Cause He's The Taxman...

....woooaah, he's the taxman.

And he took 1/3 of my salary!

Wanker!

But I want to put it in my mouth...

This post might get a bit random, but I'm hesitant to post any more references to "Randomness & Autofelation" (not that I am blowing my own trumpet...I hope) given the number of sick fucks that end up here having searched for "autofelatio how to" or "ginger autofelation video". I'm not joking...I should probably stick AdSense back on here and see what kind of awsomely weird ad's it decides to serve up.

Lil's off with her Ma visiting "Grumpy Grandad" so there'll probably not be any child-related stuff up here until the weekend, so you can leave now if that's what you came here for.

My new work timetable seems to be working out nicely. It was kind of forced on me by a change in "the (free) bus to work" times, but it's worked out so far (3 days and counting). I get to work for 7:30, which enables me to merrily get on with sorting out the crap email from the stuff I actually need to do, get on with one of those annoying "tracker" tasks that just never seem to get done unless you are able to sit in silence. Well, I say silence, but I usually stick some fucking loud 'heavy' music on and hammer the keyboard like a demented blacksmith. On crack. Then gradually ease myself into everyone else's day (bearing in mind France is GMT +1), get on with shit and catch the 1st bus back at 3:45. This doesn't mean I've finished for the day though (unfortunately), there's usually a teleconference or two to join and so that I am ethically spotless (well, mainly so I don't get caught out by a nasty email that causes my first "work thought" of the day to be "Oh fucking hell, you utter cunt!") I still allow push mail to the phone until 6pm.

But it does mean that I can chill in the garden for a bit and then get on with my usual evening activities...typing some random shit up here, pissing about with guitars/pianos/what-have-you, reading (currently engrossed in quantum electrodynamics...yes, I heard you sigh there) or watching duff TV...the usual. And I'm kind of OK with getting up just after 6...especially now it's not dark. Or pissing down with rain all the time. That shit's just depressing.

In other news. I'm off to Bratislava with Teh B055 next week. Should be a laugh, especially as he managed to choose a date (and constrained by flights) which means the 2nd (and last) day is a Slovakian Bank Holiday...so I'm hoping we just"might as well go to the pub"...The post is provisionally titled "I went to Bratislava and didn't get butt-raped by Gypsies"...but I don't want to jinx myself.

And so, dear reader, I must away to make myself some kedgeree...and remain in a state of denial about finishing my kitchen floor.

I have already taught myself the slovak for "Beer please" (Prosim Pivo) and am looking forward to my first visit to a country where the word for water is almost the same as Vodka (in english at least)...Awesome!

April in Paris

Brasserie Flo in Charles de Gaulle airport...best confit of duck ever (not that we ate there this time).


A stuffy meeting room in central Paris


Notre Dame...walked past it on the way to the Metro.

And then stayed in a crappy hotel in the Parisian equivalent of Slough...where Bossman and I drank several beers...

Before heading to another stuffy meeting room. This time on some kind of industrial estate near "Slough".

Then off for a slap-up lunch and a wander round the gardens of Versaille Palace (paid for by someone else)...




Some bint suckling a snake!



Marie Antoinette fancied having a working farm apparently, so they knocked up this "faux farm"...sort of like Disneyland, but with chickens and goats...

NDS Hax!

I has them!...once more :)

Stick the "spare" 2Gig microSD in it, wooo....1 Gig of DS ROMs and about a gig of music, movies and ebooks. Thanks Nintendo, DS hax0rz and Moonshell peeps!

Rockin'....not as rockin' as the hour and a half wait for the bus home from work due to insane traffic thanks to a broken lorry.

I now somehow have 5 (five!) Windows Mobile devices: Elf, Dual, Kaiser, Polaris and Pharos....closet Windoze fanboy perhaps? Or lucky sod?....they all have their good and (definitely more importantly) bad points...Pharos is good so far (only 2G so not speedy with data), but all of them seem to give me GPS gyp...or mebbe the satellites hate me.

I've also recently re-discovered my Korg ElectribeS and have spent many hours noodling away on beats/licks, maybe I'll upload something soon (yeah, right).

I'm off to play Metroid Prime Hunters....or something

Doing Teh Gay!

Probably not what you're thinking.

