More dental torture...

PROLOGUE:

I've spent most of the day in bed, having gone to bet at a fairly late 6am. And yes.
I've got another dental appointment today :(.

So shortly, I've got to go to the dentists to be subjected to more inhumane and punishing dental procedures.

Oh well. I'll come back to let you know how it went - no doubt in 90 minutes time i'll be happier than I am now. I hope!

UPDATE - 16:56

90 minutes?
Well, not exactly.

I got there in good time, conveniently forgetting to sign myself in, so no one actually knew I was "there" even though I was sat in the waiting room.

I got there at 15:20, as I was instructed, but they were evidently busy because I wasn't seen until 15:55. I suppose that was the worst bit. I'm sat there in the waiting room, a glazed look on my eyes, staring into space, terrifying myself over what I was getting myself into (I didn't and still don't like going to the dentists).

From outside, came the sound of work that was being carried out on the building. The sound of grinding drills drilling holes in the masonry, and the sound of angle grinders cutting up the concrete slabs outside. Despite my mood, I managed to pipe up "I bloody hope that's coming from outside, not inside".
It got a better reaction than I expected. Still, I spose you had to be there.

Eventually I got called in, settled in very quickly, and laid down on the chair.
Admittedly, it was probably the fastest in-out dentistry i've had. It felt like about 10 minutes, drill drill drill, quick three holes, filled them up quick, not a problem and absolutely nothing to worry about.

So i've been booked in in two weeks time to have my teeth polished. Something which now, having read about it, I'm not 100% looking forward to.
Still, at least no more holes in my mouth anymore :).

On a different note, after watching my weight go up and up, with great alarm (12 stone 7 pounds (79.3Kg) at its highest), I've gone on a diet, and combined that with the increasing amount of physical work that I'm doing to get fit for the army.
Oh yes. The army.

That's now all back on track, they sent me a letter asking me to get in touch so I dropped into the recruiting center, where the sergeant who's been dealing with me tells me he's actually been trying to contact me. I explain the situation, that I need to see a physio to get my leg sorted, and that I'm still eager, excited, and looking forward to starting my phase one.

Speaking of phase one, I found a video by a lad that went and did the first five weeks of his phase one before leaving. Admittedly he missed out most of his training, but the bit that he did do and the general atmosphere is described pretty well, so if you want to know what it's likely to be like for me, here's the link.
Of course, I'm going to be less homesick because I'm older, and I've already spent time living away from home :).

So yeah. Good day all in all I spose. half of my mouth is still numb which is driving me nuts, but hey, It'll wear off.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Just to let those of you with RSS feeds know - the post below, "holidays" is going to be edited over the next week as a single post - I want that one single post to detail my entire holiday.

As a result, your RSS feeds may not show that my blog has been updated, when in fact it has. I would ask you to check back regularly, to read the "holidays" post - it should be updated by me every day, or every other day, until next friday when I go back to work.

Thanks!

Holidays!

Okay, so I've now got some, some might say, well deserved time off work. So...

What am I going to do with my time off - some 13 days?

Well, I have no plans at the minute, so I'll just fill you in on what's been happening.

Saturday: So hometime rolled around at 15:30 and I got all my stuff packed up ready for the trip from work to home, and I've got to admit, I felt a certain melancholy set in roundabout then - far from being eager to get away, I'm kinda gonna miss my work colleagues - at least some of them - as I've got quite a lot of friends there. I got home, had a little nap, woke up, didn't have anything to drink (no money!) and went back to bed. Special offer on this one ladies and gentlemen, it's going cheap, anyone wanna bid on saturday?

Sunday: I woke up reasonably early, when my nephew (who lives in a different house so I was kinda surprised to see him there) wandered into my room and told me that dinner - a full family thing - everyone except my brother and his other half anyway - would be ready in 15 minutes - not bad for a 3 year old. Of course, in my family, "dinner will be ready in 15 minutes" translates loosely into "dinner will be ready in about 25 minutes, can you please come down and set the table". A point I mentioned on my way to the dining room.
Anyway, it was a nice meal, my mum's good sunday dinner, lots of everything, potatoes, yorkshire puddings, slices of cheese sauce (my mum traditionally makes the cheese sauce so thick, that you have to scoop it out with a spoon), and lots of gravy etc - lovely. Joining us (my parents and I) were my grandad, my sister and my nephew - so it was a full table.
After the meal, my nephew demanded I set his brio train up, so after about 30 minutes of debating with him where all the track needed to be set, I ended up with a 4x3M track, which I was pretty pleased with - at this point, his mum came along and told him that it was time to go - ALWAYS as I'm just finishing setting the track up. Okay, so he wasn't too happy but I've consoled him with the fact that I'll be getting my R/C helicopter back in the air ASAP so he can watch it fly about next time he comes. This, along with a couple of jelly babies seemed to placate him, and off he and his mum went. I had a fairly sedentary night, watched TNG and voyager most of the night and chilled out with a fistful of beer (4 cans in their plastic can holder).

Monday: I eventually got bored and went to sleep at 6am.
At 7am my mum came in - family emergency - my nephew was ill (don't worry he's fine!) and as such my sister's babysitter wouldn't have him near the rest of the kids - fair enough. Unfortunatley, my sister had to go to university, my parents had to go to work, and in true ME fashion, I was the only one who could possibly care for my nephew.

So, here I am, 09:24 on monday morning. I'm sat here in my sister's house next to a half full cup of cold coffee, my nephew is happily playing in the room next to me - making whooshing noises with his train set - evidently a rocket powered train.

And then we have the cats. Tommy and Tigsy - black/white, and tabby, respectively, and they're little superstars, really affectionate, playful and er kitten-like.
They're both vying for my attention, and they've definitley got it. Tommy is obsessed with flinging a bit of foam around with his claws, Tigsy - until just now, was curled up in my lap asleep, occasionally aggressively defending his resting place by turning into a whirlwind of claws whenever tommy came nearby - more often than not, catching me in the middle.
In an incredibly cute moment of curiosity, Tommy is checking out my nephew's electronic train playset which has four buttons set into the track - the idea is that as the train rolls over them, various sound effects are triggered.
Well Tommy is now sat in the middle of the oval track, pressing these buttons accidentally, and looking mighty confused when a sound of a cockerel crowing or birds singing comes from the train set . He was looking wistfully at the gulls flying over the house earlier. I fear however that despite his 16 (technically 20 if you count the thumbs, which are halfway up a cat's arm and used only for shooting rubber bands at people) sharp claws, the gull would eat him for breakfast.

So anyway, I'm gonna leave you in peace and check out how many times I've been bitten by fleas - I think the cats have been frontlined (frontline is a flea medication), but I know for sure that I haven't. I think I've been bitten about four times now. Bleah.
Anyway, I'll keep you updated!
















Ok, so as time went on, my ickle nephew's behaviour steadily worsened. Instead of getting more tired, he seemed to get more hyper. Starting by toddler-handling the cats, trying to picking them up by their tails, trying to use them as cushions etc. I managed to placate the little dude by sticking CBeebies (kids tv shows) on, which worked for a while. Eventually though, I found myself rehanging the curtains he pulled down (on top of the cats), picking up the bits of orange peel he left everywhere, and eventually, convinced him to take part in a little game, where I firmy tied him up and dared him to see how quiet he could be. Of course, after 5 minutes of this, he quickly got bored and started throwing photos around.

He's fairly chilled out now, now that his mum's back with him. Today he's learned that you can't feed southern fries to cats, that you can't pick them up by their harnesses, and that you can't rest your head on them without them yowling and making a dash for it - the best example is when he lay next to the cat, ready to rest his head on the cat - the cat saw it coming and dashed out of the way. Of course, the little guy didn't see him run off, and promptly with a big sigh rested his head firmly on the floor with a bump.

Still, we're all having fun here, order has been restored, the nephew is happy, the cats are happy, and I can go any time I want - but now that I'm here, I'm in no rush to go :).

...

...Okay. My sister and my nephew decided to go out to the toy shop roundabout 3pm, so I took the opportunity to catch the bus home. On the way back I got a bottle of lucozade, and within 5 minutes, was safely ensconced in my room, with my computer already powering up.
I started working on more of my 3d project, and after a few false starts, some of which really bugged me, I've started to make progress.
Before long though, the fact that I'd effectively had little over one hour's sleep in the preceding 28 hours finally caught up with me, and gratefully, I headed to bed, leaving the lucozade (which would have made me unable to sleep) mostly untouched.

I woke up much later that night, about 11pm, and spent a while longer on my 3d art.

