Monday

Another week, back at work for a Monday morning. I was hit by inspiration today. I have another Star Trek group next week and was wondering what to do for my introduction for my chosen episode. Having gone into video intro’s I want to keep doing something along those lines. And today it hit me, Big Brother! Brilliant! I shall take a selection of my sci-fi toys and make an episode of Big Brother with them! And at some point they will discuss trivia from the episode I have chosen! Genius! MLF is onboard with this, she will do some voices for me. It’s an excellent idea!

My stag do is at the end of this week, and so my brother, who is also serving in Best Man capacity was due to send a text out to everyone finalising the times. I was hit by a moment of hilarity as I came up with a classic prank!

I didn’t know what time he’d be texting, so I had to move fast. I managed to contact 3 of my attendees before the text came around. I asked them to respond to my brother’s text asking which Doctor Who costumes other people were making, the implication being that I’d got them all to agree to come dressed as a different doctor! I have not mentioned the important part of this, which is that my brother is not a nerd! Not at all! So the idea of spending the day in the company of 7 gorwn men dressed as various Doctors is not one that would appeal to him!

I had later confirmation that at least 2 of my 3 co-prankers had had a response, and then I got the text from my brother! He is not happy! He called me a sneaky russian and warned he would make things worse later in the stag do! I sent him one back saying ‘Wait till you see your costume K9!’

I will tell him soon it is a classic prank. I may even say ‘bazinga’.

I had a conversation with MLF regarding strippers later on. She raised a point that I hadn’t considered and is now going to cause me considerable concern. Lap dances. See, my brother/bestman has promised me a strip club visit. This is mean. I am a nerd, I’m terrible at talking to women as it is, and the idea of a strange naked lady dancing around me is horrifying! It’s massively embarassing. But I’m ok with it for the traditional stag do type thing etc. But lap dances... well those are a bit different. I will have to speak to him about making sure there isn’t a lap dance on the cards, as for me that crosses a line. The no touching rule in strip clubs, I think should work both ways, at least for me. Maybe I’m being an old fuddy duddy, but I just don’t think it’s appropriate. I kind of hope I am being a fuddy duddy, because that is an awesome phrase and I feel like I was kind of serious there so I need to say some funny words or something!

Sunday!

Sunday, ah Sunday, living up to it’s name with some sunshine. Though it could also have been called, wind-day’ as there was some breezy behaviour. In fact, one of my tomato plants suffered at the hands of the fast moving air currents that plagues us this day and some of the stalk has snapped. Hopefully it’ll be ok, it didn’t snap all the way through and I’ve tied it up to support it. Some tiny green tomatoes have formed upon the plant now, so it’d be a terrible shame if it got trashed.

Wait, what? Have I just chattered about tomatoes? This isn’t a gardening blog, it’s a nerd blog! So what have I done that’s more nerdy??

Well, we had our photographer’s free pre-wedding shoot in the morning. My Lovely Fiance also timed her makeup trial at the venue for this morning so we went there and I waited with a coffee while she had her trial before the shoot.

Firstly, £2.30 for coffee! It’s an outrage! I got two small cups out of that! However, the wi-fi is good there, and also actually free, so I was able to sit at the windy terrace bar with an overpriced coffee and my EEE. The wind kept blowing the door shut behind me, which was annoying to begin with, until on of the staff charged out in a panic as one of the outside tables was blowing away. Ah, slapstick!!

When we had the shoot itself, we were led all across the grounds of our wedding venue to get some shots. It’s a really nice place with lots of interesting spots. MLF is not a keen photography subject, but apparently I am brilliant! The photographer kept insisting I was a good subject and I infer from that I should probably consider modelling. This sounds good to me, I imagine lots of people would enjoy looking at my face in magazines and on billboards. They’d probably like to look at more than just my face, but I’m not up for doing gratuitous nudity. I’d need a good reason. Like large amounts of money.

Actually I should follow that up, get the modelling started.

Or maybe concentrate on losing a bit more weight first.

Hm, that’s still not very nerdy is it? Ooh, I helped MLF update her iPhone! To OS4 or whatever they call it. It took some time, we had to install a new itunes first. (Hey Apple, if itunes is so good, why do you keep doing new ones?? Maybe you should get it right the first time! Like I did in my photoshoot!) Anyway, after a lengthy download and letting the machine restart, reload, and refresh the phone about 80 times, it was all done. The update took a backup of the phone which it then restored after. But not the emails apparently. Clearly apple feel that while you’ll want to keep your precious memories in photos and the songs you’ve bought, you won’t have any important emails in you inbox!

But the new features are pretty cool. The camera is now zoomable, while the quality isn’t great when zoomed in, it’s still useful. The icons can now all be rearranged into small sections to neaten things up. And besterest of all, all the photos now have a corresponding location pin on a map so you can see where they were taken. Even on previously taken pictures, which is a little unnerving that the iphone has been tracking your movements since you got it. It’s like a little nosy old woman in your pocket!

The weekend cometh

Ah, is there anything more delightful than waking up on a Saturday? It's so full of promise, two whole days without work. And the sun is shining! You're young and it's summer and for the next 48 hours you don't have anything to worry about!

Then you remember, you're in your 30's. You need to sort the washing out. And get a haircut today. The rabbits need to be cleaned out. As does the fishtank. Also some shopping will need doing

Weekends aren't what they were when I were a kid!

My lovely Fiance and I spent the first part of the morning sorting a few details about the wedding out. We picked our songs and vows, ready for our meeting with the registrar. We'd ummed and ahhed about a second reading for months now, we finally decided we did want it. Both our readings are pretty awesome, being both beautiful while capturing essential elements of us. Had to call up a friend to see if she'd be amenable to reading the reading for us, she seemed happy to. At least I hope she is...

And I've got a few nerd surprises in the music choices too! Those should be good. I've been a bit torn on how openly nerdy some aspects should be. We are considering an 'Order of Service' type sheet for the guests, which would name some of the music tracks, but a part of me wants to see who can spot them. Another part doesn't want older uncool relatives rolling their eyes in tired tolerance of my silly ways, but as MLF pointed out, they're getting a free meal out of our day, so they can damn well like our silly ways!

After this we went into town for our haircuts. Me for a general cut, MLF for a trial run for her wedding style. I had my usual hairdresser, which is good, as if I have one I don't know, I clam up and can't carry a conversation. But I know Gemma, and like how she cuts my hair and pretends to like my stories, so I entertained her with the tale of the woman at the tailors. The one who measured me for my wedding suit and said, 'You're a 32 inch waist...in your dreams!'

Which I thought is quite funny, but also cruel and unbecoming of someone in a customer facing role. And you know what? At the beginning of this year, I was a 38 inch waist. When she said that I was a 36. I'm now in a pair of 34 inch waist jeans. So actually, by the wedding I might be 32! Yeah, eat that tailor bitch!! Though I'm happy at 34, but it depends where I am at Kyle Rayner weight I guess.

Once I was done entertaining my hairdresser (who seemed to really enjoy my stories today, I imagine she has a crush on me!) and was satisfied with my cut, I thought it's a beautiful day, I shall walk home. Which I did, my walk home was aided by the Ben Folds albums on my iPod. And I had a couple of those horrible moments where I'm at a pedestrian crossing alongside a family with a young child. I hate this because I'm always aware that the parents are trying to teach their child safe and responsible road crossing, but I always see a point where I can cross long before that green man appears. But if I do, am I condemning those parents to an afternoon of the child asking why they couldn't cross when that other man could. It's an odd paranoia that at certain points I would be an unwilling influence on a child and, without malice, accidentally interfere with the important lessons that parents are trying to impart. But it's an irrational thought that occurs to me every time!

I tried to have a start at writing my speech after that. I got a few key lines down, but it's a struggle. As I'd said, I'm writing a blogpost daily to try to keep my writing juices going, (try not to dwell to long on the phrase 'writing juices', or just pretend it's ink) to aid my speechwriting, but there's a lotta difference between being able to look back at my day and pick out the bits that mean I'm a nerd and summing up everything I think and feel about marrying MLF. Oh and also thanking the various people etc.

It's as well I'm starting 2 months before the day!

Later in the afternoon we visited our friend Stevie for a while. MLF had found a newspaper item about an old school friend of theirs being found with a rape kit and having an attempt at attacking a girl. We also just like to see him every so often, before you think that we only visit him on such occasions, or that such occasions are frequent! Stevie has nerf guns, so we had fun times shooting each other and diving around his living room. I've rarely seen such a look of pure joy in MLF's eyes as when she's lining up a shot at me. I don't know if I should be concerned about that...

