Haaarrrr!
Right, since I'm here, I want to point out a few things...

Firstly, Talk like a pirate day is on the 19th of September. Those more astute, (or cute), than me will have already figured out that this is a Sunday. Now, I know this doesn't work for christmas or anything, but we're going to move it to the Friday before, for work purposes.
So, that means the 17th of September, instead of being a dress down day, will now be a dress like a pirate day.

I watched Star Trek : Nemesis last night. Only because it was on Sky you understand, I haven't turned into a sex-starved sandal wearer or anything.
As well as being fundamentally pish, there are things that just annoy me about the thing. Why on earth (or elsewhere) is it that the transporters never work when they're needed? They seem to be fine when your just pissing around shagging aliens, but as soon as anyone is in any trouble they are screwed (usually interference). Now, I know it's pretty technical stuff to make them work at all, and I'm not dissing all the fine work that's carried out in Starfleet headquarters, but the point is that every other species seems to be able to transport people straight from the Enterprise on a mere whim. Gives us Earthies a bad name it does.
Oh, and the sensors never seem to pick up anything, unless it's something very dangerous that the captain always wants to investigate.
Example:
From 1 billion light years away -
Sensor Guy - "Captain, I'm picking up some squadiggle whatcha readings from a far away planet"
Captain - "Set a course and engage, fanny-baws"
From 3 feet away -
Captain - "Right, where's it coming from then, fanny-baws?"
Sensor Guy - "I can't tell, the readings are too faint."
Captain - "Prick"

Oh, and I'm no expert in Starfleet Protocols, but they kept going on at the start how the Captain couldn't go on away missions, or could, but only if the second in command didn't, or something. But, as soon as the opportunity arose the whole lot of the senior knobbers pissed off to the planet, leaving newt in charge, which had been Hick's plan all along.

Day 171: A Fringing we did go

The first inaugeral outing of the official Björk Bjiggler Fringe Goers Club had their first visit to the Edinburgh fringe last night (at least it was my first visit - the others had all been before I think).

Al and I went together in his car. We set off in good time as we planned to get a bite to eat before our 19:15 performance, but due to the traffic being so clogged up it took us rather longer than anticipated to get there, but I was very impressed with Als ability to take us straight to the right place even though he didn't know the streets of Edinburgh that well and he wasn't sure exactly where we were going anyway. Getting parked up and getting into the pleasance couryard with a pint in hand was with us the work of a moment. I went into the white porta cabin (as instructed when I booked the tickets) to collect the tickets to the Keith Barrett Show and was told that I had also booked some tickets for a later show and did I want to collect those at the same time. The ability to do this saved our bacon as the first show finished late and we would not have had time to collect the tickets before the second show if I had not been able to collect them here.

While we were waiting in the couryard we spotted a few famous people like that american who has been on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, that comedian who isn't very good that got arrested for dressing up as Ossama Bin Laden at a royal party and an irish person who was off the telly. Someone came up to us and said "is this the back of the queue?", we said "What queue?" and looked round to see that a queue had formed and we happened to be standing jsut were it ended. We said "no were weren't in the queue" and walked off to see where we had to go to see our show, only to find that you needed to queue, but by now the queue was about 5 times as long as it was when we were in it earlier. Even so, we ended up on the front row, which was good, but meant I ended up being in the firing line a few times. I must say that the show started and I started laughing and didn't stop laughing until almost the end.

As mentioned earlier, the first show finished late so we had to high tail it accross town and joined Paolo in the queue just before it started going into the assembly hall to see Jeremy Hardy which was very enjoyable and a good compliment to Rob Brydon as it is a different type of humour that gets you thinking about just how crap just about everything is (apart from moving to Sweden).

Anyway it was all a bit of fun - a bit of fun it was.

Day 170: A fringing we will go

Tonight is a big night out for the Björk Bjiggler team and assorted hangers on as we will be taking on the Edinburgh Fringe en mass and seeing all the top shows. For the first part of the evening we shall be splitting up due to the fact that some of the party feel it is more appropriate to go and see Budhist drumming rather than a quality show such as The Keith Barret Show. Needless to say and I will be having the last laugh there.

We shall then be high tailing it across town for me to pick up the tickets to the Jeremy Hardy show, which need to be collected at least 20 minutes before the show starts, and meeting up with the others who will probably have all been brain washed by now and be wanting to go off and join some cult or other.

