the party will go but it has to be better than my New Year last year. Ending up at a party hosted by - and full of - people you don't know is never a great way to see in the New Year. Then came the hour long walk home in the early hours of the morning, the light rain slowly soaking through my clothes as the icy wind numbed most of my body.

It would be the sort of New Year I would happily forget ever happened if it wasn't for one thing - a short text message. All it said was "Happy new year gorgeous x" (actually it said 'gorgeons' but I always assumed my version was right). That was the beginning (fade to wavy soppy reminiscing).

You know those rare occasions when you meet someone and there's this undefinable 'spark'? Things just feel right. You don't have to try and you don't have to pretend. You can't help but smile when you are with them and can't help but think about them when you're not.

But happy endings seem to be something that elude me. I only realised how much she meant to me when she told me she was leaving. And I only realised how much I could miss someone when she did. It's a shame, I know it would have been good....

And did I learn anything? Yup. This little hard earned pearl of wisdon I offer to you to take into next year - if you find that special someone, never hestitate (even for a few days) and let them slip through your fingers.

I've just entered a picture into the Snap Idol competition that Andre is running at the moment. With only 4 entries I may stand a chance of winning although as pretty (and dangerous due to adding a little too much of the wicked strong pear brandy - the table was alight at one point) as my flaming christmas pudding was in real life I'm not sure the picture does it justice.

Originally I was going to ask for one of his pictures as my prize should I be lucky enough to win, now I'm thinking I take the money and donate it to the disaster relief effort tho.

I'm not sure exactly when - or why - it happened but Christmas stopped being fun for me a few years or so back. Maybe it was when presents stopped being fun? You go from getting all the toys on your Christmas list when you are a kid to getting socks, packs of t-shirts and gift boxed shower gels as you exit your teen years. Maybe it's the stress of spending days shopping for presents only to end up buying the same sort of junk you hate receiving yourself just cos you can't find anything else. Not that I have that stress anymore as I've pretty much stopped buying anyone anything on the agreement that they do the same for me. Still, doesn't exactly put you in the xmas spirit when all you have to open on Christmas morning is one box of chocolates from your mum.

My family is not exactly known for having fun at on the big day either - no party games, nobody getting really drunk, just sitting in front of the telly watching the special xmas episode of Eastenders.

Still it was nice to see the family and a week or so off work is never a bad thing. And I thought rather then a detailed write up of my trip home, I'd give the editied highlights.

You know you are back in Cornwall when... you hear several people chatting at the train station.
"...and we were delayed cos of an accident. Heard there was a fatality."
"Yeah, and someone died too as well."

You know your little brother is drunk on Christmas day when... he starts laughing as he tells your very conservative mum how he and your older brother were off thier faces on hash cakes not so many months ago.

You know your nan is pretty old when... she's watching the pope looking very frail as he gives his Christmas speech and says "Whats the matter with him?! He's only 82 you know!".

You know your nan is young at heart when... she admits to watching Little Britain!

'lo peeps, I'm back. Before I set about boring you with details of xmas in the land of tractors, please consider making a donation here (I'm sure those of you not in the UK can find a similar site to donate on such as The Red Cross or Unicef) to help the victims of the Asian tsunami disaster. It's about the first thing I did when I got back online. Be generous, tis Christmas after all....

Afraid this is going to have to be a hit and run post today. Not only is my head a little fuzzy after last nights 'final day of work' drinking session but for some of us it wasn't the last day of work and I've had to come in this morning to do a few things. Still, I quite like having the whole building (and most of the University) to myself.

I'm almost done now tho and then it's home to hastily throw a few things into a bag ready to catch my train to the ever beautiful (yet dull) Cornwall in a couple of hours time. Not a journey I'm really looking forward to. Almost 8 hours long and I know I'll spend most of it squeezed into a tiny space between carriages with a dozen other unlucky travellers. Hence the reason why I plan to pack lightly - there won't be enough room for me let alone a large bag. Two sets of clothes should do it I think. So I'm going to be a slob for a couple of days - it's Christmas, I'll probably rarely make it out the house!

