How would you feel if you booked a Nicole Kidman lookie-likey and this turned up?

See here for more scary crapness.

Just watched my lovely shiny new DVD copy of "Night Watch". It was (finally) released yesterday, even though second instalment has already been released in Russia and some other east European countries.

No clue what I'm on about? Well, I shall tell you.

Night Watch (or Nochnoi Dozor) is Russia's answer to The Matrix meets Underworld. But not so big budget as The Matrix, and not so shitty as Underworld. It was released at the cinema over here last year, and nobody else I know went to see it.

It's about the others. Light ones and dark ones. They are people with supernatural abilities, and include shapeshifters, witches, seers, vampires and who knows what else. Hundreds of years ago, there was a big ruck between the goodies and the baddies, but they were too evenly matched and in danger of completely wiping each other out with no clear winner. So a truce was called.

The Night Watch make sure the dark others don't break the truce, and the Day Watch do the same with the light others.

This fillum is all about the prophesied time when a powerful other comes to shift the balance and tip the scales one way or the other. Kinda like Star Wars, as Nolly pointed out.

I won't say any more, but it's well worth a look, and I can't wait for the second part, "Day Watch", to make it over here. The third and final part is majorly subsidised by Fox, and it's gonna be in English. Hope they don't kill it.

On a final note, make sure you watch the version on disk 2! As I said, I saw it at the cinema, and the subtitles were all integrated into the film, fading into blood and all over the screen. Vair cool. So we sat down to watch it tonight and what's this?! Crappy boring normal superimposed subtitles - for the hearing impaired!! (i.e. when the protagonist rings the doorbell, it says "doorbell rings". I don't need that translated, thanks anyway...). I was gutted and disappointed.

So after we watched the film, I stuck disk 2 in to take a look at the extras, and noticed that there was an option to "play movie"... So I selected it, and it was the version I saw in the cinema with the funky subtitles! Doh! Shoulda read the back of the case properly.

So, a cool film, lots to guess at with big bits revealed towards the end but enough left hanging to make you wanna watch the next one.

Text from a good friend:

"Had bizzare dream last night where you were doing orange sick all over my living room carpet! Then you ran out of space so you pulled the carpet back and did it on the underlay!"

Perhaps she had cooked me something in the dream... she's not exactly Delia Smith...

Right. I'm not religious. I was christened COE, but that's a family tradition really; we only ever attend matchings, hatchings and despatchings.

I have a general working knowledge of the world's major religions, thanks mainly to my RE lessons at school. I have never been moved to read the holy books of other religions (or indeed the full version of my own, I had an illustrated childrens' bible once upon a time, but that's about it). But you would think that everyone would at least know the basics of their own cultural beliefs.

So today is Easter Sunday.

One of our foster kids recently told us that he thought Easter was when Jesus was born.

So what's Christmas all about?

That would be the receiving of presents, then.

I am at the tender age of twenty and five years old, and I find myself wondering what they are teaching kids at school these days. I am not turning into my dad. I am turning into my grandad.

Pizza hut salad. Didn't last long. Roll on pizza.

It's gone 5. I'm still at woik.

Everyone else has gone.

I am finishing things off, tidying up my desk. Making sure things that people might need to find can be found. Making sure that things I don't want people to find can't be found.

You see, this company works on Good Friday, and we have an extra day off on Tuesday instead. Except I booked tomorrow off! Yay! Five whole days at home with extra staying in bed time with Nolly, and nothing to do but whatever takes my fancy.

So I suppose staying a bit late to sort things out is ok.

How much do I love living here?

Imagine something very very big. That much.

Outside my office, there are lambs playing in a field. Leaping round and chasing each other and going "baa" in little high pitched voices.

I tried to get a decent picture but they ran away.

Of course, in the not-too-distant future, they will be in a freezer somewhere. But for now it’s just another reason to be glad we decided to move down here.

(Incidentally, I tend to write my posts out in Word so that I don’t get caught with the blog.co.uk website open, and then copy and paste into my blog. This time, word has underlined “much do” in green, meaning there is apparently a grammatical error. It wants me to change it to “How many dos I love living here?”. Stoopid Word.)

Reading Bella’s blog aboot her new iPod remound me of my current iTunes situation.

Nolly and I both have iPods. We both have computers. We have a wireless network.

We both had a lot of music. Nolly had copied my music to his laptop not long after we met, so a large chunk of his is the same as mine. But he has since added stuff and I have too. We sort of periodically shambolically synched the stuff we knew the other one had got that we wanted, usually on a song by song basis.

This music was taking up a lot of hard drive space on two separate computers. And that seemed a bit silly when you think that most of it was identical.

So, I thought it would be a good idea if we just had one place with all the music in it that we could both access.

I bought a network capable hard drive that sits on top of the cupboard next to the router and works perfectly (if a little slower than expected).

Nolly spent hours tidying up his iTunes and making the file names correct etc, and I just dumped the majority of my stuff, keeping stuff I knew for sure he didn’t have. We then copied all that music into a “music” folder on the network hard drive, and then both imported that folder into iTunes.

So far so funky, but then I noticed that the size of the music folder had grown. Quite a lot.

It seems to have copied a load of the songs. We had a shedload of duplicate songs. Nolly spent a lot of time removing duplicates, which was great. Except they are all still in my library. When I try to play a duplicate, it realises the song isn’t there and puts an exclamation mark next to it, and I delete it too. But there's a lot there!

So that’s the first thing. Why did iTunes decide to make copies of some songs?

Next I noticed that any changes either of us made to file names in iTunes doesn’t actually change the file name. I spent ages tidying up a few albums that had been cocked up, and then when Paddy added them to his library they were still cocked up! I spent all that time for nothing!

Any ideas?

The last thing is adding songs. We each want to add songs periodically, but we need to let each other know when we have added something so that we can then add the song to our library too. We have started using a new sub-folder each time, and the other person just adds that. There has got to be an easier way though.

This method also means we can’t use the “keep folders organised” option, cos then the second person adding the music spends ages looking for the right music to add! So now, in our mostly neatly organised music folder, we have a load of folders at the top called “001” “002” “003” etc.

I thought maybe if only one of us ever adds music or makes changes, and the other one copies the actual iTunes library data file (iTunes.xml), that might work...right? I’m too scared to try it, but it might solve all the problems...

It was a huge struggle to get out of bed this morning.

I was so warm and comfortable, and I had Nolly lying next to me, and I was thinking, “I don’t really need to go in, do I?” and then Nolly said, “you could be ill and stay home with me”. He’s like the little devil on my shoulder. Bastard.

Well, here I am, at work. The devil didn’t win. I had Eddie Izzard on my other shoulder going, “ah, but if you don’t go in, you’ll get the sack and won’t be able to afford all the nice things you promised yourself like that DVD of mine you still haven’t got that Mr G reminded you about yesterday”.

Nolly did kick some arse at the Foster Carer’s Association meeting last night though. He is the Chair (as in the person who runs the meeting, not something everyone sits on). The secretary is a really nice bloke who has been the secretary since the year dot but has too much on his plate and doesn’t want to delegate to anyone else, which means things don’t get done. Also, he takes it upon himself that some things don’t need to be done, even after we have decided that they do in meetings. He’ll come along to the next meeting and say “oh, I thought we decided not to go ahead with that because such and such” when actually we had all said that it was a great idea, and needed to be done as soon as possible, and he said “oh, I’ll do that”.

He has promised faithfully to have things sorted for the next meeting (which is incidentally the AGM, and if the general consensus of the group last night is anything to go by, he won’t be voted back in as secretary…)

So, my parents are down from Birmingham this week, and they are taking us out for a meal tonight. We’re going to our favourite Indian restaurant down here, the Indian Cottage (yeah, I know) in Pontardawe. We found it the first weekend I ever bought Nolly down here, and it was so nice we haven’t really even tried anywhere else!

Just read this and it’s complete and utter crap. But it’s my blog so I don’t care!

I could really do with a crisp sandwich right about now. Salt and vinegar crisps. Mmm.

I should be researching an IT problem, creating a backup of a backup CD, matching up delivery notes with purchase orders and filing a load of transport paperwork, but hey.

I cocked up the software on my mobile months ago and can’t fix it. I have the V3, which besides looking nice fits into my jeans pockets with no problems, unlike many other lardy phones. The only problem is the software is crap. I want Nokia software! You could only search for the first initial of a person’s name in the phonebook, which was a bit awkward, but I found a firmware update on a modding website, and updated the firmware. I can now search using a couple of letters, but I now apparently have a second line and the internet and email don’t work. And I can’t find a copy of the original firmware. Still, I can upgrade next month.