Also, Stevie has some excellent toys, I was admiring his Doctor Who figures. He has the 4th, 5th, 9th, 10th and 11th Doctor's! And an awesome set of Daleks and Davros.

Feeling somewhat Doctor Who'd up, we headed home to have a pizza and watch some older Doctor Who to fill that Saturday evening gap. MLF chose the opener for Series 4, Partners In Crime. There's something extra fun about a season opener, especially when the Doctor gets a new companion. And as we'd already met Donna, this one was less encumbered with introductions and makes for a very entertaining episode. What did surprise me was how odd it was to see the older TARDIS console room, which is odd as I got used to that for more than four years, but just one series with the new look and it's already become the default TARDIS room in my mind. How easily my affections are switched between TARDIS consoles!

But then time was reversed and it never happened...

As it turns out I rather enjoyed that Enterprise with Archer suffering a memory loss condition. Though all the development and interesting story aspects were ultimately lost when the timeline was reversed. An annoying occurence, I remember being disappointed on Voyager that Year of Hell just never happened. If things had been solved differently it could have been a fascinating thing to carry the series on with Voyager barely held together and the crew dealing with the effects of nearly being blown apart. I’m sure the Doctor could eventually cure Tuvok’s blindness, given his unrealistic skill at curing any other random recently encountered condition. Heck, McCoy once kept a Vulcan alive after his brain was removed, then to follow that miracle, attached a remote control unit to him!

I’m sometimes struck by the futility of railing against Voyagers failings when the shows been off the air for seven years. But not often.

I saw some of the latest and last series of Big Brother this week, and I noted that some of the housemates seem to be wearing a version of the nerd glasses I so admired last weekend. I’m not convinced that it isn’t a non-corrective pair that’s being passed around. It makes me feel better about not getting them!

I took Thursday off from the gym, though I shall be going again on Friday and looking to do something energetic on Saturday too. It’s a more punishing gym schedule than I’ve had before, but I’m feeling motivated and would really love to reach Kyle Rayner weight by my wedding. Which basically works out as two months to lose just under two stone. I don’t think this is unreasonable, I lost 3 stone in just over three months this year. My problem there was I got over-confident and spent the next 3 months bouncing around that weight. But progress has resumed now and I shall go from overweight nerd to skinny nerd!

Of course, in that time I have a stag do to attend and someone else’s wedding. Those will both involve alcohol and food in large quantities. I find it incredibly selfish of the couple getting married to have their wedding mere weeks before mine, thereby impacting on my weight loss. I may raise this point during the ceremony when they ask if anyone has any reasons etc. Actually, that would probably get me thrown out even if they reject my reasoning and still marry, so either way I can still eat healthily! I win! Right up to the point when my lovely fiancé comes home and brutally murders me for embarrassing her and everyone at her friends wedding.

I have almost finished Richard Herring’s book, which I have enjoyed. It seems to be frank, honest, self deprecating and in some ways tragic, but also wittily written and hopeful. Of course, instead of being titled ‘How not to grow up’, he could have called it ‘how to obsess over having a threesome’, which is quite a recurring theme. Though as a nerd I have enough trouble talking to girls one on one, let alone two of them. And yes, I said talking, imagine how much awkward embarrassment there would be trying to bed 2 at once! Actually don’t imagine it, just in case you picture me naked! Wait two more months, then me naked should be a more attractive image! Well, when I say ‘more attractive’, I actually mean ‘slightly less repulsive’.

Or maybe I was wrong...

Actually, I probably don’t have hay fever. See, I said it was a cold, then people started saying I might have developed hay fever, so I started taking some anti hayfever tablets, but they’ve had no effect, so maybe I have got a cold.

Which is a tad unfair, I’m eating tons of fruit these days. I easily pass my 5 a day, plus the exercise and general healthier living, doesn’t seem right to catch a cold. Also, I haven’t been in contact with anyone with a cold, and no-one else seems to have caught it from me. Clearly fruit is working for them...

I did another gym workout, which makes three so far this week. According to the Wii, I’ve lost 2 more pounds since Sunday. Still a way to go to match Kyle Rayner’s weight, but I think it’s achievable before the wedding. Well, before Christmas anyway...

I’ve recently begun watching through the 3rd series of Enterprise. I always tried with Enterprise, I’d start each series determined to give it a chance, but normally tailed off. Except with the 4th series, which really picked up. But the 3rd series was a series long storyline, and I’d dipped in and out before, so my buddy Will loaned me the series set. I’ve got 2 disks in and while the episodes are of variable quality, the larger story has caught me a bit more this time. What I have noticed is that Enterprise seemed to have a predilection for flashy effects sequences that weren’t particularly relevant. I just watched one where for no good reason a shuttlepod had fired a thruster while landed and Archer and Tucker watched it start to sail off leaving them stranded. So they shot the thrusters out and bought it down. Great looking sequence, completely pointless for the story.

The next one I have to watch features Archer waking up in the future.. well I guess he always does that, but I mean his own future, after the Xindi have destroyed Earth, but Archer can’t remember it. His short term memory is gone and he’s like that guy in Memento. Sounds a bit similar to Future Imperfect from the 4th season of The Next Generation really. That was a kick ass episode.

My lovely fiance pointed out to me that uh-oh, no Doctor Who on Saturday! This is very true and a cause for concern. Frankly, after that finale, Christmas seems a long way away! So, what to do?

Well, I might see if she’ll be amenable to some classic Who on DVD! Seems like a plan! I’m in the mood for some Troughton myself but who knows how the mood may take me?

My allergies!

I’m a touch concerned that I seem to have developed hay fever. It turns out that it’s not because of too many Fonzie impressions (that’s ‘heeeeeyyyyfever’ and has very different symptoms) but you can develop this randomly at any point in your life! What?? So a childhood free of the ravages of pollen means nothing in terms of lifetime immunity?? I’ve been walking around with a ticking timebomb of summer sensitivity? Unaware that at anytime the forces of nature would suddenly turn on me and the merest hint of pollen would cause my eyes and nose to stream their associated fluids? (So far it’s just those two thankfully, any streaming from other orifices would be most uncomfortable!) How has humanity evolved this way? What grand design would feature this?

Well, that’s my overly dramatic reaction done with. It’s a touch annoying though, I don’t want to be all sniffly and snotty, it’s the summertime! But in a way, I’m a little bit happy! Now I can put on my nerdiest tone and complain about my allergies! It’s as good as getting nosebleeds! Which I haven’t done in a while, though with the increased nasal workload that this hayfever has been causing, who knows? Maybe soon...

And why Hay fever? Why not Pollenitis? Or SunshineSniffles? That’d be a good name.

It may seem odd that I have found a brightside to hay fever as it makes me nerdier. I guess I’m just a glass half full type. Oh, I did see, when in Meadowhall the other day, awesome nerd glasses! They were big thick frames and the size and shape of the ones Christopher Reeve wears as Clark Kent. And they weren’t corrective, which is great as I don’t need glasses (another regret, I’d look much nerdier in specs!)

Then I realised something. These glasses were being sold as a fashion accessory. What kind of a nerd would I be if I went around being fashionable? What kind of a nerd would buy eyewear that wasn’t to correct a vision problem? Vanity is not my way!

Also, my lovely fiancé wouldn’t let me get them. Her reasoning was again, that wearing glasses without needing my eyesight corrected was not really me. She is probably correct, I am lucky to have her.

I hit the gym again last night, despite my nose-based issues, thankfully it didn’t hold me back and as usual, the only thing dripping off me was copious amounts of sweat. It’s funny at my gym, they have a separate smaller room with some machines in, which is the ‘Women’s Gym’, for women who want to do their work out away from men. I’m not sure why this is, I suppose they’ve had questionable clientele in the past or something. So this supposed private room is blocked from men’s sight by some blinds on the window. That were open. I happened to be on a treadmill that was facing this window and realised I could see clearly into the Women’s Gym and could see women in there on their treadmills. Facing me. So they could see me, staring into their private Women’s Only gym and breathing heavily and sweating! Man, I was only looking at the blinds inefficiency!

Tonight I must find a treadmill that faces a different way, or I’m going to be labelled as some sort of pervert...

New week, same monday...

As they must, the weekend, well, ends and a new Monday dawns. A brand new week, filled with possibilities, almost a new start with life here, all refreshed from the weekend and ready to start again in this wonderous experience that is life.