Tuesday: I went to bed again, at a rough guess, roundabout 2am. I remember worrying about how I was going to pay for the work on my bike's engine, due to be done this saturday - the cost - £250 - is over a third of my monthly income and about half of my disposable income for the entire month - not a small problem but a great big one.
I must have woken up roundabout 11am, fallen asleep again, woke at 1pm, got out of bed and got on with yet more 3d art.
As I remember it I pretty much bimbled the night away, with 3d-art, watching youtube and chatting on MSN.

I was somewhat surprised to see that the website that I originally made a lot of (what have become over time my oldest and closest) online friends on, bolt.com, has finally been shut down. From what I can see on the notice on the site, the company seems to have gone into administration. That's a shame. I still have friends on that site who now, without my contact details, will never be able to speak to me again. It is a shame. Oh well.

Wednesday: I must have gone to bed in my typical pattern, after watching a load of dilbert cartoons, roundabout 2am.

I woke up at about 11, feeling quite happy and constructive. I did more 3d work, lounged about on MSN, and worried more about the work on my bike. I had to put pressure on the mechanic - a good friend, and the landlord of my local pub (two reasons never to get on his bad side - the saying used to be "never insult the man who prepares your food". Well I have NEW wisdom. Never ever insult the man who owns the only pub you drink in, and NEVER insult the man you trust to work on your motorcycle.) to be able to get my bike in for the 13th, and I was horrified at the idea that after all that, I might not be able to afford it. Eventually I got my mum to drive me to the pub - the scenic route, so we had the opportunity for a nice chat and everything - it's good to be in my mum's company - I should really make an effort to do it more often...

I got to the pub, aware that I had to discuss this issue but reluctant to put Ross (landlord/mechanic) in a bad mood. I checked my account balance at the pub and it confirmed what I had feared. Almost 20% less than I needed to pay him. Maybe he'd split it into two instalments? Maybe he'd defer payment? I don't know.

Anyway, I was pleased to see that there were a couple of my friends outside the pub, with accompanying bikes. Nigel was there with his "spare bike" as he calls it. Scott was there with his new (old) GPX, Matt was there as well. Now Matt is one of these lads - he has a very... pointed sense of humour - he's the sort of person that will insult your mum and look hurt if you don't find it funny. With that in mind, I chose quite early on to let him have his fun, and not get into an argument.

After a while, denis rolled up on his 1150GS, with our mutual friend Rob on the back. So we all had a happy 90 or so ominutes chatting and having a laugh etc, during which time, another couple of bikes turned up including skippy and his friend (who I know, but don't know by name) on their harleys.

Anyway, I stayed out and chatted to another guy - Ian - Who I know quite well, who had just turned up. I was shocked to find that despite being almost 3 times my age, I was earning more than he was. At that point, my cellphone started bleeping battery warnings at me, and it eventually died. Idea: Ross has the same phone as me.
I went in, and asked very nicely, and he went up and got me his charger and let me charge my phone in his pub - he's that kind of guy, would do anything to help a mate.

Sooooo, time went on, Denis, Rob, Matt, Nigel and Scott eventually left, I wandered back into the pub and spent the rest of the night chatting with Ross. while I was debating when to talk about my not being able to afford the work I'd spent ages convincing Ross to book ASAP, he actually got in first and told me that there was just no way he would be able to have the bike in on the 13th. Maybe the 10th of next month, but no way could he get the bike in.
I admitted I was pretty relieved and showed him the printout with my account balance, he just grins.
Out of the goodness of his heart though, Ross agreed that if money was a worry -and he conceded it was for him when he was my age - he would split the bill into two monthly payments. £125 each month - suited my pocket a hell of a lot better! So yes, the work is delayed, but hey, at least money's not a problem anymore.

Thursday: Ross wanted an early night as he had to do lots of driving the following day, so I left roundabout 12:40AM, got a taxi and headed home. I was very drunk at this point, having had to drink up (my last two pints, in addition to what i'd already had that night) in the space of 20 minutes. I bought a couple of large beers to take out, and got the taxi home.
I was so drunk I was concentrating on NOT concentrating on how drunk I was, and said barely a word to the taxi driver.
I got in, locked up, went up to my room, chatted on MSN a bit, then ran downstairs as I felt rather ill. I ended up rushing into the bathroom, and throwing up four times - not something I particularly enjoyed, but better out, than in, eh?

I went back to my room, left my computer untouched, and collapsed on my bed, too ill to move. Even rolling from my stomach onto my back filled me with sickening waves of nausea. I wanted to listen to some music, but the mouse cursor wouldn't go where I told it to, and I couldn't even see the song titles in itunes, my vision was that blurred. Eventually I passed out...

I woke up roundabout 11am, my head was miraculously clear. Of course I felt slightly unsteady on my feet, but no sign of the splitting headaches or damning nausea that my normal hangovers seem to feature. I got up, watched dilbert on the internet for a bit. Got undressed, got into bed, and then my dad came home.
Not long after that, a royal mail van pulled up, bearing a package with my name on it, from Thailand - YES! My jacket!!

So I got dressed, opened up my jacket, and pulled it on.
Even though I got it mail order, it fitted almost perfectly (it's a little short in the sleeves but only by an inch or so - the next size up would have been too large). So I've spent most of thursday doing more 3D art, playing MotoGP '07, just generally relaxing and living the good life.

My parents went out with my mum's father, to a restaurant like they do every thursday, and I figured that (as usual) I'd be without food again.
I took the opportunity to cook myself something, chilled out and watched TV downstairs, only to find that they HAD in fact (the first time in about 2 months!) brought my some food home - and I had to explain that I'd already eaten.
I ate most of it anyway, it was crappy but hey I should be grateful I spose.

I spent the rest of thursday watching Bill Bailey on the internet. He's coming here in november - I might see if I can get tickets...

Friday: So I'm here now, updating this. I don't know whether any of you have this on RSS so I'm going to add a little update just to catch your attention, to let you know that this one single entry is gonna be live for the next week or so.
Yep, at the mo it's 02:30, I'm finally drinking those two large beers I bought, I'm chilling out, in a relaxed mood, and now that money isn't a problem, I'm looking on ebay for more bits for my bike.
So yes, life is good for me. Long term it's no less bleak than it was before, but short term, I'm pretty happy.
I'm gonna go make that new blog entry now, then I'm gonna go enjoy my beer and maybe get some food before heading to bed :).
Later.

Tuesday (The following week): Okay. I'd be lying if I said I was too busy too keep up with my blog entries. Fact is, I was too busy relaxing, and too lazy to update every single day.

I stayed up on the internet most of the night. Unintentionally falling asleep, waking up at 4pm, and then staying up from then onwards. The hours ticked by. 8pm, 10pm, midnight, 2am, 4am.
Oblivious to their passing I amused myself in a hundred small pastimes. Organising the files on my computer, reading wikipedia, sitting in bed watching cartoons, generally being lazy.

Wednesday: I carried this on, through the entire night, never wanting to go to bed. Eventually I fell asleep, in the morning, after everyone else had gone to work...

I woke in the early morning, moved into a more comfortable position in bed, and fell asleep again.
I woke up in the early afternoon, did the same again, and fell asleep.

At 15:30, I woke up, and decided it would be best to get out of bed.
I went downstairs to discover more bolts for my bike had arrived. I went to the shops to get some random stuff, including a 1L bottle of lucozade which I'm sure I'll be glad of later.
I spent the next two hours working on my bike, replacing rusted old and useless fastners with gleaming new stainless steel pars. It never occured to me to wonder when I would actually ride the bike again.
I went upstairs later, spent a couple of hours on Xplane, flying a 747-400 from Liverpool John Lennon, to Paris Charles De Gaulle. I never did have enough time to complete the flight in one go.
I went to the pub - as I normally do on wednesdays. A quiet night in. And so it remained.
the night went on without incident, people came and went, I drank one beer after another, not too fast, just enough to chill out and relax.

Phil - a longstanding regular of the pub and mate of Ross came into the pub.
He came in with some of his friends and seemed to be having a great time. Ross and phil got on as best friends would, but I left them to theirselves for another reason; Phil was recently diagnosed with a terminal illness. The details of which are not known to me - I have not wanted to ask, though it seems to be some kind of brain condition, perhaps a stroke or something similar. It's not my business.
In the past six months, I have seen Phil turn into half the man he used to be. He stumbles, he staggers, his co-ordination is shot, it's like a living nightmare, it seems from the hour he wakes to the hour he collapses, he is on the threshold of losing conciousness. He comes in, he sits down, and he falls to pieces.
And yet, those words hardly do him justice. Phil made his living as an artist, and even now, in what are arguably the twilight years of his life, Phil continues to stagger passers by, potential customers and friends with his incredible talent. If nothing else, and nothing else it seems, phil can still produce, by hand, the most detailed and incredible airbrushed artwork.
A man like him should have made a fortune. Should have set up a business.
He shouldn't have been forced to suffer what he has suffered.

