The king of all PS2 games.

Amplitude. I am addicted to this game. I neeeed to own a PS2 for the near
future so I cam complete it. It is way too addictive for words and even
though it contains "music" tracks from the Dance and Drum and Bass genres, I
still love it.



This game overrides your body. You get to a point where you no longer
consciously think about which button to press next, your brain just moves
your fingers for you. I felt like a silent observer as my brain did all the
hard work for me and I was left watching the score rack up.



Anyone can play this game, albeit not well. But that is the true test of a
game, it is easy to play, difficult to master. But hey, I want to try
anyway.



If you own a PS2 and you want a game for your next party. This is it.



The cleats finally arrived for my bike today. I have fitted them to my
trainers so tomorrow is testing day. I predict many falls, many scrapes and
a few bruises. I'm going to cycle around the park until I feel I have got
all the falls out of my system. Next week I'm off into the peaks with my
mountain biking buddy. Now I've got suspension I'm going to kick his ass on
the descent. Falling off is not an option.



As far as dints in the social calendar go, taking a dive would be a big one.

Putting the "Crap", into "Crap Customer Service."

My dear Chris, if I had a sister, I would be introducing her to
you right about now.
While you celebrate your 'anniversary' of sorts, I have been screwed twice
this week already. However, where you are looking for an involved
relationship and maybe a little bit of pillow talk, I have simply had the
customer service departments of large established corporations taking turns
on my ass.

Then they didn't even call. Sniff sniff.

Example of ass banditry one: My
mobile phone isn't working properly so I called up my insurance to sort it
out.

Hi, my mobile isn't working so I want a new one. I'm on your gold insurance.

OK, have you got your phone wet, knocked it into anything or dropped it
recently.

No, it's just knackered.

I'm afraid unless you caused the damage there's nothing I can do for you.

But it's just bust, I pay insurance, cant you just give me a new one.

Sorry.

OK then. I dropped it. Can I have a new phone please.

Sorry sir I cant do that.

But the only way I can get a new one is to lie, at least I'm being. . . . . . CLICK

The phone goes dead. The bandits hung up on me. There is a sore feeling in
my loins.


Example of ass banditry two. The bike saga.

So my bike will defiantly come with cleats? (metal plates that let me attach my trainers to the pedals.)

Yes.

It will DEFINITELY come with them.

Yes, definitely.

Because I've got my trainers already and want to take it out as soon as I get it.

The bike will come with cleats.

Bike arrives, No cleats.

Hi, you assured me the bike you sent me would come with cleats and it didn't, can you send them me?

Yeah sure, I'll put them in with your gloves that have just arrived from the
suppliers. (that they assured me they had in when I ordered the bike.)

So they will go in the post today?

Yes.

And that will be next day delivery.

Yes.

So I'll get my gloves and cleats on Monday?

Yes, I'll put them in dispatch right now.


NEWS FLASH. They didn't fucking arrive.

I am SUCH a sucker some times. I should have realised that because I got
such a good deal, they would have to screw me over somewhere down the line.
They even had the audacity to call me up and moan at me because my card was
refused when they tried charging me £100 too much. (yes, I did spend
approximately 95% of my worldly money on this bike, only to be whole
heartedly rogered in the process)

So now tomorrow I have to call my phone company and lie to them, then I have
to call the bike shop and be lied to.

This world it would seem, likes to keep a balance.

A Quantum Leap moment. . . . Oh Boy!

The seasons, much like athletes foot, come and go. There was once a time
when this blog was somewhere to start your day with interesting links to
parts of the web you would otherwise be unaware of. So in the same vein as
Dianas death, I thought I would drag it out of the back catalogue and
subject you to it all over again.



I can't think of a clever way to introduce this next link. I just deleted
what I had because it was neither clever, nor funny, nor interesting. Much
like Hollyoaks infact. So click here and see a master at work.



Black Metal. Gathering together all that is dark and mysterious about heavy
metal music, and then being the complete opposite. How people can still buy into the "I listen to black metal so therefore I am tortured and evil" is beyond me. Tortured and evil people listen to the static from a telly, the silence of a tomb, or the Cheeky Girls.



Some kids TV is just too damn cool to be for kids. Much like Shrek and Toy
Story, the best bits of kids TV are when it is blatantly aimed at adults.
Adults with a kids sense of humour. SMTV has nailed this at the moment with
the sketch they call "Butthaven". Get up early next Saturday and watch it.
How they get away with this week after week I will never know, but as long
as they do, I'll try and keep watching. However, when they just go waaaaay
off the scale, it just gets painfully painfully funny. The kids don't have a
clue, and I'm left laughing my ass off. If I had seen this episode of Dick
and Dom I would have probably peed myself. Keep up the good work lads.