As everyone knows they haven't really heard of the internet in Cornwall (especially in my mums house) so I shall be totally absent from the Kingdom of Blog until next Wednesday. Hope everyone has a great Christmas tomorrow (make sure you set fire to the xmas pudding - thats the best bit) and I'll see you all before the New Year!

If any of you have ever wondered what the average day at work is like for Mr BlogMonkey and his minions, then this short video should give you a fairly accurate picture of what we get up to. In fact, it's almost uncanny.....
(link via Paul)

Actually, speaking of work and this being the last day and all, it's doubtfull I'll be posting anything else today. To busy

a) trying not to do any work and
b) trying to make sure everything is organised for when I have to come in on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve.

I have no idea what's going on here, but the song is kinda catchy.
(link via Bloggerheads)

A short flash movie called When Penguins Attack: The Post-Modern Version.

Maybe not a gadget as such (yet) but anyone building an 18 foot tall, death dealing, robotic exoskeleton in their back garden has to be worshiped by most men out there. Some interesting information on it in this article.

Sure everyone has seen at least one house near them that has gone over the top on the old external Christmas decorations. Why not take a photo and submit it to Houseblingers.com. There are not many currently listed, and they all seem to be in Essex....

I was looking around the BBC News site this morning when I came across this page of reader submitted office party photos. Now take a look at picture 8....

Is it my imagination or has the good old beeb not posted a picture of some bloke with his hand down a girls pants?

For shame BBC, for shame!!

Actually, that should be had a dream. Last night. And as it's been a while since I've shared one of my dreams with you - and as this one was fairly odd and I still remember the details - I thought I'd let you all have another look into the scary, dark and slighty freaky world of my subconcious.....

*wibbly dream fade sequence*

In this dream I had a baby. Not physically, to be honest I can't remember where it came from but I had one. I'd taken it to work and looked after it and then it was time to go home. On the way back I stopped off at a chip shop for a bag of chips. For some reason I took the baby out of the pram, wrapped my chips up in the baby blanket and placed my chips back in the pram. I then wrapped baby up in the greasy chip paper, put it into the chip shop bag and placed it on the shelf under the pram.

When I got home I found two ladies from social services waiting for me to see how I was doing with the little'un and I had to explain why it was under the pram and smelling of greasy chips......

So this arrives in one of the email accounts today.

From: crime_pays@hotmail.com
Subject: fuck u

fuck u u twat sending me virus like im a dumb ass u mother fucker....go n fuck ur self u ass hole

I'd say he definitely proved he's not a dumb ass with such an eloquent reply and perfect spelling. And of course not many people know that email viruses rarely come from who they say they do. Guess I best not post his email address otherwise he might start getting inundated with SPAM too. Oooops...

(here spambots, here little spambots. nice spambots)

Scientists invent Metal Rubber. Not to be confused with Rubber Metal of course.

You would have to say that this was a little cowardly. And you can't see him regretting the decision at all can you...

Talking of mobile phones, careful not to annoy old men with them.

Eco village to be heated by hot rocks. There was a project running in Cornwall many years ago when I still lived there that was looking into the same thing. Can't find any reference to it now tho. And it wasn't as ambitious as this idea.

Whilst Brazil claims it wants to help fight climate change by cutting CO2 emissions (most of which is caused by the destruction of the Amazon rainforest) they then annouce plans to build a road to Peru through the rainforest.

I don't remember how old I was. I don't remember what time of year it was. What I do remember is exactly what happened.

I was hunting through the drawer of a large glass display cabinet in our front room, looking for a pen. That was where I found them burried under the piles of rubbish that had been thrown in there - two roles of sellotape. Christmas sellotape, the kind with pictures of Father Christmas, snowflakes and holly on.