Anyway, Phil's dog, "Marley-hound" [Marley, named after "Marley" from scrooge, not Bob Marley, is a longhaired collie cross tricolour collie, hence his atypical appearance - in reality, he looks like an older greyer version of the dog shown in the picture] as Ross is fond of calling him, came bounding up to everyone in the pub, demanding, in his own canine way, everything from beer to dry roasted peanuts. This guy knows what he wants, marley will stand expectantly in front of someone, whine at them and eventually paw and bark at them, until he gets what he wants. Quavers, Dry roasted peanuts, Carling, Marley loves it.

So I spent the rest of the evening keeping marley occupied and I heard in the background a couple of comments relating to the "RSPCA man". "He loves animals, does the RSPCA man, He always fusses them, takes care of them" I heard.
In what I suppose could be called vanity, I asked ross "Who are you talking about".
"You. You are the RSPCA Man. You care about animals".
With a faint tinge of pride, perhaps more vanity, I went back to fussing marley. Yes, I love animals, yes I am recognised for it, and yes I am proud of it. Besides, Marley loves being fussed, and I love dogs.

I finally leave Marley to his own devices, join everyone at the bar at which point, Ross joins me to Tabasco Sauce. Me? I can't get enough of the stuff. I love it.

I finally get the taxi back home, and upon arriving here, realising that we have no tabasco, I get the nearest meat pie, get some ketchup-with-onion, and mix in as much chilli-powder and as much curry powder, as I can get away with.

I've not tasted it yet.
I'll taste it now.

Whoa. the sauce stars unobtrusive enough. Typical ketchup with onions. As time goes on though the taste gets drier, until the curry and the chilli start showing through. By the end, all you have is a vague impression of the ketchup and the burning of the curry/chilli.
Not a perfect impression of tabasco, but not a bad approximation...

Anyway, I'm here, listening to my iPod, eating meatpie with my own custom spicy sauce, and chilling with some beer, listening to one of Mushroomhead's cool tunes.

Later I'll move onto Eiffel 65's cool tune :D.
Have fun :).

A great loss for opera

As the news is no doubt by now loudly proclaiming, in the past couple of hours, Italian tenor Luciano Pavorotti has died following a battle with pancreatic cancer, at the age of 71.

I can't say that I've been to any of his concerts, nor have I seen him live, at all, but I am aware that Pavarotti was and has been for a long time, considered one of the great singers of opera, from his rousing rendition of nessun dorma at the world cup, which made him an instant star, to his work with two other artists as part of the "Three tenors", and even before then, he was an accomplished artist.

I didn't follow Pavarotti's carreer, or his personal life, admittedly I never emphatically followed his style of music. But those that did will no doubt be mourning a great loss today, as one of our opera greats passes away, leaving a hole in the operatic world, that will not be filled for some time.

For what it is worth, although I didn't particularly listen to Pavarotti, I was aware of his standing as a singer, and for that reason, I will be mourning his passing, as I suspect, will many thousands of others.

Rest in peace big guy.
It's a sad day for music.

Bike Bitz!

Okay, so I'm now determined to get my bike on the road again.
I've browsed round a few websites, to try to get parts, and have found to my horror, in true Aprilia fashion, that I couldn't get both the parts I needed for less than £50 - £50 for an Electrical brake light switch, and a choke cable.

So I've done some shopping round, picked up the brake light switch for £17, from the original site, but - get this, I've found a joblot - the entire choke assembly, not just the cable, for... £13.49 inc everything!

That's 40% off aprilia prices just by shopping round, AND I got extra bits that I wasn't otherwise going to get!

So now the parts are ordered, and they should arrive erm... At some time in the indeterminate future :).

And the holidays come to an end...

Yes, another moderatley alcohol influenced post. I seem to be producing more of those these days.

Over the past week, my parents have been away in dorset, nearly 300 miles from me, on holiday.
While I appreciate that to you American people, 300 miles is not a lot, if you look on the map, here, it's well over 3/5 of the journey across England. In short, to me, and everyone else in England, it's a looooooong way!

So what have I spent most of my time doing?

Well, sitting about mostly. I've been keeping control of the house, taking the opportunity to work on some old fan fiction of mine, and generally enjoying the peace and quiet. At least for the first few days. I spose for a lad used to seeing his family every day, five days alone at home does begin to affect my mood.

I've also made a musical discovery, in the form of a new artist;

"Era", the brainchild of a certain French guy by the name of Eric Levi, has jumped out at me over the past few days, and the more of his stuff I listen to, the more it takes me.

How to describe it... A cross between techno music, perhaps a cross between electronica, and classical/hymn music. In its time, Era has incorporated everything from techno music to gregorian chant into itself, lending its music a dramatic, modern, but yet, almost religious aspect.

I spose the only way I can really do justice to the music is with some demonstrations. First, we have the video for the first Era tune I came across, "The Mass". Based on Carmina Burana's "O Fortuna", this music starts with an ominous classical/vocal introduction, before a techno beat comes in, transforming the tune into something different. Once that's done, a surprisingly tender and gentle chorus presents itself, something that seems almost out of place in a tune like this...
It's not there long, but it's back a couple of times before the video ends, resulting in a rather dramatic combination of New and Old (don't I sound pretentious :( - just check the video out!)

I suppose, it's only fitting that I present the next in line, "Divano" . This is an extremely touching video, much mellower and softer, much less dramatic, but much warmer. You'll notice, that the chorus for this video, almost matches the chorus for "The Mass". I wonder what's going on there... A very touching video regardless...

And then you have "Ameno". This video is perhaps the most dramatic so far, There's nothing I can really say, the video is very powerful and very dramatic, the techno intro to the music comes almost as a surprise - watch it, is all I can say... [edit - the drums on this one sound a bit like M people :p - the album version is a lot better, much more dramatic :)]

Finally, I want to introduce you to the fourth Era tune song that jumped out at me.
The video, in this one, is not actually related to the song at all. Both come from seperate artists.
Nevertheless, this is an opportunity for you to listen to "Impera", a song that in Era's own fashion, is incredibly dramatic and emotional.

I suppose the thing with dramatic and emotional music is that every person takes away something different from them. Something that someone might not even notice, might bring a tear or two to someone else's eye.

Anyway, I thought it best that I give you all the opportunity to experience this music, perhaps you will decide that you like it. Perhaps not, but at least the opportunity is there.

I spose finally, I'd like to introduce you to the video that brought Era to my attention in the first place. A depiction of various imperial titans, by various artists. The backing track was the thing that jumped out at me, but I figured that if it were placed in context, at least someone might be able to get an idea of why it caught my attention.

Laters all :).

Talk soon :).

Teeth almost done!

WARNING: The following entry concerns a surgical procedure carried out upon myself by a dentist, and goes into graphic detail to describe my experiences during said procedure. If you have a weak stomach, or are averse to long posts, please do not read on, as you will not like what follows. If you don't mind long posts, and find pain and suffering amusing, or if you're just plain curious, read on! This is the second post in a saga of suffering at the hands of trained torturers - for reference, I suggest you refer to the second part of the first post, which describes the instruments used herein - you can find it here.

Yes I woke up at 10am today.
Then again at 11.
Then 12, 12:30, 1:30 and finally I got out of bed at 2pm. I had to dig out the dentist's number because I suspected I had an appointment today, though between you and me, I halfheartedly hoped I'd missed it. I spoke to my family about it though and apparently the dentists had in fact already phoned up yesterday to remind me that I did in fact have a 3:30 appointment.

So off we went, leaving my sister and nephew in the park for a bit, I ran along to the dentists, and proceeded to pace the waiting room for 15 minutes, nervously waiting to be called - I hate going to the dentists, always have...

Now - time for a dull little bit of background. One day at swimming, I noticed something didn't feel right, so I had a close look in the mirror to discover that the second molar on my lower left side had suddenly lost a chunk. A lump of tooth about 3mmx3mm had suddenly and randomly broken off that tooth. Well that was a few months ago and over the months, that tooth has been eroded more by drinks, had more tiny bits breaking off, and had been scraped away by brushing - the end result is a second molar, with a quarter of the crown broken off, and a full third of the center of the tooth missing - you could stick your finger in there, it was that bad.

I spoke to my dentist who said that she might be able to fill it, or that it might have to come out. Of course, after the last time I went to the dentists (see below somewhere), I really wasn't keen to have another tooth smashed into little bitsies and dragged out sideways, so it was with profound relief on my part, when I sat down in the chair, that she explained that "we're going to do a couple of fillings today".