Of course, most of us manifest this feeling as, ‘oh crap, Monday already? Gluuurrrggghh!’ Which when you think of the immense impossibility of our lives even getting to this point is a bit of an anti-climax. After all, it’s a long string of unlikely coincidences that have led to this planet being formed in just the right position from the sun, the atmosphere developing, life emerging, life evolving to this point and still not getting wiped out by a passing meteor, then the specific circumstances that have led to the right people getting together and producing offspring, then those offspring getting together and so on and on until here we all are.

Of course, those are lofty and mind boggling thoughts for a Monday morning, I had to make some lunch, have some breakfast, pack my gym bag and get to work!

Not that I was being much fun there, though she’s only got a minor infection, I was still concerned about my Grandmother and waiting to hear news from my mum after she heard from the Doctor about the current status. Which when I did hear, is positive. So a day’s worth of being worried and irritable for no reason there!

When I wasn’t being irritable I was discussing Saturday’s Doctor Who finale, with pretty much anyone who would listen. In some cases I followed people around talking about it even though they didn’t want to listen. I knew deep down they cared. The general consensus is everybody loved it and no, I should not get a fez.

I did have a stint wearing a fez in my early twenties. It got pretty much the same reaction as the Doctor’s.

I hit the gym for the afternoon. I’m quite proud of my progress this year in increasing my fitness level. When I started I struggled to jog for more than a few minutes at a time, I can now manage half an hour constant jogging, at increased speed from my beginnings. My only problem is I now get bored! After all half an hour with just the gym wall in front of the treadmill to look at is a bit dull. I used to listen to Doctor Who Big Finish audios, but I started having increasing problems with earphones. I may have to look at some better listening devices. The hideous truth is the normal in-ear type, gradually slide out as I become slimy with sweat.

There’s an image to give you cosy dreams!

I should get back into the Doctor Who audios though, the Eighth Doctor ones were very enjoyable, you kinda wish we’d been able to have a full TV series with Paul McGann. I wonder what it would have been like?

Pretty good I imagine, depends who was writing. But as time progresses I guess even the prospect of a flashback to the Time War with him is getting fainter and fainter. Though I have imagined an awesome episode in my head just this morning now, as I was thinking about this. It follows from The Doctor’s taking The Moment from Gallifrey, and being chased by Time Lords, up to encountering the Dalek fleet when he has to use the Moment and sets of the destruction of Gallifrey and Skaro. But the Daleks have prepared a defense. In the midst of a battle as Dalek saucers overrun a Time Lord fleet whos history is burning up, The Doctor would take his TARDIS into the heart of the Dalek city and have to destroy the device that was protecting Skaro from the Moment. Which he does, then prepares to burn with his people and his enemies, but whatever protection the Dalek defense provided, some of it has permeated the TARDIS and the Doctor, just enough for them to survive outside the time lock though he ends up regenerating.

It’s a spectacular sequence, as there’s no limit on the effects budget of the human imagination. Also, I’ve had some particularly mindless tasks this morning, so y’know, able to think about important things! This afternoon I shall be thinking up a version with the Black and White Guardians...

Fez's are cool!

Sunday morning, I abandoned my Trek Night co-watchers quite early in the morning to make my way back to Lincoln and get home to watch the previous nights Doctor Who, the series finale, The Big Bang! I was naturally massively excited with about 18 nerd-boners for this episode. This whole series has been absolutely magnificent and I had high hopes for the conclusion. I tryto always watch Doctor Who now with my lovely fiance, so once we were both in the house, we settled down and I went to Virgin's on demand catch up.

It wasn't there. Dammit! This thing is useless! It never has the programs I actually want to watch there!

So I iplayer'd it through the wii.

Wow! Thought I'd sussed the episode quite early when we saw little Amelia recieve clues and go to see the Pandorica. But when she opens it up and Amy's in it, then I was confused again! And the episode proved a regluar mix of confused, understand, confused, understand. I think I've got my head around it now, but I will have to watch it a bunch more times to be sure!

I'm not going to do a full analysis, you will have watched it for yourself and I want to see it again before I can be sure I understand it. But yeah, fez's are cool! Also, I am looking forward to the mystery of who did take control of the TARDIS? Looks like we've got that still to come, which is nice, after all why would everything all get sorted out neatly together in one go? And Rory and Amy are now a husband and wife team onboard the TARDIS?! Excellent. I always liked having a group accompny the Doctor rather than just one lone girl.

Of course, now I've said that the Christmas Special will blow Rory up or something...

Man, it's going to be a long time till Christmas.

After all the fun, it seemed natural whatever followed would be a letdown. So I watched the football. What a letdown! Glad I didn't bet any quatloobs on that game! (That was a little Gamesters of Triskelion joke... ah why explain, if you didn't get it you won't care!)

It's a shame the World Cup's over for England. While I'm not a massive football fan (I'm only a fan of small to medium footballs) I was enjoying watching the games with my lovely fiance and the twitterverse. It's a lot of fun, seeing the tweets coming in, it's like watching the game with your friends and with some celebrities! I guess I'll have to wait for the next on, but who knows when that'll be??? Oh, yeah, 4 years...

Of course, possibly that match could be erased from time, and eventually a new big bang would need to restart everything and we'd all remember winning??? Maybe? Or do FIFA not believe in the use of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff in the game?

So a pretty awesome weekend comes to an end. I'm hoping to have another in about 5 days of course. Which reminds me, that's my photo session, so serious dieting and excercise again this week. I did weigh myself before Doctor Who, and lost half a stone this last week. Wouldn't mind doing that again! Actually I wouldn't mind doing that while only eating large amounts of pizza, wotsits and chocolate, but due to a flaw in the universe's imprint in the pandorica, those things are now bad for me in this new universe!

Shopping & Star Trek

Took a trip over to Meadowhall on Saturday morning. We've got a free 'test shoot' with the wedding photographer next week, so thought we'd get new 'outfits' for it.Was a nice day for a drive in my lovely fiancée's new car, so we set off in good time and were there before 10 and it wasn't too busy. Managed to quickly find me a shirt and I'm happy to find that I'm a size smaller for shirts, which is a pleasant boost to my weight loss attempts of late. I also get a selection of fresh coffees from this awesome little place which seems to have a gazililion different flavours and grinds the beans up. I also bumped into a work colleague, which is just weird when you've left the city to go shopping.

By the end of the day I found out I had also gone down a jeans size, (and without the aid of Special K) and got myself Richard Herrings book and the newest Danny Wallace one, so some amusing reading times ahead.

What's particularly nice is just getting out of familier surroundings for the day. When me and my lovely fiancée don't keep being reminded of he various jobs we've got on, or work or anything like that we always have a good day, even if it's doing something simple like shopping. Actually, shopping isn't that simple, she's spent 4 years teaching me how to do it, I think I'm getting there though.

Afterwards, I headed over to Nottingham to see my friend Will. We've started meeting up every few weeks for a Star Trek night, which has been fun times. This is the third one recently. It's me, Will, another Rick (known as Rick-One, whereas I am Rick-Prime) and Will's fiancée Gemma. We all pick an episode to watch, based on a pre-selected theme, and often do a little introduction. Mine was a powerpoint presentation about the Next Gen Episode, The Last Outpost, which is the first Ferengi contact. (First Contacts being our theme.) What I hadn't remembered from the episode was Geordi's inappropriate lines all through! He makes the oddest comments, from 'Hello stranger' to a ship no-one has ever seen before, to 'My hero' at Data and the just odd 'Do I look conscious?'. And the frustrated mime playing one of the Ferengi was hilarious, especially when he just gave in and danced around the set.

Of course this episode looked perfect when we watched Spock's Brain after. Marvellous. By which I mean ridiculous. And terrifyingly sexist.

It wasn't all fondly ridiculing Trek though, we had quite a discussion about the feasibility of a myth/legend/metaphor based language as we watched Darmok. We also watch Voyager's Distant Origin and had a serious discussion about Chakotay as wasted potential. It's fun times to do. Will did a introduction with various action figures having a roundtable discussion about Darmok and Rick-One did a video with himself as Captain Picard displace in time and leaving clues in his episode of Voyager. The intro's are fun times for 30 year old men to spend their time!

Twas a late night as we also added on The Gamesters of Triskelion and Who Watches the Watchers. And I took to my bed (well, Will's sofa) excited for the following day's return to my fiancée and the Doctor Who finale.

This weather is getting proper warm this week. It's kinda good, though I am prone to sweatiness so it's a tad awkward now and again. By awkward I mean uncomfortable and damp.

