Andy's Land of Adventure

Just. One. Word

After the amount of messages I got on MySpace regarding the bulletin that I posted yesterday I thought I'd put it on here too to see if it gets the same level of response

You.
Can.
Only.
Type.
One.
Word.

1. Where is your cell phone?
Contiguous

2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend?
Pulchritudinous

3. Your hair?
Unfastidious

4. Your mother?
Taciturn

5. Your father?
Multiloquent

6. Your favorite item?
Recherché

7. Your dream last night?
Inscrutable

8. Your favorite drink?
Salubrious

9. Your dream car?
Exorbitant

10. The room you're in?
Office

11.Your Fears?
Arachnids

13. What do you want to be in 10 years?
Transpacific

14. who'd you hang out with last night?
Maya

15. What you're not good at?
Speeling

16. Muffins?
Nar

17. One of your wish list items?
One?

18. Where you grew up?
Home (obviously)

19: Last thing you did?
18 (that's the question)

20.What are you wearing?
Look, how do you expect me to say what I'm wearing in one word? I have seven items on, how am I supposed to round them up in one word?

21. What aren't you wearing?
This is getting retarded. I'm not wearing a squirrel, or a Ghostbusters Proton Pack, a snooker table... there's too many

22: Your pet?
Is dead, is that what you wanted to hear!?!

23. Your computer?
That's dead too... you're just rubbing it in aren't you?

24. Your life?
Is now flashing before my eyes

25. Your mood?
Well is was ok, but you've pissed me right off now

26. Missing?
That's not a properly constructed question now is it?

27. What are you thinking about right now?
Killing everyone!

28. Your car?
You think that's funny, fascist? I don't have a car, la de dar...

29. your work?
*twitches*

30. Your summer?
Have we had summer yet? No. Twat

31. Your relationship status?
You could have just clicked my name and found out couldn't you!!!

32. Favourite colour?
WHY DOES THIS MATTER!!!! (it's blue by the way)

33. When is the last time you laughed?
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH

34. Last time you cried?
NOW

Wave Goodbye To Spare Time

When do I have spare time? Well, at the moment, a 'normal' week looks a little like this

• Monday - Free though I may start climbing regularly
• Tuesday - Boxing then go home and collapse
• Wednesday - I like to try and work on the bike
• Thursday - Gym and radio show
• Friday - It's Friday, I'm always doing something, generally with Roz
• Saturday - Try to spend the day with Rozamundo
• Sunday - Gym for a few hours in the afternoon, relax in the evening or catch up with mates

As you can see, I don't really have any time that I consider "free", but that's now no more as yesterday I did something very foolish indeed - I bought a copy of Final Fantasy XII. After an initial play last night that kept me up til way past my bedtime I can see that this is going to be one horribly addictive game. Hell, I'm glad tonight is a kinda off (though I do need to sand and do the first coat on my fender) as I really want to go home and play! I was a little unsure about getting it, as I was a big fan of VII through to IX (I somehow missed the revolutionary X and X-2) and in this new one SquareSoft have completely revamped the battle systems and I wasn't sure if I was going to like it; I must say, it's amaaaaazing. Well done SquareSoft!

The thing is, the Final Fantasy series of games generally take over 40 hours to complete (I remember the four disk marathon of Final Fantasy VII on my PSX taking me in excess of 60 hours) and I fear that this one is literally going to eat all of my few hours of spare time. Right now I'm itching to get back and give the fire boss that defeated me last night a good kicking. The problem is, I find myself saying "I'll come off at the next save crystal", then when I get there I say "oh, one more save crystal won't hurt", and before I know it, two hours have ticked by. Bye bye spare time. It was nice knowing you.

I mean, it's not like I have loads of other things to do, like see Roz, do my bike (I only wasted 14 hours doing the paint job that I now don't like *sighs*), prepare for my radio show, go to the gym, eat, sleep, have a social life and enjoy the many fruitful opportunities that land at my feet week in week out...

Random fact: The character Vivi in Final Fantasy IX is the reason that I came up with the name Alzani as that's what I named him. That's him in the picture. Ain't he cool!

Globalwarming Awareness2007

What is Globalwarming Awareness2007?

Globalwarming Awareness2007 is a competition, but not a competition that most will know how to enter. It's a battle of optimistation skills that developers compete in to win some nice prizes. This World Championship is also taking it on itself to raise awareness of globalwarming, which is commendable. I'm aware that I probably won't win, especially as people globally have got dedicated URLs and much better control, but as I'm warming to how to optimise a site, I thought I'd give it a go. 2007 might even be my year.

Why am I participating in globalwarming awareness2007?

It's my area, I suppose that I should. Not only that, but recently globalwarming has started to have a massive impact on the planet, and if we don't increase our awareness of it in 2007 then it may be too late.

Who else is competing in globalwarming awareness2007?

Thousands of people. To see who's winning, search for the term "globalwarming awareness2007" in Google, Yahoo and MSN, and whoever has the top 'average' position on 1st May 2007 will win. 'citin ain't it! You can help by either providing links to this URL (the permalink, not the site) or by writing me a comment. It all helps.

Happy 200th Anniversary

Happy 200th Anniversary

It's finally happened - this is my 200th blog! I've been blogging since 22nd September 2006, 5 months and 6 days ago, or 159 days if you prefer it that way. In that time, the amount of readers has grown from strength to strength with every passing month, so I thank you for taking the time out of your lives to read my little thoughts, adventures and general ramblings. If it wasn't for you lot, I would have given up a long time ago.

