Tea and Biscuits

Somehow this has turned into some sort of a review

2009-11-08T15:56:00.013Z

I bought a new thing for recording my guitar, a Line 6 POD Studio UX1. Here's my first recording:

“Squeaky Ants” Comment & more at RiffWorld.com

It plugs into a USB port and comes with some recording software called Riffworks T4 which is really good and it even has a feature that makes drum loops.

The problem I used to have with other recording programs was that it would take ages for me to record something and I'd have to make some sort of drum loop and it would take forever to mess around with the thing, trying to get what I had recorded to fit together and so on, but with this program I actually recorded a whole song in a few hours and it doesn't sound bad considering I had only just started using it. I suppose it's just better because it's tailored to guitar recording and not over complicated, there is enough there to record good tunes but not too much going on that you get lost and take forever and then wonder why it's 11:35 pm and what you have been doing with the weekend and why you have only recorded about two chords which sound like rubbish. Instead you still spend all night on it, but it's a lot more fun and you end up managing to actually finish a bit of music for a change and probably be quite pleased with the result.

The only thing is as far as I can work out, it looks like you can only use the set drum loops (which are still good because you can adjust them, make them faster and change how varied you want them to be and although you can also buy different loops on the company's website) but it would be better if there was some sort of option where you could put together your own loop with different individual drum samples (eg individual hi hats, snare drums and all those other sorts of drums... just goes to show how little I know about drums) if you wanted to make your own loop. (Maybe you can do this? I haven't been able to so far, I'm assuming you can't).

Otherwise though it is pretty good. Miles better than what I used to do years ago which involved plugging in a crap microphone into a crap sound card and recording a crappy noise which didn't even sound like a guitar. So yes, I'm quite impressed I suppose. Review over.

Anyway, you can expect me to start posting loads of tunes I have made now. I think I will also have to find a way to record my banjo onto the computer so I can add some banjo sounds to my tunes.

There is a microphone hole in this Line 6 UX1 thing which is probably meant for singing (yeah that's not going to happen) so I think maybe I could get a good mic and try recording the banjo with that. The only thing is, as I mentioned above, I've had problems with trying to record with a microphone before and I don't know if I can record well without getting the sound of the computer in the background (and my computer is really noisy, it sounds like either some sort of generator, or something that is about to take off, probably because it has loads of cooling fans inside).

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the tune. It's sort of a rock song but with a strange bit in the middle with some diminished chords and minor 7 and 7b5 chords.
I've also been learning a bit more music theory and was trying out a few different chords and modes and things, so being able to record ideas easily is going to make it a lot more fun.

Return

2009-10-10T23:35:00.005+01:00

Well it's been a while, but I feel in the mood for a posting, well it has only been almost 10 months now...
Some things which have happened:
I did a lot of gardening this year. This came from being quite fed up in around January and suddenly becoming addicted to buying seeds in Homebase on my way home from work. It was in an attempt to not hate the coming year and maybe look forward to something. It was all quite rubbish at the beginning of the year but I have to say things are a lot better now (I don't like to speak too soon, but various much better things have happened, and some unsavoury people have moved along out of my life and far away which has been a huge relief.)

I grew a lot of things, potatoes, beans, tomatoes (I grew a variety called Hundreds and Thousands and there really were loads of them, they were nice, very small and sweet). The tomatoes got blight in the end but even so I still had loads, in fact there were too many.

I gave one plant to my grandparents, just the one plant, and they said they had hundreds of tomatoes from it too. I had about 6 or so plants, so you can imagine the number of tomatoes I ended up with, I was practically swimming in them, they were coming out of my ears. Well alright, not out of my ears, just off the plants.

I also still have a lot of peppers growing. Mum grew a weird spiky cucumber, which freaked me out. I also grew a plant called Weretors of Elgebar (which is the purple flower in that *fantastic* montagé (ooh big word, I even managed to find the e with the accent on top for that one) I have made above, which took me all of 1.3 seconds) and also a plant called Neural Miner, from which I have a gourd (that big green thing at the bottom of the montage. Ooops look at that, I forgot the accent there) which is inedible but really weird, which is always good.

I also bought a great pair of socks last week. They are made from one of those soft fabrics, you know, like chenille or something, actually, yes, exactly chenille. They are very soft. I wore them today and spent most of the morning walking around in them because it felt like I was walking on a new carpet, except I wasn't, it was just the socks.

I also have a master plan for avoiding colds and flu. I am really busy at work at the moment and can't afford to be off sick, and let's face it, I'm not one of those people that really enjoys being ill. But it's that time of year again. So I bought a bag of onions and have put one in my coat pocket in the hope it will stop me getting a cold. I heard once that years ago people used to do this and have always wanted to try it. The only thing is I am using a shallot and I don't know if that will work as well as a normal sized onion.

Ah I just found a fantastic website: www.shallot.com
Can't see anything about putting them in coat pockets though. In fact I can't find anything anywhere about putting onions of any sort in pockets on the entire internet.

New year

2009-01-11T12:37:00.005Z

I hope everyone has had a good Christmas and New Year.
I don't know if anyone else feels the same way but it all seems a bit peculiar at the moment, life in general I mean. There is a weird atmosphere or something and everything seems to hae slowed down, it's like being in hibernation.

It's a a shame about Woolworths, I took a picture of it just before it closed down:

It's cleared out and empty now, I keep meaning to take another photo of it.

Here's another photo of nothing in particular, just because I thought it was funny:

Also it seems to be one of those periods where everthing you own starts breaking. It's not enough for one thing to break, there seems to be a rule of three.

First the kettle broke, then the washing machine, and now the vacuum cleaner. Not only that, but the new kettle broke too. Luckily dad fixed the washing machine but the future of the vacuum cleaner is under discussion at this very moment.

I have to say the third kettle is a lot better than the second one, it looks a lot nicer.

Duck egg

2008-12-14T19:37:00.005Z

Earlier in the week a neighbour came to the door with some duck eggs! It was unexpected, I didn't even know she had any ducks. I know she has some chickens because I can hear them clucking sometimes.

The eggs were quite interesting, they were slightly larger than chicken eggs and the same sort of shape, but translucent. I had one fried in a pan and it was really nice, the white was sort of translucent too and it had a slightly different flavour to a chickens egg and it wasn't as heavy.

Christmas Tree/Man

2008-12-08T21:15:00.006Z

Everyday on my way to work I pass a fancy dress shop which has two dummies in the window displaying whatever costumes are appropriate for the time of year. There have been some amusing ones (once the male mannequin was wearing a pink tutu) but the costume in the window this week has to be the best so far:

I managed to take a photo as I went past on my phone (I mean, I took the photo with my phone, I didn't ride past on the phone). A Christmas tree costume, how funny.

Finished!

2008-12-01T18:21:00.005Z

Well I think I'm finished with the template now. It's similar to the old one but different enough that it makes a change.

Looking through my old links to other blogs, I discovered that a lot of them don't exist anymore! Where has everyone gone? Anyway, I've taken those off. I have to look around for some new interesting blogs to add to the list.

I was trying to add my own blog to those blogring/bloglistings sites but a lot of the old ones seem to have disappeared (although a lot of them were fairly useless). I'm on Technorati.com where I just discovered I have 1 fan. I got very excited and clicked on the link to find out who it was... it was me. Haha! I don't remember doing that.

Template.... yes I know, I'm nearly finished though

2008-11-30T23:46:00.003Z

It's getting there...
Time I went to bed.

Still making a new template...

2008-11-13T19:05:00.005Z

It's going slowly, but I have sorted out a header so far, although I will probably change it and make it look a bit more exciting at some point. I am slightly annoyed that I can't seem to remove the title text which seems to be added dynamically depending on what you have written in the 'title' box on the 'edit header' bit in the layout/add arrange template options, I wanted to make a more interesting title on the actual banner itself, and if I try to get round it by uploading a jpeg for the banner in the 'edit header' option and clicking 'use instead of title and description', it does not line up properly.
Never mind, I might one day have a new template design, the problem is I just don't seem to have a lot of time to do it at the moment.

New Template

2008-11-02T22:34:00.003Z

I'm redoing the template after upgrading it to one of the new ones with all the new bits added... so if it looks a mess at any point you'll know why!

Chilly

2008-11-02T21:11:00.005Z

It's quite cold and dark suddenly, it must be that time of year again. In a way it is quite good now the clocks have gone back because I don't have to get up in the dark anymore. On the other hand, I still have to walk home in the dark but I actually don't mind that. I don't know why but it's fun walking through the Co-Op car park in the dark after having bought a packet of something in the supermarket. A packet of something. I bought some sort of weird flavoured sweets called Rainbow Belts, and yes, they did taste a bit like small leather belts only covered in sugar.

Talking of going home, I have discovered that if I leave work half an hour earlier than usual, I get home nearly an hour earlier, it's amazing.
Well alright, it's not that amazing actually, it's just that if I leave earlier I can get the train that goes all the way home without having to change, but that doesn't sound half as weird. I'd prefer to think I live in a different time zone or something.