En Knee excuse! . . . . oh har har.

I went to see my doctor today about my knee. I wanted to know if getting
properly active again would be a stupid idea or not considering I have no
cartilage in my knee. In a nutshell he said go for it. I'm going to get
arthritis any way, and yes, doing active things will make it happen faster,
but I may as well enjoy getting to the stage where my knee hurts. He was
soooo cool. I've seen him since I was a tiny little kid and he rocks. It was
so nice to hear my doctor tell me to go out and enjoy myself. So that's
exactly what I'm going to do. Yes, I'll get a duff knee sooner than usual,
but like he said, it's going to happen at some point anyway so I may as well
look back and say "It was a right laugh getting here!"



Snowboarding lessons was that. Why ok then.



So this is sweet. I got into mountain biking as a kind of 'safe option' and
now I can go and join my mates when they do fun stuff that I would have
usually sat out of.



Arthritis, here I come!!!!

Today I became a father.

The weight in my stomach has finally gone. The mood swings, the emotional
instability, the reduced physical activity. They have all ended. Today I
witnessed a delivery, which will change my life.



It was about half three when the anguish ended. I had been strolling the
corridor all morning; waiting, nervous, knowing that it couldn't be much
longer. I kept on gazing out the window and imaging how the new arrival
would affect my life. How much of my time would be taken up by it, how much
of my money? Then I heard it, gentle at first but soon growing louder. A
sound that is golden to the ears. A sound that brought me straight back to
my senses, this was it, I dried my hands on my jeans.



Five study knocks on the door. I answered, slightly nervously, not quite
knowing what to expect. There was a man standing there, he looked me
straight in the eye and said, "Got a package for you.", I felt my knees grow
weak.



And then there it was, wrapped up so carefully in cardboard and tape. I
hulked it into the lounge, carefully removing the cargo. I took each piece
out and laid them on the floor, the large pieces I propped up against
chairs. I was amazed at how some looked, the shape, the colour. Soon the box
was empty, it was time to get to work.



Tools in hand I began, tentatively at first for I had not done this before,
but soon with the vigour of a man whose dreams are in sight. Time passed,
how much I do not know, mistakes were made which had to be carefully undone,
progress was steady.



Then I had finished. My new bike was complete. All the waiting, haggling,
numerous telephone calls and problems were over. It was here. It is mine.



So now I'm just waiting for the first chance I get to take it out in the
country. I've had a spin around the local park to test the gears and brakes
but I need a real ride. A big one, with technical trails and long downhills.



Oh man, my new bike rocks.

They're back.

Students once again descend on my city. This means the pubs will once again
come alive to the sound of "chug chug chug", the kebab shops shall be rife
with the cry of "chilli sauce and salad" and every corner in all the inner
city will be swelling with the gutteral growl of after drinks vomiting. I
love it when the students come back. It moves the chavs on, they no longer
congregate in my favourite watering holes trying to out flip more beer
coasters than each other. They no longer walk into my pubs to only play on
the lone slot machine. They no longer have the power of majority.



Oh man, I miss being a student sooooo bad.

A problem I say.

It would seem that there are still people in the world using the inferior
web browser Internet Explorer. It would also seem that the home page of this
site doesn't work properly with this browser. I'm trying to fix the problem
but you could all help me. Instead of using a crappy crappy crappy browser
like Internet Explorer, why not go and download Firefox
and find out how the internet should be used. I only use Firefox
and so never noticed that the site didn't look right. I tried to work out
why but can't due to my complete lack of Web Design knowledge. So for the
sake of me not having to take a night out of my schedule to sort this out,
just download Firefox see this site properly and get a whole lot more
from the internet than you would normally.

Gotta love Yorkshire.

Stood on top of one of the famous peaks today. Bike in hand. Rain closing in
behind, woefully underdressed for the weather, bleedin' knackered. With only
the downward sprint home, we quickly refreshed and set off.



Mental note to self. A helmet may stop me from killing myself, but landing
on a stony path at crazy per hour will make a real mess of the social
calendar.



All the more reason not to fall off then.

Tom

Welcome back home dude. Thank God - literally - that you're OK.