Thanks again, and I hope you keep coming back

Practice Makes Perfect I Suppose

There was another big thing that went on this weekend, I finished the paint job on my bike. Hurrah! Shame that I don't like it though, so I'm going to sand it all down and start again. It's not that I don't like the colours or anything, but I really should have done a masking tape test, you see, where I'd ripped the tape to make the curves of the tiger print, it left a kind of feathery edge, as if I've painted on, well, a feather or something. This meant that all of the stripes had white edges, which I tried painting over with a brush but it still didn't look quite right so I'm going to start again from scratch but go a brighter, cleaner, simpler way. Metallic red with white highlights. Maybe that red with silver glittered bits in it to make it really shine in the sun, I'm not sure yet. It depends what Halfords have in stock. As for the issue with the crank and the bottom bracket, well I'm going to take it down to my local bike shop and get them to remove it (I don't mind paying now, even it it mean wrecking the cranks) so that I can get a perfect finish this time. Ideally I would blast sand the frame, but it'd be horribly expensive to have done, so I'm going to do it by hand. Sure it'll take ages, but hey, I've got time!

Mummy Mummy, Look As I Press My Hands On The Glass

Hi blog, how are you? Oh, that's good. Me, yeah I'm good thanks. I'm sorry I didn't write to you yesterday, I had the day off you see. Don't cry, I'll make it up to you today. No, I didn't get to go to the beach as planned. Well the trains weren't running so we just couldn't get there, but it's ok, we had an ace time anyway. Do you want me to tell you about it? Of course you do. Well, I'll break it down for you then.

Yet again, in the constant mismatch of plans that is my life, the weekend didn't go as I expected it to. Sometimes, I consider giving up making plans, as they never turn out like I want them to. Anyway, that's beside the point. Saturday was supposed to be the start of a weekend away with Roz, but due to a number of circumstances, primarily the lack of running trains, the weekend away got cancelled and instead we spent all of Saturday tripping around the National History Museum. I could waffle on for ages about the dinosaurs, the big jungle animals, the monsters of the deep, Roz's fear of millipedes, wanting to embed my tripod in every child's head and the building's amazing architecture, but the pictures and the videos tell most of the story, so look at an watch them and you'll save me a massive job, as I have plenty of other things to write about right now. Thank you please!

Part 1 - BIG Animals

Part 2 - Kids

Part 3 - Monsters

Part 4 - Swines

Part 5 - T-rex
Coming soon (when I've successfully resized it)

One Corner Of The Sphere

On last night's radio show, apart from having on the amazingly talented girls from Indigo Brown, I played a collection of some of my favourite hard rock songs, which I thought I'd share with you now. Most of them are American or Canadian rock bands, but I love the raw energy, big guitars and agressive lyrics in them all. I expect that you won't know most to be honest, but hell, I like 'em.

It's almost like a little look into one corner of my large musical sphere (yes, I realise spheres don't have corners). There's this side that likes the heavy rock, there's the part that like breakbeat, drum 'n' bass and some dance / house, there's the part that loves slow acoustic melodies and trip hop and the other side that's slowly getting into some R'n'B and blues / jazz tracks. I like to have a wide range of tastes. I guess, as a somewhat amature musician myself I have a deep appreciation of what people can achieve musically so respect the music more than anything. So, presenting, corner number one.

Marty Casey & The Lovehammers - Straight As An Arrow

Lost Prophets - Make A Move

Default - Sick & Tired (ignore the video)

Crashbox - Life Of The Party (shame it's a dodgy live recording)

Billy Talent - Try Honesty

Nine Black Alps - Unsatisfied (ignore video and the fact it repeats)

The Academy Is... - Checkmarks

Three Days Grace - Get Out Alive

The USED - Taste Of Ink

Pete Yorn - Ever Fallen In Love (ignore video, unless you love Harry Potter that is)

Erupted With Pleasure

Google never ceases to astound me. I was using Google Maps to have a look around Dedham as I'm going there this weekend with Roz and I zoomed right out so that I could see the whole world. I zoomed in at a random area of the Atlantic Ocean, and look what I zoomed in on.

What are the chances of zooming in on landmass in the middle of the Atlantic, let alone an awesomely cool volcano. I love technology so much!

Easy Tiger

Yesterday was a good day. Well, the evening part was at least.Me and my new kit hot-footed it down to the gym and I had my most productive session to date. I hit the free-walkers to do my cardio and comfortably bashed out 20 minutes more than my usual trek, which in turn meant that I was bursting with energy when I hit the weights, so I increased all of my weight classes by one (so 32.5kg hammercurls became 37.5kg, 49kg lateral pulldowns became 56kg, 172kg foot press became 190kg... you get the idea) and I still managed three full sets of 15 reps. Maybe it was the extra cardio that did it, maybe my new kit is magic, maybe it was because I was swigging Lucozade Sport or maybe it was just one of those days, but it felt so good. I think I'll stick with the extra cardio and take all the weights up one more class next time so that I fail the third set.

After all that energy releasing, I went home and began on the masking taping of the tiger stripes on the bike. So far, after three hours of taping, I'm bloody chuffed with it, but when I finally gave up just after midnight I was only about half way through. Doing one side isn't too bad, but matching up the 'open' tops and bottoms of the stripes is a right mission I can tell you! I think it's going to look mean once it's done. Hopefully I'll be able to get it finished by tomorrow and sprayed on Sunday (weather permitting). If not, I have Monday off so I'll do it then. So, what do you think?

Why Didn't You Write Me?

Is it sad that I can't see this clip without getting upset? Man I love that film. Always has the "Armageddon" effect on me though *sniffles*

Something Fishy Going On

Would you believe someone could get two blogs out of the lost (or stolen, I don't recall) contents of gym bag? No? Well you'd be wrong. I most certainly can!

As well as losing my relatively new gym kit, my very old trainers, all my smellies and my Derren Brown book, I lost my hair styling gel which meant I spent a couple of days with an uncomfortably flat and lifeless mop while I tried to locate my VO5 putty of choice. Oddly, I wasn't able to find any so I thought I'd chance a new one and see how good it was. Usually, I don't like deviating from my norm as my hair doesn't seem to like some styling products and it just gets greasy and sticks up in horrifying ways; so when I chanced a change this morning, I decided to go for a range that I'd never tried before and selected part of the Fish Soho range, made, funnily enough, at the style labs in Soho.

