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| Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 | | 8:20 pm |
Oh, so it’s THAT kind of site?!
With a little computer magic one can see a load of statistics about who visits your site, reads what pages, where they came from and so on. This even goes as far as reporting what search terms in Google led someone to fin your site.
So how the hell did someone end up reading my blog having entered “gold metallic leotard e.u.” into the search box?!?
On second thoughts, I probably don’t want to know…
Originally published at The Chatterbox Express. You can comment here or there. | | Friday, July 3rd, 2009 | | 2:42 pm |
Revenge of the Rotten
So last night I thought “It’s far too hot to sleep. And I haven’t seen Transformers 2 yet so lets go check out the local late showing”.
Yeah, well, that was a mistake, wasn’t it. The original Michael Bay Transformers movie was great and one of my favourite movies EVAH. But Revenge of the Fallen was a horrible, shambolic mess with all the heart and soul of a toaster. A rather confused toaster at that. Two and a half hours of my life I won’t get back. And the popcorn was stale.
Still, at least I still have Hellboy II to watch on Blu Ray which, as the Times review said, has the “technical brilliance of a Renaissance masterpiece and a brain the size of a pea.”
Now that sounds like fun!
Originally published at The Chatterbox Express. You can comment here or there. | | Sunday, June 14th, 2009 | | 12:26 am |
Portable? Ancient? Then you should be in a database!
I should have taken the metal detector out on the fields a lot more this year but finding the time is difficult what with me being glued to my computer doing completely banal and pointless activities for the majority of the time. When I do get a chance to head out and find something of interest then I report it through to the local Finds Liaison Officer (FLO) so they can sit in front of their computers and do banal things on my behalf. The Portable Antiquities Scheme has been running for a few years now, allowing members of the public to record items of interest that they may have dug up/tripped over so that they may be recorded for future analysis. There are a number of FLOs dotted around the country who work for the local councils and act as the conduits into the database for identifying and entering new items. At least that’s the theory.
Unfortunately, the database was written by some mad, pissed, Polish programmers and is absolutely hellish to use. The FLOs I have spoken with all hate the damn thing, mainly because it couldn’t be less user friendly if you covered it in used surgical needles and strapped it to a Doberman. Luckily, this is one of those examples of Somebody Else’s Problem that I don’t need to concern myself with, although it does mean that the few items of interest I have found in the last year have taken their own sweet time to get entered onto the site.
I’ve previously mentioned finding the Edward II Silver Penny and the John Cut Silver Penny, and now they’re in the database. Now I have a few more items to add to the collection.
A couple of months ago I joined up with a local metal detecting club near home and headed out on some fields in Cambridgeshire (which isn’t near home at all. I think I joined the wrong club). Over the course of a sunny Sunday I found three nice little items. The first one was an Nuremburg jeton, which I found simply lying on the top of the soil as if it had fallen out of someone’s pocket erlier that day. A jeton is a counter which used to be used for gaming, accounting purposes and the likes, and this one was probably made around 400 years ago. the image on the finds database is truncated, unfortunately, but I can post up a better piccy of the obverse if anyone is curious.
My next find was small, but is the sort of coin which most detectorists gauge their success rates by, being a hammered silver coin. This one, a silver Half Penny of Henry VI, demonstrably proved the power of my detector simply by being found. It’s actually quite a small piece of metal, only the size of a thumbnail, and was buried a good six inches below the surface. But when the coil went over it the piercing shriek nearly blew my ears off. Worth it, though.
But the third and final notable that day is by far my favourite find yet. A bronze unit from the Celtic Cunobelin tribe, manufactured sometime between 10 and 40 AD! It’s pretty corroded and I had no idea what it was when I dug it up. If you look very closely, though, you can see a head facing left on the left hand picture and the front of a centaur facing right on the left hand one. To be honest, the lighting makes it difficult to see in the pics but it’s so corroded you don’t see much more when you have it in the palm of your hand. A better example of this coin can be seen here.
