Blog Fodder - "What is the best and/or worse advice you have ever gotten from your mother?"

what a great Blog Fodder Topic this week...
What is the best and/or worse advice you have ever gotten from your mother?

Can I answer this one with a simple enough answer - I can't think of ANY advice I've been give by my esteemed mother.
I'd have to think REAL hard to think of any advice mother's given me, sister's probably given me more, friends, other family but mother hmm......................
Sorry button got held down while I tried to not laugh.

I blinked and missed something..

I think I blinked and missed this week or maybe I didn't just seemed to have been working hard all week but all rewarding :).
Let me see if I can get my head around this week...
Monday was the quietish day.
Tuesday - was on a site till 4pm (when I finish) so overtime :)
Wednesday - moving the office around as we needed to vacate one of the rooms we used as an office as they were rearranging the place..
Thursday - Oh yeah up at 5am to get into work for 6am so I can take a trip down to a customers site in blackpool, all on someone else's expense account :D
Today - Quiet day in the office I was looking for, what I got was a trip to customer in Livingston to do a repair, got back had lunch thinking quiet afternoon, no to another customer who's alarm my colleague was replacing but he'd gotten held up so me and a colleague helped out by ripping the old panel, keypads and bell out ready for the new panel and stuff he had to go up :)..
Now time to relax, have some food and a beer or 2..
Oh yeah and tomorrow is mother's birthday.

Friday Night and it's Alright...

Well I took my beloved friend & work mate Susan out on Friday night, stop right there I know what some of you people are thinking :P..
It was her birthday tuesday and well we went for a chinese then went bowling me paying for both naturally..
What can I say about the chinese apart from it was great, prawn toast or as they called it sesemed prawns on toast - little bit of lemon on it, heaven :D. I followed this with Kong Po Chicken which is looked nice, I knew it would have a little kick but after a while the sauce got to me not because of the kick but the sweetness of it, I believe it tried to be sweet n sour with a twist but hmm didn't work out. Susan well she had king prawn with cashew nuts - perfect it was as well, muched a prawn - well she tried the Kong Po, we shared a dish of fried rice which was enough... I had had a long week and after the meal just felt like 40 winks but I thought that impolite, and besides the bowling was booked :D
So we went bowling, good enough place and busy to boot but hmm they could do with a little tech update, Im kinda spoiled as I got a very good bowling place with full touch screen technology and per player bumper settings (well I play against nephew) so having to go back to what looked to me arcanic was interesting. I will say is the Screens could do with being replace and the consoles as well to make it easier.
Oh and a few newer bowling balls as well they looked a little war worn - damn im spoiled ain't I. It was a good night and well much fun was had and overall and I've no Idea why or how I lost 2-1 and lost overall by something like 2 points, too many gutterballs I guess - I saw a few adults "cheating" as in they had the bumpers up (they are up or down for all)..
We did consider winding her parents up but thought better of it :P

Blog Fodder - "Give an example of a meal that makes you happy."

Hmm an interesting topic this week for Mar at Maremagnum. Well here goes it's a tricky one - well not really..

I think it's not the actual food that's there it's the company too.
So I mean I could say my own recipe pasta carbonara makes me happy and it does, reminds me of good times at uni (although I don't wanna remember some of the crap there), reminds me of a certain valentine's day with my now ex...
I like a good meal out, had a nice chinese last friday but I think I'll make a proper post about that now that I think about it. I had the sesemed prawns on toast as they called it followed by Kong Po Chicken with a side oreder of fried rice :D delicious.
Another one is well indian in origin, onion bajhi to start with and a nice chicken tikka masala or something not to firey anyways..

I think Im done now, see give me good food and your pretty well garenteed to have a happy Gopher :D

On a sidenote no idea how but well sometimes mother who is a good cook honest, serves me something and I wonder do I eat this or resole my shoes with it...

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sorry Come back later im sleeping...
Alive yes, awake no..

Blog Fodder - "Where do you go to be alone?"

This weeks topic brought to you by Carmi.

An interesting one for sure, posted by Moogie a little later than schedule but I think we can let her off, maybe......

I sit by my PC, put some music on or a DVD and just switch off totaly either that or I go out on a long walk if I don't think that's gonna work..

I think that's about all I can say really.

How to Piss me Off!