Anyway thats the bit that has been organised thus far, after that the fringe is our oyster (in much the same way as a 99% wio and 1% sys can be quite dificult to resolve when there are only 45 processes running at the time and none of them are really doing anything very much) , so we probably won't bother going to any more shows and will just slope off to our respective digs and just generally stay out of trouble.

So, hopefully we'll see you there.
Full update and review will be provided tomorrow.

Aly in DisneyLand
Not a bad title, eh? That's 'cos I've just been to DisneyLand you see. The one in Paris that is, not the one in California, or the one in Florida. I actually think one of them is called Disney World just to distinguish it, but I don't care.
I was going to save another title for something else, but will use it now since it was pretty funny, although only to me.
Aly shoes the plooky lass
I think you might need to be Scottish, or even a weedgie to get that, but trust me, it's funny.

Anyway, on with the show.

I flew with Ryan Air for a reasonable sum to a place called Beauvais, which is quite a bit outside Paris. I was prepared for this though, and had booked a car, which I'd upgraded to the next level. So, I got there and picked up a "yellow" Peugeot 307 Turbo Diesel, which was a neat car. Oh, "yellow" is in quotes because it's French for green. I say that because the guy sent me round to the car park to get the "yellow" one, you can guess the rest.
So, proceeded to kick the arse out the 307 down the PPV roads to an IBIS hotel just outside EuroDisney. After traveling back and forth along the length of the motorway I spotted an IBIS hotel so jumped off at that exit and went to the hotel, which was the wrong one. It was nice though, and had an outdoor heated pool, so we cancelled our reservation and checked in. (Ha, good deal of £60 for two nights in other hotel due to internet last minute deal lost then).
Did the Disney thing for a couple of days. It was weird, we'd get a thunderstorm, it'd batter down with rain for 10 minutes, then dry out immediately. (I'll tell you though, the sight of Pluto sprinting down the street trying to get out of the rain will stay with me for a long time).
So, did some fast loopy things, some slow mechanical things and spent a bundle on shit food.

Headed down to Provins next, booked into a Formula 1 hotel, for the novelty factor. You just go up, insert credit card, select room type and get a receipt with a code number to get into the room. Cool stuff. Went to room, logged in, opened door, seen there was no bathroom, walked out, went and booked in to another place. Got a chalet in some campsite so the young one could run around and play. Got some really nice weather then next couple of days, and plenty to do here. Oh and Provins was really cool. A little medieval town with lots of cobbled streets, and all that nonsense. Recommended.

Had to head back for the flight on Monday, stopped off at some massive mall outside Disney Land and hung out there for a while before heading north. I'd memorized the route due to gf's complete ineptness with a map. Headed up the A1, all you do is head for Amiens. After an awfully long time, decided to stop and check the map. Ah, you should come off the A1 onto the A16, ooops. Figured out we were an incredible distance from where we were meant to be. Had to drive another hour or so and pretty impressive speeds (190kph, not bad for a wee car) to get to the airport, fudflaps*

*A Dom invention from today, had to be used.

Any road up. That'll do for that. Don't ask about my holiday, that was it.

I'll try and get something slight less tedious for next time.

Day 163: In the slaughterhouse all corpses smell the same

Sorry for the blatent ph plagerism, but it makes a good title and I've been wanting to use it for ages. Also, as ever, apologies for a blog that has been rathar too quiet of late. The Bjork Bjiggler Blog Reading Society have been getting very restless lately and dark rumblings have been heard eminating from their midsts, so I feel it is my duty to supply some more fodder upon which they can engourge themselves until the next posting sees the light of day, which I can assure you will not be too far into the future. Our good friend and contributor is currenly in France, probably, spending his time not smoking Gauloise and ensuring that he has accumulated his usual amount of thought provoking incidents (often referred to as "pish and drivel") to enthrall us all with upon his return.

