Year: 2008

Thanks so much for your Good Wishes on my Anniversary!
It sounds like you are doing MAJOR MAJOR Work! I applaud you! I know how easily things can get out of hand and then, how used to it we become….I’ve got a number of places like that in my house….(HELP?). Much Much good luck with what is still, to do!

Oooo – acid and alkali mix … always good for something that’s likely to fizz and pop 🙂 Must add the combo to the shopping list for this week so I can try that.

Gotta keep control over those wires 🙂 Two unexpected bonuses for today – I found my Sky repair plan info plus I found the PIN for one of my credit cards ! Tidying up can have unexpected benefits …

Thanks for the visit 🙂

Before you go to bed, poor a whole bottle of white vinegar in to the loo and leave it over night. In the morning, pour about half a pot of bicarbonate of soda in it then flush. It will get rid of anything grotty, limescale, smells, everything!

Keep up the good work and watch those wires, they will breed like murlocs when your not looking.

I’ve been blitzing the house for the last half a week or so to get it ready for the Crazie Party on Friday. It’s been much needed because since my last relationship broke up a few years ago, I’d been a bit static and not really looking after things all that well. Which includes myself plus the house. Also, the chores arrangement before the breakup hadn’t really worked that well. Evil Ex was supposed to be looking after the general cleaning type stuff while I did maintenance and surprise, surprise, washing up and cooking. So the house had got into a fairly poor state.

It’s happily a bit different now. I’ve not been on the cleanup job all hours except sleep and work, keeping a little bit of time back for games, film and relaxation. But I’m pretty happy with the progress so far. There’s still work to do though, the vacuum has been waiting to come out until most of the clutter is out of the way. No point picking up the clutter to vacuum if the clutter is going to get put right back again.

Bathroom – it’s not done yet but that room is starting to freak me out a bit. My loo has been described as requiring napalm, a hammer and complete replacement (beyond hope I believe was one description). I’d gotten kinda used to that, so to see a 90% clean loo is a bit disturbing to a brain that likes to see the same patterns ! But I can live with being freaked out by that and my brain will quickly adjust to a loo that I wouldn’t be ashamed to get used by other people. There’s still work to do though and I need some stronger scrubbers …

Living room – there’s a clearer path through now ! Although my pooter corner behind the sofa is still cluttered. This is the room in heaviest need of the vacuum cleaner, which will be Tuesday’s job when I’m not in work. However, it’s easier to get to the back doors now and all 3 of my soft chairs are available again and by Friday, I’ll have them moved into positions where they can see the telly. Electronic clutter has been moved out of the way too, I gather wires to connect anything to everything and most of those are now out of the way.

The light fitting is now not hanging off the ceiling by one screw (out of two!) and my two PC Box Boxes are now clear of garbage. I use the boxes that PC cases come in for tables beside the sofa. They’re just about the right size for a pint glass and a packet of biscuits without being Too Big. By the way, my Dining Table just happens to be a plank of wood from the back of my desk that had to be be removed to allow a PC to go in the bit that a PC is supposed to go in. It works … especially as there’s not really the space in my living room to get a proper table in.

I’ll still be keeping the two PC Corpses in the room. One is perfect for standing on to change lightbulbs (they don’t make ’em like they used to!) and I’ll put the side plates back on the other. They’ll both be available on Friday as tables for drinkz n popcorn n feet. It’s going to be a shame to chuck out the Quality Street and Liz Shaw mints but with Best Before Dates of 2005, they aren’t going to be around where little kiddies can get their hands on them. (And so Big Quality Street Addicted Kiddies can’t be tempted either !)

Kitchen is also on the list for blitzing and I started on that tonight with some overdue scrubbing of the sink … That’s another one that’ll benefit from far better brushes than I have available at the moment but I have time to get those later in the week. Tesco better have some good stuff in stock on Wednesday 🙂

So – good progress so far, house is no longer in a Repel Boarders state but there’s still lots of work to do. Next job after this one – clear the back yard enough to let someone in to fix the SkyDish. But that’s something that can wait a bit.

It’s long overdue but it’ll be worth it when it’s done. 3 years is far too long to stay rooted in a routine that allows fixing the neglect to become hard work. It’s always easier to keep up with the chores than to be forced to put excessive effort into cleaning up later.

PS I’m not so sure that scrubbing the sink with cleany type stuff was such a good idea considering I have a bit of a poisoned finger ! Time to get that under the hot tap to make it feel a little better.

Hiya TBB 🙂

I don’t really have any comments right now….other than to say “hi.” 🙂

Muahaha – glad I was in the car while it was hailing 🙂

It started when I got the car moving and the bombardment was just finishing as I was parking up 🙂

There was a film out a while ago called Indecent Proposal. The synopsis of the plot was that John Gage (played by Robert Redford) would offer Diana Murphy (played by Demi Moore) $1m to spend a night with him. In bed.

