Ping...... Pong......

Every twelve months, the end of my mobile phone contract comes around, and I am forced to endure another round of horse trading, bartering, and ultimately signing for a new phone, and a new twelve month contract.

It's a real pain the the gluteus maximus.

The offers that your current service provider makes, are much worse than you can get as a new customer to a new provider. The moving from one provider to another, simply sparks a rash of panicked phone calls from your current operator, making successively more adventurous offers to tempt you to stay.

I'm well and truly in the middle of it. I am possibly making/receiving two calls a day to discuss tariffs, phones, contracts, and all the rest of it. I have friends coming round to my house to check all the networks work around the different rooms. I am calling in all favours from friends who work at mobile phone companies, and trying to get them to get me a deal.

I'm reading phone reviews. I'm working out the number of texts I send each month. I am working out the number of minutes I talk each month.

I'm trying hard to get a good deal.

I sometimes wonder why I bother, knowing full well it's all going to happen again next year.

Here's the phone I am currently trying to get hold of!!

In other news....

I am locked into a vicious battle with Jemma on Pogo, trying to outbadge each other. I think I am currently two or three badges behind. GRRRR.

I took my car into the garage at the weekend to get the cigarette lighter fixed. It cost me the grand sum of sixty three pounds (one hundred and twelve dollars (American)). I can buy five lighters in the market for one pound (one dollar seventy seven (American)). What am I thinking?? You may well ask!!

Apologies to everyone for not visiting your blogs recently..... The MSN spaces upgrade has been a proper headache (I guess it's been a BIGGER headache for those that are still blogging on it). In my defence, I am very busy at work, and to be honest, I've been too busy with Pogo at home... Let's call it a blog holiday, but I am back now, and will be round to see you all soon.

Many thanks for keeping the faith, and continuing to visit my blog, and checking to see that I am still alive/awake. I really love the fact that people miss my blogs and comments.

Here are a few strange search terms that brought people to my blog recently:

sky+ default pin (Google)
Answer: It's the last four digits of your viewing card.
garden news top tray (Google)
Answer: I didn't enter any vegetable competitions... Ever.
How did the Arctic Fox get its name? (Google)
Answer: From wearing a very big coat, which shields me against the cold. The phrase that gave birth to the name was.... "The arctic fox feels no cold".
spoonerism sketch two ronnies (Google)
Answer: Couldn't find the spoonerism sketch, but here's a video clip.
31st january tax deadline hand-deliver (Google)
Answer: Do it earlier and post it!!!
manic miner + animated gif (Google)
Answer: Just play it instead.
"Midsomer Murders" whodunnit (Google)
Answer: It was the bloke with the hat... You know who I mean!!
movie quotes +"do you know who you are dealing with? (Google)
Answer: No I don't!!
pogo backgammon badge (AOL)
Answer: What backgammon badge??

And now, the end is near....

.... And so, they've faced the final curtain.

Twenty three days, ten celebrities, and one non celebrity, later.

Celebrity Big Brother is finally over. It's been the best CBB EVER!! I've been fully gripped by CBB fever.

As it finished tonight, I sat and immediately wondered how to fill the aching void that's been left in my life.

Then I remembered Pogo.

Oh, Pogo, you're always there for me waiting at the end of an ADSL router.

I spend ten minutes kissing my laptop, and wander off to play Wonderland Memories.

There's badges in them thar' hills.

What kind of gameshow.......??

Click the picture on this page to run the video.

This week's theme.

Sometimes, you don't need to say very much to speak to people.

A woman walks into a bar.

She asks for a double entendre,

so... The barman gives her one!!

I've done the mood-o-meter to death, and to be honest it's been nice to actually sit down and try to quantify my mood... Surprisingly, it's generally been quite upbeat. I think I might revert back to a:

Link of the day:

Sign of a misspent youth?

Sometimes....

Sometimes there aren't enough hours in the day.

I am totally:

Effette.

Angry fox 2 - Army of Darkness.