I find that there is nothing more able to throttle the flow of creative blog writing than the ability of the modern keyboard to screw around with what you are typing so that what ends up on the cscreen often bear no resleblance to what yuou actually typed. How mant times do you find yourslef typing a four letter word only to find that the kwyboard has inserted 3 ro 4 extra characters. The oether favourate tricjk it has is to transpose two of the letters you have typed at random. The result is that each time you do a post you have to spend more time correcting the errors introduced by the keyboard that it took to writing the thig in the first place. The other thing is that the keyboard seems to be able to detect how much your typing is improving and introduces more errors as you get better. When I first started typ[ing on a ciompuetr keyboard I was quict slow, but didn't make many typinfg errors, but now my keyboard skills ahve improved to such an extent that althoygh I am typing at a speed that would put many a touch typist to shame, my postings are just littered with errors and additional, but unwanted characters.

Time, and relative dimensions
I'm bored.

In the absence of any really content, or inspiration, I at least pilfered the resident clock (watch?) from somewhere and put it up there on the right. Nice, eh?

Isn't it strange how we spend a large proportion of our lives waiting to get that part back and get to something else?

I know, let me explain. I had a mishap with my shower at home last September or so. Something caused it to blow a fuse and burn out it's wiring. In itself, a pretty mundane and easily coped with situation. I did, however, go through a few attempts at getting it fixed. I had the wiring replaced, fixed the fuse and *pop*, it went again. I changed the whole shower and fixed the fuse. *pop*, off it went again. As it turns out, the wiring was replaced, apart from a 1M part which went from the fuse box under the floor to a join. I'm not happy with working directly on the fuse box, so wanted an electrician to come in and have a look.
The first time I phoned he was busy, so was going to call me back. It took a good few days before he did, then said if it had to be a weekend/evening he would have to check his schedule and get back to me. After a week or so I called, he was on holiday, would be back the next week and would call me. Obviously this didn't happen, so I called again, this time he was just going on another holiday and would call on his return. He did call this time, but I wasn't in so it went to voicemail. I called back and left a mobile number, but no word back as yet.
So, all in all, I realised I've now been without said shower for about a year. It doesn't seem that long and just serves as a reminder how time passes so much faster as you get older. A year seemed like such a long time when I was young, now it passes by without notice. And I'm sitting at my desk now, basically waiting for 7 more hours to pass before I can leave. These are times that'll never be returned, just like the few minutes you wasted reading this.
Still, gotta laugh, eh?

It's been so long
And I'm not sure I remember what to do.
I seem to remember that the main point is to utter drivel, but with a certain observational comedy contained within.
So, let's look at petrol.
As we all know, the cost of said commodity is pretty damn high these days, and I've got a car that drinks it quickly when I drive a bit fast, which seems to be all the time these days. I have, however, in the last couple of weeks, had occasion to borrow other people's cars, usually to do with capacity issues with my own or someone wanting a shiny convertible for a hot summers day. Now, I'm not sure if this is planned, but I'm sure it can't be due to the lack of forewarning, but every time I step in another car the petrol gauge is showing either on or below the red mark. I actual fact, the Petrol warning light is lit on most occasions. I personally can't drive with the light on, or even close to the red, due to my panic about running empty. I also see no point in putting less than a full tank in when I stop for a refuel. So, I've spent about £300 in the last week in petrol, and half of that in other peoples cars. I'm not really complaining, really I'm not, but I do wonder if I'm the only person on the planet that actually buys fuel. In which case I'm personally responsible for all the pollution and environmental changes it's causing.
So, sorry about that.

Day 127: Some of your Scottish detectives are belong to us

It is more than a long time since my last post, but I thought I'd better make the effort to put pen to paper so as not to disappoint our regular readers who have been swamping my mailbag with requests for more posts. It just hasn't been the same without me.
Lots of stuff has happened since Day 79 (some of which I may go into more detail about later) including:
- visiting Sweden
- buying a 32 year old car
- completing ratchet and clank 2
- cooking a traditional Swedish lunch for my colleagues
- having my laptop stolen (along with my iPod)
- playing Kingdom of Loathing
- watching a whole stack of DVDs
In fact on the old DVD front, I used the purchase of my new car to enable me to bring a portable tv/video up to Scotland so I can watch my old video collection up here, as we don't do videos any more in my real house.
I have been particularly enjoying watching my old videos of Scottish Detectives: such as Rebus, Taggart, Morse and of course the old highland master himself Poirot.

