Missile Launcher for a fiver

Ian came round tonight to pick up his misile launcher. These are quite neat devices which a clothes shop has been selling at a reduced price. I never thought there would be anything interesting for sale in Marks and Spencer (a big UK clothing chain) but it seems that times have changed. You plug the launcher into your system via USB and it lets you aim and fire three foam tipped missiles under computer control. Great fun for cubicle wars.

They were initially rather expensive, but becuase the takeup has not been great they were knocked down to a fiver. I ended up buying four, one for me, one for number one son, one for Ian and one for Geoff (who at this moment is unaware of his good fortune). I thought we could have some kind laptop controlled pitched battle.

Actually, I've just started to fret about the way that things on the web are scanned etc. Do you think that something at GCHQ will now flash red and finger me as an arms dealer? Will my blog now be pored over by intelligence types looking for coded messages. On the other hand, another reader is another reader.....

Update: They seem to have sold out in Hull now, but if you want to get one it might still be worth dropping into your local store.

Self Sabotage

The "Simpsons Programme" for physical fitness is not going well. Today, ten minutes into the first session, number one wife came in and informed me that I had sent her out to tax the car without the insurance certificate. This had resulted in a trek across town to the post office, followed by dealings with a smug cashier which did not have a successful outcome (although I've a feeling the cashier had a good time). At this point my torture changed from physical to mental, as I was forced to stop exercising and begin the hunt for the missing piece of paper.

Of course I found an insurance certificate within 30 seconds. But it was one year out of date. I've no idea why I set myself up in this way. The obvious thing to do with an old insurance certificate is to shred it and put it in the bin. The less than obvious action is to leave it lying around so that it can be found in mistake for the proper one. I've often wondered why I do this kind of thing. It is on a par with putting stuff in a "safe place" from which I'll never find it again.

I've come to the conclusion that I have a talent for self sabotage in some matters, particularly those involving bits of paper that you only need once a year or so. The good news is that only two hours later I found the vital document. Of course it was just where I had put it. In a safe place.

Tact Leakage

I think I may be losing my tact as I get older. Last week my father gave me a chocolate orange with the words "It's only a small token" to which I replied "Yes it is". Yesterday number one wife bought a tartan skirt and I found myself quoting chunks of Braveheart dialogue and offering her some shortbread when she showed me it. Not good.

The Simpsons Programme

For some time our bathroom has had two sets of scales in it that we use to keep track of our weight. We had a "happy" set and a "sad" set. The happy set gave you a value which was two stones lighter than the sad one. The idea was that you used the set of scales according to your mood. If you were feeling unaccountably happy, you could use the sad set to normalise this. If you were feeling particularly fragile you could use the happy set.

However, as part of a controlled weight loss programme (which everybody seems to be starting at this time of year) this approach does not work terribly well. So last week we bought a third set of scales which we were going to call "the arbiter". The hope was that they would give a weight which was the average of happy and sad. Unfortunately they promptly agreed with the sad ones, so we threw the old scales in the bin and now we are permanently sad. And heavier than we hoped we were.

In response I'm about to start an exercise progamme which I'm going to call the "Simpsons Programme". Every day I'm going to exercise for the length of a Simpsons episode. I'm going to work my way through each series and see what happens to my physique. Number one son reckoned that I could move up to programmes with longer episodes as I get fitter. So I could go on to the "Dr. Who", and then the "Ally McBeal" and finally the "Lord of the Rings Return of the King Extended Edition" programme. Which would probably kill me.

Sherlock Holmes to the Rescue

Did my bit of the presentation today and it seemed to go OK. At least nothing was thrown at me.

Then back onto the train for the journey home. I've got hold of some Audio Book versions of Sherlock Holmes stories (they were on a magazine cover disk) and they are great. I spent the journey back listening to "A Study in Scarlet". The writing style is a bit dated, but it still works for me. You can get hold of the books (and an MP3 Player styled after a Kalashnikov rifle magazine) from here.

