Recommended viewing

On Friday, I went to see Hayseed Dixie live at the Brook in Southampton.

Think Banjos, think Dungarees, think inordinately large pork chop sideburns, (which I kind of liked come to think of it) and then chuck in covers of songs as varied as 'Highway to Hell' and 'I Don't Feel Like Dancing' and you are pretty much there.
I've never seen anyone play a stringed instrument so fast, the guys on the banjo and the mandolin were incredible, it was really impressive stuff, not to mention a really good laugh.

I had an awesome time, me, the lovely Rachel (who is still incredibly lovely by the way) and Jeff managed to get right up to the front of the stage, where we hoed down with the best of them.
I don't think I have ever found a justifiable reason to use this phrase before, but I can truly say I had a rootin' tootin' time. Hehehe.

I had a quick look at their website and they are only doing a couple more dates in the UK, like today and tomorrow and then that's it I think, but you should at least try and hear some of their music, it's great. There are a couple of videos on their site, go have a look.

Shameless plug, job done.

I'm tired

Really, really tired.

Moving is hard work, there is to be no discussion on the subject.

We are moving!

By 'we' I mean the company I work for, not the royal 'we', that would just be odd, i'm more bottom of the class than upper class.

Anyway, we are moving to a lovely big new unit just up the road, and it's all going on this weekend. I have taken two long-wheelbase-transit loads of stuff to the new place already today, and I just munched my way through a man sized BLT sarnie to keep my manly moving strength up.
I feel a bit sick now, i'm more of a little and often guy when it comes to food.

It's a sweaty business this moving lark, more so on a commercial scale 'cos there is so much to move, I'm thinking of stripping down to the vest and subtly flexing my muscles when I lift stuff. "hhhrrnnggh, sorry? oh, yeah, i do work out, suprised you noticed" *shy smile*

I'm so vain.

Up the literary ladder?

I'm trying to write a book!

I don't know if I mentioned this before but (like almost everyone else in the known world) I have always wanted to write a book, and the difference between me and possibly 90% of the people who share this aim, I actually have half a chapter all done and everything.

The possible difference between me and the other 10% is that they actually finished the book.

The aforementioned half-chapter, or chapette, did take aproximately 3 years to write, but hey, who's counting right? At this rate I could still publish a short story in time to supplement my state pension.

I am definately picking up pace, I reckon with some good sessions at the keyboard I could get to a whole chapter by christmas, new year at the very latest. I'm sure as I generate more of the book, the enthusiasm to finish it will grow, right?

Anyway, that's all good, I may put it up on here, or link it or something for you to peruse when I have grown my chapette into a fully housetrained, pedigree chapter.

Tim news: After a week of startling neglect, one of his leaves turned brown and fell off. No more chillies have appeared, but his dirt never seems to go dry, even if I don't water him for, oh, say, about a week.
I realised that the window he is next to gets approximately 0 hours of direct sunlight a day, due to the house next door and the big tree in their garden, this may well have been putting a bit of a stopper on any plans Tim had for photosynthesis and the growth of any more chillies for me to eat.

I have moved him to a sunnier shelf.

I've been working

far too hard.
I've done an extra days worth of overtime this week already, I can't say no 'cos I could do with the cash but it's not something I want to end up doing forever.
I wish I was allergic to stress so I could get a doctor's note advising that I do nothing more mentally strenuous than, say, peeling carrots, but alas, I just really really hate it, which doesn't count as a medical condition, apparently.

I've never wanted to go to work less than I do at the moment.

Pants.

On a lighter note, erm.... No, I've got nothing. Rubbish.

I kind of forgot about Tim (my new adopted Chili plant) for a day and half, rushed back to check on him when I realised how neglectful I had been, and when I got to the bookshelf where I had left him, he was fine!

This growing lark is easy, you couldn't get away with that with an adopted child. (And you definately can't eat bits of your children, I really can't stress this enough.)

Foiled

By my own enthusiasm. Damn.

I've been getting all excited about my blog again, hence the existence of some actual posts for once, mostly due to enviously reading Kitchentable's
page every day and attempting to be even half as prolific, interesting and jaw achingly funny.

So I have been back on my super geeky statistics page thingy which tells me how many people have been viewing me (my page, no voyeurism involved) along with a massive amount of other useless information.
I was really pleased to find out that yesterday I had a whole 7 (that's no typo, just 7, yes I am that unpopular) separate views, which is about 40% up on my usual highest daily views! (40% sounds better than 3)

They love me, they really l- oh, hang on.
I posted twice yesterday, which involves typing in my blog address, and then I looked at my blog to check for any comments, which also involves typing in my blog address. Dammit, there's my three extra hits then.

So the only fact I can glean from my super duper statistics reports is that I am around 40% more obsessed with myself than usual.

Sounds about right.