An ashtray is YOU!
I've kinda stopped smoking. Not in a real sense, but haven't had one today yet, and am hoping to continue that record for the rest of today at least.
I'm not sure if the right strategy is 'one day at a time', but the thought of never smoking again is just too much to contemplate in my fragile state.
I found an old patch this morning, which was part of the trigger for giving it a shot. Well, that and the fact that gf stopped on Sunday, and I should try and do it too. Also been feeling pretty damn shitty the last few weeks, for which smoking can be blamed to an extent.
I'm going to a chiropractor tomorrow to see if they can sort out a constant ache in my chest, which is caused by my crappy posture and knackered bed. Of course, this meant buying a new bed too, which is being delivered next tuesday.
In other news, I got a freeview card for my PC at home, which allows you to pick up the free digital channels. Got it home and found my aerial was kaput, so have to pay 70 smackers for a new one, ho hum.
Oh, and it takes a truckload of time to format a 200GB hard drive.

Applied Reasoning and Assumption
Seen that advert? You know the one. The one where they go on about Road Tax, and how, if they avoid Road Tax, the probably avoid Insurance. And if they avoid insurance they probably avoid MOTs. And if they avoid MOTs, they will likely not take care of their cars. And if they don't take care of their cars, they'll almost definitely drive into a pram. Bastards. So we should shop them to our good friends in the Police immediately. Goddamn it. They should be shot.
Oh, and if you don't have a goldfish, you're a wanker.

People Were Killed?
Nobody told me.

It's all just a game anyway

Day 79: Musik för barn

(to be sung to the tune of "Jolly red nose"):

Nose, nose, jolly red nose
what gave Paolo a jolly red nose
nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and cloves
thats what gave Paolo his jolly red nose

As Paolo has taken to drinking a Tazo Chai during the afternoon I thought I would post the above as most of the ingredients mentioned are containied in his Chai (only the nutmeg is missing - and I did invite him to add some nutmeg as there is a pot of nutmeg on the coffee counter - but he declined).

Bittersweet Symphony
Weekend Report (Belated) - Well, only Sunday really.
I was planning on heading home from gf's to get some stuff done, but since it was a nice day we decided to make the most of it and go enjoy the sunshine somewhere. There were a couple of things to take care of first. Gf and son had to go to Mass, since they are of that persuasion, which runs from 10am to 11am. This was working out fine since gf's car had to go to the garage to get some clunking checked out. So, the solution was there for all to see. I would take the car to the garage while she was attending the Karaoke event. She would have my car, and pick me up shortly after 11. All was right with the world.
Off I went, pretty early, to the garage. Dropped off the car, was to be finished by 2pm. As the time was quite early still, only 10:20 or so, I decided to walk to the nearby park. This was a 15 minute walk and I wasn't sure of directions, but managed to get there okay. There's a pond in the park, so I sat on a bench beside that admiring the surroundings. As I looked over, there were a couple of footbridges painted in a pale blue, and behind that was an area filled with half a dozen different types of trees in various colours. A pretty neat situation to be in really, very picturesque. A couple of ducks flew overhead, and then a couple of pigeons landed mere feet in front of me and proceeded to go into some mating ritual which involved a rotating dance with necks entwined, followed by touching beaks in what only can be described as a kiss. The male (presumably) then jumped on the female's back, at which point they flew away together. Although this was probably the female changing her mind, I was quite pleased since this avoided watching the sordid business and allowed me to just concentrate on the beauty of nature.
I realized at this point that I was a victim of the Playstation generation. Us 80's kids have been indoctrinated into requiring constant sensory input to avoid boredom. As I was watching the scene unfold, I was thinking how much better it would be if the ducks were fighting, and when a duck won a fight they would get an weapon upgrade, and you'd see the hardest duck that had been there for years, with it's laser beam generator attached to the side. And the ducks could shoot bigger animals and steal their bodies.
Anyway, I decided to walk to the edge of the park in anticipation of gf arriving. It was just after 11 now, so she was going to phone and see if I'd maybe got finished at the garage and headed home. So, near the exit, phone went. "Hello", said I, in my cheerful, fulfilled mood, "How are ya?". Tears were the response. As all sorts of things were in my mind for what could be wrong, and the feeling of dread hit the pit of my stomach, I gently but firmly asked what was wrong. Apparently my car had been broken into whilst parked outside the Chapel. Some junkie monkey had smashed the passenger window, ripped out the stereo, damaging the dashboard as much as possible in the process.
As I tried to tell her everything was okay and figure out how to get back, given that two cars were now effectively off the road, the phone was going. She was calmed down a bit now, and I'd organised a lift, so took the other call. "We've got a system down" was the message waiting, "Can you do something about it?".
Sometimes you wonder if real life has realized you're enjoying yourself and decided to kick you in the nuts.