In the Club

I went down to London today. We are staying in a posh hotel which Google Earth doesn't know the location of (or perhaps it is the posh people trying to throw me off the scent). Anyhoo, when I finally found the place I was told that I am being given a complementary room upgrade to "Club Class" or somesuch. I therefore inspected the room with particular care to find out what this means. In truth I didn't find much. The wardrobe has a light in it. There was a knob in the bathroom (which doesn't seem to do anything).

I turned it all the way both ways and nothing happened. There was also a wide selection of "adult" movies available..


Apart from that everything was pretty much as I would expect a room to be. And no, I didn't spend 9.99.

High but not Mighty

Today is kind of a red letter day for me. It is the day that the shop where I get my clothes has a sale. If yo uhave ever been lucky enough to meet me you will have noticed that I am quite a tall chap. Tall enough to be unable to buy clothes at normal shops. So I am forced to go to an establishment with the lovely name of "High and Mighty" to obtain my apparel. The logo used to be a big picture of Henry the 8th. What a lovely person to be associated with.

Anyhoo, fourth of January is when their sale starts. Other shops have theirs on more convenient days during the christmas break, but hey, they have no need to worry about fitting in with the plans of their customers. It is not as if we are going to go anywhere else. So we take time off work and rumble down the motorway in my recently clean car to see what was fashionable in Sweden five years ago.

When we get there we find a bunch of strangely shaped people pawing the rails of clothes and looking a bit fed up. As well they might. The shop has mixed up all the high and the mighty stuff, so that you have no way of knowing whether that nice jacket will fit or turn out to be large enough to go round your body twice. They have two well defined customer groups (as in the name) and so of course the obvious thing is to mingle the products for them, doubling the time it takes us to shop. Perhaps their rationale is that I will like that jacket so much that I will ignore the fact that the sleeves stop just above my elbows and there is enough room inside the thing for myself and a couple of close friends. Whatever, at least it saves me money when I only manage to track down one jumper.

Not Really Working

Today is the day that everyone drags themselves back to work. Except us. We have taken an extra few days of precious holiday to avoid having to do this. So while the breakfast news was full of stories about how this is the worst day in the year to go into work and how everybody is horribly fed up with this we were able to roll over in bed.

Then I got up, got dressed and went into work anyway. Just for a couple of hours. Well, I had to work out some timetables for laboratory demonstrations for next week.

Slave to the Shiny Car

Cleaned the car again today. The previous car was lucky if it got cleaned once a year. The new one is getting a going over every week or so. I think that it is because the new one shows the dirt more readily (good plan that one rob) or it might be that I like going out and coveting it. Although at the moment I only actually own the steering wheel and one of the seats.

At lunch time we went out for a free lunch courtesy of number one dad. Good food, good company and then back to his house for some of the million mince pies he said he had bought. He fibbed. I only counted around a thousand. Mind you, we can eat any number of them.

Resolutions Resolution

Today is supposed to be the day that you make all kinds of life changing resolutions and set an agenda for a better you and a more wonderful year. I was asked what resolutions I'd made and I was forced to admit that, as I have already achieved perfection, there is nothing much left to aim for. Perhaps I should resolve to be a bit more modest about my greatness.

New Year Murder

Did a murder mystery party tonight. This is where we all get togther and act as criminals for the evening. The murder was vampire themed, and I played the dodgy butler to the "old master". The whole thing was internet driven, which turned out to work very well. It is the first time I've actually done it this way, but the way that the system set up a web site and managed the invites to the guests was rather impressive. Take a look here if you want to have a go.

Earlier in the day Jeremy came to see us. I've not seen him for 18 years or so (seem to be meeting people from the past that the moment). It was nice to see him after all this time. We showed him our pinball table and he told us about the Porshe that he has just bought. I guess the mid-life thing hits different people in different ways....

Holiday Marking

Spent today holed up with a bunch of exam scripts for company. I found a seat near the window where it is a bit cold, just to keep me awake, and set to. The good news is that on the whole the marks are pretty good. The bad news is that I have had to spend the day finding this out.

Brrrrrr

Very cold today. I got this window thermometer thing for christmas and it lets me read the temperature outside. Minus four at the moment, which for this part of the world is quite cold.

I've decided that I'm bored with the cold. It was quite cute at first, seeing frozen duckponds in villages, and white snow and stuff all over the place. But now it is getting in the way a bit and I'd like to have the warm bits back. Now.