Anyway, that was gross! Hey, I had to go to a nursery school for some computer lessons. I gave the lessons that is! And to the staff! And when I say lessons, I mean I got their internet working. Then tried to sort their sound out. Then their printer. Then their camera. Which was fun. A small child approached me and asked me what I was doing at one point. I was tempted to try to explain the finer points of wireless networking to him, but the little dude was 3 so I left it at making the computer work properly. I did enjoy the sight of one of their laptops which the children had clearly run wild on and it was missing several of the keys from the keyboard. You could still use it, the buttons underneath were fine, but it's really only useful if you can touch type. You need to be very sure of your familiarity with the qwerty keyboard to use it.

After that afternoon, I popped over to the gym. That's my fourth gym session this week, I'm hitting it hard now with two months to go till my wedding, I'd like to reach my ideal weight. It's achievable but requires hard work.

Of course when I say ideal weight, that's my ideal. Which is the weight that Kyle Rayner is according the the DC wikia. He's also my height and my favourite Green Lantern so I figured it was a good one to aim for. I will of course then require my lovely fiancé to paint herself green and fire green energy from her hands.

My ideas for the bedroom are sometimes odd and difficult to achieve...

Mega excited about Saturday nights Star Trek club, then the Doctor Who finale. My fave theory is still Omega! Day's shopping in Meadowhall with my lovely fiance before that, which is good, I do love our quality time out of town

News in an odd order of relevance and how it makes my Mum like an alien

There's an excellent episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Well, actually there are over a hundred of them, but I'm thinking of a specific episode, namely A Matter of Honour. It's the one where Riker goes on an officer exchange to a Klingon Bird of Prey. It's brilliant as a great Klingon episode, a great Riker episode and just all round great. Hidden within the Klingon craziness is an officer who exchanges onto the Enterprise, the Benzite Mordock. He works at the science station and spots a bacteria that's eating away at the hull of Enterprise and also the Pagh. He later receives a proper bollocking from Picard for not reporting what he'd found. His reason was that he was completing a full assessment including a solution before making a report, whereas Picard expected an initial report.

I was reminded of this yesterday when my Mum phoned me. She informed me that she would soon be receiving a contact number for one of my Uncles and did I want her to call him and invite him to my wedding? Well considering we'd sent out save the date cards and invites months ago you'd think he'd know, but it seems he's moved house and not told his immediate family. Considering this, I'm not inclined to have anyone waste time chasing him up about it and frankly don't want him there now.

I know, this is still nothing like that episode of TNG is it? Bear with me...

I then enquired as to how she was to come into possession of this number? She said that they'd got it from my wayward uncles 2nd ex wifes mother. Yep, she gets to know where he's moved to! Why these measures to chase his number up now?

'Well your grandmothers not been well this week...'

Right. I love my Mum, but she does have an infuriating habit of leaving the important items till later in the conversation! My grandmother will probably be ok, she's on medication and being observed for the weekend, so once I knew that I looked back on the conversation and was reminded of Mordock. Granted it's not really that similar is it? But I enjoyed the kind of link that my mind sometimes makes. And after the fact I can kind of enjoy my Mum's crazy ideas of which item is appropriate to begin with. Like the time she called me to let me know my brother had been in a car accident. She started telling me the specifics of the crash, the location, angles etc. I had to stop her and ask her if he was ok! He was, it was minor, but you hear 'car crash' and you kind of need it followed up with the medical status! Bless her!

Oh, also my Mum is blue skinned and has a rebreather unit when in an Earth atmosphere...

The rest of my day yesterday was spent working, kissing my girlfriend up and getting excited about this Saturday. The Doctor Who finale is obviously a hugely exciting prospect, I am metaphorically crapping myself with anticipation. Though I can't watch it till sunday, as I'm over at friends on Saturday night watching episodes of Star Trek! Woo! We've all picked an episode each for a 'First Contact' theme. I've made the mad choice of 'The Last Outpost', which is first contact with the Ferengi. Maybe not the best episode ever, but interesting. I've done a powerpoint presentation about the episode to show too. I am possibly the coolest guy ever!

Last night I had a play with my KDE desktop. While I've been using KDE for a couple of months now and been enjoying it, I've not really scraped the surface of what can be done. Now I've got a desktop that shifts wallpapers amongst my Trek based pics, with several semi transparent widgets showing my Twitter feed, RSS feeds, Dinosaur Comics and how long till my wedding. Which is now 70 days. Shit, I better write a speech!

I'm not talking about Politics, but...

Hasn't politics been in everything lately?

I mean, obviously pretty much anything can have politics ascribed to it in some form or another. I mean, in the UK, that Political figures have been all over the place, normally in things I wouldn't expect.

But suddenly they're looking at space!

At least it says so here.

It makes for interesting reading and I like that we look to have some involvement in a space program. I found it pretty interesting that the government may look to change regulations to allow Virgin's SpaceShipTwo to launch from the UK. I'm kinda curious as to what regulations are preventing it. Surely we didn't have some in place just to stop Richard Branson going into space right? Is it the beard? Is there some UK law forbidding bearded people going into space? Can't be, haven't they seen from Commander Riker that beardy guys do well in space?

I recall many a conversation with my old housemate about travelling into space. The upshot was always that I would go if I had the chance. Which is kinda odd, I don't really like to fly. But the opportunity to see my planet from space? Sounds pretty awesome to me. Though it concerns me slightly that Virgin still haven't got the TV service spot on, I still get the occasional flicker or something, but figure they can send people into space. Considering the paranoid panic I had last year on the way home from holiday when, on take off, the plastic front of the seatbelt sign dropped off, I don't know if I'd be a calm astrotourist. I got through the flight, but dear god, I had to watch a Jim Carrey film to keep my mind distracted. (Having gone through my Linux magazine 18 times and watched that animated Doctor Who series through fully twice.)

Still it doesn't look likely to be a big issue anytime soon. The Virgin ships aren't yet doing commercial flights and tickets are $200,000 so not something I'll be doing anytime soon! After all, if I had that sort of cash handy, I'd be building my own Enterprise bridge and travelling through space the safe way. Heck, I can apparently start doing that for a lot less!

Yes, I know how awesome is that wallpaper? And no, I'm not getting some...

Catch up

Been a bit quiet on the old blogging front of late, but there's been a bit on. I've had a lot of attention on the election, wedding issues have been around and my car has been a little scamp in getting through the MOT.

However, I've still been being a nerd!

Ubuntu 10.4! Yay, the new long term support release, and it's a bit of a big change for Ubuntu, as it's not brown! What's more, it's really easy to setup. At least it is on my system. Now it's around a year since I first made the leap to a Linux system, starting with Ubuntu 9.04. That took a little fiddling and prodding to get working. Mainly in display issues, I had to search around for a rewrite to the xorg.conf file to get my monitor working. Generally everything else worked fine and I had an enjoyable time with it. When 9.10 arrived I had a little more trouble, the Pulse Audio being my biggest problem. I also seemed to break Gnome when I installed a new video card, but a re-install of Ubuntu fixed this. However, I could not get my head around the sound and it was only a recently I got the audio in properly, before then my maximum volume was about half what you'd expect. I did find an easy solution was to install a KDE desktop and turn it into Kubuntu. This gave me awesome sound and obviously some beautiful graphics. So much so that when I upgraded to 10.4, still run mainly in the Kubuntu desktop. I've just become attached to it, though there are some elements of Gnome I prefer. The package manager is easier in Ubuntu than Kubuntu, at least for me. Still I'm 99% in Kubuntu now.

So the upgrade to 10.04 went pretty smoothly, and so far I've had to do... absolutely nothing. Everything just works this time round. Now a while back I was singing the praises of Linux for making my PC fun again as I had to find fixes for little niggles. That was part of the charm and made me nostalgic for the old days when I ran Windows 95 on a P75 with 8MB Ram and an 850MB hard drive. But to be honest, I really don't have the time that I used to, so there's a lot to be said for having a system that works. And doesn't prompt be about security software every 30 seconds. Or treat me to 30 different voice bubbles about how it's setting up my new memory stick. Or crash for no discernible reason. Boots up in a reasonable time. Etc, etc... And this means the time I do have can be spent trying out Jamendo. Hey, there's good music available there, it's an awesome site. Oh, and I'm setting a virtual machine up to give Chromium a try. Have to see, I have tended towards Chrome as a browser for months now. I'll also need a virtual machine set up for Windows again, so I can get these Doctor Who Interactive episodes that are coming up soon.