Typical

I just thought up a decent topic for a post, which I could have put in my 50th post instead of that load of warbly codswallop I wrote, ah well.

I have a Chili Plant!

His name is Tim, he's a Habanero chili plant (I think)

Ok, ok I didn't tend Tim and nurture him lovingly from a tiny seedling to it's present fruit-bearing, green-leaved glory, I got him for free.

Still, it's like adoption, you end up with a child, but you don't have to go through all that nasty night feedings and nappy changing bit, you can skip straight to the living vicariously through them and trying to control their life part.

I am planning on eating the chillies from Tim, I wouldn't recommend carrying the simile back across to the adoption world, seriously, don't eat any part of your children, adopted or not.

I'll put up a picture of Tim soon as.

Milestones already...

Well look at that, I've made it to 50 whole posts, who would've thought.

Actually, I would have thought.
I would have done it long before now, it has taken 9 months after all, but then you can't just churn them out and skimp on the quality.

It's been surprisingly hard to come up with decent topics sometimes, which I will use as my excuse for such intermittent posts, and also the reason I am blathering now about posting 50 times instead of talking about something interesting. Oops.

Well long live the blog, and I just hope the next 50 are vaguely interesting, for your sakes, mostly.

We went to the beach and...

I made a sandcastle!

I don't know why sandcastle-making is generally restricted to young rapscallions and the like, it's great fun!
I think perhaps I was supposed to be embarrassed about being the (considerably) oldest person on the beach trying to make an accurate replica of a medieval stronghold, but I'm far too ignorant to bow to the constraints of modern beach etiquette.
I do have to give half the credit to Climbing Rich who was my assistant architect for the day, he is just as oblivious of acceptable beach behaviour as me, ta Rich.

I reckon our castle was so good, next time I am going to put a hat down and see if I can make back the petrol money.

I wonder if professional sandcastle making is a valid career...

Diets that don't work #1: The Chilli Diet

Me and Rach went to the Chilli fiesta the other week, and stocked up on pretty much every chilli-based foodstuff available.
Rach used a bit of her chilli jam in some cooking she did in the week, but aside from that, most of it had remained untouched.
So, yesterday, after a breakfast consisting of half a brioche with a smidge of jam on it, we really got stuck into the chilli products.
Here is a step by step 'how-to' of the chilli diet, and the outcome. Follow it at your peril.

Have some chilli cheese. First, sample the afterburner, made with habanero chillies, then cleanse your palette with a portion of the much less aggressive jalapeno cheese.

Smack your chops and think, 'mmm chilli cheese is good stuff. I should eat this more often'

Have some chilli chocolate. The really dark, 73% cocoa one with bhut jolokia chilli powder (hottest chilli in the world)

Put the chocolate to one side after only eating half of it and think 'those jolokia chillies really are in the record books for a reason aren't they. I'll eat the rest, erm, later.'

Wash all this down with some cheap cava, then eat nothing for a couple of hours.

After two hours, stupidly decide that you could murder a curry, and manage to justify this, regardless of cost and health implications, by pretending to yourself that you've not had a curry for ages, which is almost certainly a lie.

Go to curry house, and neck a Madras-heat Rogan Josh, washed down with two pints of coke.

On no account should you take heed of the fact that you don't fancy a beer, and that this may mean your digestive system isn't exactly on top form. This is almost certainly not true, you great pansy, now keep drinking the fizzy brown acid...

Finish your curry and think 'hmm, feel a bit full. Very full in fact.'

Walk outside.

Stop.

Ignore the painful gurgles emanating from your waistline and try to shrug the nauseous feeling off as being 'a bit bloated'

Head to a pub, saying very little to your friends while you try to concentrate on holding down the rising bile in your throat, whilst simultaneously clenching your buttocks against the insistent movement in the lower intestinal area.

Walk briskly for 20 minutes, this will aid the fermentation, erm, I mean digestion process.

Ignore the first pub you get to, knowing you won't last the length of the queue outside the door, and continue mincing with buttocks clenched firmly to the next pub.

Get past doorman as politely but overall, quickly as possible, and head for the toilets.

Read on if you want to, I personally would recommend skipping a few lines.

Sit on a manky pub loo and pebbledash the bowl with something that will in all likely hood erode the enamel away permanently, whilst holding back from vomiting onto your legs, caused by a mixture of the rotten-gut feeling and the stench coming from the recently re-decorated toilet bowl.

Get out of there as fast as you conveniently can, hoping nobody sees you leave and links you with the ungodly odour that has set up camp in the lav.

Feel much better, and go and get drunk.

Let that be a lesson to me. And you hopefully.