Well it's kinda easy if you know how but I digress a little perhaps.
As you all know I play "World of Warcraft". Now if you don't play it don't think about taking this game up it's subscription only and can be addictive.
In saying that I normally enjoy it, with the occational "OMFG" (Oh My Freaking God) why did someone just do that etc..
Now all was fine and well with my 2nd char on this realm (Europe - Boulderfist) in with a load of mates (2nd char in the Guild and 2nd time around).
My first char on there was kicked out the guild cos one night I went what can only be described as "Totally EMO!" that's like going POstal but with an Emotional core and i was booted out of guild and the GM Ignored me to boot :| well someone MOFO was pissing me off - member from an Old Guild I was in on another realm they became GM of the guild and well they freaking RUINED the guild, forced everyone into a merge I went I'd rather slit my wrists or similar (yeah I was that passionate about The Guild). That char is long gone - everything sold off and all the gold I made sent to a fellow player and the player deleted - was lvl 59 I think (on the grind to last level at the time 60).
I hopped realms moved a char from one to another and started afresh on Boulerfist with my primary passion an Orc Rogue which was what my 1st ever char was. I then got the expasion and created my 1st new Race char and 1st Priest (Blood Elf Priest) and was happily leveling with a few mates who'd gotten the expansion as well and were bored with their current characters in the guild, they then join up as mate was sick of getting whispers to get on his then main or an alt in the guild to talk about something I rejoined the guild and well all was fine until about oh 2pm (GMT) today when I was kicked from the guild - no warning, no friendly "hey mate - problem here" type whisper just BOOTED :|.. Some people weren't happy with my "attitude" in guild chat - no names mentioned and I don't really care either. What really PISSED me ROYALY off was the fact the faceless fecks didn't have the BALLS to say it to my face either in a party or in guild chat or even as a whisper. So Im all guildless again, just gave all my gems that I had to my mate (the GM who kicked me) Im gonna have to keep playing as well it's still fun (only just).
Oh and well hmm I won't be joining any guild for well lets see till thursday afternoon at the earlist (around about 4 days) which is the same cool down as making Mooncloth as a tailor..

Amandil, Blood Elf Priest Lvl 41 - Boulderfist

one word

I've blatently stolen this from Heather's Blog.
Use ony one word…..Not as easy as you might think.
1. Where is your cell phone?
jacket.

2. Your Vehicle?
outside

3. Your hair?
brown

4. Your father?:
downstairs

5. Your favorite thing?:
sleep

6. Your dream last night?:
weird

7. Your favorite drink?:
Irn-Bru

8. The room you’re in?:
bedroom

9. Your ex?
interesting

10. You are?
chilled

11. What do you want to be in 10 years?
elsewhere

12. Who did you hang out with today?
Friends

13. What you’re not?
quantifiable

14. Muffins?
cinnamon

15. One of your wish list items?
unknown

16. Where is the ______ ?:
glass

17. The last thing you did?
drove

18. What are you wearing?:
jeans

19. Your favorite TV show?:
sci-fi

20. Your pet(s)?:
non-existant

21. Your computer?:
critical

22. Your life?:
Unknown!

23. Your mood?:
morphable

24. Missing?
her

25. What are you thinking about right now?
dinner

26. Your Shoes?
trainers

27. Your work?
different

28. Your summer?
mediocore

29. Your favorite color?
blue

Wow is it almost March Already!

Has anyone seen the last two monthes or know where the HECK they went?
I sure as heck don't on saturday it's the 1st birthday of the year (well for me) - my "dearest" nephew connor will be 9, how he got this far I wouldn't even ask for I don't know the answer to that one, Im only the little monkey's uncle.
March is a mad month for me why I hear you ask, I sure I posted something like this last year but that would mean actually looking through the archieves and this poor lil bunny is tired. Like I was saying before i rambled off in another direction, oh yeah, march and birthdays I have 4 members of my immediate family (including the nephew there) and 3 friends, 2 of which are on the same day, and one of them you all know and love dear reader, she knows who I mean, Im not saying who either :D
My nephew got a brand-new Nintendo DS + 10 games (a few are full DS games) for a very nice price from e-bay so he's asked a for a few Games for it.
I mean it's not like he doesn't have enough to do with Cubs, Karate, Football, Homework, etc and his PS 2, Gameboy Advanced & the PC he got for christmas.
Spoilt never he's earned EVERY item :)

Oh and don't you just HATE it when you manage to bite you tounge and not realise it till a while after and of course it's rather difficult to put anything on it isn't it.

That is All.

Blog Fodder - "What do you see when you look out of your living room / kitchen / bedroom window?....."

I know go on tell me I need to post more, don't ask why I don't just be thankful I post, unlike some people I can think of, but I do know they lead lives far more hectic than mine so I can let them off just this once. Now on to the topic for this week from what looks like a fellow brit (cheers) Le Laquet.