Anyway, out come the plastic protectors of the witnesses of suffering again (Yes folks, they're back!!!), and onto my head they go. Of course, they'd steamed up to the point that they went opaque within a couple of seconds (I am hot - literally!), but not before I'd had the blood collecting bib of pain tied around my neck!
Out come the spiky needle of death, carrying its deadly cargo of befuddling poison of sleepyness!
Bang bang, two shots, one lower, one upper, and not a very happy me in sight.
I sit up, rinse the extra out, taking special care not to spit everywhere this time, and then BEFORE the stuff has taken effect, she lowers the seat again!
"What?!" I think, "she's not going to start before the anasthetic is she!?"

Of course, she wanders off and does a couple of things, before returning with everyone's favourite tool, The Buzzing Mechanical Hornet's Sting of Death! By this time, the anasthetic's taken hold, as she happily drills into my upper teeth, I think "hey this's not too bad, I can hardly feel anything. This's not bad at all". I sit there daydreaming, as I realise with a shock that I'm almost HAPPY to be at the dentists! But then out from nowhere, back from the deepest darkest recesses of my nightmares, she comes out with another tool. One that I've known about for years, one that gave me nightmares, I spose, one that got me into this mess...

Yes folks, see the long handle, the tiny pointed tip on the end, you could almost be forgiven for thinking this is only another dentist's drill. But oh no, it's not - see the rounded spherical tip, see the hardened burrs corkscrewing around it, this is the Corkscrewing Burr of Grindy Death!

She sticks it in my mouth, I feel it disappear into one of my teeth, and next thing, my entire skull starts vibrating, as this bloody horrible tungsten carbide thing grinds and grinds inside my tooth with a horrible GRAWAWAWAWAWAWAW noise that I more feel than hear. Damn I hate that thing, it really is the most hated dentists tool imaginable. I reflect on how much I hate it as my mouth fills with the horrible taste of powdered tooth...

Anyway, this goes on for about 20 minutes, she's alternatley drilling my teeth and then taking the CBoGD to them, and I'm really not enjoying myself. Meanwhile, her colleague is helpfully standing by with the Life Sucking Cleanser of Fragments, and the dentist comes out with another device, something that looks like a blunt hypo, sticks it in my mouth and does something, I don't know what, maybe blasts cold water at my tooth, or maybe cold air? not sure.
In any case, the Springy Punch of Nothing Much, as it is now known, is okay with me as it doesn't actually seem to do anything much...

Dentist then gets a strange square thing with a screw on one end, as she takes her hands out of my mouth I manage to mumble "that looks scary" - "it isn't", she says, "it's just a collar to cover the hole I've made in your tooth" - oh okay, let's call it er, the Non Scary Collar of Covering.
She eventually manages to get it round my tooth and tightens it up, to the point where I'm worried my tooth is going to implode.

Anyway, eventually the instruments of torture are downed, and I hear this horrific grating noise from my left - fortunatley, it turns out to be some kind of filling-making machine, as the helper helpfully helps by helping with passing another instrument, much like the Springy Punch of Nothing Much, but presumably filled with amalgam filling. She squirts a load of filling in, using the Squirty Springy Filling Squirter, scrapes off the excess, gets me to bite down on it to compact it in the hole, and that's us pretty much done...

So, now at 5:53 PM, almost 2 hours after the befuddling poison of sleepyness went in, I've still got a numb left-side of my mouth, but, I found to my amazement that the tooth I was worried she was going to have to extract, is in fact one of the teeth that she filled! Way to go, she saved my tooth!!

So now I'm in a good mood, eating the most bloody atrocious chips from "Les'Al's Plaice", reflecting on the fact that my so called doomed tooth is saved, and trying to get the god awful taste of amalgam filling out of my mouth...

PART TWO - ADVANCED PRACTICAL DENTISTRY!!!

As with the first instalment of this fascinating compendium, we cover the various instruments of dental torture used by our highly experienced medical professionals. In this section, we detail the newer instruments that have not previously been described - so let's start!:



2:1 - INSTRUMENTS OF SUFFERING

• The Corkscrewing Burr of Grindy Death! - This is probably the most evil instrument of torture. Much like a dentist's drill, this is actually used to file lumps off patient's teeth. As a bonus, it causes extreme discomfort by filling the patient's mouth with tooth-dust.
  

• Springy Punch of Nothing Much! - I don't know what this does. It might squirt air or maybe water into a tooth cavity, then again, it might not.
  

• Non Scary Collar of Covering. - This collar goes round a patient's tooth. Presumably to cover holes made in the tooth by other torture methods. It is also useful for tightening around someone's tooth until they fear the tooth will implode, much like thumbscrews, but with teeth instead.

• Filling Making Machine - This is a machine that makes filling. It doesn't come into contact with the patient. Harmless and therefore uninteresting.

• Squirty Springy Filling Squirter! - This squirts liquid filling into tooth cavities. It doesn't even cause any pain at all, unless the dentist jabs the patient in the eye with it.

Anyway, it's been emotional.
See you soon!

Storms, Protests, and Burgers...

Hokey then... First of all, Sorry! I've been neglecting this place a bit and a few things of note have happened - I don't doubt that I won't be able to do justice to all of them, because while I'm not on a time limit, My memories are a week or two old...

So first, let me start about what's going on in the wider world first. Hurricane Dean has hit Jamaica. Now we tend to hear of a few hurricanes in "those parts" (I couldn't say where Jamaica is without looking on a map - is it off the south coast of the US? [Checks map] Ah yes it is, broadly speaking), but this one looks like it's gonna be another biggie. People are hightailing it out of there as fast as possible, the ones that can't or won't are buying up all the supplies, food, water, condoms, etc that they can and hunkering down. Let's hope that they come out of the hurricane without too many problems, and for hell's sake, let's hope the hurricane dissipates before it reaches the US. Last thing Louisiana needs is another hurricane on their doorstep.

What else has been going on in the news? Oh yes. the latest round of these lunatic anti-climate-change protests is taking place as we speak at Heathrow Airport in London. Yep folks, this decade's political cash cow is climate change, and this year's hot potato is the so-called climate change protests. So now we have hundreds, perhaps thousands - I don't know, and don't care - of so called anti climate change protesters, anti aviation protesters and anti airport expansion protesters, driving, catching the train, and yes, FLYING, into Heathrow with the intention of causing as much havoc and drawing as much attention to their own blinkered causes as possible.
Now with me, protesters lack credibility in general. Why? Because I have only ever seen two informed, organised and objective protests in my life. Both of these were organised by members of the Armed Forces, who knew what they were talking about.
Not for the public, is the type of informed protest that can actually make a difference, no. I cite as one example, a strange woman who said that instead of flying to Greece to adopt two dogs, she would Drive instead, to save the environment.

Let me quote some facts and figures for you [references given]...
For this woman to drive to greece, she would produce 1254 Kilograms of Carbon Dioxide.
If she flew there, during the course of her journey, she would produce 902 Kilos.
This does not take into account the CO2 produced by either a ferry or the Channel Tunnel Train.

That is why I don't do protests. Because the people who want to protest about the construction of a third runway at Heathrow, are the people that were damned stupid enough to buy houses next to the busiest airport in Europe in the first place! Despite massively high house prices, despite high congestion, [road generated] pollution and high crime, these people buy houses next to the biggest airport hub in Western Europe, and are then stupid, absolutely bloody STUPID enough to complain about the noise! It makes me bloody angry!

And finally, on this note, you have the "anti aviation protesters", which I think is a politically correct way of saying "F***ing idiots!"
Okay, fine. We'll stop air travel, air freight, we'll stop it. Just like that.
Now what? You've no overseas transport, no foreign goods, no holidays, no long distance emigration, no military deployments/reinforcements, no scientific/space exploration missions - that's right, the Shuttle's an aircraft too... WHAT do you possibly hope to accomplish, other than making yourselves look absolute bloody total idiots?

I'd like to thank our police for keeping these idiots under control. Just as surely as any religious fanatic threatens our way of life with their radical proposals, these environmental idiots threaten industry, commerce, transport and trade with their bleeding heart crap. Perhaps these idiots should go to China - the major source of industrial pollution, and see how long the Government tolerates their protests there...

Anyway, now that I've got that out of my system...

My grenades arrived in the end, as did the rest of my ammo collection, as did, in fact, my copy of Silent Hunter 4. Seems the seller had enough of arsing about with the payment, which I'm certain I have now made twice, and has sent me the game regardless of payment. So what do I think to it after all this time? It's great. Silent Hunter 4 is a fantastic game, with great graphics, and is both incredibly addictive and incredibly involved. It's hard to give a more in depth review at 4:45 in the morning...