It all just seemed to fall into place and suddenly it was so clear to me. This was the same type of tape that had been used to wrap my presents last Christmas. Santa used the same type of tape as my mum! My mum was Santa!! How could I have been so blind before. I remember rushing into the kitchen to confront her.

And thus ends the story of how BlogMonkey deduced that there was no Father Christmas.

Festive Flash.
(link via Debbie)

This has to be the most sickening thing I've heard for a while. How can anyone kill someone and then take their unborn baby?

The government orders staff to delete emails older than 3 months just before the new freedom of information laws (which I had a nice booklet about) come into force. Question is, did anyone tell them how to empty the Deleted Items folder.....

The Christmas party/leaving do on Friday night turned out to be a pretty good bash. Actually anything has to be better than our usual work Christmas party - if you can call a cheesy disco, a small buffet and a selection of crap party games like "Guess who the childhood photo belongs to" a party. Which I don't. Thats the reason I usually hide for most of it, only making an appearance at the end (when most people have left) to finish off as much of the free wine as I can.

I was a little dissapointed to be honest as I don't remember anyone from work getting drunk and doing anything stupid? How dull is that! Luckily as it was also a leaving do (for one of my bestest chums) there was a large selection of other people also present who made up for that. The award for most entertaining person has to go to Mr J who'd been for his works Christmas lunch earlier in the day and had been drinking ever since. I saw many a lady with a worried look on her face at the prospect on an impromptu wet t-shirt competition as he danced his merry jig near them, showering beer with every step....

I myself - whilst very merry - avoided the realms of being off my face. My last act was trying to convince said bestest chums mum to join me in a shot of tequila. Failing that (but buying her a large glass of wine anyway) I made a quick exit before the tequila had chance to take full effect...

And for all those keen to know, the rumours about attractive and single women being present were a little exagerated. In fact only two women caught my eye all night - the barmaid (although to be honest it may have been the low cut top that caught my eye) and a young woman that made a brief appearance but who I never even got within 10 feet of.

Come Saturday I was actually feeling quite good and was more than ready for a session of basketball in the afternoon. Unfortunately I spent my time playing against someone whose objective was to cause me large amounts of physical pain. All because I accidentally hit him in the face with the ball right at the start. I mean is that a good reason to want to flatten me? I can recall at least four of five occasions just recently when the same person - hopelessly outmatched by my speed and skill () - has flailed about wildly and ended up slapping me hard enough in the face to leave my head ringing for several minutes after. Did he just laugh it off like I did tho - not a chance.

So that made for a fun game. I could almost feel his aggression whenever he got close and knew he was just waiting for the right moment. All the 'friendly' clotheslines he gave me off the ball as I jogged past. The little comments like "I'm doing well - haven't slapped you yet" or my favourite "That was supposed to be you" after he left my housemate sprawled in a heap on the floor. Oh yes, fun fun fun...

And on Sunday I did rest and it was good.

After last weeks terrible attempt to get people to suggest some music I might like to try, I thought I might have another go this week at getting some reader advice. The topic - aftershave.

Now I don't generally wear aftershave. Not because I don't like smelling nice but because generally I have no need. In my life, single women seem to be more difficult to find than a Will Young fan nowdays so unless I feel the need to impress all my male workmates, I don't bother splashing any on before I head out the door in the morning.

On those big nights out tho, I do need something. Trouble is I'm rubbish at choosing. Currently - on the advice of a friend - I'm using Dior: Higher but thats almost run out and I'm after something new. So ladies, what might you suggest I go for in my quest for aromatic perfection....?

School bans tinsel as students could use it to strangle each other. Like a jumper, scarf or bare hands would be much too difficult to use...

Elsewhere, the love shack burns down.

A computer gamer has bought a virtual island for $26,500. I expect he'll sit looking out the virtual windows of his virtual castle before popping down to the virtual beach for a quick swim each day. It'll impress the virtual ladies anyway....

