Random acts of Madness

Last night I went to a boat cruise in aid of cancer research and epilepsy. It was black tie so I wore my kilt. I have no idea if that's what led to the randomness of the evening, but I like to think so.

First off, because I didn't particularly fancy walking through town in a kilt, I booked my second ever taxi in Southampton. It made it around the corner before it broke down. Pushing a taxi to one side whilst wearing full black tie wasn't quite what I'd had in mind for the evening. To make matters worse the driver gave rubbish directions to where we were so it took the replacement taxi a good fifteen minutes to find us.

But I got over it and continued onwards to the boat. Where I discovered there was a raffle (charity remember) which included in it's prizes a two litre keg of Grants Whisky. Since I was the only person there in Scottish dress I decided I was going to win it and since by this time I'd had a few drinks I announced that I was going to win it.

Six pounds worth of tickets later the first ticket was drawn. It was the first ticket I'd bought. The power of positive thinking I guess.

After the party ended I stashed the whisky in a friends car so I could go on to the pub. Unfortunately one pizza later they decided they were tired and were going to go home, so I went back to get the whisky and hence was on my own when I tried to get into the pub. Apparently they don't like someone who's admittedly slightly drunk going in with a two litre keg of whisky. Which is probably a good thing all things considered, I think I'd had enough to drink.

This did however leave me with no ride back through town and no-one to share the ridiculously priced taxi with. So despite planning to not have to walk through Southampton, I did. It wasn't actually that bad. Although in a further bizarre twist of fate I quickly discovered a rather attractive blonde lady walking with me. I'm not sure if she was trying to escape someone or if she was just bored like she said, but I decided I was going to walk her to the club she was going to. I also bought her a chocolate bar, because, well why the hell not? Unfortunately the club was a bit of a dive and not really feeling the need to be turned down entry I made excuses and legged it.

I then discovered that the reason the walk hadn't been that bad was because of said cute blonde girl. Every idiot and their dog wanted to know how I wore my kilt. Fortunately by this stage I wasn't too far from the flat so I managed to sneak through back roads with only a few oh so witty rejoinders. What do people expect you to say when they ask?

But the randomness didn't end when I got home. Oh no, I arrived to be informed that someone had broken into the flat. Steinar had heard the door open just after eleven and he came out a few minutes later to find a complete stranger in the kitchen. The stranger then ran out the front door. Steinar thinks the stranger had something under his arm but it was dark and he can't really say for sure. Nothing appears to have been taken anyway so no idea what was going on there really.

So at this point I did the only sensible thing and started drinking the whisky. It was the only thing that made any sense.

Day tripping

The annoying thing about my current project is that every so often I get sent up to a little place just outside London. Actually it's not really that annoying since it gets me out of the office for the day, but it's a two hour trip there on the train which seems a little bit like eternity. I really do wonder sometimes how I've managed to commute so far for so long.

Anyway, usually when I get sent up I have some great big project to do. Something that I can really get my teeth into and enjoy for four hours or so. Last Tuesday however I spent the morning heading up with a rather large box with the express purpose of hot-swapping a part over. This basically means that I unclip a part from the back of a machine and then replace it with a new part without turning the machine off. And it probably took longer to explain that than it does to actually do it.

So it was rather annoying to get there and discover that I'd taken the wrong part up.

I'm going back again tomorrow. I've managed to scrounge up a few other jobs so I might actually have to spend a good hour there now, but basically I've got a four hour round trip to do one really important and ridiculously quick job, and two rather mundane and boring jobs.

Bugger.

300

The plot of this movie is hloosely based on the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. It tells how 300 Spartans came to hold the pass of Thermopylae against might of the Persian army, which numbered over a million soldiers. Oh, apparently some Arcadians helped out the Spartans as well, but whatever.

That's the basic plot of 300. Or as I like to call it the first five minutes. Once that's out the way you can sit back and enjoy an hour and a half of comedy violence and partial nudity. There's some crappy subplot about the Spartan Queen gathering support, but really this film is all about the action. And by that I mean violence. I mean really, I think the length of the film is based solely upon the amount of blood they can afford.

It is based upon a Frank Miller comic, and so it does suffer a little from the Sin City effect (i.e. the visual style is pretty to start off with but quickly becomes boring). But did I mention the comedy violence yet? Oh, and if you think this is mainly a blokes film, bear in mind that the vast majority of the nudity is provided by the 300 six-packs that are being thrown around the screen...

Very Important

I just got yet another obviously hoax chain email. I've replied before and I've tried before and quite frankly I've had enough. So I'm going to do the only thing left to me. Pay attention.

No email will give you something for nothing. It's a con. Delete it and don't send it on.

Any real email will have a date in it. If it doesn't that's because it is ridiculously old. Delete it and don't send it on.

No company would be involved with an email and not include a link to a website. Delete it and don't send it on.

You will be warned about bad things via the news. Not email. Delete it and don't send it on.

If you do forward an email on, please delete all the old email addresses on it first. Otherwise it's just a long list of email addresses for spammers. Alternatively: Delete it and don't send it on.

If you've carefully read what I have just written then know that this email was created on 04/04/07. It is a chain, but it serves no purpose other than making my life easier. Your's too, which is a bonus. Could you please send it on to two other people? Thank you.

If you haven't read a single thing I've said then this email will cause you to DIE in the next 24 hours unless you forward it on to at least 5 people. THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU!