Euro 2016 - 2

Well, shit... we drew.

Last minute goal by Russia.

ffs

Pretty-much all I can say right now.

Euro 2016 - 1

Okay so I'm stood in a pub waiting for the England v Russia game... and I have to say that the turnout is pretty shite. Ten years ago this same pub would have been packed full, shoulder-to-shoulder for an international football finals featuring England.

I guess the national expectations have been very well worn out over the past ten years...

Abstract Art #14

This is my latest abstract art submission...

I'm calling it 'Pathfinder'.

#LoveHelloGames

I'm showing my support for Hello Games after their founder Sean Murray received death threats after he announced the delay of the launch of No Man's Sky (hence the hashtag in the title).

Those asswipes who sent said death threats need to get a fucking life or at the very least an attitude readjustment. It happens in game development, a lot... modern computer games are huge, complex almost living, breathing things, and they go wrong during development. It's not unusual for the devs to need more time to fix them... and in No Man's Sky's case what's wrong with a little extra time to polish what's already a stellar looking game?!

I for one plan to use this very blog as a diary of my exploits/travels in No Man's Sky which I hope others will find useful.

I can't wait for it to come out but I'm patient enough to wait, unlike some idiots.

To Sean Murray and your team - take all the time you need guys (and possibly gals), don't sweat it, all us genuine gamers are happy for you to do what you can to get the game right.

IP Top kek

I've heard it all now:

"He needs a new keyboard because he got steak and kidney pie all over it...?"

Chip Shops

Why is it that there is also some fucktard who doesn't follow queue etiquette in Chip Shops? He/she always stands 'away' from the side of counter confusing anyone who's just walked in because they don't know where the queue is supposed to start... it looks messy too, fucking annoys me.

When you queue in the Chip Shop you stand next to the window counter so you can peruse what's cooked and available for order, you don't stand in the middle of the shop looking confused. Then, when standing at the counter (offset from where the till is), others will form an orderly queue behind you. This is an age old Chip Shop tradition and it really works.

Ahh that's better :)

Got my watch back from the jewellers (had to go away to have a new battery fitted) and a also had brand new Passport arrive this week... couple those with a new washing machine fitted successfully the week before and I feel like a few pieces have been put back into the jigsaw that is my life :)

Oh and I'm about to hit lvl 50 in Elder Scrolls Online too... more of that to come.

Photography #101

My daily commute to work takes me through my local park... in this park is a lake which has two Swans - male and female, they own this lake, literally.

Recently they had babies, or more accurately Signets :) I took the opportunity to take some pics, here's one of them:

All together - aaaawwww!

Photography #101

Whilst walking through my local park I saw this:

A Mandarin...

Of all the common, plain looking ducks that waddle about that park, this one really stood out, he's a Mandarin Duck, according to my research... they're common in the south and parts of the Midlands but VERY rare in my park!! I consider it a photographic win :)

Cookie tracking needs a 'FUCK OFF' button

I hate the way websites tailer the ads that are displayed based on your browsing habits... all I see are ads for washing machines at the moment however I've already bought one.

I just wish there was a button or something you could press to tell them that, rather than having to delve into the web browser/finder/windows explorer settings and delete them.

It would be much more satisfying to be able to hurl some Youtube-style abuse back at them via a single button that says something like "I've already bought a washing machine, I don't need a second one, now FUCK OFF!"

A new pudding :)

I have discovered a new pudding...

I was stuck for something to have for pudding after my evening meal as I had scoffed both the cream slices my mum had given me last Sunday (yes I'm a greedy git).

I knew I had some McVities choc-chip biscuits, I also knew I had some peanut butter... and voila!

Om nom nom!!

Fer Feck's Sake!

I'm stood here at John Lewis engaged in small talk with a junior sales assistant whilst waiting for a senior salesperson to process my order. I'm waiting because some asshat customer is asking loads questions and tying up said senior salesperson... grrr

It took me 5 minutes with the junior sales rep to decide on what model of washing machine I wanted and 2 minutes for the senior salesperson to do my order and for me to pay for it.

If I could have back the time wasted waiting for undecisive dickheads I'd be 10 years younger.

Overhaul of the BBC

Auntie Beeb is having a much needed overhaul... but one proposal caught my attention:

• Government introducing new requirement to provide 'distinctive content' rather than just chase ratings.
• The BBC is to be regulated by an external organisation for the first time in its 90-year history.  Ofcom will become the official regulator of the BBC, replacing the internal BBC Trust.
• The licence fee will increase in line with inflation for five years, meaning the current annual fee of £145.50 will rise from 2017 until 2022.
• Over-75s, who currently get free TV licence, will be allowed to pay voluntarily
• The 'iPlayer loophole' will be closed by forcing anyone viewing BBC TV via the web to own a licence. 
• The BBC charter will be extended to 11 years so that it is independent of any political cycle, and there will be a mid-term 'health check' to ensure things are functioning as they should be. 
• Government introducing new requirement to provide 'distinctive content' rather than just chase ratings; 

A 75-year old: "Yes, I think I'll pay the TV Licence Fee..." SAID NO-ONE EVER!!

...and finally I can give my liver a rest...

As the title says, with the Rugby season drawing to a close and it being a successful one for Wasps... I  can finally spend some weekends sans alcohol!

Also means fewer inane drunken posts (like below) that make no sense whatsoever.

And more Bollocks

I........

....and that, is how it begins..,..

EPIC/FAIL AGAiN WYFBBQ....

Ahhhh shit, tons of idiots around me and I'm inebriated, yes inebriated... in other words, drunk... the train is imminent and I, do not, give a shit... love you France :)

Photography #101

I haven't done much photography for a while but as we all know amateur photography is all about being in the right place at the right time...

A Goldfinch... apparently

Game of Thrones S6 EP1 /FAIL!

Accessed my Sky HD box to start the first recording of season 6 this evening only to discover that the word 'FAIL' listed next to the recording. Fucking Sky and their piece-of-shit hardware.

Game of Thrones is the ONLY reason I don't fuck my Sky subscription off and as soon as it's finished I will anyway, I'm fed-up with Sky and their overly expensive shit.

Not only have they dumped their overspending in Football coverage onto us poor peon subscribers by increasing the monthly subscription, again. They have also, in my opinion, increased the amount of bloody annoying ad-breaks, it's a total fucking joke.

I'd rather spend the £100-odd quid a month they're fleecing me with down the pub.

I'm now downloaded S6 EP1 via On Demand, I'm only watching it tonight in case I find myself reading some retard journalist's 'review' of it which will probably contain an ass-load of spoilers. I've already seen two articles picked out by Google in their News section that threatened to reveal spoilers.

Grr I'm angry tonight.

BHS Into Administration

Details here

Nooo! BHS is the only place I can get a decent 'normal' pair of jeans. All other clothes shops sell stupid expensive poncy types such as ripped, overly stonewashed, covered in weird flaps, or oversized so much that they put my ass-crack on show!

FU Instagram

Well we're back from Worcester, Wasps won convincingly :)

After a looong train journey and loads of beers later we are in our local Walkabout Pub where my brother has just grandly /ragequit Instagram... put simply (by him) it's shit!

Worcester Warriors v Wasps

I'm off to Worcester today to see this game... a win will give Wasps significant progress in cementing their position in the top 4.

Worcester won't be a pushover though, they almost scraped a win back at the Ricoh earlier on in the year.

I've never been to Worcester before, I wonder if the stadium will promote Worcester sauce on their pies?

I think plenty of ale will be consumed despite my reluctance to do so as I had a heavy one last weekend but Rugby + no driving + Saturday + Good company = alcoholic carnage!

Ducks

Ducks crack me up... they always seem to me be in a constant state of utter confusion as to where they are at any moment in time.

I often see them, usually in groups of 2 to 4, waddling around on roundabouts, in car parks, next to puddles in waterlogged areas of grass and all the time looking, utterly confused!

Don't get me wrong, I see plenty if them where they're supposed to be, like in rivers and lakes but, occasionally, some of them seem to have this 'senior moment' where they just get lost!

Ducks, ya just gotta love 'em!!

Email Read Receipts

These absolutely fucking annoy me... I'll read your message in my own goddam time you fucking control freak! Imagine I pressed 'Yes', then I'd be under pressure to respond in a timely manner, making that one e-mail the sole focus out of a potentially busy working day and that's damned annoying, especially if it's from a cold-call(e-mail?) salesperson where they think I've got all the time in the world to deliberate over their fucking digital print media portfolios.

"Ooh I'll just click that 'Yes' button right there!"... said no-one ever.

Gianni Infantino doesn't look 'real'

It is just me or does he look like something that come out of a Taiwanese toy factory?

Or is he is actually a member of the Founders?

Pub Crawling Again... #2

Okay next pub, and if anyone has been reading... well, fuck it, you don't know what pub this is... suffice to say it's a place that serves alcohol and that's that.

So fuck off.

Pub Crawling... again

Ah well, here I am in a pub again, on my own, again...

But, what the hell, lets report it, again.

A Brief Blogoshpere Interlude...

I haven't posted for a while due to shear lack of inspiration...

Recently I've been playing with Strata 3d, I used to use earlier versions a lot but circumstances prevented me from keeping current with it. However recently my work required me to revisit it in order to do some 3D, plus Photoshop CC's 3D features are pretty limited.

Here's something I knocked up whilst messing around...

RIP Fawlty Towers

I've just read a report that the Torquay hotel (called the Gleneagles Hotel) that gave John Cleese the inspiration to create the series Fawlty Towers is to be demolished in order to make way for a retirement home.

Whilst I recognise the need for us to house our old and infirm in comfortable surroundings... it does sound a bit much that the firm that bought the place - Churchill Retirement Living - simply announced the date when the bulldozers would be moving in without so much as a mention to the cultural significance of the area.

Probably the people that run Churchill Retirement Living watch pap like Big Brother or some other shite reality TV series and have never even heard of Fawlty Towers.

Would be funny if someone was to run up to one of their JCB's and start whipping it with a tree branch.

Another Day of Rugby Watching #2

Okay, back home and in a local pub, thanks to a train and a couple of taxi rides, we could have avoided at least one of those taxis but we misjudged the train times...

Ah whatever, I'm back in a pub, half-pissed and happy with the days' Rugby results.

Another Day of Rugby Watching

Phew! Two victories - Wasps beat Leicester and England beat Wales... and I managed to stay alcohol free!

Well, up to a certain point anyway, I needed a few to calm the nerves during the Egland v Wales game!

Anyway, we're now having a few victory lagers in the Jag Hall whilst we wait for the train home... no doubts we'll all be thoroughly arseholed by the time we leave here... more reports to folllow :)

DayZ

This is my experience of this game - after hours running around slowly dying of hunger, thirst and cold you find a tin of tactical bacon and a jumper.

Not my interpretation of gripping gaming...

Parliament and so much RAGE!

I was reading about the latest exchanges between our David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn today and came across this picture of Dominic Raab in the article:

Boy, he looks pissed, he's showing muchos rage... I guess the Brexit debate has everyone looking a bit angry.

Couldn't help myself really...

Worth Waiting For...

When I'm really thirsty and I'm about to destroy a nice cold drink in front of me, this scene always plays out in my mind when I'm drinking it:




What can I say... I have a vivid imagination!

SEO - Utter Bollocks

You know, I have spent most of the day doing backend SEO to our works' website and I feel like I have achieved nothing towards getting our site further up in Google's 'esteemed' search results.

Do large organisations like HP or Amazon spend time doing what I've just done?

Do they bollocks... they have better thinks to do, instead they pay Google a generous stipend to have their site hard-coded to be ranked no.1 in the search results.

What's even more annoying is Google telling me that some of my pages are 'not mobile device friendly' even though I have tested them on actual mobile devices and they work fine! God knows what the peons at the Google Chocolate Factory Central have for an idea of what's viewable on a mobile device... I've even tested the pages on a third-party site and it showed they worked fine.

So all the crap you have to read through in Analytics and Webmaster Tools to get your site optimised for the Google spider means utterly nothing and won't help you get your page ranked... it's all about the moolah and how much you're prepared to throw at Google, otherwise it's second, third... or the twentieth page for your site!

So what I'm doing is irrelevant. Yet I toil on in the vain hope that what I've done will make some difference and, when asked, I can honestly say that I've done everything possible to get us up the organic rankings.

Borderline Alcoholism - 4

I am now sat in one of the greatest Indian takeaway places on the surface of this planet, I am very drunk...

Yet, as I sit here waiting for my order to appear I look back at, what?

Me dancing? Or thinking I look good dancing whilst everyone else thinks 'what a twat' 

Or maybe I am a good dancer? Who happens to be fed up with the music?

