THIRTEENTWELVE

New tshirt idea:

"babblin shit' rules"

Props to my boss.

The snow is falling on and off here today; the boss is all excited like a kid at christmas.

His suggestion to and then further implementation to "go for a run in the snow" - rocked.

We walked (not run, derr) to the park from work, threw snow balls, pulled skids, admired where bird foot prints where left in the snow and did some pretty class A twatting about.

Big ups my boss.

(though he still fookin lurves tha' ....)

Back from the south.

Came back to a big phone bill, cold weather and of course without my sparkle. Which sucked all round.

2 constants of travelling down south;

- no matter how far from Halifax you go, theres always a Halifax bank.
- the further away from Edinburgh you go, the more likly a "Edinburgh Woollen Mill" store is to exist.

Further to those statements;

- it should be a condition of people who are customers of the halifax bank to have been to halifax, or those who have should get special interest rates or something.

- I dont think there is an Edinburgh Woollen Mill in Edinburgh.

So this past few days down south, been good to see my sparkle.

On the way down it was really foggy - at points i couldnt see the fog for the cloud. Which was really only annoying because I'd be drifting along at 85 and then have to slow down for the fact I couldnt see anything. Made worse over Bodmin - where I really couldnt see anything and 85+ wasnt any fun at all.

Comically on 350+ mile driving - when I stop for petrol and a piss I always end up playing driving games in the service station arcades. Been driving for 3 hours and have another 2 at least to go; always time for a quick drive...

Queen Adreena in Falmouth rocked. And rocked hard. That band rules. The support bands where utter shite. But Queen Adreena rocked very hard.

Then it got really cold and it snowed. I wanted to take pictures of snow on the beach, but it was freezing and wet and 'angin so didnt bother. But snow at the sea side down south. The day before it was 12 degrees - people where falling asleep on the beach in tshirts. Then snow.

I also learnt that Truro is a city, despite being really small. And that St Ives, where theres a Tate gallery and Babara Hepworths studio was is the pokyist place on earth - a nightmare to drive around, its so thin, narrow and confusing. Barbara Hepworths house rocked though (even if I wasnt so impressed by her sculptures).

its now 12 days till sparkle comes home for christmas - and I cant bloody wait.

I would also like to take a minute to pay my respects and wish farewell to this weeks big loss to the world - no, not George Best; a chronic alcoholic who was given more chance to live than most and pissed it all away and whose deathe has been covered with far too much vigour by the media.

Pat Morita - Mr Miyagi - has passed away.

RIP dude.

1312: as seen on TV.

(digitised video coming soon - as soon as I figure out how to get a video from vhs to a computer)

I shall be signing autographs on official merchandise for a limited period in the coming week.

lol

1312 goes on tour again tonight - shall be gracing the south west with my presence once again (and hoping its no where near as cold as it is up north)

Queen Adreena in Falmouth has gotta rock.

And the thought for today; If "gay" is an acronym for "good as you" - then surely I'm "bta" - bit tough to say but still apt.

BTA you may ask.

Better than all.

lol

Bah not writing the the DVLA was a bad idea then.

A while back, september, I was they fined me for no re-licensing my old, written off car as I put in these two posts; one, two

Today I have 2 letters:

- One saying "thanks for telling us that you are no longer the keeper of the vehicle" and "any requests we have made for you to re-license the vehicle you can ignore"

- And another saying "You have failed to pay the £80 fine and we will now attempt to recover these costs in court - unless you pay us now"

Both letters came from DVLA offices on different sides of the country.

So am I boned or not? Fuck knows.

Guess I will have to phone them tommorow and try and get myself out of this.

Shit piss crap - I wish my hatred of snail mail and hadnt got the better of me on this one.

Car sat nav systems.

Tom toms and similar devices and people using PDAs for sat nav systems can now quickly and easily to thei required destinations; by simply typing into thier devices their desired destination postcode. Very good.

Now; I think around 1 in 20 people has these things - it might be less but the number seems to be increasing week by week.

I tend to see these people with sat nav thingies on my commutes to and from work. That is on the motorways or roads through the citys suburbs out towards motorways.

Which means their sat nav systems have guided them into traffic jams. The same traffic jams I'm sat in, without any sat nav.

Also; assuming that 99% of these people are also on their daily commute. Do they really need a sat nav system to tell them how to get to work, or home, every day - following a route they've been doing everyday. Course not.

Now I can understand sat navs for say; british gas repairs people etc. Having to go ro many random joes houses all over. But for those random joes using them to "navigate" to work, the shops just down the road or their local asda - then I come up a blank.

"we'd never have got to the chippy without our sat nav" (its all of 200 meters away)

I can only congratulate the marketting men for tom tom et al. for a great job convining random yahoos to buy and use the dam things. Well played boys.

Another new, um old, um new old style to choose from.

Not tested on a mac - works pc ie6 and firefox - build a bit cludgy - but does the trick.

Might try dig out the really old site. But I lost the original psds and have no idea where the folder containing any of it is, or if it still exists.