Referential Integrity
So, probably more suited to TF, but let's have a look at this nonetheless.
While we're in the middle of ostracizing our military operations for not behaving in a way acceptable to our common sensibilities, such as pissing on inmates and killing kids, its becoming clear that our media is there protecting the Geneva Convention and making sure any contravention is reported.
Oh, wait, that was last week. This week the media is the enemy, they lie and are caught out by profit seekers due to their quest for the latest scoop.
No, wait, it's actually the Brits that are good, the media is fine, it's just the Americans that are bad.
Ah, bollocks, as it turns out, we might be the bad guys too.
Luckily our government is here and will sort it all out, just as soon as it finds out about it.

Fortunately, our "special relationship" will not be affected

I give up.

Okay gmail users - bit of a phishing alert.

I got an email offering unlimited invitations


Gmail Team
to me
More options 3:11am (7 hours ago)
Dear Beta Tester,


We are glad to bring you some new features to enhance your beta testing experience here at Gmail. Some of these features include:

� Checking your e-mail via telephone, anywhere in the world.

� A simple, easy to use spam manager where you can filter almost any kind of unwanted e-mail.

� Ability to create unlimited invite codes for all of your friends, so that they may too experience the wide range of diversity of Gmail.



We are proud to announce that all of these features are now available to current beta testers. Unfortunately, we will not be offering these services to members that receive an invitation from this special service. You can activate these features anytime by visiting http://activate.gmail.com/

We encourage you to send your feedback, suggestions and questions to us. But mostly, we hope you'll enjoy experimenting with Google's approach to email.

Speedy Delivery,

The Gmail Team


Unfotunately, this is just a phishing exercise to steal gmail accounts.

Did I fall for it?

Umm, yes - the lure of unlimited accounts was just too much.

It did lock out my account, but a quick secret question and I was back in, and changing the password.

I'd assume it's an automated password change, every time I log in now I need to type a .gif word from the screen, since the hackers are obviously auto-logging in and locking the account (kinda).

Altogether, pretty neat code, email is in good english, web page looks good. Good phish by offering the gold plated invitations to us greedy webbers.

If you see my account on ebay, it wasn't me!

The first bite is with the eye
Sometimes I'm in the mood for a dessert after lunch. I do, however, have some things that I just don't like such as rhubarb (Spawn of the Devil) and Banana Cake/Loaf (Too close to fruit for my liking).
So. My invention today was. Take 1 Mars Bar(tm), regular size. 1 Bowl of tepid lumpy custard. Slice the Mars Bar in half longways, then lengthways. Take two sections of the prepared Mars Bar and place in custard, retaining the rest of the Mars Bar for a friend. In my case, I don't have friends, so I ate it.
It is quite sickly, and I would only recommend it in the face of these adverse conditions where you NEED a dessert and no palatable alternative exists. So, emergency use only.
Oh, for the perfect dessert, remove as many of the lumps as you can.
Or get Apple Caramel Crumble with Custard from another source *droooool*
Hope this helps,
A

So, our illustrious owners are going all IPO at last then?


Wonder if it's anything to do with all the publicity surrounding gmail. Though some of that is quite negative.

Oh well, just a thought, seems topical. And allows us to gloat about having gmail accounts by the handful. (Sorry Pao!)

Oh, and for those of you that keep hitting us with the 8 Queens of Death Solution searches, I guess I should make sure you're not disappointed.
A4,B1,C5,D8,E6,F3,G7,H2
Killed us for a while too, till Paul solved it. Think that might have been the original reason Dom was writing that damn game.

Toilets
I like using the visitors toilet. It is an enclosed room, with a sink and walls and stuff. I appreciate the privacy this provides.
There are, however, two problems. Firstly, it's not obvious from the outside that it's a single toilet, and it would appear to the uneducated eye that it may be a normal multi-unit toilet facility. In addition, the lock is not too strong. This results in occasions where the door is tried, the potential user thinks the door is just stiff and tries harder , at which point the lock gives way and the door swings open revealing you in full Greyfriar's action glory.
There is a story related to this, involving a gentleman who was in full pud-pulling action as the door was forced open, and proceeded to pull his top over his head to hide his face. This is known as the 'Ravanelli Incident'.
The second thing is that it's always busy.
The other toilets are more open plan, in the normal urinal and cubical fashion. This results in the Urinal etiquette that has been described below. It also has another down point in that you have to walk the full length of the office, past a whole bundle of people who could potentially track your toilet habits. It also has the loudest doors on the planet. They are on the usual fire door things that make sure they close after use. They're also loose fitting, so the wood hits against the frame. Very hard, and loud. This has the effect of making you jump, which is not a good idea when you're on the job.
I like my own toilet. I like being in my own house, alone, when I go to drop off the kids. I like to sit till my bum is numb and my legs are like jelly.

Hitler's Youth
So, just in case you didn't know.
I've been learning German, so that I can read Mein Kampf in it's native language. I don't really trust translations due to the amount of interpretation of the translator involved. I don't really care too much about the actual war Hitler, more what drives a man to behave and believe as he did.
My initial thoughts - He had a pretty poor relationship with his father. Dad was an alcoholic who would beat him at a whim. He did, however, have a close relationship with his mother, despite her lack of protection. This was at the turn of the century, so it is probably more understandable in that context. There have been many studies of when the young Adolf became anti-Semitic, I'm not entirely sure it's been convincingly proven though. It is said that during his late childhood in Austria (He moved to Linz with his mother, after the death of his father and on to Vienna shortly after to go to some for of classical art college) there was a strong anti Jew feeling, and it was thought that he developed his pathological leanings at this point. This is somewhat disproved by the discovery in his own documents that describe a relationship with a girl at this time. It is a strange relationship in that there was no contact between Adolf and a young lady who was some society persons daughter. He did, however, fall completely and totally in love with this girl and continued his infatuation for a number of years prior to moving to Vienna. At this point he sent her a note declaring his love and asking her to wait for him to return so he could marry her. (Slight sidenote - she is on record as saying she had no idea who the note was from when she received it - unrequited love indeed.). The pertinent point of this is that the girl was clearly, through bloodline and obvious name, Jewish. So, perhaps elsewhere needs to be looked at for the beginnings of his sentiments.
The young Hitler was brought up in schools which had a relatively strong German connection, and he developed an obsession with the history, both real and fable, of the Germanic culture. He was pictured at the rallies after the assassination of the Austrian bloke with a look of demonic excitement at the prospect of war. He was accepted into the German army shortly after, which gave him great pride. He has described his role during the first world war as being a 'frontline fighter, involved in hand-to-hand combat with his fellow man'. This is far from the truth. He was actually a dispatch rider, delivering notes behind the front lines. Still a dangerous job of course, but not one that would be respected by actual infantry veterans if made public during his political career.
He was injured in a gas attack at one point, where he was sent to a hospital in Berlin for treatment. While here, he was disgusted by the defeatist attitude of everyday Germans, and the lengths people, especially Jews, would go to in order to avoid being sent back to the front. There is some belief that this is the seed of his anti-semantic feelings.
So, was he a poof then?
There isn't actually any evidence to prove this, although there are some (boring) pointers which suggest this might be the case. Hearing evidence from housekeepers that there was never any evidence of sexual relations with Eva Braun, even though they spent a lot of time together at Hitler's retreat, it would appear that he may actual have been completely celibate.
I'll knock this on the head now.

Day 52: Har du en röd bil?

My name is Dom and I am a wheataholic. But the good news is I have been wheat free for 3 days and the pounds are simply falling off. If you would like to learn how you too could be wheat free send $10 and you could start being wheat free within hours - no postage necessary, terms and conditions apply.

Last night was the second lesson of my third term of learning Swedish and I enjoyed it very much. I am finally beginning to feel that I might be able to have a proper meaningful conversation with someone, rather that just being able to ask if they have a red car. So if any of our regular readers are going to be in Stockholm at the end of May watch out, lest you get accosted in the street and asked if you have a car that is a patricular colour (I know red, blue, green and yellow).