What else. I currently have “Run Lola Run” on my PSP. It’s a great film that I never manage to watch because Nolly doesn’t like it. Which surprises me, cos he usually likes films with an interesting premise like this one. If you haven’t seen it, the same twenty minutes happens three times, and tiny little differences at the beginning of the twenty minutes make huuuuuge differences at the end. I think Nolly’s problem is that it’s a German film and he’s such a massive xenophobe. Actually, no, he’s not. He just is really prejudiced against French and German people. And South Africans.

Uhhhuuhuhhh….I love the South African accent. Might go away and think about that for a while. And watch a bit of “Run Lola Run”. It’s break time now, y’see.

Carphone Warehouse have jiggered about with their tarriffy type things and come up with something pretty special. You pay them £21 per month, you don't pay BT anything (not even line rental apparently) and you get free calls - not only to landlines in the UK but in 28 other countries! - and up to 8MB broadband! And you get a 40GB dowload limit!! Even I couldn't manage to use all that. Probably.

I currently pay BT about £25 for my phone, and freenetname.co.uk £18 plus a per GB fee every time I go over my 5GB allowance. This could save me a fortune!! Of course, the 8MB connection depends how far away from your exchange you are, I think we will still be stuck with 1MB judging by BT's estimating thing on their site.

Apparently the service is available for around 70% of the UK, and I bet Llanfuckwit in the Brecon Beacons is part of the other 30%, but I can dream. Unfortunately the availability checker (which went live this morning) has cracked under the pressure and is currently dead. But I'm going to keep trying!

Click here to have a look-see.

As I said in my last post, our broadband connection died on us last night, so I have lots of comments to answer and guesses to go "Ha! No!" to on Wossat then?, I shall get round them all as soon as possible!

Have done lots of housework today. It was probably overdue but at least it's done now. Not much to do tomorrow, yay!

Our broadband connection is up the swanny so I have been painting again. Really pleased with this one.

I bought a canvas weeks ago and finally got round to doing something with it!

I'm sat on the toilet and I feel like I should blog something really profound. But I can't think of anything. So my post will just be me letting you all know I'm dropping the kids off at the pool. Aren't mobile phones wonderful inventions?

Why God, why?

Why didn't I charge my iPod last night?!

*sob*

The speakers are silent, but I can still hear the last echoes of Gwen's dulcet tones, Adrian's drums still thunder in my ears (or "yurs" if you're Welsh).

Oh well. I'l have to prop the door to the workshop open and listen to Radio Two instead.

Further to Helly's post about her elephant, here is my mascot at woik.

An origami prawn.

Dunno if anyone else has this problem but I thought I'd complain anyway. Nolly and I live together. We have a wireless network. We share an internet connection. We have one ip address. We keep getting a stupid message about only being allowed to post once every 30 seconds. It's just crap!

I spend ages typing witty riposte(s) and then I get "Sorry blah blah 30 seconds blah blah" and then I go back and all my hard work is gone! Needless to say I am fast learning to copy each post/comment to the clipboard before I post it...

I have started a new blog game thing. Go see!

Wossat then?

Spell your name without vowels:
Brdly. Or Brdl if you treat y as a vowel.

What is the date 2 days after your birthday?
December 8.

How many pairs of jeans do you own?
A gazillion, but I only wear about 4.

How many are designer?
Does Cherokee from Tesco count?

What color do you wear most?
Dunno. Blue?

Least favorite color?
Turquoise. And it's my birthstone.

Last song heard on the radio?
Red Dress by the babes of sugar.

What's for dinner tonight?
Was and ommelette with cheese and german spicy sausage stuff.

Are you happy with your life right now?
Yep.

Tell me a secret about one of your siblings
One of them pooed in a display toilet in a diy store once.

Anyone ever said you resemble a celebrity?
Nolly says I look like someone. He lies/is blind/is delusional/wishes (delete as appropriate).

Who did you last call on your cell phone?
Nolly.

Do you own a..
- PS2? Two
- XBOX 360? Not yet, but Nolly covets one. We have an Xbox though.
- PSP? Yep, and Nolly covets one for himself too.
- SIDEKICK? Why would I want one? (Besides Nolly that is...)
- DIGITAL CAMERA? Yep

Do you shop at stores like Hollister, Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle, or Aeropostale
Nope. To spensive.