Who is now waiting for some quality takeaway curry? 

And has just been led out of said curry place and I'm off home :)

Borderline Alcoholism - 3

Couple of pubs later and we're, strangely, in a pub that, to me, was well known for being a very busy, loud venue... and now we're here, it's quiet.

Borderline Alcoholism - 2

Okay, so we beat Ireland in a bruising encounter... have decided to stay here for a bit... maybe a pint or two more before we stagger elsewhere!

Borderline Alcoholism

A good portion of why I drink alcohol in lare amounts is down to our national teams.

England Rugby and Football, when taking part in their respective world competitions act in such a way that forces me to consume enough alcohol to numb myself enough to not care when they fuck up.

I am sure that most of the male population of drinking age have the same problem.

I didn't mention our Cricket team, well I don't drink when they play simply because I don't like Cricket.

So there.

Six Nations 2016 - 1

Oh dear, here I am again, in a pub, watching Rugby... England v Ireland this time.

Well played to Scotland from their game earlier on, a well deserved win against Italy that ended their 9-game losing streak.

More drunken posts to come...

It's official, I'm losing it...

Fuck me, I'm totally going insane.

I'm at work, on my own and a delivery of wallpaper vinyl had just arrived, which I was waiting for in order to produce a print on our HP Latex printer.

Whilst waiting for the delivery I'd passed the time taking some old PC's apart, preparing them for a scheduled electronic waste collection later on next month and naturally my hands were dirty so, whilst carrying the box of vinyl into the studio, I said out loud: "Must wash my hands before I load this into that bad boy"... I then put the box down, walked over to the printer, pressed the power button to wake it from sleep mode and said "... because you ARE a bad boy Mr. Latex!"

I had to stop and think about what I just said.

Yep, losing it.

Building on my Nerves!

In the city that I live near and have worked in for most of my life there is currently a lot of building going on and I mean a LOT! It's like some sort of financial bomb has gone off and seeded building sites all over the place.

The consequence of this is disruption to the city's roads and pavements.

I commute to work via the train and have had to put up with being corralled, redirected, squeezed and sometimes, even stopped by temporary walls, barricades, barriers, traffic cones, padded scaffolding and all other manner of health-and-safety-gone-made measures these building companies erect to give themselves a heightened sense of 'ooh look at us, aren't we just the awesomeness badass erectors of steel and concrete you've ever seen'.

This morning took the biscuit, it's Saturday but I needed to go into work to do a few things and I went there in my car instead of catching the train because I wanted to get there quicker. As I got near work I went past one of these construction sites and saw that they had put some temporary traffic lights up to control a pedestrian crossing by a roundabout. As I came off the roundabout and approached the crossing I saw that the lights were on red so, naturally, I stopped. There were no people crossing and none that I could see around me, nor were there any construction workers around and the road ahead (a dual carriageway) was totally clear of vehicles, private, construction or otherwise but I still stopped because, well, they ARE traffic lights and they were on red!

A couple of minutes passed, they were still red... another car arrived, the driver opting to take the outside lane next to me, he too stopped. We both sat there for a mother minute or so, still red. More cars appeared behind us both, another minute passed, still red. Another minute (and you have to realise here that 5 minutes at traffic lights in the UK is not the norm!) lights still showed red. Now people were getting impatient, including me but what could I do? The lights were red! I looked over at the occupants in the car next to me and they were clearly as confused as me but both of us needed to do something because we were in front so naturally we had the impetus to do something about it.

I began to think that maybe these lights were on red because of some construction work going on much further up the road that I couldn't see but as I rationalised it I thought that if that was the case they wouldn't have put two lights either side of the crossing. They would have coned off one of the sections of the dual carriageway ahead and not needed a traffic light system. This one was definitely for the pedestrian crossing but why the hell were both lights on red for so long when there clearly weren't any fucking pedestrians around?!

Then horns started to blare from the people behind, which was understandable and that kicked me into action, I again looked over at the people in the car next to me, made eye contact, shrugged my shoulders, quickly took another 360 look around to see that there were no pedestrians around, put the car in gear and jammed my foot on the accelerator... a split second later the driver next to me did the same thing.

That's the first time in my life I have voluntarily ran a red light... and all because those fucking idiot construction workers had clearly bollocksed up the configuration of those lights. I'm not proud that I had to do that but if I'd stayed where I was the traffic would have backed up onto the roundabout behind me and could have potentially caused an accident.