What do you see when you look out of your living room / kitchen / bedroom window? You can do this with photos if you would like.

What do I see when I look out the window nearest me well the back garden and the lane behind my house and open fields and trees, there are some winter pics on here some place which right now I can't be bothered to go find the post in question to link to so Im afraid it's a hunt of the archieves - Feb / March 06 I think..
From my front of my house I see the local hill and it's a nice hill takes a little bit to climb up it but the view from the near enough the top is worth it trust me.
I think that will do.

Blog Fodder - "Which is worse? Poor manners or poor grammar? Why?"

This weeks topic brought to you by "Suzanne", it is an interesting topic I must say.

Which is worse? Poor manners or poor grammar? Why?

I'd have to say poor manners as normally this is vocal or visual and is instant for example someone bumping into you and not saying sorry and the like, not on at all in my book. In saying that I was brought up to be polite, trust me I had no option, I do love my dear darling sister as she did drag me up by the shoelaces although not literally.
Poor grammar well it all really depends on how bad it is and in what context the piece of writing is for.
I know I probably sometimes don't make gramattical sense sometimes but I do try and contruct sentence correctly, spell things correctly and so forth. I do probably over use certain punctuation marks, well I mean sometimes you just have to!!!!!!!!!!!!
See what I mean but if it's any type of formal letter IF it were to land on my desk at work,rare as I really don't get mail at work, or I'm shown a letter addressed to say the boss and read it and If they were looking for a job I don't know if I'd hire 'em or not, mind you I've seen some very professional looking CV's but "fresh coat of paint to hide the cracks" anyone.
I'd say both are equally worse but Poor manners just tips it as I do HATE people with bad / poor manners after all it takes nothing to be polite does it now.

That is all..

Blog Fodder - "If you could go back in time and choose your career, what would it be?"

Well quite an interesting question this week from Heather. Mind you heather sometimes does write thought provoking entries, now on to the question.

If you could go back in time and choose your career, what would it be?

This be a tough one for me as well I honestly don't know what it would be. I'd probably go back and smack myself around the head a few times but then again IF I did that I probably wouldn't be "here" and thus would probably not have the wonderous array of "friends" I have now. I use the quotes as most if not all who have read this blog I've never met in person and well e-mail ain't the same, okay phone calls are different I will give you that it does allow you to connect on a more personal level, as it adds a depth and colour (color) that are kinda hard to convey in a e-mail even if you use italics or bold text and colored text or all 3 however this doesn't answer the initial question does it.
What would I choose to be....
I am the geek type - I love computers have done for many years so I'd probably have taken that career path, maybe gotten my head around programming or something. I do love problem solving so may have ended up in some R&D department or as Tech support (the real kind not the "Tech Support" some provide can we say "script driven","in the box" and "blinkered" yes we can).

I probably be boring as well, well maybe. Who knows? Where I am I'm happy enough honest. I think it's due to the fact I've sat on my rear end and did just enough that's why Im the way I am, path of least resistance..

So to sign this post off, Career change probably software design or something like that but in truth not really how else would I have met.
Moogie then Sharon, Melonie, Wahwer...., Heather and the myriad of other people I know through blogger and "Computers Lobby:1" from the Chat at "Yahoo.com" and my friends who have actually met me in real life (poor them).

That is All...
More Next Time, Same Place, Same Nutcase.

Dating Anyone?

Okay that's a pretty what's the word, I had in my head but a moment ago, got it, what a fairly unambiguous post title / question.
Now for those well versed in the blog that is this one you will know or perhaps not that well Im just not that lucky, for those that are new to here, have a quick dive through the archives - here is the most current ref there are other earlier ones..
I just don't have the luck when it comes to asking girls out, I ask I get blown off.
The ONE and ONLY girlfriend in the proper sense of the word ask me out - well not so much asked as confessed in a letter that she loved me.. after telling her "good" friend and her good friend blabbing to her boyfriend in a call I was able to overhear the friend saying that she was stupid.. Long story - 3yrs some good times and then 1 big screw up on my part that I never fixed.. End of.
I think I'll just stick to be a "male friend" to any girl I get to know / know currently safer on all counts.
My good friend and colleague has joined her local dating agency - a brave move one which of course has seen her riddiculed by the boss, me I just said good luck :), I am going to tell her soon she's brave, braver than me. I tried that but hmm as normal it came out wrong but I was able to make a good enough recovery.
Now to the whole point of this post well it's mentioned above and in all honesty who the hell would wanna go out with a pain in the neck guy, who all he does is gets up for work, comes home and sits on his pc and sleeps, rarely goes anywhere, rarely phones what little friends he has and generally can't be BOTHERED with anything and takes the easy way out if at all possible or the path of least resistance.
Hmm yup sums me up real nice that does.
And NO this isn't a Dating AD / post / whatever it's the truth.