So I’m getting there. Sure nothing absolutely mind blowing yet but put the time in and the rewards do come. One of these days I will post up a wish list. In the meantime, wish me luck finding that hoard of Saxon gold coins. I know they are out there somewhere.
Originally published at The Chatterbox Express. You can comment here or there. | | Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 | | 3:05 am |
| | Saturday, March 28th, 2009 | | 2:06 am |
Batteredstar Galacticarse
Why is it that, out of everyone I know, on all the journals I read, across all the social networking things I sometimes look at, absolutely nobody has made any comments regarding the final two episodes of BSG?
Is it that everyone is still in shock? Or have you not quite reached the final gees and aitches from the “HNNNGHGHGHGHGHGHG!!!” you uttered as the end credits rolled?
Originally published at The Chatterbox Express. You can comment here or there. | | Monday, March 2nd, 2009 | | 5:41 pm |
My First Gold Object?
Metal detectorists dream about finding gold of any sort. Celtic Staters, Edwardian nobels, Victorian Sovereigns. Doesn’t really matter what the denomination is, it’s that shiny yellow stuff that makes it worth finding.
So I think that this should count, even though I knew it was there to be found 
Originally published at The Chatterbox Express. You can comment here or there. | | Sunday, January 18th, 2009 | | 2:48 am |
I’ve got mange but I’m not a manger…
Most reviews for Bill Bailey’s Tinselworm show start out with some pithy observation that the majority of comedians wish they were rock stars. Even if we completely ignore the fact that Johnny Vegas in a spandex leotard would not sell many albums (except to a certain sub-set of the male population to whom this blog is most certainly not addressed) it does have to be said that Bill Bailey is a damned talented chap when it comes to messing about with musical instruments. We’ve just returned from seeing the show at the Gielgud Theatre and spent a good two hours laughing our respectives off. It was all a bit lucky, really, as the show was supposed to end in December but was extended for a month for reasons I don’t really give a monkey’s about. I just happened to call at exactly the right time and scored some fantastic seats a few yards from the stage. The result was a delight. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason sung to the “Match of the Day” theme. An analysis of The Killer’s more inane lyrics (see the title of this post). A highly convincing argument for why Simon Cowell should be renamed Agent Orange. And a twenty minute mega-encore which must have been created quite recently where Kevin Eldon joined the stage and helped sing Halleluljah in the style of Kraftwerk, with a spot of “Last Christmas” thrown in for good measure.
The theatre itself is pretty damned uncomfortable, with strange knobbly bits on the backs of the seats positioned at perfect locations so as to hold your knees hostage if you so much as twitch. But even with this the show was a delight. It’s almost finished its run now but you can buy the DVD from Bill’s web site. Definitely worth a look.
Originally published at The Chatterbox Express. You can comment here or there. | | Thursday, October 16th, 2008 | | 11:11 pm |
Movie Quiz Revisited
8 months ago I posted up the movie quiz thing Esran found. Well, i don;t think you guys tried hard enough with finding the answers so here it is again! Only the easy ones have gone already so good luck on that. I'll be a bit more helpful in giving clues this time, though. Meme rules: 1. Pick 15 of your favourite movies. 2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie. 3. Post them here for everyone to guess. 4. Fill in the film title once it's guessed. 5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions. Totally cheating, you dirty cheaters. ( The Quiz! ) | | Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 | | 6:54 pm |
The Palin roadcrash
After reading today’s Times’ article on the Palin/Couric interview and the subsequent skewering if received on SNL I thought I would track it down.
Oh my god. It’s horrible. Possibly worse than the famous Bush/Coleman interview. Worth watching if you fancy a wince and a giggle.
You Tube cuts of the CBS interview are here and here.
SNL’s cold open is here. Even if you can’t make yourself watch the whole CBS interview do watch this. And for afters there’s SNL’s Palin/Clinton address as well.