The film has a look at the relationship of Diana Murphy and her husband around the $1m offer. I have to admit I’ve never seen it but it’s definitely springing to mind at the moment. In Robert Redford’s shoes, you have a certain Texan billionaire (who for some reason is a Sir …) and in Demi Moore’s stilettos you have the English Cricket establishment …

The scene is Antigua, where there’s a tournament going on with a “Stanford Superstars” team, Middlesex, Trinidad and Tobago and finally England. It’s Twenty20 cricket, which should be the most exciting and fun version of the game with the event being a showcase to show cricket off to the non-cricketing world.

There’s just a couple of problems … The pitch has a big influence on how a game of cricket goes, the bounce can be good, low or nasty and there are different speeds too. Good bounce and decent pace (the ball “coming on”) means good scoring and tense games. High bounce can get nasty as it can lead to broken fingers or worse. Slow and low pitches make it difficult to hit the ball out of the ground as the batsman is always reaching for the ball without any confidence to hit through their shots.

Instead of being a spectacular showcase, we have a slow and low pitch. What’s worse is that the floodlights at the ground are also low, making catching awkward. Dropped catches that would have been held at any other ground have changed the results in the games so far. The shameful thing is that the combination of slow, low pitch and bad floodlights is making good International players look utterly inept. And that is bad for the game in general, not just for the players on show.

It’s terrible timing too, as it’s clashed with the Baseball World Series. I try and watch as much baseball as I can get away with, partly because I like watching the execution of perfection that Major League Baseball puts on show. Things like a double play that the fielders make look like child’s play, plus bonuses like Joe Blanton, Phillies pitcher, smacking a Homer that amazed everyone in the crowd. It’s a well grooved sport but there’s still room for class to show and luck to come to the party. It’s a shame that TV timings and work mean I can’t catch more baseball.

So where does the Indecent Proposal reference fit in ? The games in Antigua are leading up to a $20 million showdown between the England team and the Stanford Superstars, winner takes all. Personally, I think it’s an attempt to move away from the Twenty20 series in the West Indies by looking to outside competitors. I’ve put up an opinion of the Stanford Twenty20 competition before and it wasn’t a good one – I turned off their grand final because it was boring and tedious – for a cricket addict ! So the money has gone to bring in people from a successful Twenty20 tournament.

It’s a little sad and the media backlash has been happening over the last couple of days. The players are stating publicly that they don’t particularly want to be there – the harsh reality of the aftermath of the Indecent Proposal thing is really coming to light.

That’s enough cricket for now, except to say that while there’s actually cricket on the telly as I write this, I’m actually watching Ice Road Truckers instead. Yep, I’d rather watch the guys on the ice than the sport I’m addicted to.

Also in the news – it’s birthday season ! I’ll be buying the donuts in a fortnight but before then … Crazie Party. Which I have a lot of work to do to prepare for it because we’re having it at my place this time and the house is a tip. Too much accumulated garbage that I’ll be moving into my spare room.

Love your weather terms 🙂

We had a bit snow here in NJ. Heavy wet now. So early in the season. The next day we had a bit of sleet. Nothing Bruising!! 😉

Just some wimpy states side pellets LOL

Friday’s Fill-Ins mentioned I was having the car serviced on Saturday. Gosh that was weird … Getting a car serviced and walking out without paying them anything ? That’s one hell of a novelty 🙂 It’s not quite as good as it sounds though, I have to get a couple of new tyres which will cost me roughly £230 plus the service wasn’t actually free, I’m paying a monthly fee for the next couple of years in return for servicing.

It’s getting colder here at the moment … I used to joke that it was too freaky a coincidence that there would be snow just before the annual RAC Rally (now known by other sponsor name …) that would last through the Rally, melting in the last day or so. The snow would be there for the Rally and then would disappear straight afterwards. And it’s that time of year again ! It’s also let me find out about a new gadgie on the car :

Yellow snowflake = it’s 5 degrees C outside
Red snowflake = it’s 1 degrees C outside

Translation – bloody cold.

Got spotted this morning by one of the work people in my “cold weather gear”. Which is identical to my “warm weather gear” except for the addition of black leather gloves. Or “Assassin Gloves” as they’re known around the project 🙂 I like that image 🙂 But what would really get me strange looks would be people knowing that I’ve handled and fired a wide range of firearms, including a sniper rifle :-). But that’s from quite a while ago now and the actions of a few Crazy People means I’m not likely to get the chance to do that again. At least not in the UK.

Where did the title for today come from ? Sunny day today and I was at an offsite meeting at lunchtime. I like this particular meeting because the gorgeous Miss S goes to it. (I don’t spend all my time gazing at pretty people – honest !). Sunny before, Apocalypse afterwards. I had enough time to leg it to the car before the heavens didn’t just open, they got ripped asunder. By the time I’d driven around to the gate people to hand back my temporary ID, conditions were poor enough that the gate guard fella was highly reluctant to leave the safety of his guard house to cross the road to the car …

This wasn’t rain.
This wasn’t snow.
This was Hail Bombardment.

I’ve put in a previous post something about the “Damp”, “Murky”, “Dangerous” and “Nasty”, today added “Bruising” 🙂