Filed Under: honesty, self.

Blog Fodder - "Name a sensory input(s) which trigger a mood change..."

Hmm I said I would post on this topic, tricky one but a good one from
Rob, over at My Bloddy Great Nutshell.
So he poses the question.

"Name a sensory input(s) which trigger a mood change be it uplifting, depressing, poignancy or remind you of a past event or period in time. Examples - the smell of an aftershave or perfume, a song, a baby crying, the sound of a vegas slot machine, the feel of clean sheets, the taste of a childhood drink."

A good question, a tricky one I've been thinking on and off about this one all week I mean what music Im listening to does tend to modify slightly the kinda mood im in.
Silence is great as well, just listening to nature brings back walks I had many years ago that hmm I don't do now, im still me just a little bit quieter, a little more hidden, although people that know me will claim that's not true, personal armor sorts that out.
There are a few songs and the smell of one particular brand of aftershave that invoke memories of happier times with my now ex-girlfriend. I wear my heart on my sleeve or so someone told me that and I was once told I should be a care worker or something - IM not that hard..
Time to go find Pachabel's Canon in D and relax it's been an interesting week.
Question answered hmm maybe but it's random just like me.

Logic defying Bowling

Okay this one has me scratching my head.
I was looking after the nephew again on Saturday and we went bowling again as well it's a little wind and still a little cold to play football outside that and the fact he's really good at something, Im sure those with little "devils angels" know what I mean...
Okay 3 games for the both of us last Saturday: £ 14.40 not bad really now this is what confused me.
3 games 2 weeks ago, approx same time £ 17.80 or something like that can't find the reciept right now but it will be somewhere - now thing was Im sure I was charged more for my nephews games than I was mine anyone care to explain?

Oh will post on Blog Fodder Topic later in the week.

Oh and as a postscript to the last post - Im not really a "Tom Cruise" fan nor a fan of what is the call it "Scientology" nor a fan of "Kabbalah" both IMHO are a load of phooey, i mean sure you pay a little at church to keep the place going and pay for the minister but hmm that would be like asking you or add to put $1,000 in the collection plate instead of a $1 if you see what I mean.

A Film Review: War of The Worlds

Okay good leading actor in Tom Cruise, good leading actress in Dakota Fanning as his daughter actually her lines were delivered way better ;).
Now I know that some american are classed as "dumb" but classing everyone in the world as dumb enough not realise that hmm oh let's just pave over that, there ain't nothing there or what ever is 100% too far fetched to start with, the lightning - way over kill. Mind you what did I expect it's a "hollywood remake of a classic" which has totally ruined the film, a remake that just about make it is "The Italian Job" it's at least got some class and credability to it.
Back to the current - Im sorry in the original they didn't suck us dry and spread weird vines all over the place. they didn't "walk" about they floated around and it was a heat ray not a "vapourising humans to dust" ray. Oh and another thing when the "tom" was busy hacking the eye to bits he could have at least cut it off like in the original! God damn hollywood can't even get that right.
So all in all a 100% over the top piece of cruddy remake, only thing that made it shine slightly was Dakota, she is one talentled lil lady.
I think were done here.

Blog Fodder - "How does one handle work, home and family (or a combination thereof) without having a nervous breakdown?"

Hmm this topic brought to us by my delightful and camera shy friend Melonie, oh Laura you can tell her I said that :P.