The Great High Def Conspiracy

There’s a conspiracy against me. Maybe just me, maybe several people, but for timing, it seems to be me. That conspiracy is that ‘they’, ‘they’ being the shadowy organisation working against me, don’t want me to watch Doctor Who in HD. Now, I don’t know anything about this sinister group, I don’t know who they are or why the idea of top quality picture for Time Lord adventuring offends them, but I’m convinced of it.

Now before I put forward my evidence, let me point out that there are certain conditions of watching HD TV that I am not prepared to meet. I have already purchased a HD TV set, I have purchased a PS3 for playing blu-rays and I have purchased the required HDMI cables and optical SPDIF cables to play through a surround system. This is a hefty initial layout. Therefore, I refuse to pay an ongoing subscription to access HD channels which will be broadcast for free. If I wanted to watch 24/Lost or other Sky 1 show in HD, I accept I would have to pay an additional monthly premium to do so. But not for the BBC! No sir! Not because I question the contents value, far from it, in fact I’d willingly pay more for the BBC than for Sky (but that’s a seperate rant) but because, by it’s nature, I have paid for the BBC’s HD content in the license. And it transmits in a non-subscription nature on Freeview HD already. So I’m not further lining Sky or Virgins pockets for it. Maybe this stubborn attitude is the worst culprit for working against me? But let’s irrationally assume it isn’t...

So my current options. Well, mainly none. Freeview HD is not available in my area for sometime. This isn’t my favoured option as a new receiver is currently looking to set me back over £100. And I have a lot of equipment and a lot of remotes, frankly I’m running out of space, batteries and sockets. (I do accept that some new equipment is going to be necessary, as long as it’s not an ongoing cost.) So, setback one, lack of coverage for the very area I just happen to live in?! Hey, didn’t Sony bring out an add-on for the PS3 that receives Freeview and utilises the console as a HDD recorder? They did! And in many countries, isn’t that capable of receiving their free to air HD channels? It is! So if I get that device, I’ll be set at least for when Freeview HD comes to my town? No. Because this country is using a different standard for encoding, which that device won’t support. Arguments about the superior quality of that standard etc. are irrelevant, when setback one is gone, setback two kicks in and ensures I need higher priced and bulkier equipment and I can’t utilise an existing device. And with the way it’s all wired up, that’s a shame, cos I’m going to have to pull down the whole house of cards and begin again to put anything new in.

So, is there another way? Hey, wait a second, HD programmes are available on the iPlayer right? And the iPlayer has a icon on my PS3 right? Surely a machine built for HD would run this perfectly right? Well, it appears we cannot know, as it doesn’t allow the HD content. And even if it did, my broadband connection would not support HD content streaming to any watchable standard. What about the option to download a programme to watch within 30 days? Also a feature not available on the PS3 version. Setback 4 has made it’s move.

Hang on a second! My fiancées laptop has a blu-ray drive and an HDMI socket! Under windows that will allow me to download the HD version of Victory of the Daleks, plug it into my TV and presto!

Enter Setback 5. I imagine that the video hardware in the laptop is sufficient to play a Blu-ray, but not quite enough to output iPlayer to a TV. The result is the slightest of judders to the picture. Oh, it’s slight, it’s so close to not being there, but it is there and it’s impossible to ignore. And the less you ignore it, the more distracting it is.

If only the iPlayer desktop utility would work in Linux. Maybe then my desktop PC would be able to use it. Well hang on, maybe it does. So I checked and yep, runs fine in Linux. My desktop has a decent video card with HDMI out too, so maybe this would be something I could utilise? I’m going to call this setback 5.5 as I never seriously thought I could utilise it. I can’t lug my PC down and up stairs every week to connect it to the TV. That’s madness.

But hang on a second! If iPlayer desktop works in Linux, can I not install a version of Linux onto the PS3? That already lives downstairs and is connected to the TV! And while I had to eliminate it from downloaded HD programmes through the normal PS3 iPlayer, running the desktop through Linux on it should be fine right?

Setback 6 then burst into the room and slapped me hard across the face! I went onto the web to look up the best Linux distros to use on a PS3. And that’s when I discovered that the latest firmware update on the PS3 removed the facility to install other operating systems! Noooooo! So close! I was literally one Ubuntu install away from enjoying HD Doctor Who and it was snatched away. This PS3 update is the latest update. This very month. Seems something of a coincidence that it should come out the very month the new Doctor Who series begins.

6 setbacks to me watching one programme? Really? It seems more like a conspiracy than a coincidence. You may scoff and say I’m paranoid, crazy even, but clearly someone’s out to stop me watching Hi-Def Doctor Who. Or at least force me to await the series box set. But who would be behind this? Sky? Virgin? They may wish to force me into paying for their HD service. It’s not the Daleks, they made themselves all pretty and colourful for a HD series, they’re clearly into it. Maybe President Logan from 24, he’s into conspiracies and he might want me to get Sky’s HD to see him in 1080p? Maybe it’s Amazon, wanting to make sure I buy a new Freeview box from them, and the Doctor Who blu-rays?

Ultimately I think it’s the same group who make those people who leave their trolleys across an aisle to block it, go to the supermarket at the exact time that I go!

Toy Story

Anyone whose seen my twitter feed this week may have been expecting a blog reminiscing about my gaming days playing Heroquest, Warhammer 40k and Blood Bowl. And you know what? I'm proabably going to write one fairly soon. But this isn't it! Nope, for while a huge wave of nostalgia basically mugged me this week, mugged me, dragged me to it's house and tied me in it's basement, I had already made prior plans for this weekend. And those plans had involved a little bit of toy hunting.

You may be thinking, 'a 30 year old hunting for toys? What?! This is madness!?' and if you are, then I can only assume you're severely lost and really have no business reading the blog of a nerd. If you're still here, meh, it's your time you're wasting reading my rambling nonsense...

So yes, I went toy hunting. I like my action figures. My collection is modest and basically consists of whim purchases and presents. I'm not aiming for complete sets really, just picking up odd ones that I like the look of.

My jaunt today was to a car boot sale. It's a regular and large event and on previous visits I've found a few gems.

This is today's haul

Batman and Robin are lead figures I found at a stall that had a huge bunch of them. I had some serious thinking time deciding which ones to get. Eventually I decided on these two over trying to start the Titans. They're completely awesome statues, the detailing is fantastic and it's an awesome paint job. I was quite pleased with these two and I'm hoping the same guy will be selling the next time I go there.

Shortly after that we found a stall with a bunch of random action figures dumped on some tarpaulin in front of the table. I glanced over it and there was nothing of any interest, I almost turned and carried on and suddenly I spotted a Kyle Rayner Green Lantern. Whaat? This looks to be Kyle's first costume as GL. You know how people tend to say that one particular actor who plays Doctor Who is 'their Doctor'. Often the first one they remember seeing, the one who means the most to them? Well, Kyle is my Green Lantern. Not my first as I read some Hal Jordan before he went Parallax, but Kyles the one I read most while growing up (yes, I said growing up while talking about reading comics) and the one I related to. Since Hal's return, while Kyle is still around and gets a decent role, the focus is back on Hal. I haven't seen a Kyle action figure before, so spotting this one was pretty exciting. The shame is, it's not actually a great figure. The details are off, there's no symbol on the costume, the ring is painted flesh colour and the positions are terrible. I'm not sure why it's set up so he can only be posed in ridiculous, splayed legs poses, it's a little embarassing for him I imagine. But it's a Kyle figure, and it cost 50p, so I'm happy with it.

The last couple of times I went, there was a stall with a huge amount of random out of packaging figures of many varieties, including plenty of Star Trek and Star Wars. Sadly this guy didn't seem to be about, which was a shame, as I was hoping to increase my Next Gen set. My original series new movie (has anyone come up with a better way to reference this version of trek yet?) which began with a birthday present last year is now a complete primary crew and I hope to do the same for the Next Generation crew.

Obviously I still have a little way to go! My bigger set so far is the Doctor Who toys. This started a few years back when my lovely fiancee bought me a radio controled Dalek. Soon after I was given a smaller radio controlled K9 which came with a 10th Doctor figure. And it's slowly increased a little from there, with my patient, long suffering fiancee contributing when christmas and birthday's roll around. Bless her. I hope she doesn't come to her senses before the wedding.

There's a Tardis, a tiny Dalek keyring, the 10th Doctor, Jack Harkness, a weeping Angel, the Master, Professor Yana, a Time Lord, K9, a Sontaran trooper, the sun infected guy from 42, the Moxx of Balhoon!, a Cyberman and a natural Ood. Oh and a Sonic Screwdriver.

So I end my short trundle through my toys with my favourite figure. My Hal Jordan Green Lantern! It's a brilliant figure, it has about a bazillion points of articulation, it's huge for an action figure and wonderfully detailed!