People at work seem to be starting some sort of new trend involving wearing scarves indoors. Is this a new thing or is this happening everywhere? I'm starting to feel a bit left out, I might have to get one and do it as well. The thing is I tend to look daft in a lot of things.
I was thinking I could wear the hat that my gran gave me last year, it's cold enough. It's one of those trendy wooly hats from a surf shop. The only thing is it's a bit tight and gradually slides off, ending up just balancing on top of my head and making my hair go static. Being made of wool it is also itchy. Maybe I won't bother with that.

I've got a pumpkin but didn't get round to carving it. I suppose I could still do it, only with something non-Halloweeny. Something autumny. I might do that if I get round to it.

I found an interesting site all about lonely socks. You can submit your own photographs too. I do like socks, they are interesting in the same way that I find hatstands and toilets interesting. Seriously, I think it's the shape, they really are a strange shape when you think about it, like floppy, wooly boomerangs. When they're not being worn they hardly resemble something that would fit on your foot. Also I think you can get away with a lot with a sock. You might not be able to get away with a ridiculously patterned shirt, it would be too much, but a mad coloured sock would be just perfect.

Rut

2008-10-05T18:37:00.012+01:00

I haven't posted in ages, because I have had absolutely nothing to post about. Well, that’s not quite true, it's just that everything has been quite rubbish and I was thinking it's probably best if I make post miserable posts but now I think I am so bored, what the hell I’m going to make a post anyway because it’s almost funny. Almost.

I am completely stuck in a rut at the moment and so annoyed that it's October and so far everything I've tried to do this year has gone completely wrong, even though I had decided it wasn't going to be like that this year.

I started learning to drive, good, I was thinking, I've actually been able to manage to start something. Well, so much for that. It started off fine, but got progressively worse. The driving instructor bought a new car, so I had to go from a diesel car to a petrol car and it took me ages to get used to the difference. The accelerator on the petrol car was so much more sensitive than the diesel, if I even slightly touched the pedal it was too much and I'd end up stalling it or not even getting the stupid thing started.

I began to get used to the new car but then had an awful lesson the day after my dog died. I wasn't in the best frame of mind, and it was a bad day to have a go at going out on a main road. Anyway, a few weeks ago there was an awkward incident and the instructor decided I was too dangerous and didn't want to take me out anymore. So I decided it was best to leave it there for a while. Complete disaster.

So whenever people ask how the driving is going (I KNEW I shouldn't have mentioned it to anyone) I've been reduced to making it into a bit of a joke and saying, ha, guess what, I can’t go anymore because the instructor says I’m too dangerous. Of course actually I’m really fed up about the whole thing. I won’t tell anyone the details, which I suppose probably leaves people wondering what on Earth happened and imagining some sort of ridiculous disaster.

Another annoying thing, the day before that I had a job interview. I thought, oh good, progress. What did I do? I completely messed it up. I won’t go into the details (again) but I was very annoyed. Having said that, I didn't like the place much, but still.
Well, that's enough I think. There are a myriad of other things that have gone wrong recently but I've mostly blanked them all out. The general theme is that I keep messing things up, really badly. Or I just can't even get started. Not only that but I feel so left out of just about everything.

Anyway, here's something interesting to balance the post out. I recorded a tune, I've been meaning to do this for ages and I've just finished it, so here it is. I even managed to put fake drums in, although not many because I didn't want to over do it.

I was going to embed the mp3 into this post, but of course that annoying 'active media' yellow bar thing pops up, so for the time being before I get round to bunging the file into Flash or something, here's a link to download it: Tune.

Eek

2008-08-28T21:38:00.001+01:00

Mouse (no 1), originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

I found this in the refrigerator...

Slug Attack

2008-08-25T12:54:00.007+01:00

A while ago I planted loads of Cayenne Pepper seeds, I had pots full of them. Unfortunately though I neglected things a bit and the slugs came out and I've only got one left. I looks good and it has some buds on it, but a slug has been eating away at the stem, I hope it doesn't die off or get eaten by something else.

Earlier in the year I made a last minute attempt to grow something else before it was too late. I was searching through the seed stand thing (you know, one of those slightly confusing spinning stands with packets on) in the supermarket and managed to find the only thing that was just about in season, some dill. It looked good. So I planted some and I got lots of seedlings from it in about three pots. One day I thought I better take another look at them and thin them out, but kindly, the slugs had done that for me, except they kept on doing it and did it a bit too well for my liking.

Oh well, maybe the last pepper plant will do better. There seem to be an awful lot of slugs this year, it seems nowhere in the garden is safe from them. In fact I found on in the kitchen cupboard one morning a couple of months ago, that wasn't very nice at all. I think it got in under a gap in the front door. Oh well, I'll have to try again next year. I suppose that's the trouble with growing tasty plants, everything wants to eat them.

Belle

2008-07-09T13:09:00.006+01:00

Belle had been having problems with her back legs for a while, she couldn't move them anymore and had to be lifted into har basket and was having trouble going for walks. One of the saddest things was that when she was asleep and having a dream she would twich all her legs like she was running, the only place she could run was in a dream.

She still kept going on though, she didn't want to stop doing things like going for walks and so on. She even still tried to get me to play games with her. She used to play a game where she has a biscuit and I have to chase her round with it. It was a very 'doggy' game that is hard to explain but it always ended up with me pretending the biscuit was after her and she would growl at it and I would do sound effects and everything (pretending they were coming from the biscuit, obviously). She still struggled along trying to get out into the garden where I used to play with her on the grass.

In the end my mum and dad took her to the vet. The vet said her legs were paralysed and there wasn't much they could do for her and there was the possibility that because she couldn't feel them she might twist something and end up in agony. Also I suppose it is hard to know how much pain she was really in, because there were times when she didn't look too good.

She had been quite happy a lot of the time and was managing to get by, mum had even found an extra harness to support her when she was out on a walk but it was getting harder for her to stand on her back legs.

When they came back from the vet and I found out what the vet had said I stroked Belle's leg to see if she could feel it and realised she really couldn't. She used to strech her toes out whenever you rubbed the top of her foot, but she didn't do that anymore. We had her for Thursday, I bought some puffed tripe to eat on the way home from work because she likes that and she had a piece. On Friday she was taken to be put down at 10:20. I said goodbye in the morning and when I came home she wasn't there anymore. It is strange and I feel as if she hasn't really gone, like she has just popped out for a little while and will be back later and occasionally I go to stroke her and she isn't there. I don't know if it has even sunk in yet.

Cookies

2008-06-18T21:04:00.005+01:00

A while ago (about a month or so) I finally got round to making the biscuits from Factobrunt's recipe. Here they are, I've only just got round to posting them. They were really nice! Look at that huge piece of chocolate on that second one.

Socks

2008-04-24T23:27:00.008+01:00

Why is it that when you're looking for your socks, you can always find individual ones that don't match, but never a pair? You would think at least two of them would match. This morning I had trouble finding two halves of a pair of socks, it was like the Crystal Maze, but with socks.

Like this:

Maybe I should just try organising my socks.

I bought 3 pairs of socks today. Somehow I managed to choose three socks that were all Neopolitan ice cream coloured. I do this a lot, I like things that remind me of food but the problem is I end up with things that look the same because they remind me of certain things I like to eat. In the Autumn I saw a yellowy-white coloured step by someone's house with orange leaves spread on the top. It looked exactly like vanilla ice cream with cornflakes, I wish I had taken a photo of it.

Anyway, I chose some slightly different socks in the end, I wanted a change. So it's really been a sock-themed day.

I've got time off, you've probably noticed.

Crunch

2008-04-21T12:41:00.007+01:00

Every time they say 'credit crunch' on the TV, I see this.

Um...

2008-03-30T21:29:00.003+01:00

Well it's been a while since I posted and a lot has happened, more weirdness at work but it seems to be evening out now *I hope*.

Good news: I started driving lessons and they are going well! I decided I was fed up with the way everything was going for me at the moment, which was nowhere. But what do you do when you feel like you need to change things but you don't actually know in particular what you want to do? I don't know, but anyway I decided I needed to learn to drive so there's a start.

I'll find something more interesting to post before long, after my brief hiatus (haha I've always wanted to use that word in a sentence, but I don't think I could get away with actually using it out loud). Anyway...

2008

2008-01-01T15:36:00.000Z

Happy New Year everyone! I really hope what Jonathan Cainer said on Jools Holland's Hootenanny was right and that it will be a 'stonking' year.

Well I can't be the only one who is sat here thinking this, but I really need a new job. I wonder if anyone else is stuck in the same situation that I am. I have no idea where start looking for a new one. I think I even want to change careers, though my job is hardly a 'career' anyway and it has got less and less like the job I was employed to do as time progresses, so maybe it's just put me off. The other problem is, even if I want to stay in the same field, there are so few opportunities around. I don't even know what I am in terms of job title and so on, because I know bits and pieces of different things and nothing in particular.