Things are mediocre at work, nothing out of the ordinary there, definitley nothing worth mentioning. The Army continues to drag its heels, which is fine, as I continue to drag mine. Don't get me wrong, I'm still getting fit and still preparing. On the home side of things, I was taken along recently for a nice meal at a place I've only ever set foot in once before - TGI Friday's.

I've gotta say I had a fantastic meal, first time I've eaten properly in ages. Managed to crab some nice nachos, totally covered in cheese, with plenty of soured cream, guacamole etc...

Then I had a huge burger complete with bacon and extra cheese - fantastic.
To accompany both, were two drinks, one, a massive huge milkshake - a real one, made with ice cream, and a second drink, a weird thing called a "Gremlin". This apparently had raspberry liquor in the bottom, melon liquor above that, citrus juice above that, and black vodka, whatever that is, above that. The drink was pretty cool, and pretty strong as well.

I then went and bought myself a new computer mouse (see my 3D blog), and have spent the rest of the week doing pretty much not much. Oh yeah, apart from fixing "Razor". Razor is my pet name for a 1/30 AD-64D Apache, that has been sitting on my desk since I decided to join the Army. It's kinda served as a symbol of what I wanna do with my life, serves as a reminder that there's more to life than working a call center job all day. I broke it by accident ages ago, and it's great to see it on my desk in once piece again, sure it's just a model but on a symbolic level, I'm sure she represents more than that.

I've sorted out all my ammo collection, there's a lot of it, some 4.6Kg. But hey, it brightens up a corner of my room, and reminds me of what I'm sposed to be doing with my life :).

See you all soon - check out the pics...

Another beautiful sunrise...

Yes. I am drunk. Not the best state of mind in which to write a blog, but one to which I am fast becoming accustomed. No - it doesn't happen that often, don't worry.
So what have I spent tonight doing? Is that a sensible question?

I've spent today doing nothing. I slept and I slept I won the grenades on Ebay like I said I did, and I spectacularly managed to achieve sod all from that point onwards...

I woke up later and started drinking.
I made peace with a couple of people on ARRSE. Perhaps, at least, I can reflect on the fact that my so called internet "enemies" are not enemies any more. So I've laid a couple of cyber-grudges to rest...

which makes me feel good. I've had a few chats with other internet mates, and the fundamental fact is that while I INITIALLY appear as an annoying big gobber internet charver boy, I soon *violins play* reveal myself to be more emotionally sensitive and considerate than ever before...

...A friend panicked me yesterday. He showed me an article that showed that our new unelected prime minister, Gordon Brown planned to remove all British forces from Iraq. I have seen no other news to support this but this article scared me enough

Let me go on record as saying that a sudden and unequivocal withdrawal of soldiers will destroy not only the trust we fought so hard to gain with the Iraqis, but it will destroy our relationship with America, also.

How many soldiers die in Iraq? How many soldiers die in Afghanistan? Would we be defeated, divided by such enemies? Will our soldiers have died in vain? The American and British armed forces are the best in the world. If these feral so-called insurgents divide the two strongest allies in the world then they will have not only won, but won in a spectacularly strong fashion, the likes of which they would have previously thought impossible.

If they divide -no - if Brown - if Labour - divides the two proudest peoples on earth, they will create amniosities that will split the west - in two. I naively thought that our government could only damage our country, when in reality, this one scotsman, Herr breun, could upset the entire european relationship with the United States

The United States cannot fight without us without committing more soldiers to Iraq, and We can not exist in our current political position of power, without the support of America.
We risk, in 2007, becoming what france (small f) became at the start of the war. We risk becoming fairweather friends.

For Great Britain to abandon a century of friendship, a half century of military co-operation, for us to turn our back on our allies, would be totally unforgivable, totally traitorous to the West in general, totally indefensable...
...and totally New Labour...

I fear for our future...

Short day!

Okay, well I woke up at 1pm. And again at 2. And at 4, 5 and then 6:30.
Surprisingly I had no hangover, though looking at my blog entry from earlier (see previous entry) I must have been extremely drunk.

So what have I done today? Not much. Sat about, bought loads of soft drinks from the local store, oh yeah, and I won two 40mm grenades from ebay!

Which will be fun, though I strongly suspect my bank account, though once healthy, is beginning to suffer.

Oh well, I get paid soon :).

The Glorious Twelfth

Okaaaay folks It's the glorious twelfth- the twelfth of August, which apparently, is the day in this country where it's traditional for those select few with country houses and firearms licences to go round massacreing game birds. Kinda like foxhunting except the birds the toffs shoot are semi domesticated - er, semi trusting of humans - unlike the foxes that they used to shoot...

Now I'm not anti foxhunting, not am I anti grouse/pheasant shooting. If a fox came at me with its jaws wide, I'd shove a stick of dynamite in its throat and pepper spray it in the face. If an animal dares to be aggressive, I feel an uncontrollable urge to spray the damn thing in Zippo fluid (gasoline) and set it alight. Perhaps somewhere during the animalistic squeals of agony, the animal will realise its mistake, in ever challenging the dominance of humans over animals...

Provided that is, that the animals have a chance to fight back. I am not a cruel person. In an ideal world, animals and I wouldn't interact. At all. If some animal is stupid enough to bare its teeth at me, I'll leave it be, comfortable and safe in the knowledge that my peers will turn them into handbags...

Now don't get me wrong - or perhaps, do get me wrong.
I hate the upper class in this country. I hate these antisocial elitist self insufficient aristocratic anachronistic do-nothing-know-nothing toff fuckwits that do nothing IN THEIR LIVES other than live in big houses, get paid to live in big houses, and generally treat the countryside as their own private back yard. Game deer? Game rabbits? Game pheasants? Grouse? Oh yes, they can shoot them and kill them...

For anyone else, this crap is called "Butchery" and is subject to English law. For these rich sponging government peers, the "law" is something that happens to other people. Typical bloody aristocracy. And yet, today, we have the so called Glorious Twelfth, the day when a hundred, perhaps a thousand trigger happy toffs, get to take their short range inaccurate weapons to the skies, relying on lowly servants to beat the birds into the air, so their masters can shoot them...

...yes this does happen - I once had the misfortune of speaking to a butler - a genuine English upper class upper crust Parker/Lady Penelope style Butler of the most refined type. This butler who spotted an injured animal, who phoned [unnamed animal rights organisation that begins in R and ends in A] who when asked, could he take the cellphone and keep an eye on the animal, was duty bound to ask in a perfect cut glass English accent "Hmm. May I take the phone, sir?"...

at the age of twenty one, my distain for the so called English upper class turned into complete and total revulsion. I would fight in a war against any society that turns men into slaves, whether that society be islamic or christian.

Still, I digress... Today is the day when thousands of so called "gentlefolk" blast the birds from the skies, watching them flailing and screeching towards the ground before the impact snaps their necks and crushes their chests...

Graphic - yes? I'm not anti-hunting. I'm anti-dressing-it-up-as-noble-sport. Hunting and shooting can be fun, I admit. But not for the sake of it. Granted, pheasants etc are incredibly stupid animals - REALLY they are! - but the only reason these poor things are victimised, is because they're the only birds that the fat idle do-nothing so called gentry can hit.

***pause*** Okay, in today's lesson, we learn not to knock a 50 caliber rifle round onto a beer glass, from 4 ft. They have a habit of shattering them. *picks glass up*

Anyway, I didn't really have any point to make, other than pointing out the differences in the way that the law is applied to rich people, and the way that it is applied to poor people. I dare say I'm missing out some of the specifics, but hey, the upper crust lot will come up with any excuse to preserve their lot in life - you only have to look at the scum in ashtead, as an example.

Anyway, I doubt the law will change. The serfs will continue serving the country, while the so called rich will continue living off it...

God Bless America...

Good Morning...

Dust off the cobwebs...

Okay,it's been a bloody weird day.

Well it hasn't, but... Oh sod it, I'm not making witty comments for the sake of it, it's time for a fresh approach.

Today has been a mixed success - my shift at work progressed EXTREMELY quickly, probably because we were so busy. I came back home and instead of my normal early eve siesta, I set to work on my bike to "fix the oil mixer pump". A couple of hours later, after fixing the brakes - the bike had been sat for so long that the brakes had seized completely solid (I had to disassemble the brakes so the bike would move, they work fine now), I finally took off the front sprocket to get to the oil pump cover. I all but lacerated my hands trying to get these four screws holding the cover on, out. In the end, having thrown my tools across the drive in a temper tantrum, I went upstairs to check the workshop guide...
Coming back down, I realised that of course the screws were hard to undo - that's what you get with GEARBOX CASING screws. I meant to fix the oil mixer and nearly disassembled the gearbox!!!
I sorted the oil mixer, and the damn thing still won't start....
...BUT...
...I spoke to a mechanic who conveniently happened to be standing next to me (no, really! He'd returned my dad's car from its MOT), and after a couple of minutes, he has decided that it's the fuel flow. So the problem isn't the clutch or the choke or the battery or the weather or the alignment of the planets, as I've so vigorously maintained, it's the fact that no damn petrol is getting to the engine... Simple really...