A little visual treat (not made by me)

Hurrah!
I just figured out that my favourite-est artist on t'internet has started a blog! He's now in my 'blogs i am reading' list, under Jolly Jack, go take a look, his work is awesometastic in it's brillmazingness.
There is probably a link in his blog but he also has a website at http://www.collectedcurios.com/.
My particular favourite is his Sequential Art comic strip, once again, I really urge you to go take a look. (Insert suitable threat here to ensure you go and look at his work, just think of something nasty you wouldn't want to happen to you, then imagine that you will suffer that fate unless you follow the link. Go, now!)

In other news, erm... oh sod it, i'm off to look at Jolly Jack's website again.

I would just like to mention...

That I don't like rain.

The sooner someone comes up with earth-wide underground water dispertion system, the better.

I don't even like clouds much either.

Gah.

The Chilli Fiesta

On Saturday, me and Rach went to the annual West Dean Chilli Fiesta, somewhere in the wildlands north of Chichester.
It was in the grounds of a lovely old house, who's field I tried to churn up by drifting my car in the car park. (It had acres of fields, I refuse to feel guilty, I barely churned any of it up really, plus I was scared I might get shouted at by an angry Chilli Fiesta attendant)

It is quite an easy event to describe really, imagine a busy, well spaced out market with lots of stalls and stands selling things. Now imagine everything that could possibly be related to chilli in any way shape or form being sold on every single one of those stands. Thats it, you're there.

Among the more random things we saw were Chilli decorated tableware, chilli aloha shirts, and possibly my favourite, womens shoes that looked like chillis.

We bought a fair selection of more normal chilli related products, including chilli sauce, (flamin' nora brand containig the famed bhut jolokia chilli, more on that later) chillis stuffed with cream cheese, olives stuffed with chilli, 2 types of chilli cheese, and some chilli seeds.

This last item I am going to attempt to nurture through the, erm, fertilise-y bit where the shoot comes out, to the growing in a pot bit, through to the, um, harvesting of the chillis and making sphincter looseninlgy hot curries with them.
I bought the seeds from a stall that graded it's products with a letter, denoting how hot the chillis grown from any particular seed would be. M for Mild, H for Hot, VH for Very Hot, and so on.
I bought the seeds that said HHH++ on the packet. hehehe.

The first plant will be called Tim, then any subsequent plants that survive will be called Daisy, Mike, Brian, Marsha, Colin and Twist (cunning link, anyone?). Then one called Satan. After that it is anyone's guess.
As you may be able to tell, I think I have my work cut out for me, a horticulturalist I am not, but how hard can it be? I'll be sure to put up photos of my little darlings as they develop. (or die)

The other interesting thing we saw was a stall run by a guy who had products for sale made from the hottest chillis in the world. Don't quote me on this, but the Bhut Jolokia chilli has a Scoville rating (a measure of the heat of a chilli) of around 1,041,000, whereas your bog standard jar of tabasco sauce has a Scoville rating of around 3,000, making the Jolokia over 300 times hotter than tabasco!
What is even more amazing is that he had concentrated essence of chilli in a little eye-dropper type bottle that had a rating of 5,000,000 scovilles, and he was letting passers by try it by putting three tiny drops onto a piece of cracker and letting them eat it.
The ground around his stalls was actually, genuinely littered with people on their knees, on their backs, stumbling around, just completely reeling from the effects of the stuff.
Hilarious.
I wish I had bought some now, I could take it down the pub with me and spike the snacks. "Crisp, anyone?"

Hello stranger....

Cor blimey guv'nor, wots going on here then?

Yes, it's me, I'm back, I have no idea for how long or how regularly, but just be thankful for what you get, ok? And if you aren't thankful, then I will perform a very specialised rain dance that will divert some of England's abysmal weather to wherever you are until you do become thankful.
I can and will, you know.

Actually, I only really came back on 'cos I took a really cool picture and I wanted to post it up somewhere. I took this from a first floor window at the back of my parent's house earlier today, it is 3 pictures lovingly stitched together in Photoshop by my own fair hand.
Just when I thought the dodgy monsoon-type weather had finally gone into hiding until at least Autumn, (that'll be August 15th round here then.) this bloody great monstrosity came cruising cockily into view.
'Aha, look at me' it seems to radiate in surprisingly perfect english, 'you thought you would see the sun for a week or two, well tough shit sonny boy, get yer 'mac on watch out for trench foot, the rain is back.'



(It's too wide to sit well on the page, so I do recommend you give it click, it'll be worth it, trust me.)

So yeah, cool picture, and I promise to you I haven't monkeyed about with the colours at all, it really did look like that.

A slight anticlimax to the tale is that the rain never really made it to where I am now, (about 20 feet from where I took the picture) it just sort of passed by, and it looks quite nice out right now. If it helps, just imagine me sitting here under a plastic binbag with a load of pots and pans on the desk catching the drips from the deluge. If it helps.

Ohh, that was quite fun, maybe I'll do this more often.