Feeling this tired doesn't bode well for the work christmas party tonight. I'm supposed to be looking my best for the few single and attractive ladies that it is rumoured are going. I even went to bed early and had a lie in (day off work) but unfortunately my night was full of unpleasant dreams. Not the sort of nightmares involving giant mutant vampire peanuts either I'm sad to say. No, these dreams were based in reality. Dreams of losing someone/something important. The kind that make you wake up in a cold sweat, full of panic.

I hate those dreams.

An interesting way to use your nose peircing - have a pair of spectacles attached.

What do you get if you combine a helmet with a jug of beer attached, a hose and a power drill. Answer, 7 days in intensive care with a large hole in your stomach.

Don't try this at home kids.

I've been a little slack with these recently so I'll combine them all from the last few weeks and issue one big 'good news' statement.

First off congrats to Tracy on getting engaged - 'bout time. Also best wishes to Rich and Lindsey on the announcement of their first baby - due in June. Similar wishes to Ben and Liz on their second, due in July.

I'm starting to feel a little left out you know.....

I've just finished booking some cheap (99p each way without tax) flights to Amsterdam and shall be heading out there to visit my good (and soon to be departing for a new life) friend Spooney in January. I know technically she will have only been gone about a month by that point but I'll already be missing her.

I love booking spontaneous holidays and I'm really looking forward to this one. Legal drugs... err, I mean Dutch culture... here I come!!

Work is to begin in January on the construction of the Burj Dubai tower - what will be the worlds tallest building. One day I think I shall have to visit something like this - the view from the top must be breathtaking. Me goes off to scribble it down on my 'list of things to do before I die' list.

The new Google Suggest (currently in beta) might prove useful tho I've not had a use for it (yet). It makes suggestions as you type your search in and also gives number of results for that search.

This could also come under Arty. Not much too see but an interesting website none the less...

This is probably the sort of art I could hang on my wall and my mum would never notice what it really was - unless she looked a little too closely. Bodyscapes.

I failed. I was hoping to go at least a week but faced with entertaining people over dinner (one of whom I'd never met) my resolved crumbled and I gave in to the voices whispering quietly from my fridge, urging me to drink that half full bottle of wine. Still, at least I managed 5 days without and I don't plan on drinking again now until Friday.

I have also learnt a valuable lesson. Even when you are in your own home it still seems wrong not to be drinking when everyone else is. It's kinda like being sat in a pub without a drink in your hand - you feel out of place. It doesn't have to be an alcoholic drink of course but seeing as my only options last night were tea, water or wine, can you blame me for choosing the wine? Next time I must buy some fruit juice....

Okay, I was looking for something intellectual and exciting to talk about but guess you'll just have to make do with this rather rude picture. Now I didn't see a place to order one of those on the website when I sent of for my walk-o-meter.

Whats more worrying is you can actually find these things in real life. The perfect gift for the single man - the spank-o-meter.

"Just strap on your wrist, enter your 'stroke' length and you're ready to go!"

Okay it's safe to come out, I'm done wallowing in the gutter now. My smutty, childlike mind and I are off home.

Article about the number of coalition deaths in Iraq. I'm not sure which is more worrying, the number of deaths or the effort the governments are going to to try and hide the information. Guilty conscience anyone?

And lets not even mention civilian casualties......

(initial link via Bloggerheads)

I was at a bit of a loose end this afternoon so decided a trip to the cinema was in order. Went on my own as ever since my cinema buddy left I've not felt like going with anyone else - feels wrong. The film of choice today - Blade: Trinity. I wasn't expecting much, which was pretty much what I got.

It's your basic martial arts/special effects film with a fairly predictable plotline and slightly pointless story. Okay if you don't really engage your brain and just watch. One of the few good things is the humour provided by Ryan Reynolds and the often funky techno soundtrack that all the blade films seem to have.

Apparently the original idea for the plot - vampires have finally won and enslaved mankind - was dropped for being too dark. Sounds like it might have been more interesting tho.

