With age comes stupidity.

See, I had a lot of beer last night. Not by choice, you understand. I am normally a man of moderation. But Merkin & Monkey were in. (and the Chin, but he displayed evidence of willpower & left early). And I was lead astray.
So this morning I was not bright and breezy. I needed a shower. And in my slightly less than 100% state I forgot that Mr Austin, builder to the aristocracy, had stained the floor of the spare room & shower room on Sunday. And it was not yet dry. So the soles of my feet are now brown. On the plus side however, it means they are now protected against woodworm.

going, going...

I have been sweating on a few drunken bids on eBay. Fortunately, with minutes to go I was comfortably out bid on most of it. Thing was, I was damn nearly tempted to rebid on some of it. I didn't want it. Couldn't afford it. But...oooh.
So what's that about? I'm 40 years old and I have never had a competitive urge in my life. But someone out bids me for a lego Darth Vader minifigure & I come over all Daley Thompson.
Note to self: never play eBay chicken.

Get off my land

So, I'm in my kitchen first thing this morning looking for clean socks and I see this fat grey cat crossing my garded headed straight for the bird feeder. Have I mentioned that I don't like cats? So I pull on my hiking boots and run out into the garden, grab a clod of earth and let fly. The first shot misses, but starts the cat running. The second takes it clean off the wall. OMR hits a moving cat. Wahoo. So Im doing a celibration dance when I realise that there is someone in one of the houses that backs on to mine staring out of their window at me. And I am dancing in my garden, naked but for a pair of hiking boots.

Not all frogs are good frogs.

Whilst many amphibians are in serious trouble the cane toad thrives in Australia. Unfortunately, its not an indigenous creature & its having a devastating effect on local fauna.
So Australia are attempting to reduce there numbers with an annual toad slaughtering day. Officially called 'Not In My Backyard Day', this government sponsored event encourages people to kill all the toads on their property.
One MP has suggested that sports loving Australians club the critters to death with a golf club or cricket bat. The more humane RSPCA recommend ... wait for it ... smearing the toads with hemorrhoid cream to induce a coma & then putting it in the deep freeze to finish it off.
Well good luck with the cull. But I'm guessing there won't be a huge surge in the sales of pile ointment. Just a whole load of toad splatting.

Hey, I'm normal !!!

I was at the doctors this morning having a 'we respect your paranoia, but its all ok' talk regarding my assorted moles, freckles and skin blemishes. And the Doc realises I have not had my blood pressure measured for 8 years. So in I'm plugged.
'perfectly normal', she says. And then spoils it by adding 'for a man of your age and build'.

But it was a success

Six students involved in a drug trial are seriously ill in hospital after experiencing an adverse reaction. And there is uproar.
Why? There is no sign that the drug company didn't follow proper procedures. The drug was tested on animals successfully (I won't go down that road today). So they did a human trial.
Now, I am in testing, all be it computers rather than drugs, and the purpose of testing is to find the problems. A test that finds a problem is a successful test. So by any standard the test of TGN1412 was an overwhelming success.

Ok, I feel sorry for the people involved and hope they make a full recovery. But they took part in the test for financial gain and presumably new the risks. Indeed, given that they were students & presumably reasonably intelligent (unless they are doing media studies of course) I would have thought the risk of having untested drugs injected into you was pretty self apparent.

So a bit of sympathy for the drug company who invested a lot of time and money into a drug that was meant to help leukemia sufferers but which unfortunately turns people into the elephant man and a big up to Vincent Moissac-Vignoux

Old mutha Hubbard

Last night I had an evening of rock moving, fine ale and Chinese food planned. But season 4 of the West Wing has just dropped through my door and I was seduced into an evening on the sofa. After the first six episodes hunger struck & I ventured into festering pit that I laughingly call a kitchen. But when I got there the cupboard was bare. ish. You can make a surprisingly good meal from sultanas and gravy granules.

Some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help

This morning I got a letter to my home address from my bosses boss. It congratulated me on not taking a single days sick leave in 2005. I don't have the heart to tell her that this may be more to do with my inability to use the time booking system correctly than my robust health & incredible work ethic.
From there on the day has gone down hill rapidly. Only Calvin and Hobbes have prevented terminal boredom. But I'm sneaking off early to play in my swamp. Hooray.

Brass monkey weather

I have been walking to work each morning as per the new years resolution. Rain, Sleet and snow have not deterred me. And to be fair the weather has been pretty good & I have usually enjoyed the walk in. (but not the walk home which is up hill). But today it was too cold. Today, had I been able to find my car park pass I would have said nuts to the environment and driven in. But after a brief & futile search for it, with much swearing, I had to battle the arctic wind. At one point I thought my eyeballs had frozen. I spent the first ten minutes in work with a cup of tea strategically clutched between my thighs trying to get some feeling back into my dangly bits. Roll on spring.

It would be funny if it wasn't so scary...

Lets face it, If he can't understand that polluting the planet until we face a global catastophe is a bad idea, he aint going to understand cricket.


Its a bit like shooting fish in a barrel but captions please...

Carpenter I am not

Probably the strongest evidence that I am not the messiah is my lack of woodwork skills. My attempt at producing a bug box was not good. Lets hope the bugs are not fussy. However, I can dig big holes. Always a skill in high demand. And with a bit of landscaping I should have a decent pond and potential frog palace ready for the spring.