Was in Paris this week for fun & laffs at a Multimedia Standardisation Seminar....woooo. Fundamentally this entailed me and Big Stu sitting in a room for 10 or so hours listening to people justify the 3.4 Million Euros they spent this year going on "jollies".

This is the rather smart building we were in...the room we languished in....and a shot on the train on the way back out to the airport (complete with spooky reflection of Big Stu's bonce).

A penny for 'em (WARNING: Contains no swearing at all...maybe)

This here be a brain-fart...

• 3rd (possibly 4th) attempt to launch the Belgians onto "my" platform still being gently fucked over by various "where the fuck did you come from?" suddenly interested parties
• ditto "why the fuck is that suddenly not working?" aren't all the staging platforms meant to be the same?
• 4 months late now by my watch.
  
• where's my fucking extra RAM for my laptop so I can run more than one application at once....fucking Windows/Microsoft....fucking build team....bah!

• Been theme customising the Daptop after all this time. All it needed was a bit of a font size change, a decent wallpaper, transparency on Gnome panels, Compiz sorted, annoying tooltips off, colour tweaking for widgets and using different "component" settings from the default Mac-OS-X like thingy-ha Ihey, I'm used to the window buttons, so chill....)
• Have to carry one of those big wicker-bowl like chairs on Saturday (bargain tho) from up the hill to the house...'twill be our new reading chair for bedtime stories
  
• Might have found a swapsy for the Flymo...
• Dentist & Dupuytrens treatments ahoy (ow! on both counts I fear....)
• I've been on Facebook far more often than I'd like, but mainly because I've been playing Scrabulous on it....more often than I'd like

• It's (not really) surprising that Flo is such a tonic for feeling down in the dumps. This morning she wanted to "read a daddy" so picked the biggest, hardbackist books within reach from the shelf by my bed, scrubbled the pages while making nonsense words and then became fascinated by a "stayship" (spaceship) on the front of a very old, very fragile Asimov.
• Instinct took over and I roused myself to save the book (seriously, this book is probably worth 10p on eBay but it's been with me a long time!)
  
• Subsequently she threw some of the heavier books at me..."up daddy now!"
• This here blog is 2 on Saturday....and Ma reaches the age of 21 (again).

Oh yeh, almost forgot....Jonathon from FlailingMyArms came up with a fucking hilarious video (I think)....especially since Flo and I have been discussing "witches" (ok), "monkey inna tunnel" (wtf?), "mummy dragon" [hi rosie], and "'cary noises". Some of which require her to hide by covering her eyes with a forearm.

Yarr!

Yarr! Profile pic changed.....I was bored of the old one.

This one courtesy of Threadless!

Life continues to be fine and dandy, but work is being a pain in the arris....luckily I got sooper-mundo paycheck today.

Being the sensible type (hahahahahah) I paid off most of my credit card...and bought some presents.

Can hardly believe this blog (and thus Flo) will be 2 in a week!

Two!?!?!

OK, that's enough rain now thanks!

Yeah. Boring aint it?

I realise I've not really posted much of note recently other than pictures and stuff. Deal! I'm very busy with work and actually have something of a social life right now. Couple that up with some DIY and helping a luvverly laydee sort out a PC and you don't get much leeway for blogging.

I promise something "meaty" soon...Am working on a "Rule The Web" type post for Rosie. In other news I now have Analytics running on this site, so yeah, I'm watching you....biotches!

Here's a couple of pics from the weekend.


Puddle Tubble....


I bought her a 99 (which was actually 120p) from a passing ice cream van....yes it was raining.


Painted the workstore (as it will be known)....Flo considers it to be "mine house".

Hiatus!

Great word that!

I've obviously had a week or so off the blog (some of that off work too). I'm not sorry if you missed me (which you didn't). Hoping M&D get their devonshire house, even though the people round there are a bit...well...odd. Had a few days holiday and a few days more to come...


Yes! Heat-sensitive water-proof LEDs FTW!


Blue = Cold (~40c) red =" Hot"


Over-engineered, but cool....and not wet!...and childproof!!!

Am on a mini-break back at work and it stinks! Half-day tomorrow and then out of the mire again thank Teh FSM.


She does love her grandad....


Tea tonight: Mashed Potatoes, Cod & Haddock with Parsley Sauce, Braised Leeks, and Broccoli

Lil, on the other hand is gorjoyce!