So now I'm gonna sort out the choke, gonna get that installed, gonna get the carbs set up, and I'm gonna try to get all the new engine parts fitted as well.
The thing about my bike is that it's an absolute sod to get working properly, and it has frequently made me frustrated enough to hit, shout, and kick at various things - usually things that I have to pay to repair...

But, when she's working, when she's mobile, it's worth all the trouble, she's worth all the frustration...

...I spose that's why I love her. Look at her - she's as beautiful as any vehicle on the road. You can keep your corvettes and ferraris - I love my bike :).

On a different note, related to my 3D Blog, I've decided to order another 2 gig of ram, taking my computer's total RAM up to 3 gig. now I just have to win it on ebay because NOWHERE else sells it! Let's hope I get it!!

Have fun, sorry for the disjointed crap post, it's 3:38AM and I've got a mostly empty massive bottle of beer next to me.

Holy ammo!

Well, today, some more of my ammo turned up. The 20mm shell I won turned up along with some 7.62 and some 5.56 link. my iPod armband also turned up too, and that's pretty cool as well (Yes, the more alert of you will probably have noticed that in the photo it is actually around my lower leg, not my arm. Have you ever tried taking a decent photo of your own shoulder?)

So I was feeling artistic and decide to take some pictures of my growing collection of ordnance. Out comes the pasting table, and with a bedsheet as a tablecloth, I'm all set to work my magic and set out an incredible display.

And yes, it did fall over, mid construction. Three times.
Oh well, the collection's getting bigger and I've still got some to come, so hey, that's looking pretty cool at the minute...

...Still no word from the Army though, I'm kinda in limbo, though because of the pain in my shins I've had to stop running AGAIN. I've responded by getting some new insoles for my running shoes, and I've been cycling 20Km a week to work out. Let's hope all goes well, eh?

New Blog!!!

Okay, if you look in the links box to the right of the aircraft, you will see a link to my 3D art blog! this is a new blog that showcases and talks about my 3D artwork.
Content is a bit scarce there at the minute, because the blog is still under construction, but if you look, it's there!
See you on the other side!

Wow, it's like christmas here...

Okay, friday, a mediocre day at work. Boredom reigns supreme...

...Or rather, it doesn't. Chaos and confusion reign. Again. Apparently, yesterday on my day off, the entire computer network went down, as it is wont to do, and will be wont to do until they stop trying to network 100 computers over two buildings in two seperate counties, via a 14.4 router and a couple of dymo labelers. In response, every poor sod was doing their job talking to the loonies we get on the phone, while trying to scribble everything down on paper. Today, with the systems back up, one of the more useless two-stars assigned five of my colleagues - about half of the people that were in that early in the morning, to copying out these ferking forms onto the network, instead of taking calls. Fair enough, I understand that some of them are urgent and need to be dealt with, but the manager was told to keep these people on data entry only as long as calls didn't start queueing in the system. Which they did.

Oh boy, they did. 9:30, two hours after I started my shift, an hour after call queues started lighting the board up red (we actually have software that displays how many calls are queueing and how long they've been holding on, so next time you're in a queue to someone in customer service or whatever, they DO know you're there...) queues are hitting the roof, 3 or 4 on emergency calls, 7 or 8 queueing to report urgent situations, and about TWENTY FIVE queueing to ask stupid questions like "can peacocks fly?" or to make stupid statements like "It's bleeding from its head - I think it's got a broken leg" - I swear, I took both calls where the caller came out with that...

The day wore on, it was clear that we - because my 5 colleagues were STILL on data entry instead of call taking (except they weren't, because they were ferking busy chatting instead) - wouldn't have a cat in hell's chance - no pun intended - of meeting our targets to answer xyz number of calls in the first 60 seconds... So I go down on my lunch break, and in walks my friend. Let's call him employee X;

Employee X is one of the more senior guys on the floor, not actually above me but a hell of a lot more experienced, both in the job and in life in general. Nearly some 40 years my senior, he has my respect both as a colleague and as a person. Anyway, I digress. He hates the job. Almost as much as I do, because of his maturing years, he knows better than to show it, but when having private chats among friends, he makes it clear he hates the job.

Anyway - [my company] have actually had the damn cheek to haul Employee X up in front of two two-stars so they can grill him because he's not adhering to his contract - which in any other job, would be fine. But in MY job, for [my company], the company apparently has the right to change the terms and conditions of your contract, as well as your job role and duties, with very little notice and without your approval, like it or lump it. This is as far as I'm aware, damned illegal. Except knowing [my company], it will probably be illegal in such a way that only a £50,000 solicitor/lawyer could sue them for.

Anyway, he's decided after talking to his wife to push the issue as far as he can take it. In his own words, he's being interviewed by the two worst managers on the unit. One who thinks that Dublin is in Northern Ireland, and another one who's so wet that he's been nicknamed "Jellyfish - because he has no spine". So it'll be interesting to see how that turns out.

And then I got a call from a prick of a solicitor who wanted to defend some animal-beating shit, asking for the email address of a particular inspector/enforcement officer/welfare guy type person. The following is paraphrased a little, but this's basically how it turned out:

Lawyer: I need to send an email to one of your officers. What's Officer X's email address?
Me: They don't have email addresses.
Lawyer: What?! Okay, what's his fax number, I need to fax him a letter.
Me: They don't have fax numbers, all communication is done via radio.
Lawyer: Well I've left a message which was sent by radio and he hasn't got back to me.
Me: All I can really do is send him another message. I can see if I can fast track it if it would help?
Lawyer: No, I need an email address or something, or I could send a letter, [organisation] is a big organisation, how do people send the inspectors letters?
Me: They don't. All communication is done via 2-way radio.
Lawyer: So where do people send letters that they want to go to [organisation]? How do they contact specific officers?
Me: To send letters to [organisation], they send them to our head office. To contact specific officers, they phone the main control office, and we relay the messages to the inspectors via 2 WAY RADIO.
Lawyer: You know, you can't transmit letters via radio, there has to be a way I can get this letter to [officer]. I will send this to your head office. What will happen then?
Me: The head office will phone us, and relay the message to us. We then relay it VIA TWO WAY RADIO to our Officer. Why are you sending a letter? Wouldn't it just be quicker for me to send this message right now, for you?
Lawyer: Oh yes, of course. I require you to send this message immediatley, but I will also send the letter...

Anyway, I politely but as unpleasantly as I could get away with, ended the call, treating the prick to one of my "goodbye *click*" endings, that only the real bad idiot callers get... God that guy must be a good lawyer, almost had me believing that white is black and left is white. You don't "require" me to do anything, you civilian pen-pushing sellout prick. (not all solicitors are bad, it's just the majority that spoil it for everyone else. I've never spoken to one who wasn't a ferking arsehole).

Anyway, that was friday morning/afternoon. Anyone want it? It's going cheap!

FRIDAY AFTERNOON

I got home, erm, like I usually do, on the bus, which erm, isn't really worth talking about so let's skip to the interesting bit...

SOME OF MY PARCELS CAME!!!

About five of the bloody things waiting for me when I got back! Half of my ammo, including my rarden shell! That thing is bloody massive! Then we went swimming as a family, which was pretty nice.
Was bored when I got back, so I went online, ordered some more stuff, including four Black Talon cartridges which are at least as impressive as the colt long.45's that I've got sitting next to me. (For the latest pictures of my inert ammo collection, see the more recent posts...)

So... What else to add... I seem to have become completely obsessed with CoF now, having Thornography and Nymphetamine on almost constant replay. Still, it's all good, I just can't get enough of the stuff. Loving it!

Well time marches on, and I'll be asleep in another couple of hours, but hey, It's been a crap day with a good ending!

Oh. Hey. I learned to add pictures. That's cool, I'll do more of that in future!

What fun!

Okay, so following my last entry, I went and got stuck into the beer, and started drinking...
...and drinking...
...at 1am I was pretty tipsy and in a pretty good mood...
...at 3am I was drunk and having a lighthearted but full-blown online argument with another recruit-to-be about which one of us deserved the attention of the various girls in the chatroom (like geek fighting I spose - whoa)
...at 4am I was very drunk and watching the best (gruesome, but farking brilliant) music videos from CoF's back catalogue, and I finally managed to stick them in some kind of order, as to how cool they were :

DISCLAIMER: For those not familiar with Cradle of Filth, they are a band from Suffolk in the UK, and have variously been described as death metal, black metal, and satanic metal. While most of the members are reasonably normal and sociable people, the videos and songs themselves rely heavily on satanic/blasphemous/gruesome/pornographic or othwise explicit imagery or concepts that might shock/distress people not used to them - If you can't get away with watching 18+ videos in your house, you probably shouldn't watch the at least the first of the three videos. I don't want to be scaring away/offending my readers!