Tonight’s Biden/Palin debate is going to be popcorn television if ever I’ve seen it 
Originally published at The Chatterbox Express. You can comment here or there. | | Sunday, September 21st, 2008 | | 6:28 pm |
Finding Heavy Metal
Well, silver is quite heavy, right?
I’ve been having fun with a new metal detector on a local field during the week. So far the machine has proved a tad unstable, going mental if there is even a whif of soemthing metallic within range of the coil. It should be able to detect and mask out anything which looks as if it has too much iron in it (so no digging for nails and rusty horse shoes) but it’s not discriminating that well so far. But finding things it is!
So far the best find has been a 1272 silver penny from the reign of King Edward I. Mint marks on the reverse show it was hammered in Bury St Edmunds, so not a million miles away from where it was found.
And now to find some Roman stuff…
 
Originally published at The Chatterbox Express. You can comment here or there. | | Friday, August 29th, 2008 | | 4:26 pm |
| | Saturday, July 19th, 2008 | | 1:55 am |
| | 1:51 am |
So who wants an Audiosurf battle?
So who else has Audiosurf then? Lets play a few songs at each other. iof we get a few people together we can select some common songs and beat the hell out of each other with them.
My ID is Sabahl. Post up yours and lets get hammering
Originally published at The Chatterbox Express. You can comment here or there. | | Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 | | 5:18 pm |
| | Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 | | 1:21 pm |
So much for being an international, poker-playing superhero…
Another year, another failed attempt at qualifying for the WSOP main event. As usual, Pokerstars was my weapon of choice because I am buggered if I am going to make life easy for myself. I reckon that if I can qualify through the hardest poker room on the net then I deserve to play in the $10k event itself. It started out well enough with a few wins onsome of the turbo satelites rapidly expanding my bankroll for the original $200 I had lying around into a respectable $2,400. And then I forgot how to play. Or rather, I became reckless, expanded my play criteria to include statistically poor playing hands, and simultaneously hit a run of bad luck that would have madeBrian McBuggered, the world’s unluckiest man, look like a triple jackpot lottery winner. In short order I was back down to $200 and heading south.
This year Pokerstars started running steps tournaments, though. These are a series of single table satelites which allow you to have a chance at qualifying to the main event for a very reasonable $7. Come int he top 2 and you advance up a step. Usually you stay or drop a step if you come in position 3-5 as well so a $7 initial outlay can last a very long time. Of course youcan also buy directly in to the steps at a hgher level if you like with step 2=$27, 3=$80, 4=$21, 5=$750 and 6 a whopping $2,300. The scary thing is thatthe serious pros buy directly in at step 5 and 6 in order to win multiple seats and take the cash equivalent to the $12.5k prize as their bounty so it is a real sharkpool at the higher levels.
I bought in at lvl 1 exclusively and still managed to parlay these limits up the ranks to step 6 on two occasions. And a horrible experience it was as well. First time I came 6th for a $500 purse and the second time I was first out in 9th place when my AQ found a Q on the flop and ran into trip 4s. Hate that. Butit does mean I have now entered two tournaments at a face value of over a thousand pounds each which must improve my poker credentials somewhat? OK, maybe not.
By the end of the run I was in pretty poor shape. Last year I finished the WSOP run-up month one thousand pounds in the black and bought a new cooker with the proceeds. This year I was $100 down in my poker account but with £150 in Amazon vouchers courtesy of the frequent player reward program on Pokerstars and the metric buttload of points you get for playing in a couple of tourneys where the house takes one hundred quid’s worth of rake.
Meanwhile, I have been taking a break from Hold’em and trying some more obscure varieties of poker. Well, more obscure for myself, anyway. Last night I taught myself how to play limit five card drawwith the help of a spectacularly good website. In fact, I can recommend that if you want a bit of fun all you need to do is read this strategy guide, play half an hour of free chip gamage to get the feel fr the interface, then let rip with a mighty $10 in a super-low stakes game. That $10 should get you an evening’s worth of fun and you may even end up in profit by the end of the evening due to the fact that most people who play this variety of poker are horrendous.