Oh. My. God. This thing is awesome. Not only does it smell like chocolate (I'm sure I know someone that will appreciate that) but it holds my hair perfectly. Matt effect, good hold without the chavvy "harder than rock" feel to it and if I say so myself, it makes my cut look awesome. So, I'd heartily recommend Fish Soho's Stonefish. Be sure that you get the right Stonefish though, as it's also the World's most poisonous fish and you don't want to be rubbing one of those all over your head... oo er misses!

Completely Kitted Out

Apparently today is the first day of Lent, which means Easter must be looming which is odd as I'm sure Christmas was only a week or so ago. Anyway, it's a time of year where people give up the things that they don't like or that they feel they probably shouldn't be doing, but what I have to ask to those people is, why just do it for Lent? It's like the New Year's Resolution psychology. In November, someone might say "I'm going to give up smoking in the new year". Why wait until the new year? Why not just give up now? The majority of resolutions fail, as do most 'giving up for Lent' self-promises, so why add to an already overwhelming statistic? If there's something about your life that you're not pleased with or that you wish you could change, don't try and alter it because a calendar says that you should, just do it.

Anyway, rant over. You'll be glad (maybe) to know that I'm feeling much better, brighter and down-right chirpier today after the last few days coding madness. My head hit the pillow at 9:30pm and I was out like a light... until Roz called at midnight, drunk. Ironically she rang this morning to apologise for waking me up, and woke me up again. The world goes around in mysterious ways.

I've just had to go to Nike Town in Oxford Circus and stock up on some gym kit, as I somehow lost my kit bag the other night. Unfortunately, I used to wear yellow and blue, colours that I liked and that look good on me, but apparently they're now last season's colours as far as training kit goes, so I had to get red and black which doesn't suit me as well, but will suffice. Maybe I'll grow to like it, who knows. Oh, and how bloody expensive are trainers these days? I think my last pair that I'd bought about five years ago were in the region of £15, but today, my slightly above average trainer price Nike Air Bermonds were £70, and I could have easily paid double that if I'd wanted to. Madness! A bag, shorts, training top and trainers was £150. Keeping fit sure is pricey. I hope whichever bugger took my last bag is enjoying the smelly socks and underwear!

Presenting Project Heyli

No sleep for 24 hours, a massively tight deadline and a highly esoteric hacking competition, and this is my result, Project Heyli. It's so named as all the projects done here are generally named after women, so I thought I'd follow suit. It's a site where members can write about their holidays, share their pictures and teir calendar timetables and so on but in a totally customisable environment. What do ya think?

And We're Done!

As it so well says, Hack Day 2007 is over. I'm going to have a little snooze in my chair - wake me at your peril!

The REAL Hack Day

Balloons and bicycles. Excitin' ain't it!

Bicycle Race

The Wonder of Balloons

Look At The Time

It's 3:42am and I'm so God damn tired. Right now, productivity is at an all time low. I think I put it best when I spoke to Ian on MSN earlier.

Andrew J Whitehead says :
Productivity has definitely been slipping since, well, since I found that stash of beer in the kitchen

It's been all downhill since there, but I've got some very amusing videos out of it that I'm waiting for YouTube to approve, then I'll be adding on here of course. One was my fascination with a balloon that I chased around for a bit before throwing it out of a window, and the other was of me and Fabio having mini-bicycle races around the office; though we spent as much time recovering from crashes as we did racing. Slowly losing the will to live?  You betcha!

Beat Up Flute Player

Not what you may expect from the title, but if you do one thing this evening (or morning / afternoon / whenever) listen to this video. Immense, truly immense - brings a fresh new air to flute playing!

Can You Hack It?

It's 7pm, and food is just being delivered to a hungry bunch of coders in my office, for you see, today is lastminute.com's Hack Day 2007. Hack Day is a two day event held once a year that allows designers, developers, computer engineers and suchlike to spend 24 hours (12pm until 12pm) designing and building whatever they want. It doesn't have to serve any purpose for the company but it just have to be innovative and interesting. As you only have 24 hours though, the majority of us taking part in this competition are staying here through the night in order to get as much done as possible, so we've stocked up on the Pro Plus, coke (cola that is) and the company is filling our greedy techie faces with a whole host of foody goodness.

There's a vast number of projects being worked on by the 30-or-so people taking part ranging from some kind of embedded music player, functionality for the company website that allows a group to book a holiday together and pay for just their own bits and something to do with Google's calendar showing events from some list (that's technically known as a 'mash-up'). Personally, I've taken the slightly more artistic angle and am developing a e-Journal Travellers Log where people who go on holidays can put photos of where they've been, write about places, show a calendar of events and so on. I suppose it's a bit of a mix of MySpace and a blog, but with a twist that it's presented like you're looking at a table with a diary on it, and polaroids scattered about, and the user should (hopefully) be able to place the elements wherever they want on the page. That's the idea, and so far it's going pretty well. I'm just over 7 hours into with 17 hours left to go and already I'm feeling the burn. That's what I get I suppose for last nights "trip to see Babel" with Roz turning into a seven hour drinks and shisha session where we met some random couple who we then went out drinking with before playing pool, going bowling and generally having a merry time. Ooooo, food's arrived, must dash!

It'll Be All White On The Night

The Bike Mod project has finally moved up a gear (pun very much intended). This weekend the weather was lovely, so I seized the opportunity to work some more on the bike in the great outdoors - well, the low roof behind my flat at least. After a quick trip to Halfords to buy a crank extractor and a bottom bracket remover I returned to my flat and got started on finally removing the pedals and the cranks, or so was the plan anyway. It all started ok, the crank extractor screwed in perfectly, but as I tightened the inserter that removed the crank, the extractor net threaded out, meaning that the extractor wouldn't grip and subsequently rendered it useless. I was presented with a choice. Get out my power drill or buzz-saw and remove the thing, permanently, or just mask up the pedal joints and spray around them as much as I could. I went for option number two. Coat number one, and stage two of the modification (after taking it all apart), the white base was applied on Saturday, and I was really happy with the results. In fact, it looked so good that I almost contemplated leaving it white, and I think that if I didn't have such a cool design in my head for how I wanted the final piece to look, I would have done.