I am still in quite a good mood. Have been EXTRA tired this week, really struggling to get out of bed. I am TRYING to put my best foot forward at work, and to be busy, and productive. Perhaps the good mood is coming from exorcising my personal demons through my blog??

Ok, in continuation of yesterday's entry... More things that are guaranteed to get my hackles up:

Cables: No matter how tidy you set up your stereo, or your computer, the fabled cable fairy always visits. She takes out her knitting needles and bloody turns any effort in "cable management" into a brand new, ill fitting pair of mittens, that are sixteen sizes too big.

Remote controls: I always lose them. I always stand on them when I haven't lost them. These are, of course, tied in with my loathing of batteries.

Public transport: Ah, the good old peasant waggons. Rarely on time, rarely comfortable, and extortionately priced. I'd love to use the public transport, but it isn't a nice experience.

Adverts: Some adverts are good, don't get me wrong. The only good adverts are the ones that are pleasant experiences, and don't necessarily sell the product as much as make you sit up and notice. Case in question, the whole series of Honda adverts are great. The Cillit Bang advert is a travesty. I hate adverts where people shout at me. I can hear quite well enough without having a product name shouted at me fifteen times in thirty seconds.

Plastic surgery disasters: This is a double edged sword of a choice. The album of the same name, by the Dead Kennedys, is one of my all time favourite animals. People like Lolo Ferrari, and Pete Burns, and Jodie Marsh's nose, simply scare the bejeezus out of me. I am gonna be having nightmares now.

Badly treated animals: I hate cruelty to animals in every form. Be nice to them.... Someone once implanted in my mind (at a particularly susceptible time) that we might be judged by the hair on the head of every animal that we have ever harmed. I hate hair, and I don't want to come back as a limpet.....

Bad manners: Manners don't cost a thing, and by all accounts, they maketh the man. Call me a sexist pig if you like, but I will still hold doors open for ladies. I still let people through a door before me. I still walk on the outside of the pavement when walking with Michelle.... Why, I don't know. Mebbe it's so she doesn't get shoved out into the road, or stems back to putting your coat over the puddles or whatever?? Some of the "polite" standoffs we have at work are great.... Trying to get a team of ten people through a door when everyone insists somebody else go first, is no easy feat.

Crumbs, I thought this would be an easy blog subject, but this has just taken me a bloody hour!!

I still didn't get round to dedicating a link to someone... So, especially for Kev: Here's the carwash!!

Righto, I think that's enough of my annoyances. Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better!!

My aura suggests I am:

Coruscating.

Angry fox.

Not really. I'm not in the least bit angry. I am quite the opposite, and this leads me to list a few things that piss me off.

Hair: I have the most average colour, mousey brown (admittedly flecked with silver these days) wiry, curly, mop on top!! For as far back as I can remember, I've had a shaved head. Usually shaved to about a millimetre long (or short if you prefer). It's cold here at the moment, and I am loathed to shave my head. Net result... Hair.... It's horrible.

Hair products: Because of my crappy unruly barnet, I have to plaster it with hair gel. The concept of lathering products on my head is completely alien to me. It clearly is not right.

(In order to get an idea of how my hair grows, I was once told (when I had long hair) that it looked like Noel Redding's hair... see the pic for guide - Jimi Hendrix, left; Noel Redding, right)

Broken links: I effing hate web pages that feature links which don't work. Many's the time I've been surfing the crest of a wave, and stumbled upon a page full of links, none of which work. If I can find a good example, I will show you what I mean. The same applies to missing images. I hate webpages that have those stupid gaps where images should be!!

Monday night: Soaps, soaps, and more soaps. I hate Monday nights... It's so effing depressing.

Shirts: I hate wearing shirts, ties, suits, and anything else formal. I'm just not that sort of person. I wouldn't know how to wash a shirt, how to iron it, how to fold it to put it in a suitcase... So why the hell should I wear 'em??