I think it was just a centralised car (arse vertical centering with css) with a see through black box with the logo, menu and content in - on a gray background. So I guess I could just remake it - but the cheapness of that actual one would be lost. Or replaced with another...

New blog style to choose from, its just called "clean" for now - you like?

Oh new css and div layout btw.

So I'm down south again. This comes in a few parts; The Drive Down, The Car Clamp, Thrice Puddle and the Slap Up Dinner.

The Drive Down
Drove here after work on Thursday - would of taken just less than 5 hours but a rolling road block going at walking pace on Bodmin Moor put an end to that - shoving my journey time up to 5 and half hours.

The A30 over Bodmin Moor is having worn out road replaced and is an interesting place to be behind a rolling road block. Which was a lorry with lots of head ache inducing flashing lights with some kinda heat torch thing that some guy was holding, walking along side and burning bits of the road.

I decided that some Bodmin Moor fresh air was a good idea; so wound down my windows and had the freshest of freshest air blowing through my car. Ace.

But it was 11 at night and November; even down south its not gonna be that warm. So up went the windows and on go the heaters - to warm back up again.

Now the car is all stuffy and so down go the windows to get fresh air again.

And repeat.

Till I got sick of sitting behind the rolling roadblock and took my chances driving on the gravel/rubble verge thing that looked way more stable than it turned out to be once I was on it...

The Car Clamp
Friday I spent a chunk of my afternoon helping one of Sparkles student friends escape a car clamp. Parking on the uni halls car parking spaces, whilst being a resident of the uni halls gets you a clamp unless you buy a permit. But the uni doesnt sell permits. Neither does the company who runs the halls of residence (who are a private company nothing to do with the uni) and neither does sapphire security, the people who clamp and tow away the cars.

So 3 cars got clamped - 2 belonged to a mancunian - one was his VW camper van and the other was a car he'd bought to sell on that night. And the other, Sparkles friends car.

While Sparkles friend watched - me and a couple o other lads, who where friends of students (it was under a cctv camera) took about getting the clamp of the little Fiat. First up came jacking the car up.

Well no; first up came lifting the car up to get the jack underneath the car to jack it up. I made the first lift attempt solo - while people just said "come on, a little bit more"

- "err a little help?"

Then jack up the car, get hands around the clamp to deflate the tyre - fortunately it was a large profile tyre - so it allowed a lot of movement once deflated. The plan was to then take the wheel off, as we could expose the wheel nuts. But as luck would have it, the clamp now moved quite along way around the wheel. So using my ex-mechanisms/physics type skillz0rs I suggested the use of a lever to move the tyre and then yanked the f00kin clamp off.

We rebuilt the clamp to its former glory - minus the car. No damage to it. Pumped up the tyre on the car, let it down and drove it off.

Students of Falmouth (and friends, 1 - sapphire Security of Plymouth, 0.

The other guy had gone for an altogether different approach to the problem. He decided to take his car to bits - he figured probably worth more in spare parts than as a whole car - so preceded to take off the panels, bumpers, bits of engine, wheels, lights and anything else he figured he could sell. And so left the car balanced on a wheel, with one other wheel with the clamp on and then pretty much looking like it had been stolen for parts (his van he just paid for, the bits of his car where inside the van...)

We baby sat the clamp for a day before returning it to its spot at 5'o'clock so the car clampers could have it back. When they came, one shouted at the other for not putting the clamp on well enough and they had no idea what to do about the wrecked car. So they took pictures on their camera phones - took the clamp off - and left.

So our man just rebuilt the car, drove it off and sold it at the auctions that night as he had planned.

Students of Falmouth (and friends, 2 - sapphire Security of Plymouth, 0.

Now you maybe thinking it should be 2 - 1 - he still had his van to pay for.

Alas - he did manage to buy a permit that day. But as it was dated the same day as the clamp - he is playing the "why did you clamp me, didnt you see the permit?" card and perusing a refund on the clamp release fee.

The clamp release fee being £85 + vat btw.

Thrice Puddle
Friday night saw us down on one of the beaches here - just sorta doing nothing but enjoying fresh sea air and wandering about on a beach at night.

Only notable to me, as my right foot goes cold even now - because I managed to put my right foot in a big deep puddle, which in the dark looked like sand, thrice - while my left foot stayed dry. No idea how.

So, if, by chance, you where around that beach on Friday night and you heard and where offended by me shouting "CHRIST! FUCK! OH FOR FUCKS SAKE THREE FUCKING TIMES AHH FUCKING SHIT NO" - um, sorry.


Slap Up Dinner
Last night me and Sparkle went for a slap up dinner in some classrestaurantt near here. The most expensive meal I've ever had and was like something from Gordon Ramsey. And I have to say - it was quite excellent. Like itactuallyy was, really sodding good.

Each dish came looking like a work of art and tasted quite fantastic - reallyenjoyedd it - I candefinitelyy recommend you all go out and eat in a fancy dan gaff.