After completing the spraying outside, I took the bike back in to dry for 24 hours. The next day (Sunday) I got up and checked the frame to find that all was excellent. The base had worked really well so I was ready to apply the main coat, though this too is being done in two stages, the main base, and the 'details' layer. I might as well tell you what I intend to do as you'll hopefully see it by the end of this week anyway. The idea of using the three paint colours (blue, green and bluey-green) is to have a gradient fade from blue to green across the full length of the bike, then use the bluey-green to paint a tiger stripes effect over the original layer. As the bluey-green is darker than the blue, but lighter than the green it should create an optical effect where the stripes change colour as they move down the frame despite it only really being one colour. This is further enhanced by the fact that I'm using pearlescent paint that changes colour in the light and that the painting is deliberately being made 'patchy' so that it more resembles tiger fur. Well that's the idea anyway. So, on Sunday, the undercoat of the main painting was done, and was I happy with it? You bet your bottom dollar I was! As you can see from the photograph, the patchy gradient effect has worked very well indeed. Again though, I just had to leave it to dry so that I can mask up the stripes effect during the week and paint it next weekend as I don't think I'll get a chance before. Opinions would be much appreciated at this point

How Not To Pass An Exam

Who Said Romance Is Dead!

Well I'm pissed off, pissed off but happy... I'd just written a really long blog about how totally wonderful last night's meal with Roz was, about how I'd spent the day making the flat look totally amazing and how there were candles, Spanish music, 19 roses (one for each day that I've known her), me in a full black suit with black shirt and a red tie, a lot of champagne and undoubtedly the best meal I've ever cooked, and my machine blue screened so I lost it all. Damn typical. I can't be bothered to write it all up again, but I will tell you what I cooked and you can get the gist of what the place looked like from the blurry picture below - I really should have used the tri-pod

Starter:
A dozen fresh Pacific oysters

Main:
Shoulder of sirloin steak with sauté potatoes in a red wine and mushroom sauce

Dessert:
Whitehead family recipe chocolate brandy mousse with fresh cream

The best thing was, every course got better as the meal progressed which pleased me immensely as the chocolate mousse had taken ages to do, purely as I had no whisk so had to beat the egg whites with a fork. The oysters were from yesterday morning's catch so were beautifully fresh, the steak was thick, juicy and really tasty, especially in the red wine sauce, and the chocolate mousse was, well, words cannot describe its pure flavourful goodness.

All-in-all, from the grin that it constantly plastered across Roz's face, I'd say that it had the desired effect. Who said romance is dead!

Good Old Cupid

Valentine's Day Isn't Until Tomorrow

So it's Valentine's Day, either the one of the coupliest (is that a word?) or the loneliest days of the year. If you're lucky (or unlucky) enough to be all loved up, it's yet another chance for banks to stick their hands further into your already empty pockets and force you to show your affection with flowers, chocolates and anything else that comes in pink, red or 'sparkly'; whereas if you're single it's a chance to sit around with your other single friends and get drunk, enjoy a microwavable meal for one, watch porn or whatever else single people tend to do on Valentine's day. So, I suppose the burning question is "do I have a Valentine", to which the answer is yes... and no!

Confused? You don't know the half of it. Well, as you may have guessed from my blogs I've recently started seeing Roz, but before I came along she'd already agreed to have an "anti-man day" with her friend which she didn't feel right backing out of, so today, on the 'official' Valentine's Day, I'm not actually seeing her. But (and here comes the technicality), I have the day off tomorrow which I'm going to use to make the world's most scrumptious (all going to plan) belated Valentine's meal. I can't say exactly what I'm cooking as I don't want to ruin the surprise, but it's going to take damn ages to do, especially with my mum's secret desert recipe! I suppose that it's almost a way of sticking two fingers up at Valentine's Day and saying "I don't need your approval to do this", or then again, maybe it's just because Roz already had plans. Who knows!

Either way, it should be fun as long as the overwhelming pain in my hands goes away. You see, Roz and I went climbing again on Monday night, so I now have *counts* 11 blisters on my hands. I think I even have blisters on my blisters! It wasn't such an energetic session as my forearms were still aching from Sunday night's climbing, but when my energy levels were highest at the start of the night I tackled a few runs that had caused me trouble late in Sunday's climb and successfully nailed them all (including my purple realrock nemesis and "number 6")

So what will I be doing tonight, the "official" Valentine's night? Well, I'll be going to the gym (my days are all off by one this week for various reasons), then I'll be going home and removing a crank and bottom bracket from my bike before beginning the highly laborious task of sanding the existing paint off whilst watching a film of some description before hitting the hey. The real Valentine's Day is just a day late this year!

Fasten Your Seatbelt

I was there for this... what a night!!! I don't think I've ever danced that hard or will again - I'm getting too old now

Pendulum - Intro and Slam

Pendulum - Fasten Your Seatbelt

Darwin Just Isn't That Advanced

What an interesting email I've just recieved (from when I was signing up to a load of dating sites). It was one of those sites where the users have to guage whether or not you're "hot enough" to join the site. I was originally a bit bummed that I didn't get accepted, but now...

Dear Andrew,

We are really really sorry, but for some reason you were incorrectly rejected!

It turns out that you ARE HOT -- but some bad programming meant we accidentally gave you the boot. Please accept our apologies.

We have converted your account to a full membership. You can now login and upload your profile:

Username: alzani
Password: **********
Login here: http://www.darwindating.com/members

We look forward to helping you find a beautiful partner. Welcome to Darwin Dating. Please tell your friends about the site!