On the theme of comic to film adaptations, the trailer for Elektra was showing before Blade. Looks really terrible! More hopeful was the trailer for Constantine based on the Hellraiser comics. Now that looks like it may well have potential......

Is this a recent phenom.. fenomen... phennom... thing or are spam blogs springing up all over? I've gone through the 'recently updated' lists on Blogger before and never seen one, then tonight I find this one, this one and this 'un in about 20 minutes.

Well, I've added a little more festive spirit to the page by giving me ol' monkey a santa hat. It's minimalistic but does the job I feel. Okay so I was too lazy to do much else - least I made some effort!

In case anyone was wondering (or even cares) I have been a model of willpower over the last few days and I'm still perched percariously on top of the wagon. Not one single drink has passed my lips since Tuesday night although - dear god - I've been damn tempted. Quite why I picked the christmas period - a time traditionally filled with drunken parties every other day - I'm not sure. Maybe it was to prove I could do it when temptation was at it's greatest?

For instance Friday night I was out for a chistmas meal at Las Iguanas with some of my good friends. Felt very odd sat there with a glass of lemonade whilst everyone else drank pints or ordered rounds of toffee flavoured vodka shots. Today I have to pass up a mulled wine and mince pie get together at someones house. Tomorrow my housemate is cooking a meal for some people - a time when I'm usually worst for partaking of the old vino. Then there's a leaving do Friday night, a nibbles and drinks party Saturday night. I only hope I have the strength........

Anyway enough talk of sweet, cool beer and chilled wine - so tempting in.... *ahem*. Moving on, the suggestions I was after are to do with music. As I mentioned last week I'd been hunting around on Ebay for some new stuff and have purchased several new albums. I'm kinda needed some suggestions for other stuff to look at now as I'm out of ideas - when I try to come up with some myself my mind just goes blank.

To give you an idea of what I'm into, a couple of my favourite bands are the Barenaked Ladies and Alabama 3. I quite like the new Damien Rice album and I do have a thing for female vocals (like Sarah McLachlan and Beth Orton). At the opposite end of the spectrum is my taste for dance/trance music - again female vocals are good and one of my purchases this week was the Fragma album. Also hunting for 4-Strings but with little success at the moment.

So, suggest away people.

It is about time I changed my computer wallpaper, and there are some great monkey images on this website. No, not that sort of monkey, think flying clouds.....

(link via Psychbloke)

How to break the ten commandents in 3 minutes..

A little bit of Hamlet for Skinheads.

Watch The Fly Who Loved Me (if that link doesn't work, try this one). Voiced by Roger Moore and in aid of Unicef.

Does anyone else think Johnny Depp looks more like a pervert that's likely to cover young children in chocolate and try to lick it off than a loveable eccentric chocolate creator in this trailer for the upcoming remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?

And I'm still waiting for the release of the Spongebob Squarepants movie. Suppose it gives me time to try and befriend a young child who I can pretend I'm taking to see it.....

Now I've been to Bermondsey a few times and I never saw (or even knew) that there was a pink tank there. I'm going to go hunting for it next time I go to visit my friend - especially if those ladies are still draped over it.

For Firefox users such as myself, you might find this page that divulges some of its secrets interesting.

I of course ignored the advice to backup the files before fiddling and promptly added something to the configuration that I can't remove. Well, I like reinstalling anyway....

(link via The Presurfer)

New blog added to the blogroll today. Came across it whilst trawling through the logs for the site last night. Mixed in between my regular readers, the searches for Miss Vodermans buttocks and people looking for naughty girly videos (for which I rank quite high apparently) was 3-Blogs a Day.

Not only did he say nice things about my monkey but it's a handy place to go if looking for new blogs to read. Something I struggle to find time to do myself.