It's not like being something straight forward like a receptionist of a plumber or something, so that makes it all the more difficult to find a job or even a company to send a speculative letter to. I keep looking up companies on the internet and in the Yellow Pages and then discovering the category they come under really doesn't describe them or what they do at all. I can pick out two separate companies under the same heading and they will be completely different. I suppose everything is going this way now, very ambiguous and not really anything in particular and confusing because noone has a clue what anything is supposed to be. It sums up how I feel about my current job too, and the company I work at as well. I keep getting the feeling that my job is like a metaphor for the state of the country, confusing, badly organised, directionless, ambiguous, uninspired and full of bitter people.

I was thinking on going to another country for a year or six months on some sort of working holiday thing, just to see what it's like in other places. I think I hate this country now. The only thing is, if it turned out that everywhere else is just the same or worse, I don't know what I'll do then.

Well I suppose sometimes when things feel really bad they have to start to get better eventually so maybe something will come up, but I just feel so trapped at the moment.

Talking of Jools Holland, I liked Seasick Steve's country blues music on that programme so I've ordered one of his CDs. The only thing is that I ordered it with another CD which is out of stock so it will take something like three weeks until it's dispatched. That could be a good thing though, it will probably turn up when I've forgotten that I ordered it so it will be a nice surprise.

Craze

2007-12-24T12:41:00.000Z

I know the Sudoku thing started ages ago but it's only just reached me. Well not me exactly because it does drive me slightly mad, but my family. A couple of weeks ago my dad and mum had the daily Sudoku puzzle on Teletext all the time. I thought this was just a one off thing but then it spread to my sister. All last week I kept coming home from work and there it was, the Teletext Sudoku page. Handily and yet annoyingly at the same time, there's a little screen in the corner showing the TV picture so you can see what's on telly at the same time, except the sound was muted.

It's amazing how difficult it is to understand TV programmes without the sound on. All I got from that programme was that there was a man and I think he owned a sheep, the rest was a mystery. I tried to make up my own words but without some sort of backstory you just don't know whether you're going off track or not.

Last Monday it came to a head while I was on the train reading a newspaper over a man's shoulder as I always do. Just as I was straining to read an interesting article he turned to the puzzle page where he sort of folded the paper in half so he could have a good look at the Sudoku.

To my horror though, it got worse. When I got home I heard loud bleeping coming from the living room and found my dad playing on some sort of hand held electronic game thing... it was electronic Sudoku.

Arrghh!

Maybe I ought to stop fighting it and take it up myself, I don't know.

Merry Christmas!

Guitar

2007-11-25T15:11:00.001Z

Yesterday I took my guitar to the guitar shop to get it repaired. I've been having trouble with it for ages, it just would not tune properly. I've been looking on the internet for weeks trying to find out as much as I can about guitar intonation in order to try and fix it. In the end, after holding a ruler against it, I discovered the neck is slightly warped. I finally decided it was about time I took it to a shop and get someone who knew what they were doing to take a look at it.

The shop I took it to is great, its like a whole different world. They have lots of guitars and mandolins and banjos in the window, they even had a ukelele in the shape of a Gibson flying-v! Its a very small and old-fashioned looking place and there is not a lot of room to move when you get inside, there were about 3 people in there and it was already completely crowded. I got directed towards the back room, past a man playing some bluegrass on a banjo, to see a man with the hugest biceps I have ever seen, he must have been a body builder because they were almost the size of footballs. I'm not exaggerating, they really were.
Anyway, He took a look and said that the neck was twisted, and he got a ruler and showed me that on each individual string the distance between the nut and the 12th string should be the same as the distance between the 12th string and the bridge, I think he said something about checking it on the 1st and the 4th string and getting those right first, and then you can work on the others.

The other thing he mentioned was that the action was too high. He said that it made a change because normally he gets these big blokes coming in with guitars that have a really low action complaining that they have difficulty fretting the strings, and he usually says if they can't play them that low, they may as well just give up altogether! Here I was with this extremely high action and not even realising it was a problem. I mean I've been playing it like that since I got it, it never even occured to me that it might be awkward! And my fingers are small.

He pointed to a picture on the wall of his grandfather and said he would approve, apparently he was very strict and would have just said play it as it is. It was a really old black and white photo of a smartly dressed man holding a banjo. The repairman told me he made banjos and played in bands.

When I get my guitar back, he said, it will be like a different guitar. Well that's good, it sounds like it will be a lot easier to play.

Winter

2007-11-17T15:33:00.000Z

Right I'm still here, despite not having posted for a while!
It's very cold today. I am having to be very careful when I go over the railway bridge on the way to work because on Thursday I practically skated across it. Not on purpose, it was just very icy. I can see I'm going to end up on my backside if I'm not careful. Not that this is a problem because its nice to actually have a properly cold winter, I don't like those winters where its just mild and it doesn't feel like an actual winter. A bit like those summers when its just rainy (like this summer) and by the time it gets to autumn you just don't notice it. It just feels like the year isn't going anywhere. It's getting dark now, I suppose I should probably turn the light on.

Pile of Fish

2007-10-07T13:51:00.001+01:00

I don't know what this is about, which is probably a bit odd seeing as I should probably know what I was thinking about at the time of drawing it, but I really have no idea.

Squirrel gardener

2007-09-23T14:26:00.000+01:00

We have a squirrel that keeps visiting our garden. The woman who lives next door keeps leaving peanuts out for it and we keep finding peanut shells around, we also started to notice holes appearing in the soil in plant pots like the squirrel had been looking for something inside.
Recently, a couple of peanut plants started growing in the pots. Obviously the squirrel had been hiding the peanuts in there! Every now and again we spot the squirrel sneaking around the garden having a peek inside and trying to bury more peanuts.

I remember reading something about peanuts being easy to grow and was wondering if we could actually get some peanuts off the plants eventually, I found an amusing page about growing your own peanuts, I especially like the first line about not planting roasted peanuts because they won't grow haha.

Chair in a Field

2007-09-16T13:15:00.001+01:00

Chair in a Field, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Here's an interesting one, a chair in a field. It must be lonely.

Deer

2007-09-16T13:12:00.001+01:00

Deer, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

A deer at Stoborough meadow.

Nest

2007-09-01T13:30:00.000+01:00

I found an interesting website the other day which I was finding amusing, it's all about urban legends.

A few weeks ago we had some sparrows nesting in a small conifer in our back garden. It was quite an odd place for a nest, and a bit late in the year really and we don't know if the chicks actually grew up and flew away because they sort of vanished suddenly. Mum looked at the nest and there were no dead chicks or anything so they either got eaten or left. The funny thing was the nest was made of things like our dogs fur and some blue bits off the bathroom carpet (it got wet and was put outside to dry one day)!

Invasion Of The Not Actually That Dangerous Spider

2007-08-12T14:01:00.000+01:00

My sister's boyfriend has got an invasion in his flat, Loads of spiders, odd looking ones in the bath and on the walls. They made strange webs that were tough like hair. The pair of them were a bit worried because there are a few people from abroad staying in the other flats and they thought that maybe they might have brought them with them in their suitcases or something and that they might be poisonous.

When they went to bed, her boyfriend woke up with painful rash and has been feeling ill ever since. Then oddly enough, in the local paper they discovered this article! It's all about someone who found a venomous spider, and how the council were as unhelpful as ever in dealing with it (no change there then). There was a photo too and it was exactly the same spider, Steatoda Nobilis also known as the false widow spider. It's from the same family as the black widow amd can give a nasty bite, people can have flu like symptoms and be ill for days.

Yesterday mum spotted a funny looking spider by the front door. She got out our very small-yet-effective magnifying glass (free in a Christmas cracker) and we both compared it to the photograph in the paper. Guess what, it was the same! They must be everywhere. It was funny because it was like a bad horror film. It's just as well that spiders, along with other animals and insects are one of the few things that I'm not scared of (everything else in the world freaks me out). They're just too interesting to be scary.

So anyway, I decided to look it up on the internet. I found a lot has been written about it and it's been in national newspapers and I even read on a forum that someone had heard about it on the radio. (Shows how out of touch with the world I am, I never heard any of this).

It looks like a lot of the reports about the spider are a bit over the top.
I found some more reliable information on the Natural History Museum website. Apparently the spider has been in Britain for over a hundred years (since 1879) and originates from the Canary islands. It doesn't usually bite people unless provoked (I suppose my sisters' boyfriend probably just rolled on it or something in the night, I suppose you cant really avoid them when they're all over your flat) and are not fatal (although if you were allergic to it I don't suppose it would do you much good).

This page talks about an article that was published in the Daily Mail which the blogger thinks is a bit of a scare story. I agree seeing as these spiders have been around for years and are not all that dangerous.

This part of the blog was amusing though:

'If someone had actually been bitten by the spider and suffered ill-effects (a malaise known as steatodism) that would indeed be news - as such an event is almost unknown in this country.'

Argh! looks like there's been another case!

Grass and Dew

2007-08-07T19:34:00.001+01:00

Grass and Dew (1), originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Grass and Dew (2), originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Here are a couple of pictures I took in the garden the other day, they came out quite well.