Thanks, and our apologies again.

The Darwin Dating crew
www.DarwinDating.com

Yeah, well a bit late now aren't you Darwin? Guess you're not as hot as you thought you were huh!

Ups and Downs On Multiple Levels

One day, I'll have a weekend that will go as I expected. A lá last week, a blog-tastic breakdown is about to be enforced. Are you ready? Yes? Then I'll begin.

Two things were happening on Friday evening, and I had originally intended to be part of both. The first one was to meet Roz for a quick beverage and dinner after work, and the second was to meet the work bunch afterwards for one of the guys leaving parties that was bound to run on into the early hours of Saturday morning. I thought I'd be able to fit them both in as Roz had to leave by 8 o'clock under all circumstances to get home and do some uni work. Let's just say, it didn't go quite according to plan, and to cut a long story short it was soon gone midnight and we found ourselves in The Champagne Bar in the fish market eating oysters and drinking £60 bottles of champagne after consuming a load of drinks in one pub before going to get dinner at a noodle bar.

God, I love oysters though. I was a bit dubious about them to begin with, mainly because they look like they belong up someone's nose, but the more I have them the more I like them, especially when they're really fresh like the ones we got from the fish market. And these were big oysters. Well the ones I had were anyway as Roz opted for the smaller ones - wuss.

On a side note, I hate buses, and it seems that Roz's bad influence means that I'm constantly missing the last train home so I'm having to use them more and more. Damn buses. The worst thing is falling asleep on them, but you'll know all about that from my tales of waking up in some remote part of south London. So Friday I ended up on the bus home again, but this time we managed to somehow stay awake and get off at the right stop. It had to happen eventually I suppose.

Saturday morning I got up far too early for someone who got to bed so very late. Roz and I trundled over to her friend Laura's house where she used to live to pick up some old post, then we went to her office in Liverpool Street as we'd nipped in there the night before and I'd somehow left my phone and my wallet there. I very vaguely remember being there but the various smells that I encountered as we walked through the building were somehow familiar.

Once I'd gotten them and Roz had finally gotten her train home I went home to prepare for evening as Claire and Kylie were coming around to (what I thought) play some games and just have a laugh. Shortly after they arrived, a mention of the ever eventful Circle of Death came up so we started playing that. It spawned some interesting truth or dares (a video of Claire dancing to the Black Eyed Peas will be available later) and as usual, Claire drank all of Kylie's drink when she pulled the fourth king (videos of that will be online later too) and subsequently got pretty hammered. Just forwards to midnight and I'm sitting on my bathroom floor holding Claire's hair back while she lines my toilet with sick and tidying the living room where she'd fallen onto my table, flipping it over and sending the contents hurtling all over the room. Broken glass and wet CDs are never fun, but the night was highly amusing if nothing else.

Sunday morning was weird. I woke up lying on top of my bed, fully clothed, with Kylie on one side of me and Claire on the other (both also fully clothed I'll stress). As I rolled over there was something wet by my ear. I sat up and looked. Yuck! Claire had been sick during the night. Straight away the sheets, covers and pillow cases were ripped off and stuck in the washing machine. It was 6am though, and I'd filled the machine the night before, so I found myself hanging out all of my washing, at 6am on a Sunday. There's something very wrong about that. Once that was done, I clambered back onto the bed for another couple of hours of shuteye.

Kylie got up first, followed by me, then Claire and just before midday we all got on a train as I was going to go and meet Roz to go climbing. When I got to the pub that Roz was waiting for me in, she was as tired as me after a night at Fabric where she didn't get in until 8am. I initially had doubts to how productive our climbing was going to be, but it turned out to be ok. Over the few hours that we were there I was able to watch the power slowly drain out of me. At the start, I was able to hang by one hand off the ceiling of the catacombs, but by the end I was hardly able to even hold myself on one simple bouldering face. My proudest achievement was on my nemesis of a run that I called the "purple run" which was a realrock face where you had to swing and hang over a lip before dragging yourself up to a point where your feet can get a grip again. I must have tried 25 times to do it before I eventually nailed it and I felt so good about it. I definitely prefer bouldering (low climbing without ropes) to the higher rope climbing. Anyway, I've now been scared with countless blisters and aching shoulders, and somehow I've agreed to go again tonight. I sense an evening of further enduced pain ahead.

Something For The Weekend

Not only do I love Pendulum and their music, but they also make the best videos. If this doesn't pick you up for the weekend, I don't know what will!

The Perils Of Front Row Centre

When you're ushered into a small studio (apparently the same place that T4 is filmed) for one of Ed Byrne's comedy shows and they tell you to "fill up from the front", but no-one has, it can present you with a bit of a quandary. If you have what some people call 'the fear' or you're used to an afternoon of skiving at school, then you'll probably do like most people did and find one of the few seats at the back of the room where you may be relatively safe, but on the other hand - if you're like me, you will probably notice those two seats free right in the centre of the front row. And last night, that's exactly where I plonked myself, and for it, I paid the price.