Batteries: Man, I loathe batteries. They are such a waste of resources. I mean, I am a bit less annoyed that a lot of batteries now are rechargeable, but you still have to find "downtime" for the article in order to charge it. The best thing that ever happened to a battery was when one exploded in my wireless mouse while I had it in my hand.... Boy, was it ever loud, and there was a lot of smoke. I jumped about four feet in the air!! Now that was cool!!

Ice cube trays: What is it with ice cube trays?? Why don't they make an effing ice cube tray that facilitates the removal of ice when it's made? The best tray I have is rubber, and the ice comes out "relatively" easily (when compared to other trays) but is impossible to fill and transport to the freezer without spilling water everywhere.

To and too: This has got me banned from more chat rooms than any other rule infringement. I refuse to converse with anyone who doesn't know the difference between the two words:

- I am going to the zoo, you can come too!!

Routine: I am not cut out to live the "Groundhog Day" way.

I could go on forever with this topic.... Perhaps I will continue the theme over the next few days.

Hello everyone.... Hope you're in as delightfully foxy mood as myself!!

The fox looks slightly:

Irrepressible.

Where did all the birds go?

A few weeks ago, my garden saw news levels of ornithological activity. I think I mentioned, at one point, we had fifteen goldfinches here at the same time! Since then, the numbers have dropped off, and I haven't really seen a single bird all weekend!!

The cruel irony of this avian twist, is that next weekend happens to be "Big Garden Birdwatch" weekend. It's an annual event, whereby the British public is encouraged to spend just one hour recording the peak numbers of each type of bird that they can spot. Two times nowt is still nowt. Depressing.

Last year, this event was an amazing success, with nearly four hundred thousand people taking part. It would be nice if I had something to report back.

I am smoking too many cigarettes. Such is life, and death I guess.

Well, it's officially Sunday night. Another weekend is almost over. What makes this Sunday night so special, is the snooker Masters Final on television. It's a cracking final between Ronnie O'Sullivan and John Higgins... Enthralling stuff. The snooker on a Sunday night instantly transports me back to so many former years. Late nights, followed by sleepy school days, and a host of nervously missed black ball finals.

Who could fail to get sucked back into these nostalgic Sunday snooker bonanzas. Remember the Steve Davis Vs Dennis Taylor final?? Who doesn't??

Chances are you will have missed the final by the time you are reading this, but it IS available to view over the internet at this time.

Also, if you are up to it, and in England next weekend, then go ahead and survey some birds!!

Oh my, I feel a bit:

Redolent.

Saturday night.

I've had a totally chilled out day... Mostly I've been playing Pogo, with the television on in the background. I've had headache most of the day, and even took a painkiller (which I would normally not do) when it had lasted so long I was bored with it.

I've been watching cooking shows, Big Brother (and various associated shows), snooker, and now a bit of Dave Allen. I've managed to finish a couple of Pogo badges, dialled a pizza, scoffed chocolates, and eaten Cherry Garcia flavoured frozen yoghurt.

The best part of the day has seen me wrapped up in my zebra skin blanket lying on my leather beanbag (both fake animal products I hasten to add), and it's been a nice day. You won't hear me complaining.

The only thing I am missing, is watching a good film... Perhaps that's what I will go and do now.

Fox feels a bit:

Lackadaisical.

The taste of victory.

It's official, the taste of victory is coffee flavoured.

You might well wonder how I came to this conclusion. It all began, a long, long time ago, and in a distant place. Actually it was seven o' clock this morning at my kitchen table if truth be known.

Sitting for our regular ten minute morning get together, Michelle and I started a discussion about tonight's Big Brother eviction. Who would be voted out?

As a little background to this story, Michelle has worked at a bookmakers for some ten years or so. She has worked in the shops, with the punters, and now works in personnel.

Would you bet against the bookmaker?

I stated categorically, that Rula would be voted out. Michelle remained defiant that it would be Traci. I mean, what sort of an airhead spells Traci with an i?? It's so effing L.A., that the great British voting public would surely not like it. Apologies to all of you reading this who are called Traci, or have friends or relatives with that name, but I stand by my previous statement.