1. From The Cradle To Enslave - Very graphic! If you freak out easily, skip this one.
2. Her Ghost in The Fog - Much more melodic, video is much much tamer.
3. Byronic Man - Tamer still, I think, still some (small amount of) pornographic imagery - This one's interesting because it's not actually a CoF video, it is instead, a fan-made video made of clips from previous music videos and what I think is some fresh footage from elsewhere - possibly H.I.M. videos, as this song actually features guest vocals from Ville Valo.

...At 5am I got talking to one of my mates from the US, about my exciting life etc, and I went on at him for about the next 4 hours, until I fell asleep at my keyboard!

Anway, I've become something of a CoF nutter over the past few weeks, I mean I've always been a fan since I was about 13, but I've recently got most of their newer back catalogue and the stuff justs get better and better, so if you like the tunes, then go and get the albums, there's plenty more where that came from. Thornography and Nymphetamine are amazing!

On a slightly related note, when looking for the links to each video, I came across this fantastic video of a singing tesla coil - I don't pretend to know the science behind it, but it's a pretty damn cool video to see so I thought I'd see what you lot thought! It kinda puts me in mind of some of Animusic's stuff, particularly "Harmonic Voltage" which was one of their better videos...

Anyway, back to finding those CoF video links - they should be up ^^there in a couple of seconds... Yep, there they go...

Moving on, the first load of my inert ammunition arrived yesterday - 50 5.56 rounds. They don't do anything except sit there and look shiny, but like a magpie, I like shiny things. So I keep them around. I've ordered (in descending order of calibre):

1x 30mm round (from the British Army's Warrior AFV)
1x 20mm round (probably from an AAA gun or a Vulcan Cannon)
1x .50 BMG round (probably from an anti-materiel rifle)
6x .45 Long Colt rounds, a popular caliber for many revolvers.
10x 9mm rounds (from the H&K MP5)
15x 7.62x51 rounds (used by many weapons, including the GPMG and M60)
5x 7.62x39 rounds (used by the AK47)
80x 5.56 rounds (used by most NATO weapons including the M16 and SA80)

Note for FBI/MI5/Interpol/South Yorkshire Police etc, anyone who takes a strong official interest in firearms, or the civilian acquisition thereof: These rounds are INERT - they have been deliberatley and permenantly modified in such a manner as to PERMANENTLY render them safe. None of my rounds could or would ever be converted for use in a real firearm - and I don't own any of those either - so there.

Anyway moving on...

I had an investigation at work today to determine whether or not I've been naughty enough to have to sit through the second discipliniary in two weeks. The long and short of it is that no, I'm not.
Two managers (well, call center managers, which makes them the REAL equivalent of McDonalds two-stars (an extremely junior and mostly useless manager)) and I had a little chat, and I basically got a slap on the wrist, which is fair enough, I suppose it could have gone worse...

Anyway, I don't have anything more useful to say, though I admit I don't know how much of the above is useful, but I'll no doubt keep you posted as I think of things randomly...
Take care!

Random Spending...

...Okay, so I woke up this morning, and made a pot of coff-ay and stared at the wall and drank my coff-ay...

...sorry, wrong cartoon... ...oh yeah, that link's not safe for work, it's got like... ...swearing... and stuff...

I didn't wake up this morning, because I was in fact, awake this morning until about 6am, playing Silent Hunter 3. It's a damn fine game, It's detailed, and very addictive. In fact, it's a game with only one minor problem - I'm sinking scores of ships that are flying Royal Navy and British Merchant Navy flags. While it's only a game, and sinking scores of ships is a good thing for your mission score, as a British Soldier to be, (I hope), sinking battleships and cruisers with your own nation's flag flying from their masts, kinda takes away from the pleasure of playing the game, and while I acknowledge that the crews of the real U-boats were no less brave or honourable than our own sailors, I still have an objection to torpedoing British shipping, even though it's only in a virtual sense - I mean, on one hand it's only a game, but on the other hand, imagine how well a war game would sell over here or in the US (cos I have American readers too), if you played the part of a militant shooting at western soldiers - it wouldn't sell at all would it? Well I wouldn't buy it, that's for sure...

...it's for this reason that I've spent a few quid and have got Silent Hunter 4 on the way - it's exactly the same except with better graphics, and the important change that instead of fighting in the atlantic, commanding a U-boat and torpedoing British shipping, you're commanding a US Navy submarine in the pacific, and torpedoing the Japanese ships - Now I like Japan, it's a cool place, now, but the whole pearl harbour/they-weren't-on-our-side thing makes me feel slightly less bad sinking virtual Japanese ships, than sinking British ones...

So what are we to learn from the above rambling diatribe? I take computer games too seriously? I'm fiercely patriotic? Make your own mind up - I haven't made mine up yet.

Anyway, in the real world, my so-called gum disease is abating, I woke up this morning feeling fine, and even now, feel no pain - it's like the attack of agony I had never happened. Strange...

I've gone and gotten myself in trouble at work again which will probably mean yet another ferking discipliniary. Am I guilty? That depends...
I'm guilty of nothing more than the same every single one of my colleagues is guilty of (using computer (if such it may be called - it's a pentium for pete's sake) for personal purposes (looking at work-safe image PREVIEWS on google search, for crying out loud, really REALLY antisocial productivity destroying behavior isn't it...) - something everyone I work with does, every single day. So yes, I am guilty of doing it, but what I'm most guilty of, is being caught. 70 people in that office, 70 people doing it, and I'm one of about half a dozen people that have been dragged into investigations, for nothing more - I feel - than to have an example made of us.
Was I angry when I was told? Oh yes. When asked, if I thought the decision to pursue an investigation was fair, I said no. When asked again, I said that I would not be bullied into saying, nor believing, that it was fair - it isn't. That place crushes every single spark of autonomy or independent thought that any one of its employees, if such they may be called (I prefer "victims"), has. And you can look forward to the naming and shaming when I get fired, oh yes indeed... It'll be like Michael Douglas in "Falling Down", except without the firearms and emotional instability...

*blinks*

Sorry I went a bit random and vengeful there, still it'll be fun to look back on...

So what else have I done? On a topic COMPLETELY unconnected to the above, I had a bit of a random spending spree on ebay, and due to reasons beyond my comprehension, I now have about 50 quidsworth of inert ammunition (Yes, inert - that means I am NOT about to go and shoot up a fast food place and demand a burger at gunpoint) of various calibers on its way to me. Why? I don't know. I figured it'd be cool to have sitting around. 7.62x51? 7.62x33? 5.56? 9mm? .50 cal? 30mm? You name it, it'll be sitting around in my bedroom, while my money is sitting around in someone else's bank account. Still, in a few weeks I won't miss the money and I'll still have the gear. Still, that's impulse buying for you I spose.

So what am I going to do now? Well I'm going to finish this post for a start, then I'm off to drink lots of beer and listen to all sorts of music and eat yummy food and stuff...

Um yeah. so, that's like, it.

See you round, folks!

PS: As something of an afterthought, I'd just like to thank Jeff, Lexi, Alex, Matt, and David_Precious - particularly David, who I don't think I actually know, and despite seeming to have stumbled across this blog completely randomly, has been sticking with it for a fair few months, (thanks matey, glad to have you onboard). I don't know if you guys are my only readers, but regardless, at least I know I'm not shouting out into the night and getting nothing back for it, so cheers for reading, at least someone is showing an interest. I should spend some money on advertising and become like, famous and stuff, and then maybe I wouldn't have to work for a living or a news station would want to interview me and I could become one of these celebrity arseholes who make money for being famous despite being talentless and despite the fact that no-one knows what they're famous for...

So yeah, thanks!

(Did that last bit sound like I wam desperate for attention and have low self esteem? The first is kinda 25% true, and the second is absolutely untrue, hehe)

Anyway, I'm off to chill and get drunk...

Okay so it's not that bad...

Okay, so I've been doing some research on the net on a few medical sites- seems what I actually have is gum disease - oh joy, well that's both good and bad news - On the downside, it means that I'm still probably going to suffer with wisdom tooth problems at some point, but on the upside, gum disease, being extremely common, is extremely easy to treat - with some luck, I shouldbe able to get my hands on some kind of medicine or something tonight.

Also, just a quick note to let you guys know that my internet at home has gone down - so I'm adding this at work - if you don't hear from me for a few days, you know why.