Warehouse

2007-07-22T22:33:00.000+01:00

Ages ago I took a load of photos of a warehouse by the quay. I decided to draw an illustration of it and here it is, I did it in Photoshop using my drawing tablet. As you can see I was trying to draw it from an interesting perspective (If you click on it to view it larger you can see it much better, it's a large picture).

If you're interested, here are some of the original photographs I based it on, you might remember seeing them:

Death Drives a 1990 Blue Vauxhall Nova

2007-07-18T21:26:00.001+01:00

A few months or so ago I was walking to the station on my way home from work when out of a driveway came a run down blue car. I thought it was going to run me over but it reversed back into the drive. I looked through the window and looking straight at me was a man who looked about 150. He was slightly scary he had grey hair and a very pointy nose and was sort of dead-looking, honestly if you wanted to find someone who looked a like the Grim Reaper he'd be your man.

I didn't think too much of it, well apart from that he looked a bit like Death and must have been trying to run me over but changed his mind at the last minute. Mistaken identity maybe?

Last week I saw him for a second time on the way work. I was just going to cross the road and he suddenly came past. Once again he looked at me out of the side window, and I think he sort of smiled in an odd sort of way, probably because I was a bit startled and grinned at him because, well I was looking straight at him ha. The weirdest thing was that I could hear playing on the radio some old 40s music, it was like that Jeepers Creepers film haha. I thought that was sort of odd.

Then, yesterday morning when I was walking up the same road (looking out for Death again because I was finding it quite amusing by now) I noticed something spooky. At the end of the road that he had pulled out of was a sign pointing down the way he came which said 'Memorial Center'. Argh!!!

Two Cormorants and Some Cows

2007-07-08T18:31:00.001+01:00

Two Cormorants, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Cows, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Here are two cormorants and some cows at Wimborne river.

Sunflowers

2007-07-04T22:15:00.000+01:00

My sunflowers have come out and they look good, I still have 27 of them altogether! This is the first time that I've grown things that all stayed alive! They are very yellow and they do brighten up the garden despite the rainy weather.

I can't believe the weather this summer, its weird. I'm still wearing my coat and it's June. I'm not that bothered because it's sort of refreshing weather, or at least I think it is, I'm not keen on boiling summers. Although obviously when you get those patches when it rains continuously it's a bit of a downer.

Today at work I was convinced I could hear birds laughing. Honestly, I did. Now people think I am insane (again). I couldn't see the actual culprits through the window but there was a bird on an electricity line thing (the word for that completely escaped me at the moment I don't know why) who was having real trouble staying on with the wind blowing and his tail kept going right up in the air.

It must be tiring being a bird and having to not fall off things all the while. And when you're not trying to not fall off things, you're trying to not fall out of the air.

News Just in...

2007-06-23T22:16:00.000+01:00

Finding a solo

2007-06-17T22:28:00.000+01:00

It's come to that time of year when you have to avoid Big Brother. I seem to spend a lot of my time just avoiding TV programmes that other people in the house are watching. It seems to be a big part of my life at the moment. Take for example the instance a few weeks ago when I made a concious effort to avoid watching 'Grease is the Word' (dear God I'm sick of Grease) and 'Vernon Kay's Gameshow Marathon' by uploading some new stuff to my website and doing other generally mundane things on the computer. None of which I can remember because they were so mundane.

I think there's something a bit wrong with my memory recently, am I rambling? I think I'm going a bit strange through boredom, I also think I think too much. There I go again.

Anyway, isn't stuff bland nowdays? What is this new trend with stuff thats boring being 'in'? Do you know what I mean? There's this annoying advert on Channel 4 where a load of headphones come down and they're playing THE most bland music ever, in order to advertise 4 Music. At least I think it's 4 Music, I'm not sure I think I zoned out it was that dull (it's a music channel and website from Channel 4, in case you don't know what it is. Be happy you don't.) No. I don't think so, somehow. If bland grey coloured fliming and really dreary music is representative of the 4 music ethos, I don't think I'll be bothering. Hahaha.

Another thing, whatever happened to jolly sort of upbeat rock/metal type music? I was listening to Iron Maiden earlier (one of my absolute favourite bands hehe) and I was thinking, that they are generally on the sort of positive side and upbeat and mainly about FUN and HEADBANGING. Things seem to have changed, you just don't seem to get proper stuff like that these days. If I were in a rock band, I would write proper music that people could properly jump up and down to, and there would be no whiny lyrics or dreary depressing bits. I think thats what is wrong with this country, people are too content with the drearyness. It's like everyone has had fun battered out of them.

And I just learnt Losfer Words on the guitar just now, well not the whole thing because I discovered the tabs I got didn't have the solo in, and that's the reason I'm on the internet at the moment. To find the solo. Not that that really means anything to anyone reading this because you might be reading it after I've gone to bed, or tomorrow when I'm at work dealing with weird work collegues that like to ignore other work collegues for no apparent reason. But anyway, thats how I somehow ended up here writing this post. Which is probably going to seem odd in the morning.

Crumbs

2007-06-16T23:41:00.000+01:00

Well I wish I could say something interesting has happened, but... well it hasn't. I'm sure there are things I could write down but I can't remember any of them.

I think my dog is getting old, she has dodgy legs and keeps tripping up and ending up in sitting down positions with an expression that says 'yep I meant to do that, my leg didn't just give way of its own accord I'm just having a sit down'.

My sunflowers are getting their flowers now, buds are growing. They are very small sunflowers though, maybe I'll have a smallest sunflower competition to see which is the smallest out of all 27. Actually I think number 27 got munched by slugs, it's still mostly there though. That's if I've got 27, it might have been 26 I don't know.

Accidental Deletion

2007-06-03T13:03:00.000+01:00

If anyone else accidentally deletes a load of stuff and needs to get it back, here's a really good program called PC Inspector, which I found a link to on a blog called My Digital Life. It's freeware and works really well, I couldn't believe it when it actually worked and got my stuff back. I didn't have much luck installing it on Vista but I've got XP installed on another drive so I installed it on that and did it from there.

Ta daa

2007-05-31T22:55:00.000+01:00

My lack of posting recently is due to me trying not to moan about work, its gone from the bizarre to the unbelievable in the past few months. I won't write about it anyway, because it makes absolutely no sense.
Things aren't that bad really, generally I mean, obviously things could be a lot worse, but anyway. I think I'm starting to master the art of positive thinking at last.

Russel Grant says that something good will come up in the next month or so. That's Russel Grant the astrologer, not someone I met on the train. I've been reading my horoscopes lately, I know this is a bad sign because I only read my horoscopes when I need some sort of vague hope to cling on to, and I only believe my horoscopes when I get really desperate. Haha. Last week he said it was a good time to send off CVs, well I was thinking exactly the same thing so he's right there.

So anyway, I've updated my CV (because I was going to anyway, not because Russel Grant told me so) and I'll have to send it off to places. The only thing is it's so difficult to actually find jobs that are not from agencies. Agencies are rubbish, or at least I don't have any luck with them, but I have found that a good way to find jobs is to do a search of companies in the field and location that you want to work in, and then look at whether they've got vacancies on their job page bit if they have one. So maybe that will be a good start.

While I'm here, does anyone know where Erikku is? He's vanished! I rather miss him.

Ooops

2007-05-20T12:03:00.000+01:00

It rained the other night and the next day my carrots had vanished, it was as if they had never been there! I think I'll have to get some of those slug-eating nematode beetles that Factobrunt reccomended a little while ago. I also was watching Gardeners World the other day and Monty Don was nailing copper piping around his plants, apparently slugs don't like copper and won't climb over it! I wonder if that would work in my garden, although I think I have super slugs which may be invincible.

I've been drawing cartoons for Prompt Communications for almost two years now, the team at Prompt come up with the ideas and I draw them every week to go on their HTML newsletter. They are all based on IT/communications humour. Recently they have set up a new blog with the cartoons on which you might find amusing.

Office Canteen Dartboard

2007-04-29T13:42:00.000+01:00

I was on Amazon just a minute ago looking at the seller feedback for some company I was thinking of buying something from. I came across this hilarious comment that made me laugh out loud:

2 out of 5: "There was no indication that this dartboard was of a miniature size and we expected it to be full size. I was very disappointed and embarrassed as this was for our staff canteen."
Date: 2007/4/4 Rated by Buyer: S M.

More plants

2007-04-16T22:36:00.000+01:00

I thought the carrots I had planted a few weeks ago were going to be a complete disaster as no seedlings appeared, but I've discovered they have actually started growing now! There are lots of green sprouty bits in a line. I think I might have put too many seeds too close together though as it looks a bit crowded.

I took a picture of a dandelion, I'm pleased with the blurry background, I've been reading a book on photography and this was a bit of an experiment in depth of field.