The bet: One English pound, and a cuppa.

Guess what?

Rula was evicted, and my victory cuppa was like drinking manna from heaven!!

The moral of this story.... Never, ever, trust a bookie. Never, ever, try to outfox the fox, unless of course you are a katt!!

My head's in a bit of a tangle at the moment. I have about ten or so different concepts to explore through my blog, but I don't want to:

a) Bore my loyal subjects (that's you, stupid!) to death.
b) Approach the blog burnout phase too quickly.

So, for now I will create a few draft blogs, that I will post over the weekend, and leave you in peace.

Thanks for reading (or lookin' at the pictures if you're too stupid to manage the reading bit!).

My mood is decidedly:

Ratiocinative.

Your mission..

... Should you choose to accept it!!

I am on a personal mission to visit as many new blogs as possible this week. I think I probably visited thirty of forty new ones tonight, and left comments on about fifty percent of them.

It's very easy to stick to our insulated little blog "circles". To religiously read our friends' blogs, and to never venture further afield.

There are squillions of blogs out there. Last August, a report was done that claimed:

* Technorati was tracking 14.2 million blogs. Today it says it's serving 25.6 million blogs.

* Between last March and August, eight million new blogs had been registered.

* It suggested that the number of blogs was doubling every five months.

* Here we are five months later, and the number has indeed doubled (almost).

* Thirteen percent of blogs are updated weekly or more often.

* Only fifty five percent of bloggers are still going, just three months into their blog sentence.

Now, that's a fair bit of information, right there!!

I am saddened to think of so many blogs falling by the wayside. I fully understand how easy it is to simply lose interest, or to sometimes feel unmotivated to write. For me, the times when I am least inclined to blog are often the best works.

The blog is a cruel mistress. Rewards are sparsely scattered amongst the scribbled pages. Pain and emotion are poured in, in vast quantities. Time, of which we will all come to realise is far too short on this earth, is freely given. Views exchanged, advice delivered, insults hurled, and what does anyone really gain?

I'd imagine, that the human race, sometime in the future, will be wiped from this planet in the blink of an eye. It will probably be a mutated flu pandemic that claims us. Perhaps we will eventually pollute this planet to the extent that it can no longer support life.

Imagine, either a race from another planet, or if the earth re-evolves and humans have a second coming. Imagine the electronic bounty we have left behind. What would someone in the future make of any information they could extract from this massive network of computers?

It's a time capsule. It's the smallest slice of life in the twenty first century. It's the tastiest, smallest slice of cake you've ever tasted. Currently there are 25.6 million ingredients.

There's no time off for good behaviour!!

Give a new blog a well deserved plug, and invite some new people into your circle.

My new blog for today, is based on effort put in. I'm not sure how Captain Kattastic found my page, or what they were looking for. I'm pretty sure what they were looking for wasn't here. They did, however, take the time and trouble to work through quite a few of my inane ramblings and make pertinent comments. Kudos, new friend.

The ambience of the fox's lair is bordering on:

Obsequious.

If I didn't know better....

... I'd think that Big Brother is actually affecting my moods now!! I am consumed by the Big Brother machine.... Thank the lord that the celebrity version only lasts twenty three days. I am going to be a jibbering wreck by the end of the real Big Brother this summer.

Creative output for my day at work, and my thoughts of wanting to get involved more, amounts to one large rubber-band ball. It's probably a bit bigger than a tennis ball, and about as dense as dark matter. My fingers are worn to shreds.

I have finished this week's Pogo badges. This week's badges were Quick Quack and Chess!! Man, the chess challenge sucked. I used to be able to do chess, but now my brain just doesn't work right. I can't maintain interest for long enough.

Well, we've managed to make it through Wednesday, and that can only mean the weekend is that bit closer.

Still no sign of my banking security code. It's been over two weeks now, and I am about to explode if it doesn't arrive tomorrow.