Note to construction workers - if you're going to run the rule over us poor peons with your protect-your-arses health-and-safety toys and procedures, get them fucking right or you'll cause more trouble than you're apparently trying to avoid. You forced me to run a red light which as a law-abiding citizen of the UK I don't feel good about.

Tossers.

F*ckin' Social Media

I look after a couple websites and recently I converted one of them to a Wordpress site, one of the features on said site is a Twitter plugin that displays the site owner's Twitter feed. However I have had to go off on a merry web dance in order to get the feed working due to Twitter's fucking stupid, almost bordering on extortion API key generation procedure!

I don't have a Twitter account and I was simply not interesting in having one but I've had to create one AND add my mobile phone number to it in order to get the 'application' API tokens so the plugin can validate and 'callback' to Twitter.

Fuck you Twitter.

and while I'm at it, fuck you too Facebook.

Five Guys

12 quid for a cheesebuger and fries, bloody hell! Probably have to take out a second mortgage to feed a small family there...

and we alll love it cos we're drunk?

Literally because a bunch of people drunkenly wandered (or lef) off, fuck everyone.... I don't care, whatever....

Oh that is a shite song....

Title, means... Bugger, I need to dance....

Blondie... whateveract

Feck I'm pissed and need to swing my shit to regeae crap.... I think

Blondie Tribute Act

Pretty good to be honest...

BUT! Way tooo drunk to be... erm, whatever

Post Gaming

You know how things work out when on the piss - going to random events, maybe?

Like a Blondie tribute act... which I'm at, and intend to have a damned good boogey at!

In the Pub, post gaming

In my previous post I was getting trollied with my mate... and we played PES.

Well, now we're in the pub.

Ahh, nuff 'said really

Time Flies When You're Gaming...

I'm round my old mate's place getting shitfaced and reminising about old times, particularly from a gaming point-of-view and we've decided to play a bit of PES. Thing is, we haven't played it for ages, so much so that I had to wipe the dust off the PS3 controller he gave me:

Stevo's False Eyebrows

I know where Sky Sports' pundit Stevo get's his false eyebrows from... at least, I think they're false.

Great bloke by the way, he has a wealth of Rugby League knowledge and is thoroughly enjoyable to listen to, definitely someone I'd like to go for a pint with.

Tesco Self Service

Yesss! I've finally managed to get all my grocery items through a Tesco self service checkout without an error happening... that bloody "Help is coming..." voice when it has a problem with a scanned item annoys the fuck out of me. I swear it does it on purpose.

EDIT:

I've given myself an Xbox Achievement to mark the occasion...

Yesterday Sucked

I had a bad day yesterday...

I had a frustrating day's work, had to walk through horrible, freezing cold persistent rain and arrived home soaking wet. My walking shoes had leaked, my umbrella was broken and, to top it all, I discovered that my belt's close to snapping and I was wearing my underpants the wrong way round.

Still, I cheered up when I remembered that I had two doughnuts left in the cupboard that I could have for pudding.

Cadburys Creme Eggs

This:

Is quite possibly the best combination of chocolately, sweet-centered piece of heaven ever... made even more so by the fact that Cadbury only makes them for a limited period of time each year.

They were a lot better before Craft acquired Cadbury and nerfed the recipe to save money... but then American sweet companies know fuck all about decent 'candy'.

A Saturday of Rugby watching #10 - the day after

Sooo hungover, it'll probably take me most of the week to recover from this.

All the medical eggheads out there need to concentrate on creating some sort of magical elixir that completely wipes away the effects of a hangover.

A Saturday of Rugby watching #9

Back in home town after a wet and windy taxi-catching session... and, from a Rugby Union and Cricket point of view a very satisfying day's watching!

A Saturday of Rugby watching #8

Very drunk.... watching the big screens... aaand, Scotland have the advantage, NOT...

A Saturday of Rugby watching #7

Feck... doubly so, very drunk and having a lot of trouble, well, doing this for a start... I think we're going to lose :(

A Saturday of Rugby watching #6

Half time, both sides equal... Fuck me Rudgby does this to you....!

A Saturday of Rugby watching #5

And now we're ready to watch Scotland v England in the Jaguar Exhibition Hall!