Lilstreamowords: PikDaddyPikPikPik_ShoesDaddy_Legs_Sock_Eyes (presses my eyeballs) OwDaddyEyesDaddy_Bork_BorkDoggie_Doll_Tiger?_Doe?_DoeInna?

Translation: Look dad! A pig on this cup you're holding. I'm wearing shoes...Daddy's wearing shoes. I have legs, as do you daddy...And socks...You have eyes daddy and they are 'fair game'. when I'm being cute, no?!...I'm bored, can we go to the park now? Got any tigers?...Where's Jungle Joe by the way?



Teh Chile's also apparently swapped morning naps for afternoon naps...maybe this is why she's also still not asleep this late!

End.

Return To The Forbidden Planet

Dancing with sunbeams....


It got pretty intense...foot-stamping, hand-waving and shouting...

I must have had the luckiest couple of days I've ever had...long story short:

- I'm owed quite a lot of money...and a considerable bit extra per month from now on!
- I don't have to go to Paris tomorrow...and the early April trip looks a bit easier now
- Interflora boosted their fuck-up bouquet with some chocolates. Sorry for swearing Ma...


Dinner!

- Flo. Is. Hilarious!



- And gorgeous at the same time



- I went to the best ever school musical thing last night with Missman: Return To The Forbidden Planet, in Bristolian!!...it was the best theatre I have ever seen!....there is no sarcasm here...just a sly grin.
- Loving, loving, loving being with Teh Laydee...without wishing to get all ghey or anything

- I have mastered that chinese 'seaweed' thing you get in chinese restaurants (the stuff that isn't actually seaweed...it's greens/cabbage)....mine's no-fat, no-salt...and really tasty.


The other picture made it look even more like jazz-baccy ;)

Oh. Hi to Liz, who I bumped into last Sunday....Teh Ricolah: let's go for drinks instead!...and Riobard del Brono: return my calls you bastard!

It went a little something like this...

As usual, what I expect a work trip to be like is not how it goes. I thought I'd thought of every conceivable combination of joys and woes this time round, but now I realise the one true answer is to go with the flow...

...Which reminds me, hopefully I'll get a bit of time with Flo tomorrow as I'm WFH and then being a bit slack due to time in lieu (love that phrase...and the concept...it is, after all, fair: I missed my Flo-night this week coz I had to go to Lyon for work).

Long story short, it went a little something like this....

Tuesday 13th March:
- 8am-2pm Work
- Teh B055man (hereon in aka TB) drives us to the airport in Landy (so slow!)
- TB and I get gypped at Security due to no plastic bags (deliberate rebellion on our part, heh!)
- Couple of pints of the black stuff in honour of St Patrick
- Flight....free glass o' wine and a heated-to-the-core-of-a-star temperature shitwich
- Lands a bit early, yay!
- But still think we have to rush for connecting flight in Brussels...have to walk miles and go through passport control and then security again (ALL airports suck....they're just misery-channels!)
- Get to gate, which conveniently has a bar right next to it with time to spare for 2 more (Belgian this time) beers
- We've gained an hour too, remember...Flight...'nother free glass o' wine, but this time with nice sandwiches (swapped one with TB so I had no evil tomato)
- Land, Taxi, Hotel...
- 2 seconds after walking into hotel room, text from TB: Bar?
- 2 minutes later: in bar
- 4 or 5 beers and a double whisky...chat shit...Pissed! Right! Up!...barely remember going to room....
- Bed. Tortured sleep. Left curtains open, am entwined in 7 billion sheets and blankets, hungover!

Wednesday 14th March:
- Shower, breakfast, coffee, fags.....pay bill...WAHAY!!! Barman forgot to charge us a single thing!!!
- Walk a mile or so to the meeting place with a decidedly rough (read: still drunk) TB
- 10-5 Meeeeeeetttttt--tttttttiiing!......amazingly not incredibly dull, but marred by constant drilling and hammering as offices are rebuilt around us....and a wierd-ass lunch-in-a-box
- Taxi, Airport....Oh Noes!!!
- Flight late (and we only have 30 odd mins to change flights). Free wine and sanger again though ;)
- Literally run a kilometre to get to Passport control, and then another to get to Security...get to gate with 10 mins to spare....a small delay t the plane thank god....time for a quick Amstel!
- Phone Missman I am so overjoyed I haven't missed flight!
- Flight. Free glass of wine....but I need coffee even though it's 10pm or something. Nuclear shitwich again.
- Land, usual malarkey with passport, bid farewell to TB and head for Taxi place. Got my hour back now, so it's 10ish.
- Tearful french woman, huge queue and nobody admitting to speaking french....so I did my good samaritan thing (I spikka da lanwich loike a nayeteev!) and found someone who was going the same way so they could split the £100 (!!!) taxi fare...
- Taxi...Home....Bed!!!