Well, have fun :).

More dental agony, but Anbesol helps!

Damn, it's never ending!

I['ve got another dentists appointment to have the work she started earlier this month finished, so I can hopefully go and pass my ADSC Medical. In the meantime however, in the past couple of days, I've been having hellish pain in my gum - not my jaw, my gum.

that's right folks, after thinking I'd gotten away with it for so long, the first of my lower third molars (wisdom teeth) has started trying to come through. While I don't have toothache, because the tooth itself is brand new and absolutely perfect, the tooth is essentially trying to punch through the gum above it, a-la chestburster from the aliens movies. And my gum is sore - oh boy, is it sore. I can't swallow very well because of the pain, so eating and drinking is unpleasant, it just seems, well, not "unfair" (because fair isn't a concept I recognise - life isn't fair, so why bother moaning about it), but just damned annoying. At the start of the month I had a tooth extraction, I'm having fillings next month, and now I have a wisdom tooth coming through - so it's all happening! On the plus side, my mouth ulcer (yes I had one of those too!) has healed so I'm not in pain from that anymore. I've got some Anbesol anelgesic stuff, so hopefully that should take away at least some of the pain from this thing trying to push through my gum!

Right, what's gone right the past week or so...

Well, I'm really getting into Simcity 4: Rush Hour, and I've built a city that is really burgeoning - something that I've not been able to do before - so even though It's only a computer game, it's one I've been playing for four years and I'm finally beginning to become good at it, so that's something that has gone pretty well...

...Also, my iPod Video has arrived this morning, and I've got to say I think it's fantastic. Okay, so there was a brief period where I played with it and thought "meh you've seen one ipod, you've seen 'em all", as I'd already got an ipod nano, but this one is so much better. Once you get used to the size, and round the fiddly roundabout way of getting videos onto the thing, it's actually a pretty cool device to have to hand, so I'm definitely pleased with it. Okay, so it's got a fair few scratches on it (I bought it second hand, got it for £102 instead of the £149-£229 (hell of a difference depending on where you go!!) that various places charge for new ones. Who cares about scratches, when at best, I got the iPod AND the postage, at less than half the price of a new one.
The sound quality is great, the videos are crisp and colourful, it's an absolute pleasure to use. Err - that's just my personal thoughts, not a review or anything, though if you want a review, I strongly recommend this one - it helped me decide to buy mine!

Hmm, what else has happened. Well, I've got paid!!! This means that I've been spending more and more time on ebay, buying all sorts of things. Got a nice new armband/ipod holder sorta thing on the way so that I can run and listen to music at the same time. Also got a new leather case for the ipod so I can keep it protected when I'm not running around, and got another game for my Gameboy Advance - yes, GBA, not sony PSP - why? Because despite my obsession with gadgets and gadgety things, I'm a child of the eighties folks, born in 1985, and I wanna play the games I grew up with, hehe.

So what am I doing now? I'm sat chilling, listening to Eisbrecher on my ipod at a very loud volume, as well as this fantastic tune, converting some videos for the ipod (the main complaint most people have about the ipod video is that it supports about 4 common file formats - WMA, MPEG and AVI not among them - which makes converting videos a bit of a pain in the butt - but still...) for it, I'm browsing ebay looking for more stuff to buy. Might play Simcity again soon, and I've got my run later too.

Well, I spose I'd best go and do some of that stuff - sorry that the post's a bit disjointed - it's hard concentrating when you're listening to loud Eisbrecher!
Just to say, thanks for the comments - it's good to know people are reading :).
I'll keep you all updated, as always.

Take care

EDIT - 7:53PM: OUCH!!! I just tried to eat something, and it was next to impossible. I couldn't open my mouth fully without feeling like someone was jabbing an ice pick in my jaw, I couldn't chew my food properly cos I couldn't put any pressure on my gums, and it took me about three times as long to eat what I was eating (weetabix) than it normally does. The pain which could at the time have been described as "absolute agony" has since faded to being merely "extremely painful", and is continuing to fade, but I can't face soup for all my meals for the forseeable future, nor can I put up with this amount of pain indefinitley. It didn't even bloody hurt on tuesday, so what the hell's going on? :(

And so it begins...

So I went to the interview...

I woke up about 8amish, which was fine for an early afternoon interview. Spent a while just kicking back, having a cup of coffee etc, generally chilling out, watching the news and waking up. I decided that I'd best get a move on, and started on my shoes - I've had enough experience to know how to make them sparkle, and I figured I was gonna do myself proud...

As time went on, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The polish that I coated the shoes with the night before, cracked, and the crumbled polish rubbed the newer layers of polish right off the shoe. Got to get it back to bare leather and start again, but no matter how hard I tried, the problem was there and wouldn't go away - I got madder and madder, tried to brush the excess away only to discover that the only polishing brush in the house is now absent...
Anyway, over the next hour or so I just got insanely mad and my blood pressure went through the roof, as the time for the interview loomed closer.

I managed to get all my clobber on, went to the hair place, and got my hair cut - the damn woman spent more time playing with the kid there, than cutting my hair [and I spose I would have too, if it was my kid, and I wasn't in a rush]...

Anyway, like a great example of bad planning, I made it on the last bus into town before my interview, which got snarled up in traffic, where I practically ran to the carreers office, hurried upstairs, at 1 minute past the interview time, and walked... ...into a practically empty office.

I was waiting 15 minutes listening to some cadet yodelling on about how he's next in line for corporal or whatever, and barely managed to keep my mouth shut. This kid sounded like just the type of walt who would expect real serving soldiers to follow his cadet-corporal orders. I remembered back to my cadet days - I spose at the time you take your cadet-corporal rank bloody seriously, not realising that everyone apart from the kids that you're commanding, think you're an idiot. I spose it's only when you join the army or the reserves that you realise how much the army hate the cadets for trying to be something they're not...

anyway, sorry for getting off topic, cadets just boil my piss. Like overzealous scout troop leaders, taking what little power they have far too seriously...

I went in and had my interview with the sergeant which was pretty cool. The purpose of the interview is for the Army to look at me and decide whether it likes me as a person, and believes I am suitable for recruit training/service...

It went pretty well, and there weren't any hitches. Apart from one: My work had agreed to provide me with a reference, without telling me that it's also their policy not to comment on individual employees - the sergeant presented me with a piece of paper, where every single box was marked with "N/A". Something to be sorted indeed...

At the end he said that apart from me needing another reference, I had passed the interview, and he had no hesitation in forwarding me to the ADSC - The Army Development and Selection Center. This is described by the staff as "one 36 hour long job interview", where I go away and spend a weekend with the army, complete various assessments, take my medical, and if all goes well, get a date for starting REAL training.

So the interview went fantastically, everything was great, and I passed with flying colours - go me! Well I say all was well. I went to ask the sergeant a question about a form I'd filled in for him, and I'd stuck a little note to the front of the form to remind me to ask him. Well as I was asking him, I pulled the note off, and it was stuck on so well that it ripped part of the front of the form, eliciting a loud "shit!" from me. Well the interview was over by then anyway but I still glanced at him guiltily, hehe...

So now it begins. I've got the references I need, having had a micro-chat with my boss. I've got the exercise plan that the Army gave me, on my wall, so I know what I need to do in the next four or so weeks, to get fit for the ADSC assessments, and I've got my revision CD out so I can practice maths.
Yes, that's right, maths. See, one thing the sergeant also did was make me make a decision on which one of my three job choices I want to do the most. The one with the most vacancies, the one that pays the best, the most varied one and the most rewarding one, is that of Vehicle Mechanic.

"Wait", I hear you say. "You don't need to be in the army to be a mechanic". That's right, you know. But Mechanic is my trade, not my job. When I'm not out in the desert, fixing vehicles that have been damaged by combat, I'll be alongside the units that operate the vehicles, fighting alongside them - obviously, there's no use for a soldier who does nothing just because there are no vehicles to fix - so I'll get my fair share of combat too. When I'm not fighting or fixing vehicles under fire, I will prolly be fixing them elsewhere. Soldier first, Mechanic second, as the army website itself, tells you.

so yeah. I've bought a new 30gb ipod to replace my old 4gb one. Okay 30gb isn't much but I don't have 10gb worth of tunes yet, nd I wanna take all my music to phase one with me. It's 14 weeks away from home and I don't wanna be without my tunes.
The only thing that can go wrong now, is my medical. In the words of my GP, I don't have any medical problems that would make me unsuitable for military service, that I am aware of, but it always seems to me, that the more value you place on something - in this case, the chance of a carreer in the army - the more chances are, you will lose that something...

Only time will tell, until then, I' know what I've got to be getting on with.
Let's hope like hell, that all goes okay.