I think I have decided not to get the lovely kitten that was offered to me. It's hundreds of miles away, and I have to go see him before we can even discuss price. The pictures sent to me, have the kitten looking like he has really dirty ears, possibly ear mites. The colour of the kitten isn't EXACTLY what I had in mind. I am going to try to get one a bit closer to home.

Jen: I saw this, and immediately thought of you. Enjoy!!

Would you have paid fourteen thousand pounds (twenty five thousand dollars) for Bill Shatner's kidney stone? I don't think I would. It's for charity I guess, but still, what the hell are you going to do with it.... Unless of course you want to head on over to Wendy's for a bowl of chilli to drop it into, and claim a big settlement??

Ok, enough pontification already.

The fox feels:

Whimsical.

Self doubt.

I know I'm good at what I do.

I only do things with computers, and that's pretty much all I've ever done.

Sometimes I get these feelings of self doubt. Today was one such moment.

I had to take the late shift to provide out-of-hours cover, representing our own little team. This week hasn't been a particularly good week for us, and today everyone was really busy sorting out a few "hiccoughs".

I wasn't really in a position to help out, having arrived slightly late, due to being there until much later tonight.

I kept my head down, so as not to get in anyone's way. There are times when it's ok to be the joker in the pack, but today was not one of them.

Then, as people started to leave, I became increasingly anxious about the support stint.

As it turned out, I didn't have a stroke of work to do throughout my evening shift. Not one single fault to fix. Not a single phone call.

The point is, that I really need to put some effing effort in over the next few days, to try and get more involved... I'm starting to feel a bit isolated, and useless...

Not sure where this is coming from really, or for that matter, where it's going.

It's a while since I have tried to convey a simple small aspect of my emotions through blogspeak. Perhaps the foxy mood-o-meter is making me open up a bit?

The mood-o-meter swings, and rests on:

Fallacious.

I'm a Blackpool fool!!

Can somebody please remind me, when this time next year, I am flapping about doing my personal tax return, that it actually only took me fifteen minutes today.

I am on late shift tomorrow night at work, working until nine pee emm.... Ker-ching! You can almost see the pound signs lighting up in my eyes.

I really need to get some gaming action fitted into my life... Today I was dreaming back to playing Trophy Bass 4 fishing game online... Oh, the international fishing tournaments we had.

I don't know why I have this fascination with fishing games. Is it strange? Some people like to play driving games, some people like to play snowboarding games, some people like to play fighting games.... With me, it's all of the above, but mostly I have the fondest memories of fishing.

I still have two games left over from my Christmas haul, that as yet, remain unplayed. This is purely criminal! I'd hate to get run over by a bus tomorrow and not have played them.

I've reached a Pogo impasse. I have achieved all the weekly challenge badges available to me now. The only badges left are for achieving certain ranks within each game. These are called "game awards" and take a notoriously inordinate amount of time and effort.

Take for example, my "Tri-Peaks Solitaire" Jaguar badge.... In order to achieve this thing, I had to play something in the region of twenty thousand hands!! Think about that for a minute... In that minute, you might have completed one hand if you are lucky!!

So that'll be the two weeks of my life that I can't account for!!

Talking of wasting two weeks.... Remember my call centre hell from January the third? Well, the conversation ended with them telling me that my security code would be in the post the following day. I had to call them back today and go through the most ridiculous conversation in order to ascertain that the code was never posted. The reason? Apparently, it was never posted to me because they never posted a letter that should have come before, and because the computer showed that this previous letter had never been sent, then how on earth could I want the next one? I would honestly effing fire the lot of them!!

Sad to say, this is the final week of England for the Rt. Hon. Spice The Cat and his good lady wife. I sure am gonna miss them, and wish to take this opportunity to wish them both the best of luck in their new adventure. Dave's been a good friend for a fair number of years now. He's a special, undemanding, reliable, friend. Good luck to you both and bon voyage from Mr. and Mrs. A. Fox, Esq. If you have ten minutes spare Wednesday evening for a farewell cocktail then let me know!!