Today...up at 6 and in work by 8 :(

If you enjoyed that little summary of one of my so-called "jollies"...so the name is partially justified...stay tuned next week for: "Paris in a day!" and the week after that is sure to be "My Eastern Bloc Hell: Romania AND bust!".

That is all!

Reuters Blok

I've spent most of the day with a blog post in the back of my mind, but for the life of me I'm not able to start it right now. Probably due to the quick dash to Belgium earlier this week, a technical document to finish and the general onslaught of work. Off to Lyons next week, with some interesting 30 minute between flights connections!

And I kinda got stagefright. Thanks Reader....joking.

I'll say this much though; I love being The Daddy...Here's just a few reasons why:

- I was about to do the (mountain of) washing up, when Flo sidled up to me lifted her arms and asked, "Daddy cuddle?"...that took a good half an hour. Washing up still not done.
- Bupples!....in the Bart!
- Watching her demolish the food I lovingly created (and not caring about spillage)
- Watching her demolish the lovingly crafted tower of wooden blocks I made her
- Dancing with her....and her dancing on me
- Tickles
- Snuggling on the sofa in 'jamas' with a book
- The way she runs for her milk when I say "It's time for bed"

In other news...I have nothing to report except that the hair has been very well received...look at these instead, I'm off to snooze on the sofa til it's safe to re-use the bathwater (topped up with piping hotness natch) and wind up smelling of lavender.


Her dinner...there's nori flakes and lemon on the rice to counteract my guilt at the breadcrumbed fish.


Halfway through...I'd eaten mine at this point and was tidying up and forgot to do the 'after' pic.


So here's a shot from the other day. She's definitely a girl, what with her love for 'shOOsh', 'booTS', 'begs' and 'haTs'...

In true 'overly proud parent' style here is a (bad) video of the lady herself in conversation...shame she refused to say Bupples more than once as she'd been saying little else all night.

Eggs Perry Mental

Right. I'm knackered, a bit fed-up of feeling guilty (for no reason) for not posting quite as often or in quite the same rantageous (yes it is a word...if I say so) way as I have in the past. I blame Missman (joke). Actually, because I told Missman of the site I suddenly thought I'd better re-read some of my older posts to see if I came across as some kind of mentalist. What I mean is, a different type of mental from my mental....ya get me?

Also, Ricola better phone me soon or they're in trouble!

By the way, I don't want an iPhone (which you may have inferred from the last post), but that interface does look awesome. If I'm a fanboy at all, I'm a Mac OS X fanboy and possibly not even that as I'd rather it was all free...I'm still running a Debian machine as a server and using the Daptop regularly now I sorted out some of the wireless issues. Somehow though, my Mac Mini has become my machine of choice rather than just the media machine I'd intended.

I'll also admit to heaving several huge sighs of relief at work today; just before I went on Yuletime holiday I realised I might have 'over sold' something to Belgium and that I'd possibly fucked Belgium (ugh!) and thus probably a very, very expensive project right up. I couldn't do anything about it other than worry (not that I do that much) about it a bit over the last few weeks. Anyway, long story short we finally caught up on the matter today and it turns out I'd just twisted it round in my head (and so had one of the Belgo's which was why I was worrying) because their techie guy is definitely on the ball and had also noticed my cunning 'call per service' (too long a story) plan...it just wasn't flow-charted correctly. Also, Maggie is back which is really good and I'll be working with her now.

The paragraph above has been written suspecting that Teh Bo55 still has this thing RSS'd or bookmarked. But it's true...and cannot be submitted as evidence for my next Performance Review ;-)

Flo has some seriously sore nappy-area issues, but is happy enough despite being a bit pasty and under-the-weather-looking. She ate loads of Fishcake, Rice, Brocolli and Sweetcorn and was sooo tired she wanted her bed at 6:30 right after her bath (lots of shouting and splashing...and bubbles)...let's hope she sleeps through as I've another killer 2 days at work coming up followed by (hopefully) some debauchery and then a full Saturday...Flo's staying a bit later than usual on Sunday.