And yes, that is a Green Lantern Ring at the base, alongside a Blue Lantern ring.

I'm the Doctor, I'm worse than everybodys aunt

Wasn't it good? Huh? Brilliant even? Yeah it was!

Ok, my reaction to the new Doctor Who series may have been influenced by the fact that we had a pretty small amount of Who last yea. But then were we all overreacting in 2005, as we'd had 9 Who free years then? Were we? Or is it just flipping brilliant?

I think it's the second one.

And I definitely thought that for The 11th Hour.

I got a little chill when the opening music came in! Thats how excited I was! And I spent the next hour alternating between giddy excitment, laughing and being creeped out. I am determined to avoid the trap I normally fall into of just narrating the entire episode back, so I shall concentrate on my personal highlights.

Fish custard. It's perfect Doctor Who, to feature something so marvellously mundane and in such a British way. Fish fingers. And custard.

The crack in the wall. Ah Steven Moffatt, where would we be without your marvellous ability to take those little things that creep most children out for no logical reason and then make them terrifying? Statues, shadows, gas masks and now the simplest of shallow cracks across a wall. Plastering defect or escape route for criminal multiforms from a space prison??

5 minutes later is 12 years. For all his genius, he can't steer that TARDIS. Though extreme damage may be a relevant excuse here.

Kissagram. Because in all the photo's I'd seen before the episode aired, I'd always suspected that skirt was too short for regulation police uniform.

The old lady completely unfazed by the Doctor bursting in while a giant eyeball takes over the TV

'and all I've got is a post office. And it's shut!'

'Get a girlfriend Jeff'

Most of the conference call on the computer is brilliant Doctor moments.

The creepy way Prisoner Zero uses the wrong mouth.

Of course, it's marvellous when you realise the virus has made zero's appear everywhere and you see what he's done.

And you can't not love the run through of the previous 10's and then 11 steps forward all dressed up. His sense of dramatic timing get's better each re-generation.

And finally, the TARDIS. I loved the previous design, but this one... stunning. Just awesome.

Now, in the spirit of fairness, I should mention the things that didn't work so well. Though it won't take long.

Yes, Matt Smith is young. 99% of the time this hasn't stopped him playing an awesome Doctor. There were one or two very brief moments when he did sound young though. But I don't think it made too much impact and should not be too much of an issue, once I get more used to him I'll probably no notice it again.

On the rooftop, as the Atraxi leave, the long shot shows the Doctor reach into his jacket pocket. Then in the close up he's not doing it, then he reacts and reaches in the pocket again. A minor slip in the editing, but it sticks out so much and really bugs me! And by the third time of viewing it took me out of the moment slightly. An overreaction on my part maybe, but it's rare to see that sort of an error these days.

The new sonic. Now I don't want to be the sort of person who complains about things changing. In fact I embrace change. Actually, change has a restraining order out against me. Sometimes I sneak into changes house at night, and cuddle up next to it in bed. But I'm not that immediately keen on the new sonic. It's the size and shape really. Though we haven't seen it properly on screen, the toy has flip out claws and that seems a little odd. But I won't say I dislike it, I do like the general look. I need to see some more episodes to make a proper judgement.

Which is in fact true of the whole series I guess. Yes, I'm excitedly in love with it now, but after next saturday? And the next? They might be terrible. Or worse. The next episodes may be so bad that it kills the series completely and that'll be that and because of those terrible episodes we'l all be glad of this!!

But that's very unlikely!

New Doctor excitement

I am a very excited nerd this week! One of many I imagine, with the new series of Doctor Who starting in just 2 more days! Brilliant! After last years Who drought, the prospect of a full new series is certainly an exciting one and with a shiny new Doctor too.

There’s been quite a few news stories popping up lately regarding the series, as to be expected, most media outlets know they’ll attract some interest running a headline with The Doctor in it. As is my wont, I try to veer away from anything that might spoil a storyline, although often such things turn out to be pretty far removed from the truth.

But there’s been a lot of interest in Matt Smith, who seems to be very enthusiastic about his role. I was interested to see in some interviews he’d mentioned that as preparation for the role he’d written his own stories about The Doctor and Einstein being responsible for the pyramids? Sounds pretty awesome to me. I must confess that I didn’t see his Jonathan Ross interview, though by all accounts he came off very well and some people have said to me they feel a lot better about him being The Doctor now than before.

Personally I enjoyed him straight away from The End of Time Part 2. A small example of his work it may have been, but I was on side almost immediately. Of course I might have just been pleased to see a Doctor with some enthusiasm and energy after the Tenths rather whiny and mopey exit. And anyone would seem pretty exciting charging around an exploding TARDIS! But I’m pretty confident in him and the various teaser trailers have done nothing to dampen my disappointment.

Now, back to the issue of the various news stories. I was amused to find this one yesterday. Quite amusing I thought, conjures up a nice image of Matt Smith attempting to explain a sonic screwdriver at customs. It also serves as a warning to those like me who probably would take their toys around with them! That's why my lovely fiancee doesn't let me leave the house with my sonic, or wearing my Green Lantern Ring.

I read some of the comments reacting to the story. Oh dear. What is it about the internet that brings out these people? The angry man yelling that Matt Smith has ruined Doctor Who for his son is my personal favourite, at least make your fickle child watch a full episode first! I do wonder why comments would even be sought on what is basically a fluff piece, an amusing afterthought in the news. Just a mildly funny anecdote isn’t it? Even that kicks of a storm of crazy people.

Though I can’t find the exact same story now, the version I read yesterday said ‘yesterday it emerged that Smith has broken at least 4 of the props on set’.

It emerged? That just tickled me as it makes it sound like a terrible secret that had been covered up! Thanks to undercover reporting the new Doctor Who actor has been exposed as a bit clumsy!! I love it when the language seems more dramatic than it is.

Also it’s been mentioned by Stephen Moffatt for months that Matt Smith is the clumsiest man alive so it ‘emerging’ that he’s broken some props is not that recent a story anyway. At least not if you read the Doctor Who magazine. And if you don’t then you’re probably a nazi.

I’m also quite pleased I’ve got to midday without being fooled by anything! Not that anything’s been tried. I have remained un-fooled by absolutely no jokes! I’m sure April Fools used to be harder work. Of course Twitter will barely be starting thanks to the time difference in the USA, so I probably shouldn’t read anything on there all day.

And don’t tell my fiancée, but I’m wearing my Green Lantern ring today! Outside of the house and everything!

Strange things put me in a good mood

I caught this story on the news this morning and its put me in a good mood today.

Not because I'm hoping to subscribe to sports channels though. As anyone who knows me will attest, I can't tell a tennis stick from a rugby net. And there are some negative points to the story in regards to the investment in certain sports that Sky represent. While football can sometimes seem to have outrageous amounts of money being tossed around in it, it's actually restricted to a minority amount of clubs, with many others struggling to turn profit. And sports like rugby see a lot less currency.

But what really makes me a happy Rickleton about this story is that Sky have been challenged. I don't particularly like Sky, and this is mainly personal reasons, but I don't like them. A lot of it is association, the fact that they're a branch of Rupert Murdoch's empire is my main reasoning, and it associates them with everything I see as wrong with today's media. But now is not the time for that rant!

Now is the time for me to bask in the knowledge that although the PCC won't regulate our tabloid press in any discernible fashion, at least there is a body looking at the current TV market and saying, 'hey, why should people have to go to Sky for all this? What about giving people a bit of choice?' and that gives me a warm feeling. Sky will appeal this decision, and it may be overturned, given the sporting bodies that are backing them. (It's a little disheartening that most of these bodies feel that consumer choice is secondary to the money pouring in, but as I say, there's financial difficulties all around so it might not be as greedy a choice as a measure to preseve some clubs.) If so, then so be it. I'm still not convinced one way or the other as to the the ramifications of the move but the fact that there's been moves made against Sky like this is a good thing to me.

Weekend away

To come to terms with my depressing realisation that I may never now have a robot sidekick, me and my wonderful fiancee took a trip down to Norfolk for the weekend. We have some relatives there, so we decided to take a tour of the county stopping in on people fortunate enough to be family!

Though I favoured the suprise element of the trip, we did warn these family members first.

There are few things as pleasant as a road trip with a loved one, especially when the weather’s reasonable. Though we had our share of difficulties.