I decided to give up drinking yesterday. Not for good of course, just until I go home to see my parents at Christmas. Then I really will need it. The number of trips to the recycling point with bottles and the nagging craving I get to open the fridge and pour myself a glass of wine everytime I walk past seemed to be good indicators that I am possibly drinking too much.

Although sorely tempted (I really need to hide the fridge) I managed to make it through yesterday night. I felt filled with confidence that I could do this as long as nothing happened!

So of course today was a bad day. It started badly and just slowly got worse. By the end of the day I wanted nothing more than to crawl home and finish the bottle of wine I knew I have open. But I was stronger than that and seeing as I'd forgotten to go at lunchtime, I headed to the supermarket to get some food and a large tub of ice cream as an alcohol substitute. I walked around the shelves feeling miserable and lacking all but the basic motivation to put food in my basket but at least feeling like things can't get any worse. And who should I bump into for the first time in 14 months - my ex!

The universe has a cruel sense of humour....

Quite cool - people in pictures replaced by drawings.

Apparently blokes using laptops could be risking fertility problems. The rise in temperature caused by working with a laptop on your lap might harm the 'little chaps'. Now what the research doesn't say is how many people actually do sit with thier computer on their lap, working for hours at a time? I can't imagine it's many.

You'll also notice that the main temperature rise is not caused by the computer at all but by sitting with your legs together. If thats the case I'm spreading my legs as far as possible whenever I sit down. Actually, to hell with that - I'm just going to sit with my nuts out at work and if anyone asks I'll just tell them I want kids sometime in the future.....

The second set of totally useless research today says that we in the UK are growing digitally obese. Sounds nasty and like something we shouldn't be doing, right.

In actual fact it just shows we are carrying around more data - with 99.95% of that data being music stored on mp3 players. And for some reason the bloke responsible for the research decided to convert music data into the equivalent in truck loads of paper so it was easy to compare. How exactly (or even why) you work that out I have no idea? Surely it should have been the equivalent in CD's or something.

The fun you could have with envelope x-ray spray. Only to be used on your own mail or with the permission of someone else of course.

Fear the awesome might of the deadly looking Roborior security robot. No I have no idea what it does either as the website is in Japanese (with thoughtfull english links that take you to more pages written in Japanese). And don't bother with the downloads, they are just really big jpegs....

Whilst the US still refuses to join Kyoto, the UK is failing in its emission targets. Meanwhile people are still trying to decide if global warming is just a scam or really caused by us.

Personally, I prefer to err on the side of caution with things that can change the fate of the entire world.....

The interwebnet - helping people get in touch with each other.... and kill themselves. I never realised that so many people committed suicide in Japan - it's a scary number.

I have to admit to being far too unmotivated to blog today. My first day at work for over a week and I think the phrase "can't be arsed!" sums up my attitude. That attitude at work seems to have carried over into everything else as well though.

I realise that I've not really talked about 'me' in a long while now - about what's really going on in my life. Truth is I'm not sure. Sometimes everything is good. I laugh, I joke, I have a good time. Sometimes - like now - I try to find the answers in the bottom of a glass of wine. I feel old, I feel sad and I wonder how I managed to lose something special?

I'm waffling.

I'll get my coat.

Now listening to Martin Solveig - Rocking Music.

Now that it's gone to No.1 and I've heard the song in full, I'm more convinced than ever that the new Band Aid song is a bag of poo. So if you are like me and want to do the charitable thing but really dislike the song, fear not, there is a solution....

Shock, gasp - survey reveals that kids want expensive items as Christmas presents whilst parents are more likely to buy them something cheaper. Well that was well the effort - who would have thought....

Ah yes, the tried and tested way of making someting cool - paint it white and stick the letter 'i' in front of the name. Have a gander at the i-foot and i-unit from Toyota.

The i-foot is supposed to help disabled people get around and up stairs. What I want to know us how the hell they get in the thing in the first place?

A slightly juvenille and smutty reworking of an old song - but I like it.

On a side note, if you do to much of that you might become a genital martial arts master.