I really must get round to uploading some photographs from my phone.... All typing and no pictures makes fox go crazy!!

Foxy mood-o-meter says:

Mercurial.

I've got the fear....

Now I've copied one blog entry (see yesterday), I have a great deal of worry that it might happen again.

I am making sure that I make my blog entry before reading anyone else's today.

All characters herein are purely frictional. Any similarities between real events and anything you might read on the internet are coincidental, or is it accidental? No animals were hurt in the making of this blog.

My kitten is doing pretty well on Kittenwars last time I looked. So far, he's been in one hundred and eleven battles. He's won fifty six, lost forty one, and drawn fourteen. To be honest, I thought his picture was quite ugly, but he seems to be doing ok.

On the subject of kittens, we may well be expecting to hear the pitter-patter of tiny paws on our laminate flooring quite soon.

Recently, I've been researching some pedigree kittens. I always wanted a sphynx, but Michelle said the were too fugly, and they have a history of skin conditions etc.

I looked into getting a bengal, but for a housebound cat (pedigree cats are rarely built with sufficient road sense to venture into our garden alone), they are a trifle on the wild side, as they are not far removed from their wildcat cousins (mebbe just three generations).

It seems we may have reached a compromise with a cat known as the Devon Rex. I absolutely love this cat, and have tracked an available kitten down, but it's a few hundred miles away.

I have a real problem with pedigree animals though... It's an effing quandary for me. I'd be interested to know what people think about pedigrees and controlled animal breeding such as this.

One thing I have achieved today... This is quite laughable, but it's put me in a good mood, is to sift through a great deal of recorded programmes on my Sky+ and tried to watch as much of it as I could manage/stomach.

The result was me, spending most of the day, reclining on the monster bean bag, wrapped up in a faux zebra skin blanket, watching telly and drinking coffee with cinnamon swirls. Sunday heaven.

I never did get round to doing my personal tax return.... Time is ticking away.... The deadline for the payment is 31st January, and before then, my calculations need to get to the accountant and back again.... I do this EVERY damn year!! I usually have to take the day off work to hand deliver the payment and get a receipt on the very last day.

Quick recap of my movie quotes (just in case anyone was puzzled by any of them):

2nd Jan: Lawrence of Arabia.
3rd Jan: Kelly's Heroes.
4th Jan: Evil Dead II - Dead by Dawn.
5th Jan: Spirited Away.
6th Jan: O' Brother Where Art Thou.
7th Jan: Santa Sangre.
8th Jan: Crash.
9th Jan: Easy Rider.
10th Jan: Rollerball.
11th Jan: Fargo.
12th Jan: Apocalypse Now.
13th Jan: South Park - Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.
14th Jan: Existenz.

Ho hum, weekend over.... Psyching myself up for work.

Fox's mood of the day:

Incandescent.

Scuppered!!

I was going to explore the theory of Britain Day in today's blog, but spice-the-cat already did it... So go there and read it if you want to know about it.

Personally, I'm not so down on England as a country as spice is. I think England, although it is changing (not necessarily for the better) is a fascinating, complex, diverse country.

One thing about Britain Day that does make me wonder slightly (that spice hasn't discussed and I didn't mention in my comment on his site either) is that we already have Saint George's day.

In England we celebrate Saint Patrick's day with great abandon. Guinness sales figures will testify to this end. I think last St. Pat's day I managed to drink a staggering 20 pints of the black stuff.... I am spice's worst binge drinking nightmare. I don't know how I managed to crawl home.

So, why don't we celebrate Saint George's day with such enthusiasm... Will Britain Day be unconnected to our patron saint??

Seems odd to me.

Anyroad, it's been a quiet old Saturday for me... Been quite busy, but generally doing not very much.

I'm gonna kick back now, and get a cup of coffee and play some SSX. Tomorrow I shall scale the heady heights of personal tax!!