For instance, first thing I decided before we set off I’ll check my oil and water levels. They were fine, so I decided to check the cars as well, knowing I was defintely low on the water. But the damn bonnet was stuck. Literally stuck, I’d pull the lever and the engine lid remained steadfast. It was not budging. Now this was not the time to be able to investigate this problem. We had to be going fairly soon after. So we had to get into Faye’s car for this trip.

So off we went. We made an early stop for supplies, we got some jelly babies and a rock anthems cd set, which were awesome. By lunchtime we’d got to the tiny village of Acle, where we stopped for lunch. I thought I’d have a cheeky beer with my meal.

£3.00!!

That’s 2 disasters today! A stuck bonnet and a £3.00 pint!

Anyway, the sandwich was ample at least, so once the appetites were sated, we continued down the road a few more miles to Hemsby. We stopped there to visit my grandmother. Once we’d done that we went a few more miles down the road to Great Yarmouth. Is it as great as the name suggests?

Well it’s not a fair test if you turn up to a seaside town in March is it? Needless to say, it wasn’t looking great, but it was a Friday afternoon in winter. Still, the arcades were open so we lost a few pounds to some slot machines for a while. And at least the sun was out, even thought the breeze was pretty harsh.

By this time it was getting to late afternoon, so we decided to head onwards to get to Faye’s cousins house. Found the town of Taverham reasonably quickly (despite a jam on the A47) and knocked at the door. No answer. Odd, she said she’d be in. Something’s not quite right here.

A phone call soon reveals that our address book needs updating. Faye’s cousin has not lived here for 12 years.

Disaster 3!

Fortunately she’d not moved far, so we’re soon on our way again. Though the Sat Nav is struggling to find the exact road. Knowing we’re in the vicinity, I consult Google maps on Faye’s iPhone. I find the street, so now we just look for the turn off to get there. I wonder if it’s far? Wait, what’s that blue pulsating dot on the map? It’s moving? Wow! It’s us! Not only is the phone showing me the streets, it’s showing me us moving along them! Brilliant! It’s a marvellous future we live in!

Massively impressed by this display of modern technology, I’m raving about this feature for hours after, no doubt boring the members of Faye’s family we’re visiting.

We stay over that night and go into Norwich for some shopping the next day. I manage to procure an rather awesome stormtrooper t shirt quite early on. We stop for a coffee, and unfortunately I lose the decision of venue and we go to Starbucks, depriving me of a further stamp on my cafe nero card.

The deliciousness of my chocolate muffin does little to lessen the sting of this missed stamp.

We also go searching for a comic shop. We evenutally find one tucked away from the main shopping area in a street filled with awesome little independant shops. There we buy Faye the Demo TPB. I um and ah about a new Green Lantern book for a while but ultimately leave it. I’ve been trying to select a comic for Faye for weeks now, and it’s difficult. I know that most of what I read is a little too continuity heavy for her as a new reader and I’d also like to find her something suitable to her preferred area of reading matter. I hope Demo is appropriate, we shall see as she reads it.

Norwich is definitely better stocked for toy shops than Lincoln. Though sadly the best one I found has a serious overpricing policy, so ultimately I didn’t treat myself to a Batman figure.

Generally as a city Norwich is pretty nice, though I didn’t get to see a huge amount of it. We did mistake the library for a shopping centre. I also contemplated going to the football game, though we didn’t in the end. Shame, as Norwich won, though I would have had to wait 89 minutes for that.

We ate at an Australian restaurant that night, seems to be a favourite with Faye’s aunt. Nice place, but a bit paralysing on the choices, I was torn between trying new things and just having a good old steak. In the end I went for the steak with some massive prawns, and will always wonder how good the crocodile or the kangaroo could have been. I tried some of Faye’s ostrich though and that was good.

The following morning we set off to the little village of Trunch to see my Uncle for lunch. Given our propensity for disasters, I did think it wise to phone first to check both that we were all on the right day and also that I had the right address! Thankfully we did so had a pleasant lunch before the long drive back to Lincoln.

So hopefully now Faye has gone round her family showing off her Nerd Boyfriend they’re still all ok about her marrying me! I think I reined in the nerdiness, so hopefully they’ll not know. Well, as long as Faye doesn’t start a blog about how nerdy I am. Imagine that!

The Robot that never was

I was thinking this morning about my unfulfilled dream of having a robot sidekick. I’d always assumed it would have happened by the time I was 30 you see and unfortunately so far, it hasn’t. Which is a bit of a shame.

I’d envisioned a slightly battered old thing with some exposed circuitry and a few rough additions wired onto his casing. He’d have legs, so he’d be a walking robot. I think 4 arms, two about human arm length with 3 prong gripping hands and 2 shorter arms with interchangeable tool ends. No proper neck, his torso would just form a bump at the top middle that shaped like a head. 1 long illuminated eye and a flashing mouthpiece when he talks. And his name would be Kenneth. He is perpetually confused by humans, not understanding social conventions, sarcasm, emotion or anything like that. Though obviously he’s super intelligent!

But, thanks to a botched attempt to install some additional personality subroutines, he has developed a second personality that on occasion overwhelms ‘Kenneth’ and comes to the fore. Jed is his name then and he is sarcastic and mean. He’s also a little crazy and keeps attempting sexual interaction with just about anything.

Oh the hilarious hi-jinks that would ensue when me and Kenneth were on the scene! I imagine that we’d get caught up in solving various mysteries that it seems unbelievable that we could have gotten involved with and our prowess makes the police look completely incompetent.

Also, there’d probably be a really exciting adventure where we attempted to download the Jed personality into a separate body. But then he goes on a rampage! Oh no! And ultimately we have to put Jed back into the same body as Kenneth...to save humanity!!

If my life that didn’t work out as I’d assumed, were a TV show, that would have been a two parter!

Oh, and the hilarity of my early dates with my fiancée if I’d had Kenneth trying to help me! Hm, actually it’d be best if we didn’t mess with that, I’m damn lucky that worked out as it is...

Decorating

My fiance is a genius. Maybe an evil genius, but definitely a genius. This weekend she went for a weekend break at CenterParcs. And while she was away, I agreed to spend my weekend decorating the bathroom.

See? Genius!

Ok, I wasn't going to be decorating for the entire weekend. Just the daylight portions really. And by decorate, it was more a case of prepare the room for decorating. So I had to drain the heating system, remove the radiator, strip paint off of the walls, apply plaster and/or filler where needed, sand down and apply paint to the area behind the radiator. Replace the radiator and restart the heating system. Then strip the rest of the paint along with filling and sanding where needed. Whew!

Needless to say, I failed. I FAILED DISMALLY!! I am not blessed with abilities in this arena if I'm brutally honest.

Actually, FAILED DISMALLY is probably a bit harsh on myself. I managed to do the radiator bit. However, that took the bulk of the weekend. That paint is a lot harder to strip off than you'd imagine. Certainly harder than I imagined. Ultimately I managed to get the wall behind the radiator painted. I managed to completely strip paint from one wall of the three. Not the biggest of the three, but not the smallest. And large chunks of paint stripped off the biggest wall.

But I was using a heat gun! It's pretty fun! When you fire that baby at some skirting board you literally see the paint start bubbling up. Not so much on the water based wall paint, but careful use did soften the paint up enough to make scraping it off the wall a lot easier.

However, that middle wall took some time and effort with the heat gun and scraper. I blistered the palm of my hand with the scraper. Yep actual blisters, the sure sign of rare manual labour on unmanly hands! And of course when you use the heat gun on the paint before you scrape it, the natural result is that you end up scraping a cloud of superheated paint flakes that then fall back over you hand and drift over into your face. Superheated. In your face. Or in my face in this case. Right into my beautiful face. Thankfully my visage remained un-marred by the small particles of paint-lava but after 6+ hours of this happening the novelty wears off.

Now I don't really wish to portray my lovely fiancée as the type who swans off to resorts leaving me tasks that to be quite frank are some way beyond the physical capabilities of un-manly nerds such as myself. She is now remaining home doing the painting. And I mainly had to do the paint stripping to avoid paying a professional to do it. The cheek of these professionals wanting money for their work! Why can't they make their money by sitting around using big words to pretend they know how to work computers like I do? Anyway, the upshot is she has now been painting my hard stripped patches of walls and it's looking pretty good. Thankfully due to her possessing some taste, we got a really good colour for it and there's a good feeling when you see it coming along so nicely thanks to our own efforts.

Though I'm sorry if your a decorating professional who is suffering in the current economic climate and our bathroom could have been the job that saved your business. Um, yeah, sorry.