"How does one handle work, home and family (or a combination thereof) without having a nervous breakdown?"
Im probably the least qualified to answer this as well family - nephew, sisters, parents, "home" hmm let's not go there, work .
How do I handle all this without going into meltdown, truth is I don't sometimes I just go "off on one" - let rip, blow of some steam.
My life consists of the following: Monday - Friday: Up at 6:30, out the door at 7, get to work around 7:45, work till around 4, sometimes longer if required, get home around 4:30-5 or later depending on what I've got to do after work.
Saturday / Sunday - I just wanna do nothing, truth be told I just Can't Be Arsed(CBA) doing anything after work / at the weekends.
Nephew some how drag some life and energy out of me when he sees me.
Im going to lay out this logic to show you what I do and I will explain it a little.
If (!at work && !seeing nephew && !out someplace) then location=at pc.
so there we have it, I have no life, only work, my nephew and the occational escape, you can normally of an evening find me sitting at my pc doing something.
I don't do the "social" thing unless I have to, I like to breathe, Moogie, anyone any tips on how to stop someone who's been smoking for > 50 yrs. Let's just say Me on a bad day x 3 and that's my dear father on a good day!
Nervous Breakdown, I doubt I'd know one if it hit me in the face to be honest.
I just get on with it as I've been doing for long enough.
Like I said I do blow off steam sometimes. I did this in what can only describe as a spectacular manner on saturday.
Now as many people know I play "world of warcraft" aka "WoW" now there is an expansion out for it, that went live last tuesday at midnight, 2 new races, a whole new area to go to, new quests, you can now get to lvl 70 instead of 60, etc.
Now I don't have this expansion - don't see the point, current char is a lvl 40 odd rogue. I however was seeing "new race" players with levels higher than me, so to cut a long story short, I basically went and said "there are people who are higher level than me, it only went live on tuesday they are 'NO LIFERS'" and then went on a rant as someone else just ticked me off. For my wonderous effort I got "booted" out the guild by my now former friend, who I've played various different computer games with for a good few years, and to top it all those who had the expansion were getting all the help they needed, I asked and never really got a response! Oh and my former friend and the my Former Guild master now has me on ignore. I DIDN'T EVEN GET TO FINISH what I was saying!!!! So Im having a night off tonight, although my new guildmates might wonder where i am.
Im off to watch the crap Hollywood remake of "War of The Worlds" + some other stuff

Blog Fodder - "Which is more important, intelligence or common sense?"

Hmm Blog Fodder Topic number 7 - quite an interesting one this.
So which is more important, intelligence or common sense?
Im am going to sit on the fence on this one and say you need a mixture of both, some situations call for common sense others for a fair whack of the old bit High IQ.
My mother does say I do lack in common sense but I'd totally disagree with her and say no more on this one..
Im trying to give a good example of a possible situation where common sense would be used over intelligence and vice versa but for the life of me I can't think of one.
I tend to go for the "IQ" solution thus appear to not show much common sense, thus we get this wonderful phrase "if your brains were dynamite you wouldn't have enough to blow your nose...." and also "if you had a brain you'd be dangerous" but I think those phrases are a possible discussion for another day / for someone else to debate (HINT to someone else!).
hmm just thought of a probably example for use of common sense...
"delightful child" : Mom the TV don't work.........
"Mom" : Have you tried pressing the buttons on the front of it?
"child" : Erm no but how would that make a difference it's not working...
"Mom" : try them you might get a surprise..
"child" (after pressing the right button) : Wow, it works but that means Im gonna have to walk to the TV to change channel now (WHINE MODE on!)
"mom" : well it's what I thought, give me the remote and I'll change the batteries in it.
"child" : OH! it needs batteries to work (after having removed them for something else)...
Hmm trying now to think of a IQ example but brain now refusing to work.
I've always been good a working logic out so i probably couldn't give you a good IQ answer as it would be me working it out logically ^ see above it's kinda logically laid out.
IQ answer would probably be those "diagnostical" diagrams you see for somethings,
you know the ones that have a box marked "START HERE" and wind you through various options to establish the fault - now you know how I work things out, but that's off topic so I think I'll leave it there..

MY Answer: I'd say a bit of both is required and each is as important as the other.

Darn Crawler Bots

Hmm the darn well web-bots have been crawling all over the place trouble is they are still indexing something that is well about a year out of date the pictures from LAST Winter I took, put on my webserver and linked them out - I moved them to flikr and deleted them now hopefully within a week they'll no longer be index NOR will this place..

How well do people really know me..

This is a shameless re-write of a post by Heather.
I've been thinking about this one, how well do people really know me and this includes my family. I think there are very few people out there who really know me, most of them are in the UK, with a small number of people scattered around the globe that know me in varying degrees. I mean if I think about it I know people or Im related to to people from all corners of the globe. Now to the crux of this post or rather the question.
The question is: "How would YOU finish this sentence: If you really knew me, you would know…."
Now I'm not exactly sure how anyone would answer this as I'm terribly slack with the e-mail I do get around to sending e-mails out, and replying to ones sent to me some get answered quicker than others but it's not by virtue of who sent it, it's often what the e-mail is about. Feel free to puruse the archieves if you wish, to perhaps get an better insight to me. Leave a comment if you wish I suppose it's just me asking you to tell me what you think of me, I'm not being vain or anything like that. Oh and you don't need to "fudge" the answer in order to spare my feelings, I can take it...
Filed Under: Personal, Honesty