I have just seen the absolutely awful song from this years Big Brother winner Nadia. Who the hell thought it would be a good idea for her to get into music?

Seems I'm not the only one that thinks it's bad (although anyone with even the slightest music taste would have to agree). You could see it in the faces of every teenager watching her mime to the song on one of the Saturday morning kids TV shows - they were all having exactly the same thought as me.

"What the hell is this sh*t??"

God I had trouble celebrating my 30th birthday - what would I do on my 300th?

Well if you are going to invade a country you may as well use the opportunity to test some new toys - right? Robots with grenade launchers - what could possibly go wrong?

"Wasn't me that shot the unarmed insurgent sir, it was Robbie over there....."

Also take a look at these interesting clothes - Bionic Work Wear. The bionic smart jacket and anti-gravity jacket 'sound' groovy but unfortunately look really daft. Love the tag line too.

"Why be intelligent when you can wear it?"

"Dear Microsoft

I think the copy of Windows XP I bought for a fiver at our local car boot sale might not be genuine. Can you check it for me please?"

(link via Bloggerheads)

Why bother going to the gym - it might not do you much good anyway. This is the sort of research a lazy bloke likes to hear about....

Lycos have released an anti-spam screensaver that uses the idle time of your computer to connect to spam related websites to try and push up thier bandwidth costs. Seems it's a little too successfull and is actually overwhelming these sites, which might be considered a DoS attack? I'd be interested to see where this goes......

No, I'm not chicken out of something. About every 6-9 months our boiler packs up. Something to do with some valve getting clogged I think. So once again I find myself sitting in the cold waiting for someone to come take a look at it. And my feet are cold!

So whilst I wait I'm trying to be productive. Is spending money productive? Who knows. Anyway, seeing my mate and his music shop a couple of days ago made me realise that I've bought virtually no music this year. So, I've spent the best part of today downloading music (hear me out before starting on a sermon about music piracy) and if I've liked the stuff, it's been off to Ebay to see if I can find any bargains. So far I've bought a Barenaked Ladies album, bid on a couple of others and I'm watching a few more whilst I decide if I like enough of the album to warrant buying it. Anyone know if the Puretone album is any good?

Of course listening to the music would be easier if there were not roadworks going on outside and some tossers drilling and hammering into the wall directly behind my head. I sometimes wonder if the Universe knows when I'm at home on holiday and arranges stuff like this just to annoy me....

Currently listening to Barenaked for the Holidays.

Well I'm back. Actually I got back yesterday but due to a slight snag (flat car battery) a little (lot) later than I'd planned. And I'm really beginning to hate trains - for once I'd just like to have a journey where all the trains are on time, is that too much to ask!?! Then they go and announce a fare increase today too. Plus I can't book cheap tickets home for xmas as the timetable is not out yet. Okay, I'd better stop before I start on a train rant....

My visit to Lough (I wanted to put a link in there but buggered if I can find anything worth linking to) was really nice and I should never have left it as long as I did to go visit my mates. Plus I have a new friend.



Yes, we shared many moments sat reading some quality stories. We read about hairy fairies, tigers that came to tea and Tallulah the chicken who likes to strip down to her pants (apparently). There is also no better alarm clock than a 1 year old leaping on you first thing in the morning! I love kids and I love spending time with them (something to do with being of similar mental ages) but damn it's hard work and I'm not sure I'd be able to cope with one of my own? Not that that is likely anytime soon anyway....

Whilst in Lough me and my mate Sparky also climbed the church tower. Great view, which if you'd like to see then just click here - stitched together from 4 images but shrunk considerably to make it managable. Bugger it was high tho. Not really keen on heights myself and I'd have to admit to being a little weak kneed when up there. Course that might have had something to do with the several hundred steps we had to climb. And I loved the helpful advice from the little old lady that kept the key for the tower door and let us up there.

"Now try not to jump off the top either will you."

Well, thanks for that, would have struggled without that advice!