Don’t sit at my table though. Or I’ll have your chips off you before you can say “Oi, leave my chips alone!”
Originally published at The Chatterbox Express. You can comment here or there. | | Sunday, June 29th, 2008 | | 3:09 am |
How To Kill AudioSurf
A few weeks ago Mr Rob K-L introduced me to the delights of AudioSurf. Since then, every time I hear a new piece of music I have to try it out on this strange contraption.
Tonight I well and truly met my match. I have never heard of Dragonforce before but they have written something called Through the Fire and Flames which appears to be specially designed to give a cerebral aneurysm to anyone running it through the game. I thought this kind of mindless guitar wanking went out with the last lycra legging wearing cock-rock meta band?
Anyway, if you have a copy of AuditSurf don’t take my word for it. Try it out for yourself. the incredibly illegal but I-Won’t-Tell-If-you-Don’t torrent link is right here. And having played it would you care to speculate on what kind of reaction-boosting neural implants would be required to make the ridiculously high scores some people have got with this thing?
Originally published at The Chatterbox Express. You can comment here or there. | | Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 | | 12:05 am |
Poxy Foxy
My sister’s an emergency foster carer for infants and early primary schoolers. When a little ‘un’s foster parents have problems or when a child desperately needs a home to stay in for a few days/weeks/months my sister is the one on whom they get dumped. she enjoys it a lot, actually. it means she gets to enjoy the wonders of parenthood without having to go through all that vomiting, stretching, screaming and general ickieness that bearing a child usually entails. Of course, one of these wonders is the ability to catch whatever lurgy these kids bring back from nursery school. For instance, the latest one just introduced her to Chicken Pox. I guess we should have tried harder to catch it when we were kids. Oh well, better late than never. Of course, the Pox is a horrible thing to get when you’re older. She’s two years younger than myself and is absolutely distraught at the twenty-six spots she has on her face, now. Poor gal. Then again, tidying up another cupboard tonight allowed me to happen upon a pic of myself from eight years ago when I contracted it. Mebbe she isn’t getting it quite so hard after all. Originally published at The Chatterbox Express. You can comment here or there | | Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 | | 11:21 pm |
The Colour of Magic
The holiday was amazing. Pics will be sorted out in a month or so when I finally get around to it. In the meantime we’ve been catching up on our missed telly opportunities.
Wasn’t The Colour of magic disappointing? Nat, who has never read a Pratchett book in her life but liked The Hogfather on telly last christmas, was pretty damned unimpressed and I can’t say I blame her. The acting was wooden and you couldn’t be sure whether that was due to the script or the ‘talent’ on screen. Then again, perhaps it was the story itself. When I last re-read the first two discworld books I was taken by how patchy the actual story was. Sure, the jokes were thick and fast and the pacing was excellent but the actual story itself was all a bit meh. In my opinion, it took Pratchett until the next book to really get into his stride and write an actual novel. Oh well, lets see what they come up with next.
Meanwhile, at the resort in the Maldives they absolutely, honestly, truly had a Banana Daiquiri on the drinks menu at the bar. It would have been rude not to, so I ordered one.
It was vile.
Originally published at The Chatterbox Express. You can comment here or there. | | Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 | | 11:38 am |
| | Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 | | 9:50 am |
I Can Has Hello Kitty?
There is something inherently wrong about Hello Kitty. Nobody creates so much pink cuteness without hiding some sort of nefarious intention. A little web searching truly rams the point home.
Exhibit A - A grim future, indeed
Exhibit B - Even “Eve - Online” is not safe. This was seen flying through Jita on a day when lag was so bad people were logging in on a Saturday to play the game on a Sunday.
Exhibit C - My personal favourite. At least we’ll se them coming just before the shoot us…
Originally published at The Chatterbox Express. You can comment here or there. |
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