Hitler Moustache

Richard Herring came back to Lincoln last week! Yep, despite my previous offers for him to stay at my house, though I was a stranger and the further suggestion that he could use his stay at my house to bum his colleague, he still came back to this city! Which suggests to me that deep down he wants to sodomise Andrew Collins in my spare room. As it were.

However, this visit, he forgot to bring Andrew Collins! He also forgot to stay in my spare room. He pretty much messed up the whole situation for achieving his dream!

Instead of this, he performed his show, ' Hitler Moustache' at the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre. I thought I'd go along for various reasons. Didn't have much to do that night. Richard Herring is fucking hilarious! The LPAC is just down the road from me. He's also very intelligent and raises brilliant points.

My fiancée was somewhat disappointed that Andrew Collins wasn't going to be at this show (she seemed to be quite taken with him when we went to see their live podcast last year) but was still keen to go to the show. I'd found a bit of a discrepancy early in the day with the LPAC website giving the start time as 7 but other sources at 8, so I twitter Mr Herring asking which time it would be. I know, I could have called the venue or something, bothering the performer is probably bad form or something, but bless him he very promptly replied to me, which is nice. The man does appreciate his fans, though I'd already figured that from the fact he replied to my email last year offering him the spare room. He politely replied despite the fact I was clearly some sort of weirdo.

Anyway, we went down to the LPAC. I was pretty excited about this show. I read Mr Herrings blog regularly and it had been quite evident last year just how important this show was to him in terms of the subject matter and how impassioned he was about it.

Hey, you get a free programme! Awesome. It suggests a donation to Scope in return, but it's not compulsory. So I thought, fuck that! Screw that fucking charity, I got a free programme, they can kiss my hairy ass! Not really, I made a donation, it only seemed fair.

So to the actual show! I was a little disappointed by the audience, I'd expected a few more people. The podcast had enjoyed a decent turn out, but this show not so much. Though to be fair, I hadn't been too aware of promotion beyond Mr Herrings own website and podcasts. Stupid Lincoln people, you better not complain that we don't get awesome shows like this anymore cos why would they come to Lincoln if there's no audience?? Also, you missed an awesome show you fucking idiots.

Herring does a brilliant job of covering some very serious subjects without any break in the comedy. I realised I'd been lectured on the importance of using my vote and democracy under the flawless disguise of a great comedy routine. He does a marvellous job of making racism look absolutely ridiculous. I love his reasoning of wearing the moustache to take it back for comedy, Charlie Chaplin had it first and if we always think of it as 'Hitlers Moustache' then Hitler's won! He's taken a symbol of comedy and made it a symbol of evil. There's also the full tale of his life wearing a Hitler Moustache and the anecdotes from his experiences there are fantastic. I am really only just going to gush about it's brilliance, I'm loathe to describe specific lines or stories on the grounds that to be honest, everyone should go and see this show. If you're a terribly lefty woolly liberal like me or somewhat more to the centre then you should love it. If you're a mad rabid right wing racist then it might just make you think. Or feel stupid. Do go see it if it's near you. Or look for the DVD.

And afterwards everyone was given a Hitler Moustache! A little black velcro one! Brilliant. I shall be wearing mine on April 16th to mark Chaplin's birthday. I'm hoping after all the shows done there'll be quite a lot of people doing this.

And Mr Herring is a lovely enough man to sit out in the lobby and autograph programmes and chat to fans, despite the fact he was quite clearly knackered. Though this tours quite gruelling with the travelling so I can't blame him. He signed my programme and I bought a DVD of a previous show from him too.

I’ve discovered eBay!

Ok, I seem to be a bit behind everyone on this don’t I? Lotsa people discovered eBay, had a lot of fun with it, got bored and then married, had kids and got old by now! (Previous sentence may contain slight exaggeration.) But you know what? I’m my own man and I’m not jumping on no bandwagons! If I didn’t get into something before it was ‘cool’ then I’m not going to get into it once everyone has! I shall wait until it’s not cool anymore, then get into it! That’s what I did with myspace.

Anyway, enough of this how I’m so cool for not doing things when they’re cool, (there’s a Spock-like logic to that sentence. I would like to believe...) this is about the fun I had when I discovered eBay!

I can’t actually remember how it started. I did create an account a few months back to stick a bid on something my fiancée was selling to try to stimulate further interest. That backfired and I won the item. Ah the unimaginatively written farce that is the ITV sitcom of my life! Anyway, the account sat dormant since then, stirring now and again to deliver some advertising emails to me.

Until last weekend. I don’t now remember what started me looking through eBay that day, but I was doing some searching on some Star Trek items. I quickly became hooked! You can find all sorts of crazy crap on there! There’s old toys from when I was a lad and before that even. Phaser’s, tricorders and communicators. Loads of the VHS tapes. (While I can see the appeal of selling them, I think it’s a tad optimistic that you’ll find many to buy them from you!) I spotted a TNG era communicator badge with sound and phrases! Awesome! I decided to bid.

And there we go. From there the excitement of the auction, combined with the wonder at the masses of stuff! How have I not got drawn into this before?? It’s amazing!

I lost the auction. I just was not prepared to pay silly amounts for this and with an hour to go a flurry of bidding erupted. Ah well, didn’t have one before, so nothing to miss.

Hey, there’s a first season TNG DVD set for five pounds! Brilliant! No bids so I’ll start at five. Hey, there’s only seconds to go and no-one else tried for it! Hey, what? £5.20?? Dammit, I need to outbid! In 3 seconds! Noooooo!!

Apparently I could have pre-set a maximum bid so my bids would automatically have increased against the other guys.

I was hugely disappointed by this turn of events. A last second bid like that swooping in and robbing me of my DVD set. That’s it, my love affair with eBay is over! I came in late, but I’m leaving early! How can I stay around and risk getting hurt like that again??

Anyway, I was browsing eBay last night, and there’s an awfully large amount of comics up there that I wouldn’t mind getting my hands upon...

Grrr, Rick Smash!!!

I'm on the verge of transforming into the Hulk. Not actually, as I've never been exposed to the necessary radiation, but I have been enraged this week. Can you guess why? The BBC. Sorry, I didn't really give you time to guess then did I? Though I'm so enraged that I'm in no mood for guessing games! Possibly in the mood for Doctor Who Operation, but not guessing games!

You can do a quick search on the interweb and discover any number of blogs about the BBC right now. From rants to cheers to well thought opinions, and a large amount of them will be more insightful and better written than anything I'd come up with. But that doesn't dissuade me from putting opinion to keyboard!

Why?? Why BBC have you given in to the pressures of your media rivals and their political mouthpieces? Your cuts here will just open the floodgates. You scale back some activities now and soon the pressure will be on to scale more back! The constant streams of hatred aimed at BBC3 will get worse and worse until you take it off air. And in a few years you'll be down to a couple of channels which will only be allowed to show a looped tape of Rupert Murdoch dancing in a pile of money!

Whew, rant over. I give in to exaggeration a bit there, but in all seriousness I do worry that the BBC's actions here will set a dangerous precedent for the future. I also fail to see the logic in these moves.

6 music and Asian network are being shut down. This is to help commercial rivals.

Which commercial rivals offer anything like these 2 radio stations? If you want to close a radio station down that will free up viewers for commercial stations, try radio 1, which plays the same playlists as the main commercial stations.

And about this helping commercial rivals. Why? Not to be unsympathetic but lots of businesses are in serious trouble in these times but I don't see public services being cut back to help them. Should local councils scale back rubbish collections to allow commercial refuse disposal companies to start up and do some business?

Maybe some of those commercial rivals could try putting out some quality productions? Instead of reality tv shows... constant reality tv.

Oh, and what did I see on the news pages this morning? ITV posted profits again? Wow, the BBC haven't even implemented their measures yet and their biggest rival's making a profit again! Plus Sky's seen a rise in subscriptions lately. Hmm.

And what is wrong with BBC 3?? I realise there's a lot of shows on there that have not been popular. In some cases they were dire. But then there's been some absolute brilliance. Gavin & Stacey. Torchwood. Being Human. Horne & Corden. Ha! Not really, I was shitting you with that last one. But the others are good, and they wouldn't have seen the light of day if not for a channel that was prepared to act as a trial area for new ideas and shows. That's the wonderful thing about new ideas, you can't always tell if they're good or bad till they've been tried.

See, I didn't want to get to negative rants on my blog, now I've had two in a row! It's a shame as I generally find myself to be a reasonably happy fellow and I'm particularly happy after the last sunday. But the BBC thing has annoyed me and I find it's helpful to get things off my chest into a blog on occasion. I promise to do a happier one next time, maybe I'll talk about action figures.