Sunflower seedlings

2007-04-07T14:05:00.001+01:00

Seedling, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

I've got twenty seven of these in pots in the garden! My sister gave me a kit for my birthday a few weeks ago with sunflower seeds and a bucket to plant them in. It says on the instructions to remove the weakest seedlings and leave the three strongest. Well, they all look pretty strong to me so I've taken them out of the bucket and planted them in some other pots. I've got four or five each in about 6 different containers now, I think they're going to take over the garden. It will be great if they keep growing and I end up with 27 sunflowers.

Bark

2007-03-26T20:49:00.000+01:00

I think I had better redress the balance after my moany post and put up some photos that I took yesterday:

Stress

2007-03-26T20:11:00.000+01:00

Things are pretty weird at work at the moment and it's driving me up the wall. A couple of people in our office were off so it was just me and on of the blokes I work with, in a very empty office. It didn't help that my co worker was having one of his moods which involves not speaking for entire days, not even to say hello to people or be polite. He didn't even tell me that our project manager was off sick, I only found that out when our receptionist person can in to ask where she was.

I've also discovered what it is that's been bothering me about work, it's the general narrow mindedness and lack of tolerance of other people, including spiteful gossip behind other peoples backs about things that are clearly personal and not anyone elses business, basically people making judgements about people. None of it is aimed at me, but I still find it offensive. It's so immature and exactly the sort of thing I try and avoid which is what made it worse when I finally realised what was actually going on and that I was being drawn into it.
I keep having people tell me I should be angry about this, and I should stand up for that, when actually there's nothing there to be angry about, it's just other people trying to project their dissatisfaction onto me.

Anyway, I won't bore you any more with this because there's nothing more boring than reading someone moaning about people moaning.
Oh well, it might blow over eventually, who knows. I'm just not looking forward to going back in tomorrow because it stresses me out. I'm going to stick a load of new tunes on my mp3 player so maybe I'll listen to that while I'm working and it will take my mind off it.

I'm just very fed up with being the only tolerant person around and then people thinking I'm just 'too nice' because of it, when actually the fact of the matter is most of the time there really isn't anything to get upset about and it's actually just that I accept that different people have different points of view and that I don't fly off the handle just because someone doesn't agree with me, or does things differently to me.

Anyway, I think I've learnt something from this, that you never quite know what people's motives for doing things are and that people have this weird tendency to project things onto other people instead of accepting things or dealing with it themselves. Also that sometimes if someone doesn't like something or thinks something is wrong, is it because it really is wrong or is it just that it's stopping that person from getting their own way?

I don't know whether this is all obvious and I'm just really slow or too honest to notice when people are being deceptive, but I'm going to keep all this in mind from now on.

.co.uk

2007-03-17T23:08:00.000Z

I discovered that I can add a domain name to the package I've got with the new hosting company I'm with. I completely forgot about that seeing as I thought my .com name was going to be fine. So I've chosen catinhell.co.uk. I still should try and get my .com one back, but at least I've got a domain name for the moment.

Back

2007-03-17T12:50:00.000Z

I might make a vaguely interesting post eventually, but for now...
The site that I originally had all my files for the blog template on has completely dissapeared, which was why there was no actual template earlier but I've moved it all now. I also seem to have lost the catinhell.com domain name, because the company I was with seems to have completely dissapeared, along with their name server. So I now have a website up, but it doesn't actually have a proper domain name, just a very long one. I'm trying to get the .com address back but I might just get a .co.uk for the meantime, as I don't think I'm going to have a lot of luck with getting the old one tranferred, even though I still own it. Argh.

Finally

2007-03-11T22:25:00.000Z

Well it's been a little while since I last posted, my computer completely died last week. Luckily I was aiming to get a new one sorted out anyway, so it just made me get on with it and sort it out. So I've got a much better one now, anyway I won't go on... I'm trying to find the password for my flickr account. I've completely forgotten it and I can't seem to get a new password sent to me because I don't remember the rather vague details I typed in when I set up the account.

Blue Tit

2007-02-24T12:21:00.001Z

Blue Tit, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

I just took this in the garden. I was very surprised by his haircut, I wonder where he had it done?

Comedy Wireless

2007-02-18T15:06:00.000Z

A week or so ago we installed one of those wireless internet things at home, which is good because now two of us can go on the internet at the same time.

The thing is though, the signal is a bit dodgy and I seem to spend a lot of time waving the usb receiver thingy around in the air and propping it on bookcases and things. I thought that since those plug in TV aerials that people used to have on top of the TV had pretty much dyed out, that the associated 'comedy moments' involved with trying to get a signal by waving something around were long gone too, but it seems not. We can have them all over again, but this time with wireless usb receiver. It's funny how things seem to change, but not change at all if you know what I mean.

No Snow

2007-02-08T22:34:00.000Z

On the news last night they kept going on about how we're going to have loads of snow. I thought beforehand when I heard people talking about it at work that we wouldn't have any, but after seeing the news I thought, well, maybe we will have some then.

This morning I woke up and looked out of the window. Guess what? No snow whatsoever. It turns out that the whole country has snow except the part I live in. I actually thought the whole thing might be a conspiracy, made up by some bored news reporters who maybe had shares in wool and wanted to increase sales of hats, gloves and scarves or something, until someone talked to a client at work who lived up north somewhere and apparently they had 8 inches of snow. Which isn't actually that much really is it? We got out a tape measure and it really is less than it sounds. Naturally this was followed by lots of innuendos involving things being of a certain size, or not.

I still can't get onto my server to upload the index page for my website. It's been a week now. A number of days ago I sent an email asking about it but I haven't got a reply. Even the website for the company is still down. I'm thinking about changing to a different host soon as my years payment will be up in a little while anyway.

Edit:
Well, I've discovered my year is actually up, which would explain why I can't get on the server, but not why I haven't had a reply or been reminded to make another payment. Well, this is really awkward.

Hacking and Stalking

2007-02-03T20:06:00.001Z

Well, not really stalking...

My website got hacked again the other day. I went onto the website of the company which hosts it and discovered that they are redoing their server because it got hacked into, which does explain how mine keeps getting hacked. First of all it was by people from Saudi Arabia, now it's some Turkish people.

I'm trying to replace my index page which has since been deleted but not by me, maybe by someone from the hosting company(?) which is fine, because I don't want people going to my site and seeing a hacked page with Turkish music playing over it. The thing is, I can't replace it with my actual index page because I can't log onto the server. What a pain, hopefully it will be sorted out in the next few days and I might be able to fix it.

Train man is back again, this time trying to get me to give him my phone number. For goodness sake. Well anyway, I'm not giving it to him. I said that I didn't have my phone on me when he asked, but if he asks again I'm going to say I don't like to give out my phone number to people but he can give me his. I was having a discussion with people at work about it as I was complaining, and this is the best thing we came up with because I don't want to be rude. It gets a bit annoying as whenever I see him the conversation keeps turning into him asking me to go and have a coffee with him on the weekend. Argh, some people just don't get the message do they?

I don't understand it really, I never get attention from anyone (I've decided I don't particularly want any either, why can't these annoying people leave me alone?! Yes I am cantankerous. Well, I just like to be left alone) and then someone I don't particularly want to know gets overly keen on me. And he keeps telling me how he likes my hair which is really annoying, not least because it is a total mess and quite honestly, the last thing people should like.

I'm not the only one with this problem either, apparently someone I work with who does mail outs (nobody has an actual job title where I work) has some annoying bloke who keeps inviting himself to her house. One day he found out where she worked and came into the building! This prompted someone I work with to print out a 'No Unauthorised Personnel' notice and stick it on the door.

Well anyway, here's a picture I took today. It's of a bicycle in a car park. Well you knew that anyway, but I sort of thought it was interesting because it's sort of boring but interesting at the same time. And I liked the light. And the bollards. It's by a PC World which would explain why they are purple.

Bike in car park, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Mugs and Hacking

2007-01-22T20:52:00.000Z

On the weekend I bought a mug to use at work, here it is:

I thought it seemed quite appropriate, even though nobody at work knows my alias or about my blog (unless they now stumble across this site and recognise the picture). So anyway, they like the hole in the bottom a lot and someone even came along and put a digestive inside although it didn't quite fit, it was a bit too big.

Yesterday I got a bit of a shock. Imagine my horror when at about ten o'clock on Sunday night I discovered my website had been hacked! I sorted it out without much trouble, my index page had been changed so I deleted it and replaced it with the original. It was weird though, I managed to find a site called Zone-H which has a list of 'digital attacks'. I discovered the site of the company which hosts my site had also been hacked, I suppose the hackers must have got to my website through them?

Later today I went back on the Zone-H site to show people at work what the hacked page had looked like (they have mirrors of the pages or something so you can see the hacked page) and found that the Zone-H site had been hacked too, by the same people! They've sorted it out now by the looks of it, it's gone back to normal. Well, I'm off to find some information about how to make my website harder to hack into.

Oil Slick

2007-01-21T12:43:00.000Z

Walking down the beach with the dog on Saturday we came across a strange looking bird in the sea. Belle nearly chased it, but luckily mum managed to get her on the lead before she actually got anywhere. There were some people dotted around looking at it and there was a man on his phone saying something about it being covered in oil, he must have been phoning the RSPCA or something. Which would be a fat lot of good really because the RSPCA are never half as helpful as they would like you to think they are, but anyway.