Comedians like to pick on people, that I know - we all enjoy a bit of schadenfreude, and fortunately I (and now evidently Roz) have the strength of self not to buckle when we're on the receiving end of it. Three times. Three times we got spoken to and semi-abused during the show. Here's how those moments went

Incident 1
Ed: Who here's seen a gig where the band played at a venue smaller than their usual?
*I raise my hand*
Ed: Ah, you, who did you see?
Me: Arctic Monkeys
Ed: Where were they playing?
Me: Sheffield
Ed: What venue?
Me: Erm, I don't remember what is was called
Ed: You're fucking lying then aren't ya?
*People laugh and Ed continues with joke*

Incident 2
Ed: I'm a man who's in love, I can admit that. Any other guys in here in love?
*A few guys raise their hands, I don't*
Ed: *looks at me* I see you sitting there with your hand on that girls knee, didn't budge a fucking inch
Me: Yeah, it's our third date
Ed: Ah, good thing you didn't raise you hand then or you'd be fucked huh. So, third date, have you errr, well, ya know yet?
*audience laughes*
Roz: We came here instead
*Ed laughs and continues with his joke*

Incident 3
Ok, this one needs an explanation first. After the first hour I was bursting for a pee, and I thought that I could get to the loos and back before between him going off stage and the encore. I was wrong. The first thing I heard when walked back into the studio was
Ed: Roz?
By this time I knew it was too late and he'd noticed I'd gone. The full conversation, including my entry apparently went a little like this
*Ed returns for an encore*
Ed: Hi, yeah, thanks. The thing about relationships, as you know... *looks where I was* oh, he's gone
Roz: Yeah, but he's left his coat and his wallet might be in it
Ed: You should be ok then. What's your name?
Roz: Roz
Ed: Roz? Well, maybe we should take his coat and write 'I love you' all over it?
*I come around the corner saying*
Me: You better bloody not
*Ed and audience laugh - I walk past and I jokingly flick him the finger*
*Ed and audience go oooooooooooooooo*
Ed: That wasn't very nice. Well, it was a playful one I suppose so I'll let you off

It's never a dull moment in my life, but you know what - I wouldn't have it any other way

Snow, Fuck Off Please

Ooooo, the snow, isn't it wonderful. No! No it bloody isn't. Last night, the weather forecast predicted snow, and for once in their little lives the weathermen got it right; so this morning upon awakening I was greeted with four inches of the damn stuff. "But it's lovely and it's pretty and it's blah blah blah" you may say, but for me, as we've just entered what feels like the 93rd consecutive month of winter, I'm fed up with it.

This morning, as odd as it sounds, it made me look at my life. What kind of life is it when you're forced to get up at some early hour, in the freezing cold that never leaves because of the constantly crap weather. Then, you have to trudge through what used to be snow that has now been turned to slush by a load of buses and other pissed off commuters, and with every step it soaks further up your trouser legs. Now if we were somewhere else, this might not bother me, but we're in London, and this slush isn't just slush; it's the dirtiest and most fowl slush that you'll ever find, and not only will you be soaked, you'll be soaked and filthy. Then, arriving at the train station, you have to wait for 35 minutes for you delayed train because of "signalling failures" when what they really mean is someone fucked up. It wouldn't be so bad if it said it was going to be 35 minutes, but it doesn't; it just lies to you instead. For 29 minutes my train was due in 6 minutes time. Fuckers.

When the train finally arrives, it's so full that when you finally cram yourself on you feel guilty being that crushed and not being coated in a layer of brine. Then you arrive at the station, a veritable polished floor death-trap where every step is a Claims Line Direct phone call waiting to happen. If you manage to get through this unscathed then you can look forward to the second half of your wet sludging through, cold, wet, grey, dirty, over-priced, one-hand-constantly-in-your-pocket, run by wankers central London to a job that has you sitting down in front of a screen for two-thirds of your usable day, probably ruining your vision, increasing your blood-pressure and generally making you wish you were someone else.

How I long to spend my days in warmer climates, doing jobs to just get me by, not worrying about whether the site I've had in build for languages I don't speak in code I don't know is going to be ready for the imminent "phase 36 rollout". Becky, if you have an ounce of sense in your body, don't come back!

Hu Is The Leader Of China?

How Big's Your Sink Alanis

I'd like to start this morning by thanking Mr Alex Peppis. I feel that after agreeing to go running with him yesterday lunchtime and almost freezing myself to death (I was in sleeveless top and shorts, everyone else had piled on the layers) is the sole reason that 45 minutes into my boxing training last night, as I was just starting the step-up and skip-over routines, I had possibly the worst cramp of my life, in both calves at once. If there had been a saw lying around I would have gladly used it to remove my legs just under the knee. It put a somewhat abrupt end to what was otherwise a very productive session where I'd finally hit "the zone". Oh well, no really biggy I suppose. I mean, I am back on Thursday and Saturday, and now have plans to go climbing with Roz on Sunday, so I'm sure I'll more than make up for it.

After that little brush with pain, I trundled home and didn't really have anything to do, so I let my house mate Maya cut my hair. "That's very trusting" I hear you cry, and you're right, it is; but she does both her own and her sister's, and I thought "what the hell". Turns out she is good so I've now got significantly less shite hair (it's been going a little wild around the sides recently). I've been unsure as to whether I wanted to keep it shorter or grow it a bit more again, but the problem with growing it is that it has to go through this awkward 'middle stage' where it looks just rubbish for a little over a month. Usually, this wouldn't bother me, but certain recent situations have forced me to consider the way it looks, so it got the chop.

Another completely random thought just crossed my mind as I was reading a couple of blogs this morning. I find bad spelling really amusing, but also highly frustrating. Take the following quotes that I've picked from a couple of blogs that I read occasionally. "It was fenominal" (supposed to be phenomenal), "Chow" (meant to be Ciao), Chicargo (obviously should be Chicago). Now, I'm not intentionally picking fun here, but it's made me realise how much of a grammar whore I really am, especially when you couple it with the other weeks experience of meeting the thickest girl on the planet this side of Jade Goody (I still hate Jade Goody incidentally and I'm glad that talentless, good-for-nothings career is over. May she never darken my tele-box again). I'm not saying I'm perfect by any means, and sure, I run a spell checker over my work before I submit it, just in case, but come on!

I'm taking Roz to see Ed Byrne do a stand-up show tonight. I wonder if he'll do any jokes about spelling. I doubt it, but his sketch that picks all the holes in Alanis Morrisette's "Ironic" is pure genius. "The best line ever has to be 'It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife'. That's not ironic, that's just stupid. How big's your sink Alanis. And what do want this knife for? To stab the guy that keeps leaving spoons all over your house? It's not ironic - unless, you find out the next day that a spoon would have done the job".