How do you make money?
Leaving Nolly on a street corner. Not really. Fostering and doing abso-bloody-lutely everything in an office.

Last thing you bought over 50 quid?
CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!

How's the weather?
Clear and cold. The frogspawn was frozen in the pond this morning. That's not gonna do it any good...

When do you take a Break?
From what? Well, I have a tea-break in the morning, then lunch, then a tea-break in the afternoon.

Are you missing someone right now?
Yeah.

What chores do you have around the house?
Theoretiically, I should do lots. Actually, I do very little.

Finish this sentence. I wish I was ___
...a bit richer and better with diy.

One word to describe you
Flunglequipply.

Favorite pair of shoes
Suedey trainers I suppose.

Do you own big sunglasses?
I have reactions lenses in my glasses. Which helps not at all when I have my contacts in.

Do you find yourself attractive?
When I make an effort.

What would you rather be doing right now?
Sleeping, reading, swimming, flying, shagging. Whichever.

What should you be doing right now?
Cheering up my baby.

Have you kissed your boyfriend/girlfriend lately?
Yup.

Last message you recieved?
An email about a comment on a post.

Who did you hug today?
Nolly.

What are you going to do now?
Watch "Grand Designs" and try to cheer up Nolly.

I think I already used that title but can't be arsed to check. I read this on Paddy and Helly's blog, and they both got it from different people, so I really have no idea who I stole it from.

The Rules:
1. You can only say YES or NO!
2. You are NOT ALLOWED to explain ANYTHING unless someone messages you and asks!

Taken a picture naked? : - Yes
Made out with a member of the same sex? : - Yes
Danced in front of your mirror? : - Yes
Told a lie? : - Yes
Gotten in a car with people you just met?: - Yes
Been in a fist fight? : - Yes
Had feelings for someone who didn't have them back? : - Yes
Been arrested? : - No
Left your house without telling your parents? : - Yes
Ditched school to do something more fun? : - Yes
Slept in a bed with a member of the same sex? : - Yes
Seen someone die? : - No
Kissed a picture? : - No
Slept in until 3? : - Yes
Laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by? : - Yes
Played dress up? : - Yes
Fallen asleep at work/school? : - No
Felt an earthquake? : - Yes
Touched a snake? : - Yes
Ran a red light? : - No
Had detention? : - Yes
Been in a car accident? : - Yes
Pole danced? : - No
Been lost? : - Yes
Sang karaoke? : - Yes
Done something you told yourself you wouldn't? : - Yes
Laughed until something you were drinking came out your nose? : - No
Caught a snowflake on your tongue? : - Yes
Kissed in the rain? : - Yes
Sang in the shower? : - Yes
Got your tongue stuck to a pole? : - No
Ever gone to school partially naked? : No
Sat on a roof top? : - Yes
Played chicken? : - No
Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on? : - Yes
Been told you're hot by a complete stranger? : - Yes
Broken a bone? : - No
Mooned/flashed someone? : - Yes
Forgotten someone's name? : - Yes
Slept naked? : - Yes
Blacked out from drinking? : - No
Played a prank on someone? : - Yes
Felt like killing someone? : - Yes
Made a parent cry? : - Yes
Cried over someone? : - Yes
Had sex more than 5 times in one day? : - No
Had/Have a dog? : - Yes
Been in a band? : - No
Drank 25 sodas in a day? : - No
Shot a gun? : - No

Wasted nearly all my battery trying to get a decent pic of my new hair. And this is the best I could do!

Mmm pistacios.

The daytime habitat of Braddicus Newhairicus. Note the post-it notes for remindingness, and the mountains of paperwork that will not be filed until they threaten to fall on top of the hapless worker and smother him.

Helly had this idea that Juzzzy did before she blogged it! Magic!

Actually, I should go and do some of that filing...

I can’t believe that I haven’t blogged about this yet, but I have a new car. Not brand new, but new to me!

I shall start the saga from the beginning.

On Thursday 1st September 2005, I passed my driving test. On Friday 2nd September 2005, we bought a little blue Metro from Adam’s dad. It looked like this:

On Saturday 3rd September 2005, we insured Paddy on said Metro, with me as a named driver.

On Sunday 4th September, I drove from Paddy’s parents’ to my parents’ house, on the M42, so that I could get a bit of motorway driving experience before driving down to Wales that afternoon. Then I drove back over to Paddy’s parents’ house.