PS: I am now laughing at myself for making a whole blog out of something that had already been done, and which I said I was going to do... Sorry spice!!

Movie quote of the day:

"Then understand this. Understand that I knew you were my real assassin when you pointed that gun at me in the Chinese restaurant. And understand that you're dead. Death to the demon Ted Pikul! Have I won? Have I won the game? Have I won?"

You could hear a pin drop.

Is it just me, or has the blog world fallen asleep at the wheel?

Seems the recent MSN Spaces cock-up has caused a huge internal haemorrhaging of regular blog readers and commenters.

The last day yielded some forty (or so) page views and only elicited just two comments!!

The fox can hear the echoes as he rambles on... and on.... and on.

Does nobody care about the guy who got arrested for calling a police horse gay?

Does nobody wish to hear about Jodie's progress on Celebrity Big Brother, or the fact that Jimmy Saville may be entering the house this weekend?

Do my movie quotes simply float silently by, unnoticed, unloved?

Are fluorescent pigs not tickling your fancy anymore?

Does the full moon not fill you with trepidation, excitement, or sense of wonder?

I just added a new service that counts my page hits, and generates statistics about where my visitors come from... Two times nothing is still nothing!!

I feel unloved and isolated.

If I type a blog and there's nobody around to read it, does it still make a sound?

I am racking my brains, trying to think of new ways to entice people in. Trying to find ways to make the blog interesting. Endeavouring to bring people together. Disseminating nonsense, and trivia, in the only manner I know how.

Do I need to include the popular search terms: Bird flu, Lindsay Lohan, Wedding crashers, Texas Longhorns, Vince young..... (All of which feature in Google's fantastic Zeitgeist site, and all of which I know absolutely nothing about.

I give in... There's nothing I can do.

Lurkers are my only friends... nameless, faceless visitors, who stop by for whatever reason, and never elude to their purpose.

Thanks for dropping in.

Sign the guestbook, leave a comment, make a vote.... Just let me know you came and hated it and won't be coming back.

Movie quote of the day:

"Satan, your ass is gigantic and red. Who am I going to pretend you are, Liza Minelli?"

Give us a clue!

Big Brother is moving up a notch. It's gone all weird and funky, and everyone's arguing and ganging up. Even people who would only normally have a passing interest are seemingly becoming hooked. It's great. It's also very random!!



I would normally have sent this picture on to the mighty Kevski, for him to proudly display amongst his collection of great images. It was far too good to not show!! I guess for those amongst us who do not know the story, here it is:

He has no shame!!

In keeping with spice-the-cat's recent Vietnam article, I'd like to point out:

On this day in 1962, operation Ranch Hand was launched.

Ranch Hand was a quest to uncover the roads and trails being used by the Viet Cong. In order to achieve this end, they proceeded to "defoliate" the jungle of Vietnam and parts of Laos.

Vast quantities of herbicides were dumped on these countries, possibly in the region of nineteen million gallons, over an area of up to twenty percent of the land area.

The most famous of these herbicides, was the notorious "Agent Orange". The side effects recorded are:

- Skin rashes
- Cancer
- Birth defects
- Abnormally high incidence of miscarriages
- Congenital malformations

Chemical warfare at its most unholy. Countries have been invaded for less!!

Sorry my blog's a bit doom and gloom, but you can't beat some cold hard facts now and again.

Movie quote of the day:

"I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight... Razor... And surviving."

Fox laughs an evil laugh.

Lately, I have had trouble visiting most of my fellow blogger's blogs.

Lately, I've been reading about my fellow bloggers having their blog entries eaten.

Lately, I've had my comments lost somewhere between clicking "submit" and it actually appearing on the page.

I used to have my very own MSN Space. I lost too many entries. I lost too much time. I lost too much spontaneity.

I moved to Blogger as an experiment, to find out if there were other, better services on offer.

If you visit my old blog... If you can get to it.... You'll clearly see my last posting (apart from the blogshares listing) was a farewell to MSN Spaces, for all the reasons listed above.