Fahahahahahahahanny

Look what I just found on my collegue's desk!!!

Put Down The Fork

OK, part of this rant isn't Sainsbury's fault, but hey, who really looks at all the facts when you're having a rant huh! Yesterday, I went shopping for some food at my local Sainsbury's and because I spent over £10 I got one of their "The Big 5 Drive" peel-to-win game cards where you can win some free fruit. Now I must say, kudos go to Sainsbury's for trying to push people towards eating more fruit, but if you're going to do it, do it right!

As I tore open my game card I was quite happy to see the words "Congratulations" staring me in the face, but that slowly left me as I read what I'd won. I litre of Sainsbury's Apple Juice. Sainsbury's people, if by any chance you're reading this, pass this onto your prize pickers - a litre of Apple Juice when it clearly states "made from concentrate" on the front does not count as one of your 5-a-day. In fact, with the amount of sugar in it, you'd be better off sticking to plain old water. Well done Sainsbury's. Now, let me win some strawberries, or a pineapple and I'll let you off.

The part of this rant that isn't Sainsbury's fault, but happened in there this morning, is a rant about fat kids. Ever since seeing The Goonies and the "truffle shuffle" I've known that childhood obesity is wrong, so it angers me when I'm queued behind some big fat school kid who's spending his £5 of dinner money on sweets, chocolate and other sugary treats. The thing is though, what can you do about it? What would happen if a major food store stopped allowing people in school uniforms to buy sweets and chocolates? What would happen then? My first instinct is that the parents would complain. And I think that's the real issue - the parents. In a lot of these cases they don't have the child's best interest at heart as they eat themselves into an early (and very wide) grave. All they care about is the kid not moaning when they get home from school as they're not full of sugar. The worst example of this is Jessica, a five year old who is 110kg (over 200lb) and whose legs have bowed under her own weight. Watch the video, and you'll realise as much as it's the girls fault, the mother practically shovels food into her daughters mouth. Some people shouldn't be allowed to have children!

No Such Thing As A Happy Divorce?

Click for the full sized image

Europe Piece Of Crap

If ever there was a reason to be jealous of deaf people, this is it! Europe? More like "Europe piece of crap"

We've Got A 10-12 - Sticky Fingers On The Art

I only had one thing planned for Sunday, and that was to take Roz down to one of my favourite restaurants in Chelsea for a slap up Sunday roast. Little did I know what was about to come. It all started very according to plan and we met at South Kensington station and went for a coffee as we were an hour early for the restaurant. Closer to 1 o'clock we made our way around to Cactus Blue for our food, and God was it a pure taste sensation. Thick slabs of beef, giant Yorkshire puddings, crispy roast potatoes, lovely parsnips, beautiful swede and carrot, buttery cabbage and "proper" horseradish (according to Roz), as well as a half bottle of wine each, not at all bad for about £13 a head. Neither of us could eat anywhere near all of it, in fact, I think Roz ate more than me. Damn diet. It was really really nice though. I'm definitely going to go back there again sometime soon.

When we left, we decided to do something a bit odd, something that I've been meaning to do for a while but not had the chance, and that was visit the Tate Modern. If I'm completely honest, it was Roz's idea as she wanted to go on the metal "art" tube slides, but hell, I'm a big kid at heart too so I was up for that. We got off the underground at Embankment for some reason and walked along some of the river towards Blackfriars bridge. It was the first time I'd seen some of the sites of London, like that big Egyptian pillar that's supposed to be cursed that I didn't even know existed. It's odd, I think I take it for granted that I live in London and that these things are all around me and never actually take the time out to go and see them. I think over the next few weeks I might try soaking up some of London's culture.

Anyway, when we arrived at the Tate we queued to get tickets for the slides, but they "ran out" about two or three people ahead of us. Typical. I think it's because of that that we started to rebel (though we didn't really realise we were doing it). We head up to the fifth floor for the futurism, cubism and pop type art which I like and had a bit of a stroll in wonder of some of the pure weirdness that had come out of the artists heads. Here is where the rebellion began.

As we walked into this black room with shapes and lines drawn all over the walls, Roz decided to inspect them a little more closely - by touching. Apparently, touching the art is a big no-no, especially when it's done in white chalk all over the walls and could smudge. Later, in a similar fashion, she called me over to one of four large mirrored cubes and had her hands on top of it peering into another cube that gave an "eternal tunnel" kind of effect. Suddenly, a very annoyed man came and hustled us away. Not only had we left fingerprints all over the art, we'd somehow managed to completely miss seeing the "do not cross" lines all around the piece. Embarrassed, we skulked off around the room, and noticed the guy on his walkie-talkie ordering cleaners to come up and get rid of our fingerprints whilst constantly glancing over to us. We got out of there sharpish. There was one piece of really weird art there too that was four videos and four sound clips playing alongside each other that was really interesting. I wasn't sure if I was stupefied, mystified or another kind of fied. It was quite enthralling though. Once we'd had enough culture for one day, we head up to the bar and had a drink whilst looking over London before heading off to what is apparently the oldest pub in London - the George.

I'll admit, we had a fair bit to drink there too (I think that she's a bad influence in that department) but there were some hysterical moments; the best of which being the couple sitting next to us having a blazing row. She was annoyed at him for apparently being a lazy, good for nothing bum and he just sat there, taking it all. It was so funny that I recorded it on my phone, but you can also hear some of the stupid and cringe-worthy things that I was saying, so I'm going to edit it before I post it for you.

After we'd been there a couple of hours, we decided to head closer to Liverpool Street so that Roz could get her train home, and we ended up in an awesome bar called Lounge Lover. What a great place it is, full of mad things and colours and shapes. It was all a bit too much to take, though we stayed there for a while and again ended up on the mojitos.