As you can see from the pictures the bird did have some oil on and looked pretty miserable. Moments later, a little dog ran towards the bird and it struggled into the sea and plopped in, it was obviously having trouble. It went under the waves, but didn't come out again.

A woman in pink wellingtons waded into the sea to find it. She was sloshing the water round with one foot trying to see it, but it had completely vanished. Then the tide went out a bit to reveal the sand and there was still nothing there.
The bird must have been swept away and maybe drowned. I'm just glad it wasn't our dog that chased the poor thing in!

This morning on the news they had a bit about that beached tanker which lost its cargo. That must have been where the oil came from.

Carrot Fish

2007-01-14T21:37:00.000Z

Someone I work with has a parrot fish, I misheard him and thought he said carrot fish. Apparently parrot fish are genetically modified, a mixture of several different fish species. How weird. I'm not sure I like the thought of that. Well anyway, if they can manage to make a parrot fish, I'm sure they could make a carrot fish too.

Talking of weird under-sea things, I found the oddest thing on Wikipedia, brain coral. It's actually just coral but it looks like a brain, which I thought was really strange.

Street lamp and old Hovis advert

2007-01-07T18:00:00.001Z

Street lamp and old Hovis advert, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

I've been trying to take some good night photos. Just now I went up the road to have a go. It's raining and windy out there so probably wasn't the ideal time, and my camera did get drizzled on which is probably not good.

Anyway, there's a house with an old Hovis advert bricked into the wall which I find really interesting, I don't know why, I've taken photos of it before with my old camera, obviously everything comes out much better on my new one. I like the street light and that car waiting there. It looks a whole lot more interesting in the photo than it actually is in real life haha.

Shortly after I took that first photo, a car parked right in front of my view. How annoying. I couldn't get a decent angle to take more from from after that. Well never mind, I was getting wet anyway.

As Eric suggested, here it is in black and white (click on it for a better view):

Squirrel

2007-01-01T14:06:00.000Z

You know when you walk in the woods and squirrels throw things out of the trees? Do they do it on purpose or is it accidental?
Well anyway, one day a little while ago when I was walking the dog I got the idea for this picture. It's as if squirrels just eat things and then throw them out of the trees when they're finished. Also I once saw a squirrel take a sausage out of a bin, so I'm thinking they might be quite keen on junk food. So in actual fact this picture is probably entirely possible.
The leafy bit in the background is an actual picture of leaves with an effect put on it in Photoshop, I was surprised and rather pleased at how it seemed change the picture into something quite bizarre and interesting!

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T00:14:00.000Z

Look at that, it's 2007!
Well, last year was sort of weird. Good things happened like the job I finally got, but there have been some rather odd bits too. Lets hope this year continues with the slightly upward trend. If that makes any sense. I might make a post tomorrow that makes more sense, or I might not I don't know. Anyway, ahem.

Trees

2006-12-30T20:25:00.000Z

It's been raining and miserable here, as well as dark, even in the mornings.

This picture is a bit odd, it was getting dark (well, even darker than it already was) and the only part that has come out is the moon. It's a bit like looking through a hole.

In A Pickle

2006-12-28T17:36:00.000Z

I think I might have become slightly too reliant on the internet. It's not so much that I don't know how to do something (although actually, that is quite often the case) but that I think I don't know how to do something and don't trust my memory.

The other day I was trying to get a pickle jar open, it was so tough I couldn't manage it and I really wanted a cheese and pickle sandwich.

I sort of vaguely remembered something about running the lid under hot water to loosen it but I wasn't sure whether I got that muddled up with something else and whether that might not be a good idea (I'm trying to think more carefully before I do rash things these days, its getting quite embarrassing when people come home/enter the room (usually the kitchen at work) to discover I've spilt/broken/ruined something or burnt myself. Again).

There was noone else in the house at the time so there was only one thing to do, look it up on the internet.

So I typed 'loosen jar lid' into Google and managed to find a website with advice on how to open stuck jars. It told me to run the lid (not the jar) under hot water for a minute so it would expand and loosen itself. So I ran the lid under the tap (nearly forgetting not to run the actual jar under it) and when I had finally been patient enough to actually hold it under the tap for a few seconds and not keep trying to undo it before it was ready, it actually worked. The pickle was a bit warm though, which was weird. In fact they weren't even particularly nice pickles, I think they were Waitrose own brand, which should be nice surely? But never mind, that's beside the point.

When my mum came home and I told her 'can you believe I actually had to look up how to undo a stuck pickled onion jar on the internet? Is modern life making us all stupid?' she was actually quite surprised at the hot water idea and asked whether it wouldn't just make the jar crack (which is when I was really glad that I had remembered to move the actual jar out of the way of the hot water because I had a feeling it might lead to complications).
'No no, you only run the lid of the jar under the tap' I said, with visions of the pickled-onions-in-vinegar-and-shards-of-glass-all-in-the-sink disaster that had been averted. She suggested that using a rubber glove would have worked.

Christmas Belle

2006-12-27T11:45:00.000Z

Here's Belle with her blanket that she got for Christmas.

Red Hot Chili Pepper

2006-12-18T19:17:00.000Z

On Saturday I decided I was going to have some chili con carne for tea, just some stuff out of a tin with some rice. We had some chilli peppers on the side lying around and I thought I would chop one up and put it in.

Unfortunately I forgot to wash my hands, I must have touched my nose because it started burning. It was really painful and swelled up and went red. I washed it loads and it didn't make any difference, my eyes were watering because it hurt so much. In the end I got an ice cube out of the fridge and held it to my nose, which was the only thing that stopped the pain. I had to do that the whole time I ate my dinner because as soon as I took it away it started burning again.

Anyway, it went away after about an hour or two and it was fine after that but I can't believe how painful it was. I'm just glad I didn't get it in my eye! I also can't believe how daft I was to forget to wash my hands afterwards. I think I might keep away from hot chilies for a while.

Links

2006-12-14T20:15:00.000Z

Someone at work found a really interesting blog the other day, each post is a link to something interesting on the web. I quite liked this post that links to a tutorial showing you how to make a spooky house in Photoshop, and also this one showing you how to make a quill pen out of feathers is interesting too.

Cold

2006-12-09T21:57:00.000Z

I got sent home from work on Tuesday because I was coming down with a rotten cold. I got a lift to the station which was nice, but then the train was 25 minutes late so I had to wait around feeling ill. It was one of those colds that makes you feel all weird, I was standing on the platform feeling like I was on a merry go round or something ugh. Anyway I'm feeling a lot better today, finally. I've been bored stiff all week because obviously I haven't been able to do anything much.

Anyway, I was looking through my bookmarks on my browser and was thinking that its funny how many pages you can bookmark and then don't look at again, or can't remember visiting in the first place. Before I reformatted my computer a couple of months ago I had loads and loads of bookmarks, but I completely forgot to make a note of them and lost them all. It annoys me to think of all those useful (well, in some cases anyway) links that I've lost.
Here's an interesting link I've got at the moment. I have no idea how I came across it and I don't remember bookmarking it but it does seem vaguely familiar.

...Seafaring Shoe

2006-12-03T22:50:00.000Z

Seafaring Shoe, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

And here's a trainer I saw shortly afterwards. The photo is a bit dark but it sort of goes well with the bin picture I think haha.

Nautical Bin...

2006-12-03T22:49:00.000Z

Nautical Bin, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Last week I spotted this bin buried half in the sand. I don't know how long it had been there but it was quite deep.

Mmm brown

2006-12-03T18:14:00.000Z

You might be thinking my blog looks the same but different. I decided to go for a new colour scheme for a change, biscuit colour with a hint of... um... blue.

Better Late than Never

2006-12-02T14:07:00.000Z

I've finally got round to making a post. I've been having a weird week.

On Thursday the train was an hour late. I was standing around with a couple of people I talk to at the station, a bloke who is about thirty something and a woman about a year older than me. The man reminds me so much of Ricky Gervais. He does the same expressions and says funny sarcastic things, he could almost be his double. He gets very bored and buys cans of beer when the train is late (which is nearly all the time). He was pointing out a woman who always buys chips whenever the train is late, who he finds very amusing. It looks like he's going to turn into an alcoholic, and the woman who likes chips is going to end up with clogged arteries or something if the trains don't start being on time heh.

The train was so late that the announcer blokey who talks over the tannoy advised everyone to get a form and complain! He sounded angry. He said that 'as a career railway man' he didn't think much of it, and that he had told the people on the phone (some train people in charge of... something. I don't know any of the train jargon.) what he thought of the situation. Haha. Previous to that he had told us a train was going to be stopping at our platform. It came, but it shot straight past.

Anyway I didn't get home until twenty to eight, and my dinner was ruined because mum had expected me to be home and put it in the oven. It was a pizza and it looked like it had been barbecued. All that was left for me to have for dinner was a tin of chile con carne, I had all of it with rice and then I fell asleep on the sofa.