Number of the Beast

The number of posts that I've made on blogger is now at 666. Scary eh?

Except that now it isn't.

Successful Piracy

We went over to see Geoff and Anetta tonight. Geoff had a new game which was kind of piraty. It is beautifully presented in a wooden chest, with lovely ship pieces, heavy money and a cloth pirate map to play on. The game involves shivering timbers, becoming a dread pirate, and skirmishing for gold and diamonds. Number one daughter and I teamed up to take on the others on the high seas.

Half an hour in and things were not well on board. We were down to our last doubloon and fighting for our very survival. However, survive we did, and a little while later we came out the winners. I love that game.

Day of Dire Driving

Drove back today. Well, I say drove. More like crawled. The roads were packed. The roads were wet. The roads were slippery. It took us a shade under 8 hours to get back, which is a long time to spend in a tin box, however shiny. We did stop off to see family, and take on provisions, but even so it was not a fun trip. By the end the weather was throwing everything it could in our direction, as was a passing gritting lorry (I hope that part of the car is still shiny).

We stopped for a bite to eat and got another nice sunset.



Literally five minutes after this shot was taken you couldn't see in that direction at all for a snowstorm. But while it lasted the sunset did provide a nice light:



Finally we made it back to our little house and collapsed into bed.

Off the Map and into the groove

On Boxing Day it was back into the shiny car (now considerably muckier) and off to visit Bridget and Lassa (who've I've probably just mortally offended by spelling their names wrong). I've known Bridget since I was three (although I've no actual memory of that meeting) but not seen her and family for about 20 years. They now live a stones throw from Cheddar Gorge in a splendid, 500 year old house. Actually, their place is very easy to find. Just drive towards Cheddar until your GPS goes bonkers, then turn left and stop.

Margot took us all out for a meal in the evening, which was splendid. Everyone had cameras and picture phone and was snapping away. I took pictures of the food.



At the meal Lassa and I had a discussion about our "proper" ages. We both agreed that physical age is one thing, but actually you have a proper age, which is the age you really are. I decided that I am really 12 years old, obsessed with toys and essentially a big kid. Lassa reckoned that he was around 18, which makes him broadly similar but with a slightly different outlook, hem hem. We asked number one wife and she said she was 21. I've been going out with an older woman for all these years. Gosh.

Then it was back to the house for some Playstation Songstar stuff, where you sing along with a tune and the clever software marks your singing out of ten. I am not a great singer (unless you spell it grate) but I did managed to out sing my father, which cheered me up no end. Then number one wife out sang me. Great fun. And so to bed.

Ho Ho Ho for Christmas

Got up at a very pleasant 8:00 am. I think the kids are a bit less excited about christmas than in their younger years, where 3:00 am was more the norm. Cup of tea and then presents. This year we all had stockings:



Then it was on to the bigger stuff. I got PDA watch which is rather cool. If only I could read the screen. And a calendar which will make for 12 happy months (especially if I leave it on January all year)



Then it was time for lunch.



Do you feel lucky?

Rodney got this in his cracker. The jury is still out on what it is.



Then we went out for a post prandial perambulation.



Pity it was shut.

Christmas Eve Driving

And so to the motorway. We all managed to fit into the shiny new car without to much difficulty, which was a relief. I'd hate to have had to leave one of the kids behind if there wasn't enough room for the gadgets.

The motorway was fairly quiet. Driving the family is much more fun now. No more arguments over what music to play. Everyone just puts on their headphones, plugs themselves in and leaves me to get on with it. Got to our destination in time for a nice sunset:

"Working From Home"

Working from home today. This means that I get to provide the heating, computers, electricity and networking bandwidth that I normally get in the office for free. And the tea too. The good news is that I can take breaks when I want and play really load music (although the kids do tend to complain a bit).

I've taken a little time off working to pack up for our trip away. We are spending Christmas away with the inlaws so I have to prepare properly. Around an hour or so selecting gadgets, finding power supplies, packing leads and so on. Plus five minutes for clothes and everything else. We are taking all our christmas presents as well. I just hope that the shiny new car is big enough.