People, next time you're out in town and someone is collecting for charity.
Give them some money. You can afford it. If you think it's too much like
hard work to give money to good causes then think about the people that are
out there during today's messed up world putting their lives on the line to
try and help others.

They get little money and little recognition. Aid workers put themselves in
dangerous situations, not for any macho or materialistic reason, but for the
simple, almost forgotten trait, of selflessness.

They work in the most politically dangerous places on earth because if they
didn't, nobody would.



It's easy to not care about the third world because we're not in it. It isn't
easy to relate to famine when we are trying to fight obesity. It's hard to
image political persecution and a government that kills, starves and
withholds medical supplies from it's own people when western politics can
grind to a halt over the life and death question of a ministers sexuality.



But we have heard this before. The arguments have been laid out so many
times and through so many mediums that it becomes blasé. There is nothing
new to bring to the table, no new argument that will sway our judgement.



The human character is not stupid. We have the ability to weigh facts and
make decisions. The tragedy of all this is that the human character has
weighed the third world, and decided it doesn't care.



Thank God for those few that do.

The trouble with trains.

While on the train to Birmingham this weekend I had the sorry fortune to be
confronted with stupidity usually reserved for the most bizzare of Monty
Python sketches or a double bill of Trisha.

I was on one of the new Virgin trains, there were examples of the failed
eduacation system all around me. Between music tracks I could hear two of
the welfare snatching, child producing drains of society talking loudly
between themselves, and the whole carrige, as if to display just how far we
havn't come.



The woman (who shall now be refered to as 'she') was saying to the man (
'he' ) that the new doors were just soooo stupid.

"I mean, you have to press a button to open one door, and then another
button to get through the next door. It's like every door you get to you
have to press another button."



Too true my dear, too true. However, please if you will, cast your mind back
a few moments to the doors you had to overcome to get to the train station.
I think, and I'm going out on a limb here, but I THINK, that you might have
had to open all of those individually as well.

Yes, I would even go so far as to say that the buttons on these trains are
actually replacing what is commenly called a 'handle'. This is a mechanical
object which one physically engages with to push, or pull, the offending
door out of your way.



But then he says, "I know what you mean, it's not like they're building
space ships or anything!!"



Hold On.



1. Space Ships. Lets just take a moment here to check when we were born. I
think we stop calling them Space Ships when we reach our early teens and
realise that Captain Bucky O'Hare isn't actually the toad kicking hero we
always thought he was and that space travel is so boring in real life
compared to cartoons that we may as well just not bother.



2. I would like to see Mr "Why do I have so many children", build a stable
family environment, much less a train.



3. In what life, in which city, during how many alcohol related fantasys did
this couple actually believe that they had ever been in a situation during
which all the doors they wanted to get through opened automatically. Unless
these people live in a shopping centre, or simply don't have doors, then
thier whole conversation eludes me.



I can't belive that somehow when I get on a train I am considered a nusaince
because I want to listen to music, which nobody else can hear, and yet we
continue to allow thourghbred stump jockeys like these to air thier badly
conceived conversations for the whole carraige to hear. If I had my way (
and my weather changing device is near completion so not long now ) there
would be areas on trains where you were not allowed to talk. You could read,
or listen to music, but benign conversation would be punishable with
enforced depature at Coventry.





To end I would just like to say that it would have been less expensive for
me to drive to Birmingham and pay parking than it was to buy the train
ticket.

Go Go Gadget Government.

Don't stare directly into the site!!!!

Yeah baby, that's right, it's back.

Well sooner or later I had to return. Here it is. It's not perfect, there
are things about it I would love to change but don't have the skill or time
to, it annoys some people, some love it, some see it as a source of
amusement, some of information, it may well change in the future, maybe only
subtly to iron out the rough edges, maybe an overhaul, maybe over time it
will grow on you and the rough edges wont even stand out any more, maybe no
matter how many times you are subjected to it, you will never grow to like
it.

As somewhere on the internet to exist , I can think of no better
representation of myself.

Updates, both for the blog and the articles, will be regular for the next
week as I have loads to say from my time away, and quite a few long bits
that I have already written and just need to sort out.

My faithful few.

Welcome back.

We can but hope.

I was reading this article with wonder and a touch of hope. When search engines get this good it will make my online time so much more enjoyable. No longer will I spend hours over the important things in life such as "Why does my bike keep breaking?" and "When is Dave's birthday?".

This means I can spend more time thinking up completly implausible yet ingeniously tempting money making oppurtunities.