I think the dark evenings are starting to annoy me a bit, I feel like I want to go to sleep all the time. I seem to have spent most of the week wanting to drop off. It doesn't help that we're running a bit low on things to do at work, because it's near Christmas and everything, so it's all a bit dull.
Yesterday I was having a conversation about it being my dads birthday today and that I hadn't bought him anything because I had forgot. The people I work with kept coming up with suggestions and decided they're going to ask me what I had got him on Monday. I bought him a levitating pen in the end, that will be an amusing to tell the people at work haha.

November Rain

2006-11-19T18:27:00.000Z

I had quite an amusing Friday, it poured with rain most of the afternoon and it was so loud that we were finding it difficult to hear each other across the room. It rained so much that the road outside was like a river, cars were driving through and leaving wakes. The water went over the pavement and up to the boss' car, luckily it didn't float away. Then it all drained away in a few hours which was lucky because it would have made it impossible to walk up the road otherwise.

Electronic Conveniences

2006-11-11T17:20:00.000Z

I bought a new drawing tablet the other day after my other one broke, although it hadn't been working properly for about a year and was getting annoying. Anyway, the new one is so much easier to use than my old one, mainly because it actually works.

I think I'm starting to need a new mobile phone now as well, the battery in mine seems to be running down really quickly. The only thing is I really don't care about phones and don't want to spend £100 on a new one. I wouldn't even bother owning one but it seems to make things awkward if you don't and people don't seem to bother to contact you at all. It's as if it's too hard to ring a house phone and maybe wait for a bit. Well that's the problem I had at university when I didn't have a phone, we had to do these group things and I would never get the messages about what was going on because I had no mobile. So I suppose I have to get one really.

Well, I'll probably do what I normally do and let it drag out for ages until one day it packs in completely and I'll have to get another one, which is exactly what I did with my drawing tablet.

Church

2006-10-29T21:06:00.000Z

There's a church up the road that has been boarded up, I took some photos of it. It's funny because it looks like the sort of thing you'd find in Mexico or something, rather than England. It's sweet though. I was wondering if they were going to knock it down or something but then I spotted this on the notice board:

Light

2006-10-29T18:06:00.000Z

Light, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Church

2006-10-29T17:51:00.000Z

Church, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Church window, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Alley

2006-10-29T17:40:00.000Z

Alley, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Clothes Peg

2006-10-29T11:46:00.000Z

Clothes Peg, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

I took this in the garden just now, I keep seeing the sparkly rain hanging off the line through the window and I keep on taking pictures of it. I took a good one the other day, but for some reason there was a dog hair hanging off it, they get everywhere don't they?

GMT

2006-10-29T10:37:00.000Z

Isn't it good when you get up at 11 O'clock and then discover it's actually 10 O'clock?

List

2006-10-22T22:37:00.000+01:00

I really can't think what to write, even though I'm sure there are loads of things I could say, so I've decided to make a list of stuff instead. I don't normally post lists, it might make a change.

So here's a list of good things about this time of year (which would be autumn obviously) in no particular order:

1. Leaves - When they change colour, especially when you get loads of red orange and yellow ones all over the ground.
2. Coldness - I like it better than the heat and it also makes tea and soup taste better.
3. Halloween - Not that I actually ever do anything on Halloween but I like the whole spookyness thing. And I carve a pumpkin, try and then fail to find some sort of recipe with pumpkin as an ingredient, and then just settle for roasting the seeds instead.
4. Rain - I don't like it all the time especially if it rains continuously or if I get soaked and have to spend the day drying out, (also it makes me sneeze) but nevertheless it makes a good noise.

Well I only managed four things but hopefully if I don't point it out no one will notice.

Beach

2006-10-15T23:02:00.000+01:00

Here are some photos I took today at the beach. There were a lot of people doing that kite surfing thing.

Kite Man, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Kites, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Dog, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

I think his owners are doing the kite surfing and he's waiting for them to come back.

Wave, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Beach Huts, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

The beach huts look like a little village

Roots, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Allotment

2006-10-15T22:24:00.002+01:00

Here are some photos I took last week...

Doors, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

This is part of a shed made of doors

Shed, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Broken Window, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Broken shed window

Upside-Down Sign, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Here's a weird upside-down sign, I think it was nailed to a tree.

Snail, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

A snail

Wanadoo Bird Scarer, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

I thought this was funny, someone has used a Wanadoo Broadband CD as a bird scarer.

Things that have happened

2006-10-10T20:19:00.000+01:00

I'm a bit annoyed that I haven't managed to post for so long, but anyway, I've been having a bit of an odd few days.

On Friday I managed to get soaking wet when it poured with rain on the way to work. By the time I got in I looked like I had walked through a swimming pool, water was even coming out of my shoes like a fountain whenever I took a step.
Our project manager told me to go downstairs and ring out my trousers in the ladies toilet (project managers are good for things like this), so I did, and I rang my socks out as well.

Luckily one of the people I work with went back home to get some dry clothes, and he brought back an extra pair of jogging trouser things for me to wear for the morning haha. I had to dry out my clothes on the heater for most of the day.
Once, when I came out of the kitchen I found my project manager rearranging the clothes I had left to dry in order to get the maximum drying effect. Sometimes I feel like I have extra parents at work, it's very strange. Today one of the blokes I work with even told me he felt like he was my dad sometimes (this was after he told me to pick my feet up because I accidentally kicked up a wire that had just been stuck to the floor. We were having a bit of a clear out, I think partly because he might have been a bit concerned about out health and safety after the accident that happened the day before.... (See Tuesday below(yes I thought I'd colour code it (oh I should really stop using brackets (is there a maximum for the amount of brackets you're allowed inside one another?)))))

On Saturday I attempted to install a statistics program on a server for someone I do a bit of freelance work for. I thought I might be able to do it, after all I did manage to install Apache, mySQL and the PHP parser thing on my computer not too long ago, so I thought 'how hard can it be?' Anyway, it turned out it acutally could be quite a lot harder when you get pretty confused and can't seem to find any understandable instructions so I'm still attempting to work on that.

On Sunday I was going to install a new game, one that I recieved in the post on Friday and had been dying to play but hadn't had a chance. As soon as I turned my computer on it completely messed up and kept freezing and everything. I thought it was done for but spent the whole day sorting it out. I think it's OK now. I think.

On Tuesday at work I managed to break and fall off my desk while trying to adjust the blinds, that was a mistake and embarrassing. I can't remember a thing about what actually happened, as far as I was concerned I was on the desk and the next minute on the floor, but apparently I looked like I was surfing at one point.

It wasn't all bad because on the way home I did find £1.50 in the car park.

Ah

2006-10-09T00:03:00.000+01:00

I think something weird has happened to my template, the site that hosts my graphics has gone down. Hopefully it will be back soon...

In the meantime, here's the test card.

Soon I'll have enough for a whole peacock

2006-09-24T10:46:00.000+01:00

Other Peoples' Misfortunes

2006-09-16T21:54:00.000+01:00

I found something very amusing the other day, it's the RoSPA/Hass and Lass accident statistics website. It lets you choose categories and find out what accidents people have had.

I've just discovered the statistics for accidents involving acute over exertion with a leaf:

Year: Victims:
2000 0
2001 54
2002 0

Well I found this really amusing. I wonder what happened in 2001 to make people over exert themselves with leaves? Were the 54 accidents related? Was there a huge leaf related disaster somewhere?

Anyway, I urge everyone to go on this site and discover amusing statistics. If you get any good ones drop me a comment!

Lost

2006-09-12T22:35:00.000+01:00

Another cow post. Everywhere I go I seem to see cows recently, even at work on the way home there were lots of calves in the field opposite, huddling together in the rain.

Anyway, when I went for a walk on Sunday a load of cows had escaped from their field and were in the woods looking very confused.

Cow Blowing a Raspberry

2006-09-12T22:23:00.000+01:00

Cow Blowing a Raspberry, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Haha

Corn/Maize

2006-09-09T12:02:00.000+01:00

Here's the corn I grew! It hasn't quite grown at the top, I think maybe I should have left it slightly longer, but the slugs were nibbling at the top of one of them. I'm very pleased it actually grew. I've got two... um.. ears:

I found some interesting information about corn, apparently in Europe it's called maize. So I should be calling it maize then really haha. I thought maize was something else, but it turns out it's the same as corn. How confusing. I also found out it originally comes from South America.
I was also trying to work out whether or not it has male and female plants, as far as I can work out there are female and male flowers on the same plant, the silky bits where the ear grows are female, and the long bits that stick up at the top of the plant with all the pollen like stuff on are the male flowers.

Office

2006-09-09T10:51:00.000+01:00

Earlier this week I was doing some scanning which involves a lot of waiting around for the scanner to finish scanning (how many times have I written the word scanning now?). So anyway, during these very unexciting moments I did a sketch of the office:

Hopefully the people I work with won't somehow find this image and discover my blog... not that it really matters, but the thought of it freaks me out.