O.O

Seems I can rant when I have it in me...except now I'm definitely going to bed before 9!

You thought I'd forgotten....haha!

Sweet Corn

I debated over "Corny Cob", "Corny but Sweet", "You'll take my cob from my cold, dead hand!"...then plumped for the above. Whatever.

So. Work is kinda interesting at the moment; lots of people huffin' & puffin' about the 'no payrise' thing, how crap the 'present' was this year (bottle of Bucks Fizz, 4 baloons, some toys, some retro sweets, Santa hat (or antlers), and a SIM reader (probably those unsold in the shops)...or a pen!). Admittedly shite, but why expect anything?! More amusingly, Teh Numpty Tw@s have installed all my new servers (needed ASAP) in the wrong environment. Nobody can quite believe this...but at the same time everyone says it's typical.

Performance review...OK...finding out how much I could earn if I sold my soul to the devil (not that I believe in either of those concepts, hence the lower case...and implied irony)...sucked.

Nightmare journey home! The 1st 200 yards took 1 hour, which is usually the whole journey...then I had to walk about a mile because the traffic was so slow it was quicker! Luckily there is a pretty much vertical shortcut towards the end of the march...I'll take a picture next time because you basically have half of Bristol spread before you and it looks top!

Rant over....here's the whole reason I started this sorry excuse for a post...


Man, does she love corn on the cob!

Title TBD

Long day today...and apparently Lil had a long day too, which explains her grumpy mood this evening. The first 30 mins of Dad novelty wore off and she was a right little madam. Still, at least while she screams because you wont let her hold her toothbrush you can actually get to her teeth! I did explain that to her while I was brushing them....and I let her have the brush when I was done.

Wait. Did I just call her "a little madam"...someone please shoot me now.

My day was spent in a long internal "project synchronisation" meeting. Which went fine....except...somehow most of the upcoming actions are technical...and well, I am Teh Techie One so I ended up with loads of stuff to do. All the more 'migrating stuff' actions require technical support, so I ended up with a load of those as well...and so many acronyms and so many more forms to fill......bah!

I love my job though! :)

So I'm going to be very, very busy until at least January, but that should help me combat SAD during the dark winter months; it's already dark when I leave the house in the morning.....bah!

Bet you thought I'd forgotten to take some photos, eh? Well...the new camera has been delayed by a week (some kind of stock problems....barstewards).

I'll also try and get a video of Lil doing her 'tour' of the guitars at some point....She walks to each guitar (1 x open tuned acoustic, 1 standard tuned acoustic and a bass (I showed her how to pop the strings!) in case you were wondering) and strums a bit and sings a bit, then wanders on to the next one....


Give me the f'ing phone Dad!


Oh, OK I'll take the fruit leather thing and be all cute!

I'll be experimenting with some Google Gadgets and some other stuff on the site over the next few weeks. I can't be bothered to test this site on anything other than Camino on the Mac and Firefox on Linux, Mac and Windows (gah!), so you could report any layout issues to me...but I wouldn't bother because you're in the wrong for not using any one of the aforementioned combinations.

Like Teh Blog Title Say...

...I was one Angry Ginger today!

I felt a rant building based on the current sitch at work but it was obliterated by Teh Wunderfarl Chile. Instead I will say just 5 words:

Never. Work. With. The. French!

Not even one of them.

So. To business (aha hahah ha haaaaaa). You've all been neglected.....She walks!



When I picked her up from R's today she walked down the hall shouting "DaDa Dada"...it was at that instant that my anger lobes drained of all energy and my heart swole (yes, swole!) with joy...Having a kid rules!

I forgot to mention a classic moment from the Sunday Lunch trip a few days ago: Thomas (age 5) and Alex (same) are busily watching a Power Rangers derivative on TV when me & Flo turned up. I sorted out the changing mat etc while the boys explained (I think) what it was about and I explained who Flo was (Thom kept saying "What's his name?"...). So the boys are sort of half watching the TV, half watching me get Flo's nappy off when Thomas said, "I liked wearing nappies". Alex looks round..."Yeah me too, you dont miss any telly when you go to the toilet!".

Television!

Teacher...mother...secret lover...Homer is always right!