There are loads of blogging tools out there. Your blog is too important to the world to leave it to the mercy of such a flaky service.

Friends, Romans, and fellow bloggers... Do us all a favour, find a new home!! The grass for me, has been greener to an exponential value on this side of the fence.

Movie quote of the day:

F***ing little weasel! F*** you! You f***ing motherf***er son of a bitch Jesus Christ you f***ing sh**bag motherf***er!

Transport of the future?

***** Warning. Geek alert. Non geeks may skip to the end of this section at will.

Was Sir Clive Sinclair a genius or a madman?

He brought us such things we could only dream about.

The first affordable, accessible household computers. The first truly "pocket" calculator. He sparked electronic revolution, with the ZX Spectrum.

What went wrong?

Twenty one years ago, Sir Clive's dream almost made it onto the starting blocks. On this very day in 1985, you could have walked out of the showrooms with a Sinclair C5 for about four hundred quid. Imagine.

It walked off the production line and into controversy.

The safety council said "The vehicle is too close to the ground and the driver has poor visibility in traffic".

Birmingham University's accident research unit claimed "It's a sort of milk float you're putting into the traffic stream and that sort of dislocation is going to cause conflicts, particularly turning right".

The legendary Stirling Moss, had this to say (following a test drive, can you imagine the scene?? I am almost wetting my pants thinking about it) "I think it's safe if you drive it realising it isn't a car... Ride it just like a bicycle and I think you should be alright."

If it's good enough for Stirling Moss, then it's good enough for a fox!

In memoriam:
The Sinclair C5 -
Launched: 10th Jan 1985
Produced: 12000
Original price: Four hundred pounds
2002 Cult price: Nine hundred pounds
2006 Cult price: Starting at seven hundred and fifty... Knock yourselves out!!

Sinclair (to my knowledge) are still going.... But who has heard of the bicycle propulsion device, or the radio that's the size of a coin that you put in your ear??

Thanks for the memories Sir Clive!

***** Geek free zone (well, a bit less geeky I guess) begins here.

Here's one of my kittens!! He hasn't won many battles yet.

My Blogshares have fallen through the floor... I don't even know what happened!!

Big Brother's gone a bit fruit loopy.

It's very windy, and I am feared that my trees are gonna take my phone lines and beloved internet connection out.

Movie quote of the day:

The game was created to demonstrate the futility of individual effort.

Ready.... Steady..... Camera!!

Some thirty years ago today, when I was a mere whipper-snapper of only seven years old, a very strange thing happened.

Sylvester Stallone, after five months of training began filming his movie: Rocky.

This in itself is an interesting fact, but I owe Sylvester far more credit than simply making a landmark movie.

Rocky was in fact the first feature length movie to use the "steadicam".

The steadicam is a device that allows hand held cameras to be stabilised, thus allowing a more fluid shot. The use of dollies, and rigs, and jibs, and all that mallarkey isn't essential to create fast tracking shots any more.

The Evil Dead trilogy and all its fantastic, mad camera work was done using the steadicam, and I thank Sylvester for making the bold step and bringing this magical device to the public forum. My life is vastly enriched for having enjoyed these camera tricks over and over again.

On a more depressing note, I bring news of Tony Banks' death. He died in Florida, following a rather serious stroke, aged just 62.

Tony Banks was a cool member of parliament, with an acid tongue. He was a vegetarian, and a staunch supporter of animal rights. He was always considered "very left" within the labour party, and even opposed the war in Iraq. He always opposed vivisection.

His only comments/speeches regarding the war in Afghanistan, were to request government money, and the assistance of the Royal Navy to help the animals in Kabul zoo. In particular he wanted to help "Marjan" the elderly lion, which needed air-conditioning for his rheumatism.

I'm sorry to say goodbye to Tony Banks. The world is a poorer place without him.

Movie quote of the day:

Neh! Neh! Neh! Fuh! Fuh! Fuh! Indians.