New Camera

2006-09-02T20:52:00.000+01:00

I recieved a camera I ordered the other day and I've been taking photos of lots of daft things. I did have a slight problem though, no instruction manual came with it. I emailed Amazon about it and they didn't know what to do, except they said I could return the camera and they'd send me another one. I didn't really want to do that as I had already waited ages for it. In the end I managed to find a PDF online of the manual, thank goodness. The weird thing was that I looked on the manufacturers site to see about getting a replacement and it seems that in the online shop they only had a photocopied version of the manual (which I assume would be what I would get sent if I asked for a replacement? I don't know) which would be exactly the same as me printing out the PDF that I found online. I didn't even find the file on the manufacturers site, I got it off some website that was selling the camera.
Anyway, here's a nice picture I took today.

Gerbera, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Cows

2006-08-27T20:34:00.000+01:00

Here's a weird picture of some cows underneath a motorway bridge:

And here's a weird montage thing of the bridge without cows (click to enlarge):

Tagged

2006-08-26T10:54:00.000+01:00

I've been tagged by How Do We Know. It's rather an interesting tag, have a look in the comments.

Ack

2006-08-23T20:44:00.000+01:00

Slightly annoyed today as there are going to be some train strikes that mean I won't be able to get to work on those days. Slightly more worrying though is the fact that everyone at work suspects the company is having financial difficulties. We had a slightly irritated man come in asking for rent he was owed for one of the buildings, and someone else rang up from an office supplies company asking about some money that was meant to be paid to them.

Not only that but there was a big mess up with one of the systems I was working on. It wasn't our fault really, just a misunderstanding folowed by a few unfortunate coincidences. Anyway, the client who I was dealing with demanded that I be taken off the project(!) and that the senior designer should do it instead. We just pretended that the senior designer was doing it and I carried on haha.
So that made me pretty fed up, even though it wasn't actually my fault, even though it felt like it was. Our project manager was fed up too, and said she would resign if we lost that customer, because she felt like it was her fault. Everyone was fed up. Not only that but there seems to be a real lack of work, nothing is coming in and there isn't a lot to do, so we were really worried that we might loose the customer. Anyway, in the end it was alright because the head salesman had a chat on the phone and sorted it out, what a relief.

I might find something better to post in a minute

2006-08-20T11:00:00.000+01:00

The weather is starting to get autumny now, which is nice, I like autumn. I haven't got much to say really, nothing seems to have happened. I bought some nice fudge yesterday, and I've just started eating it again because it's looking at me. Yes I think I'll stop writing now.

Flash Gallery

2006-08-13T22:56:00.000+01:00

I discovered that the galleries on my portfolio site didn't work on Macs, because of the way I wrote the CSS. Instead of messing around with it for ages I decided to make a n easier to update and more whizzy looking gallery in Flash.
A little while ago I spent ages trying to work out how to load dynamic images into Flash, and then the other week I discovered a tutorial that told me there is a component in Flash that loads Jpegs. If only I had known that ages ago when I was desperately trying to code something that loads Jpegs from a .txt file. Anyway, here's the tutorial that helped me and here's my gallery.

Um... if you happen to find anything odd (mistakes or missing pages) on that site, do let me know.

Corn Update

2006-08-13T20:30:00.000+01:00

The corn plants have got really tall now and they seem to be growing their ears. Not actual ears, I mean the bits with all the little individual seed things on. Unfortunately there aren't many spring onions left as they have been eaten by slugs. Spring onions don't agree with me anyway so it might be just as well. I am slightly disappointed but at least the corn seems to be doing alright.

Holly

2006-08-02T20:34:00.000+01:00

Holly, originally uploaded by Biscuits of Hobnobia.

Mystery Email

2006-07-30T12:24:00.000+01:00

Remember ages ago when I said about those emails I got from some people I don't know? Well I got another one today! Although it's not so good because I think it has something to do with someone who died, rather than bike riding like last time.

There is a long list of addresses in the subject line so it's obviously going to a load of other people too, but I'm still wondering who is actually meant to be getting the one I'm getting, if you know what I mean. I don't know whether I should email back and tell them or something.

There's really no need for a title

2006-07-29T11:10:00.000+01:00

Not much has happened in the past two weeks really. I saw a cat on a lead the other day, but with no owner on the end of it, and I saw some sort of hawk flying over the fields when I was on the train.

I found this which I thought was funny.

Sweetcorn

2006-07-15T11:02:00.000+01:00

Here's one of my sweetcorn plants. I've got three, although the third is very small, but I'm really pleased that something has actually grown for a change. There are little sweetcorns growing at the top in between the leaves. I've also got some spring onions growing in between the sweetcorn plants. I did plant some lettuce, but after they sprouted the seedlings had their leaves mysteriously chewed off. I think there are some still around though.
There's also a toad living opposite under a plant so I think he's trying to look after everything for me.

Boiled

2006-07-15T10:54:00.000+01:00

It's been so hot a work that we have condensation on the outside of the window. The thing is it's not particularly hot outdoors, just in our office. We were looking up the maximum work temperature on the internet because we all feel a bit sick from the heat, but discovered there is no maximum temperature, only a minimum one, although there was something about there being a requirement for people to have cold water available (our tap water is horribly warm).

Back to normal I think

2006-07-08T12:25:00.000+01:00

It turned out I'm not allowed to go in early because of a load of reasons including insurance and whether people would be in etc, so then I had to decide whether I wanted to leave early and lose half an hours pay. Which was what I was thinking of doing, so I left to get the earlier train and walked down to the station, but completely missed the train and had to get the later one anyway, which I wasn't pleased about. It sort of turned out to be a blessing in disguise though.
I hid behind the steps so I wouldn't get bothered by the man again. Unfortunately though, as I peeped round to see if he was there, he spotted me. Even worse, as I spotted him spotting me, I accidentally mouthed a silent swear word. To my surprise he didn't come over and talk to me. The same thing happened over the next few days (I stopped hiding then though). I thought 'hold on what's going on? I'm supposed to be ignoring you!'
Anyway I got what I wanted at last because he doesn't talk to me anymore! I feel a tad mean still, but mostly relieved that I can sit on the train without having to talk to people now. Phew.

I've been thinking about this sort of thing though, especially after reading Wyndhams' post. Is it some sort of weird British or English cultural thing or is everyone like it? The whole not wanting to tell people to go away thing I mean?

It's funny because one of the people I work with said that I should just tell the bloke to go away, and I know he was right but I just couldn't do it, which is why I end up doing cowardly things like hiding behind railway bridges and even considering throwing myself/another person/some object onto the tracks just to distract attention.
I know if I told him to go away I would have felt like a right meanie for at least a year afterwards, as it is my hiding 'technique' seems to have made me feel less mean, but only because I didn't have to actually tell the man I wanted to be left alone. Oh well, there we go.

Twilight Zone

2006-07-01T11:55:00.000+01:00

I've had a completely weird week. On Monday I ran into this man at the train station. He was about fortyish, from another country (I'm not sure where) and very friendly. He seemed alright and I ended up having to have a conversation with him which lasted the entire 25 minute journey. Before we even got on the train he asked me if I would like to go out on the weekend with him. I put it down to him probably being a bit lonely or something.

Anyway, on Tuesday there he was again at the platform, he kept telling me how much he liked me and how I was good at conversation (this is where I started to get a bit concerned, my conversational skills are terrible).
On Wednesday I was a bit late out of work and I thought that might be a good thing, because I'd be able to just sneak on the train and miss him, but when I got to the station, he was late too. And then he gave me some weird biscuity things. This was when it started to get a bit irritating and slightly odd. Especially as so many conversations seemed to end in 'we should go on holiday' or 'I'll cook you some food'. So anyway, on Thursday I asked my work collegues if I could leave a half hour early so I could get the earlier train and I told them the reason why.

They found it hilarious and let me go, although during the conversations that resulted I was asked whether or not the bloke thought he knew me when he first met me. I said he didn't and asked why. It turns out that there's a 'complete mental' (in the words of my colleague) who looks exactly like me and tried to offer his friend peanuts at the station once, and that maybe the bloke who keeps talking to me thought I was her. So now I have the added worry that I look like the local lunatic. I was wondering why people were giving me wide berths. Although as my colleague rightly pointed out, I'm completely mad too so they probably wouldn't be far off anyway.

I've decided to go into work half an hour earlier so I can leave earlier and avoid him next week. It's typical, I never have any luck with men* and then I end up having someone I'm not particularly keen on getting a strange inexplicable fixation on me.

I feel a bit mean avoiding the bloke but I don't know what else to do really. Some suggestions I've had have been to pretend I'm busy reading a book, or to say 'sorry, I'm a lesbian' but I'm not sure either will actually work. So I'm being mean instead. And I feel a bit mean blogging about it really, but it's too amusing to not write down. Also he's supposed to be not very good on the computer, so hopefully he'll never come across this post.

***

*or people in particular really, but then we discovered why during a conversation at the office about me insisting on visiting a WD-40 website when a friend was round, the same friend who just recently seems to have mysteriously moved away without telling me.