We left around midnight and I saw Roz onto her train again before heading off home on the bus again. Twice taking the night bus to Brixton in one weekend. Mad! Mad but fun! Fortunately I have a night off from having anything to do tonight. I think my body needs the break

Paint In The Ass

I don't think I've ever been as comfortable as I was on Saturday morning. I just couldn't get out of bed. I was warm, relaxed and generally had no reason to move, so, for most of the morning, I didn't. The rumbling in my stomach and the overwhelming feeling that I was wasting the day finally dragged me up sometime just after midday. I didn't really have anything to do, so after I'd showered and got ready for the day I sat in my lounge wondering where the day would take me. The answer was ultimately Halfords. If you're a long time reader, you'll know all about my bike mod project. If not, well here's your chance to catch up by firstly reading this - http://andywhitehead.lastminuteliving.com/andys_land_of_adventure/bike_mod_project/index.html. Up to speed? Ok, I'll continue.

During the last couple of months, the project has been at a bit of a stand-still as my next stage was (and still is) to paint the frame and the weather hasn't been good enough to do it outside, but Saturday was pretty nice so I seized my opportunity to make a little progress. Turns out "little" is all the progress that I made. After shelling out £60 for a new ratchet set, a chain link remover (which is comically overprived incidently), a puncture repair kit, some abrasive cloths, a can of white undercoat, a can of clear lacquer and three similar but different shades of bluey-green pearlescent paint (as seen in the picture) I made it back home ready to finish dismantling the last, messiest bits of the frame. I say messiest as it was the bottom bracket and the headstock which are filled with grease and oil around the bearings, so I got pretty filthy taking that all apart and cleaning out the tubes. Fortunately I was dressed in some nasty old shorts and a very 80s purple tie-dye t-shirt which I didn't mind getting dirty. I came across a bit of an issue though in the fact that to remove the pedals I needed a 14mm ratchet, and mine only went up to 13mm. Typical. So, I grabbed the frame and walked down to the bike shop down the road and got them to loosen it for me. I'd forgotten at this point that I was dressed like a reject from 1985 and got some very funny looks as I walked down the street. It could have been worse I suppose. I could have been sporting some Global Hypercolour! I've since realised I also need a Crank Puller and a Bottom Bracket Puller to get the pedals off, so unbeknown to me at the time, I was stuck. No amount of hammering was going to get these off. So, for now, that's where my progress ended, but at least now I know the extra kit that I'm going to need. This whole thing is going to be a lot trickier than I first anticipated!

Anyway, what else did I do on Saturday? Oh yes, I watch four series of Red Dwarf and had a workout in the lounge as my gym kit was all in the wash - and that's it really. Not a lot to tell, but it was nice and relaxing... unlike Sunday!

What, I Don't Think It's A Gay Drink

What a mad but totally awesome weekend it's been. I could easily write the world's longest blog about it all, but I won't; I'll break it down day by day instead. As a lot of you know, I had a date on Friday, and from the abundance of emails that I've received this morning from you nosey buggers, it's pretty obvious that you want to know how it went. Well, to sum it up in one word - excellently! I wasn't sure where was a good place to make the right impression for drinks to start with, especially as we were planning to meet near Victoria Street and I don't really know the area. Fortunately though we ended up meeting in Farringdon, and as I used to work there I knew it's ins-and-outs.

After we met up we went around to Havana Bar, a really funky Cuban venue around the corner from the station, and as cocktails were on offer, we got a jug of mojito and grabbed a seat - so much for  giving up drinking! It was a shame that the only seats available were near the front of the bar, as it meant that whenever anyone came in we were bombarded with a cold blast of air. The drink was going down very well, and before I knew it, we'd successfully chugged our way though three jugs of icy mojito with quite minimal spillage (I have a real tendency to drop things like jugs). Anyway, we chatted about everything and anything, compared old stories, laughed a lot and generally got to know each other a darn site better.

Before we met up, Roz (that's her name by the way) had told me that she was only going to be able to stay until about 9:00 - 9:30 as she was supposed to be going home for her friends leaving party. When we left Havana Bar, it was already gone 11:00. Roz had an overwhelming hankering for a pint, so we went around the corner to The Fence and got a couple of Staropramens before taking another seat while we had those. In the end, the call of the last train from Liverpool Street meant that we left The Fence and I escorted her to the station just before midnight before I caught a bus to Brixton and walked home from there. I got in about 1am in the end and collapsed on my bed with a smile on my face

...And There's More

Ok, it's been demanded that I add a few more that I missed, so presenting...

Banana Man

Button Moon

Care Bears

Defenders of the Earth

Duck Tales

Inspector Gadget

Pigeon Street

Takin' It Back To The Old School

I said it was coming, and here it is. This is one I drafted a while back but never actually posted. Being a kid of the 80s, I have a massive love of nostalgic 80s cartoons. My top 5 back in the day were Thundercats, M.A.S.K, Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers, The Mysterious Cities of Gold and The Raccoons. There were loads of other series that I used to love that weren't cartoons such as Knightmare (who didn't want to go on that show) and T-bag and T-shirt, but this post is a little look back at the cartoons that I grew up with and still love today. I've stuck a mass of introductions of the bottom of this, and I defy any real 80s child (or some late 70s ones too) to not feel an odd rush from at least one of them.

When I watched the M.A.S.K introduction it sent really weird feelings through me. I suddenly remembered all my old toys, especially the Matt Tracker flying car and Boulder Hill. Anyway, if you think I've missed an epic, please remind me and I'll do an update at a later date. If you're really lucky, later on I might do the none-cartoon shows.

Thundercats

M.A.S.K

Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers

The Mysterious Cities of Gold

The Raccoons

Count Duckula

He-Man

DangerMouse

Trap Door

Charlie Chalk

Denver The Last Dinosaur

Fraggle Rock

Gummi Bears

Jamie And The Magic Torch

The Real GhostBusters