We were about half a mile away, at an island (or roundabout if you don’t come from Birmingham) when a big fuck off 4x4 went into the back of me, and mangled the rear end beyond belief, considering the 4x4 was stationary behind me and had only had about 2ft to accelerate. It looked like this:

The driver got out and looked like he was about to have a heart attack, and his wife was mithering about how their shiny 4x4 was new. One of the headlights had popped out and looked like it would just pop straight back in, but it was otherwise fine. The Metro was a write-off. Still, we claimed off their insurance and got back nearly 400% what we paid for it! Result!

So, in January I was still carless, and Paddy was getting fed up of getting up in the mornings just to take me to woik, when a colleague who has about eight cars said he wanted to get rid of an old one, and asked if I was interested. It’s a Mitsubishi Gallant, G reg, can’t remember much else about it now. He only wanted £80, it needed an MOT but he reckoned it would get through one with no problems.

We went to pick it up that night, and it wouldn’t start. This began a catalogue of little fiddly problems that he has sorted out one by one. He keeps saying we can have the car at the weekend, but that never happens. He has spent an extra £70 on parts, which I was happy to pay for as long as the car was ok. The latest problem was the battery, and he was charging it up ready for it to go back in the car.

Last Tuesday, a friend of ours offered us a Renault Clio for £500. M reg, 1.9 diesel, MOT til September, just needs a new wheel. So I was upfront with my colleague, and told him we had been offered another car and were planning to go for it. He apologised and said he had just been too lazy to sort it out, he would do it the next day. The next day, I asked him if he was going to bring it up to us or if he wanted us to collect it. He said, “Oh I can’t do it tonight, I’ll do it on Friday and I’ll bring it up to you. I’ll just leave it there if you aren’t in.”

On Saturday night, Paddy collected the Clio.

I was all set to tell my colleague this morning that it had been taken out of my hands and Paddy had got so fed up that he had gone and done it and it wasn’t my fault but there it is. And he wasn’t in.

He came in at lunchtime, and went straight in to speak to his line manager. He’s apparently had a bad weekend. He’s now gone out again. I don't want to tell him.

I’ve got to tell him. I just don’t want to do it now. *sigh*

Am vair pleased wit my new car though. Cleaned inside and out yesterday. Will put some piccies up soon.

*Gasp!*

What has happened? Has Procrastination-Boy lost all his powers? Is there a new supervillain in town, more powerful than the now-vanquished Line-Manager-Man, with his get-on-with-it-beam? How can it be that in less than 4 hours he has finished all the paperwork that he normally leaves until Wednesday?!

I knuckled down, that’s how. See kids, let that be an example. It’s amazing what you can do if you apply yourself. Oh, and if you don’t get bogged down in all the numerous computer-related issues, delivery queries, sales enquiries and all the other crap that I have to do at the same time.

It’s been a lovely quiet morning!

Haven't written for ages and I don't care, so there. Have been busy at woik, so unable to skive and blog, and have had far more important things to do in the evenings like watch telly and play computer games. However, I thought I should give you all something small at least (and I am not talking about Juzzzy's manhood), so (lazy as ever) I stole this from Helly via G-man.

If you could live anywhere?
Here, or maybe somewhere tropical. But I burn baaaad in the sun. So here is good.

Most embarrassing song you secretly like?
Paddy would say something by the Cheeky Girls, but actually, I quite like

What do you want to be when you grow up?
Self employed!

If there was a film of you’re life, which actor would play you?
Ben Affleck.

I cook a mean:
Ommelette.

How many serious relationships?
Two or four...two.

How many one night stands?
Some.

Favorite Fruit?
Paddy. Har har. Apples really. Crunch sour Granny Smiths.

How many hours sleep do you get a night on average?
Usually get about 6 or 7, but if I am allowed I could easily sleep for 12+. I seem to sleep in 4hr slots, I'm fine if I get 4, 8 or 12 hours, but I'm dead on my feet otherwise.

pubs or clubs?
Pubs normally, but then there are no clubs within 25 miles... I do enjoy clubbing when I get the chance. But I get tired early now!

tea or coffee?
Coffeeffeeffeeffeeffeeffee. Or tea sometimes. For a change. But we got a new coffee machine today so COFFEEEEEEEE! (can you tell I've had some?)

Going to bed now to snuggle. Night!