Botchandango.com

Chain Reaction

I just finished listening to tonight's Chain Reaction on Radio 4. Tonight had comedian Stewart Lee interviewing Alan Moore.... the man behind The Watchmen, The League of extraordinary gentlemen, V for vendetta, From Hell, Halo Jones, Swamp Thing, Constantine... etc. etc. etc. It was a good interview and I'll be digging out some old comics to reread some of this stuff again. The program is available to listen to on the BBC website this link might work (needs Real audio player).

Alan Moore is also featured in the PWEI song 'Can U dig it?', a song I've mentioned before that lists a catalouge of things PWEI dig.

London

Got back yesterday from a two day sight seeing trip around London. It's not something I have ever done before as I rarely go to London and then usually only to visit a particular person or place. On the first day we walked around Westminster and Piccadilly Circus stopping for lunch at Mitsukoshi. In the evening we stayed at the Copthorne Tara in Kensington. It seemed like we had found a really good deal on the Internet (londontown.com) for our rooms, paying £79 per night rather than the advertised £250+, However, although the facilities and service were good (it is supposed to be a four star hotel after all), the rooms were pretty basic and had a stale tobacco smell which you don't normally associate with 'non-smoking' rooms. I wouldn't like to have paid any more than we did for those rooms. On a positive note though the hotel subscribes to JSTV (Japan Satellite Television) so we could spend the evening relaxing to selected NHK programs.

Yesterday we took a sight seeing bus tour (The Big Bus Company) and rode the bus around almost it's entire circuit. It was a good way to see a lot in one day although very cold to be sitting upstairs on an open topped bus.

Here's a few snaps of JSTV in our hotel room

Kitano (Beat) Takeshi dressed as Dr Ochanomizu (Dr Elefun in English translation) from the anime series Astroboy. This was a special program originally broadcast in Japan in September and involved some kind of competition between two teams of engineers from Osaka and Tokyo. At times it seemed like a cross between Scrapheap challenge and The great egg race (strangely there is a similarity between Dr Ochanomizu and Professor Heinz Wolff).
NHK News, bad news tends to be the same in any language although it is always interesting to see the different ways the same story is reported in various countries.

メリークリスマス！！

Merry Christmas. Now that my cold is on the wane, I will try hard to get as merry as possible. Tonight I will introduce my mother in law to the delights of Gin and Tonic, I can also make a start on the vast stockpile of goodies that have gone uneaten while I have been feeling under the weather. Tis the season for over indulgence afterall.

I cant wait to open Chi-chans presents in the morning!! Just a few more years and I'll be able to buy him all of those things I cant quite get away with buying for myself any more ;)

Missed it

Because I've been off sick from work I missed an opportunity to see a PSP in real life. %^&**&!!

A colleauge bought one of the first batch released in Japan from ebay (at a pretty inflated price) and it arrived this week. I have just spent the morning in the office listening to everyone say how great it was, how amazing the quality of the video playback was and how much they want one too. In fact several people are actively bidding on ebay as I type this.

Anyway, he and his PSP were at a different site today so I'll have to wait until after Christmas to get my close up look.

Atchoo!

I'm suffering pretty badly with what is either a severe cold, flu or green monkey disease. Can't go to work... and don't feel like doing anything (not a very fun combination). It's a pity as my wife's mother and grandmother are staying with us for Christmas and I should be trying to make their stay as enjoyable as possible.

Still... Botchandango's patent miracle cure (comes with no medical guarantee of any sort whatsoever mix alcohol and over the counter medicines at your own risk!!)...

The juice of 1/2 a lemon
2 tsps clear honey
2 soluble asprin
At least 1 good measure of Teachers (add more to taste)

As the asprin can only be repeated every 4 hours... replace with additional Teachers for any additional 'doses' during the intervening periods.

I'm also following this with a chaser of unbranded expectorant/decongestant syrup every six hours. I bought it today as it was very cheap, bright red and seemed to contain a dose of decongestant four times stronger than all the usual big branded 'max strength' cold and flu cures out there. 

Oh, and I also have a 'cold plaster', flown in all the way from Japan, stuck to my forehead. A large white sticky backed plaster that is well... pretty cold thanks to some odd blue goo on it. Looking at the packet it came in it is designed more for children with fevers than adults.... but I always seem to regress to childhood at the slightest sign of a sniffle.(queue floods of sympathy and a chorus of "there, there's").

An apple a day

Typical! I'm at a loss sometimes for anything that seems worth blogging about.... then today when I arrived at my office, there on my desk was an amusing advertisement sent to every staff member through the internal post that just screamed 'Blog Me'. Unfortunately, four words in small print at the bottom of it scuppered that idea, 'for internal distribution only'.  Oh well... it was good and prompted several discussions among the gadget set about the pros and cons of atrac3 vs mp3, the latest line of MP3 players and whether any of them would really turn out to be an 'iPod killer'.  This mornings desk drop is just the latest in a series of emails and posters of the past few days which must be aimed at getting everyone in the company  on side,on message and fully in line behind the wider public marketing campaign that will be starting soon. Usually I consider this type of internal marketing as Spam and junk mail wondering why we go to such great lengths to keep that kind of stuff out of our mailboxes only to have it sent by colleauges in other departments. In this instance though as it was concerning something that interested me I'll leave that pet hate alone.

Oh Christmas Tree

We're still debating the artificial or real Christmas tree question at the moment... chances are we will go for a plastic one but we'll see.  Still, to bring a little Xmas cheer to my desk at work I picked this up at the weekend from the Lego store in Milton Keynes (what a fantastic shop!!).

And here's a picture of it in situ, the introduction of the Norweign Spruce to the Forest moon of Endor...

eMotherInLaw

Wife: "My mothers thinking about getting a 100 MB broadband connection installed"

Me: "Can I go to live with her?"

Me (to myself): "What's to think about??"

Me: "No really, can I?"

Ok, I'd have to question what I would actually do with that kind of connection speed... but the answer would be irrelevant. At least if I had asked the question I could pretend to have thought about it rationally for a fleeting moment at least.  What would I do with a 100 MB connection? most likely just the same kind of stuff only more of it and faster. Sweet!

Cheap Vodka

And what is the drink of choice in the colder climes?... that's right vodka. There was a post on slashdot today with a link to this site where a group of people ran an 'experiment' to see if cheap and nasty vodka could be improved by running it through a Brita water filter several times. They reckon that the answer is a resounding yes... comments on the site also suggest that the same process would work for cheap and nasty whisky too. Well I have a Brita filter jug... if this cold weather keeps up perhaps I will pick up a bottle of vodka and try out this idea myself... purely in the interest of science of course.

Snow!

It's a bit chilly today...