Doggie IQ

So I read this article on the BBC Website this morning.

Apparently they use a biscuit under a cup to measure a dog's intelligence.

Now I have to say... I don't think I've ever met a dog that couldn't get a biscuit out from under a cup.

I'll have to have a look and see if I can find out what the other personality tests consists of.

The televisual habits of the common domestic feline

So, the other evening I was upstairs doing some important ...er... web development (ok, ok, I was playing City of Heroes again!) when I heard the TV downstairs come on. This was something of an odd event, given that, apart from the cats and the rabbit, I was alone in the house.

Upon investigating the cause of this phenomenon, I discovered Rochester sitting on the sofa watching the television intently with his backside parked firmly on the remote control. He was watching Granada Men & Motors, a channel that pays lip service to it's title preferring instead to show images of topless ladies doing interesting things beside swimming pools.

This isn't the first time I've caught Rochester watching porn and I suspect that it won't be the last. What's a man to do?

Oceans Twelve

What a load of tosh. The first movie was pretty good. Nice and slick with a tight plot and excellent character interaction. This was was full of codswallop. The story was weak and full of naff plot devices, such as Julia Roberts' character impersonating... Julia Roberts.

The whole museum plan was ok, as was the fact that all but three of the team managed to get themselves arrested. Even the rich French burgular challenging them was fine. But given that they actually stole the item well before it actually made it to the museum in the first place made the entire final act with the second museum heist and the Julia Roberts incident utterly, utterly pointless.

They'd have done better having Matt Damon organising some sort of jail break and earning his wings rather tha getting him arrested too and having his Mum break him out.

Ho hum. Not all movies have to good, I suppose.

Coffee Sweat

I picked up an interesting fact for the day whilst watching Braniac...

Apparently drinking coffee stimulates your apocrine sweat glands making you sweat more. There you go. You learn something new every day. Oh, and apocrine sweat is the smelly sort that festers in your ampits and nether regions.

My first muscle

I found my first muscle this week.

All this work I've been doing with the weights is finally starting to pay off. I now officially have a bicep. Woohoo.

The Spelling Monkey

Gah!

I keep trying to correct the spelling in that last post, but the evil spelling monkey won't let me edit the post.

Can't be bothered now...

In which our hero is the victim of curuel, cruel fate...

I had the whole of this week booked off. It was to be a glorious week of vegetative relaxation, (with possibly a little bit of decorating).

Then some helpful soul booked a meeting in my work diary, telling me that it was absolutely essential that I attend and absolutely impossible to reschedule. So, being the thoughful, dedicated person I am, I cancelled one of my precious days off so that I could be here for the meeting.

So I dutifully got up this morning (against my sleep-gland's better judgement) and struggled into the office. It was really really cold this morning and the heaters on the bus didn't work.

My reward, you ask, for my dedication to the job? Well I'll tell you.

The meeting has been cancelled. Because one of the attendees couldn't make it. Apparently they phoned round last night to let everybody know - except me, of course. I found out when I opened my work e-mail this morning. So I'm in the office when I should be on holiday.



You may post your condolences and sympathetic messages below...

(by the way... I drew that one on a post-it note at my desk... hence the general yellowness)

Things I hate about my cats...

I've just come across this blog which documents one person's daily struggle with a nightmare flatmate. I have to say that I sympathise greatly with him/her and in the spirit of this... er... sympathy I thought I'd write my own little tribute to it. As I don't live in a flat and wouldn't dare diss my wife, the only valid target for my wrath is my cats:

I came home last night night to what I can only describe as a 'Godawful Stench'. It smelled like someone had filled the house with the worst kind of diahorrea. I'm sorry to be so gross, but you must understand what I have to contend with.

Upon investigating the smell, I discovered thast one of the cats had elected to deposit a turd - not in the litter tray as one might expect, but next to it. And it wasn't just any turd. It was a soft, glistening, soggy turd of the sort that might be the result of an upset tummy.

So, having disposed of the offending item, thoroughly cleaned the piece of carpet on which it had been deposited and doused the entire house in lavender scented air freshener I sat down for a cup of tea.

Only to suffer the onset of another wave of horrible horrible odour.

There was a moment there, where I was convinced that I was going to die. No human being can be subjected to such nasal torture and survive. Fortunately however, I did.

Guess what I discovered when I found the source of the smell? Yes, you've got it in one. Another toxic turd in the exact same spot.

Grrrrrraaaagh.

There are many other reasons for me to hate my cats... the constant moulting, the holes in things, the vets bills.

But todays reason for hating my cats is the nasty nasty turds they leave in my house. It bugs me to the point that I drew a picture of it:



I don't really hate them. They're very nice.

More Heroes

Thought you'd like to see a pic of my hero in action. Do you like his big hammer?

Dumbells

So it's now week 4 of the new dumbell regime. And I have to say that despite my complaining and moaning, there has been a marked difference in my performance. On the first night I struggled to manage two sets of most of the exercises and I imagine that watching me struggle my way to 18 press-ups was absolutely painful.

Well, now I'm doing full sets of everything. Each dumbell is 5 kilos (which may not sound very much, but for an overweight, under exercised slob like me, it good enough for now! We'll be increasing it as time goes on).

3 days a week I'm doing 50 bicep and 50 tricep lifts on each arm in 5 sets of 10, 80 lateral lifts in 4 sets of 20 (aiming for 100) and 25.. er… shoulder lifts. There are probably proper names for all of these, but I don't have a clue! And now I'm doing 30 press ups with relatively little trouble.

On 3 more nights a week I'm doing squat things, holding both weights (so that's 10 kilos) to work my leg muscles and a bunch of sit-ups. 40 I think, last time. Ultimately this is going to turn in to a running session – but my stamina ain't up to it yet.

The most notable difference is my recovery time. It's come down quite significantly. I'm taking the stairs to my 14th floor office 3 days a week (again, I'll increase this to 5 days in a couple of weeks). When I started working out, it took me 5 or 10 minutes to recover enough to be of any use to anyone. Shows how unfit I was. No it's only taking a couple of minutes. I fully anticipate being able to climb all 300 and something steps every morning without breaking a sweat, soon.

I pretty pleased with my progress. I think I've made a real difference in just 3 weeks – think how much better it'll be in a couple of months!

Fwd: City Of Heroes

Well. It's been a long time since I've been so gripped by a game that I've been forced to play it until 3am two night running. City of Heroes is definitely one of those games. I won't waste time describing it to you - you can check it out at it's website: www.cityofheroes.com.

The important thing is that ever since I installed it at about 6pm on Friday evening, I've spent every spare moment playing it.



I need a life.

Traffic

I was 20 minutes late for work today. Whilst on the bus, I witnessed an evil, evil (and somewhat traumatic) event. Two men putting out cones.

Now there are already roadworks causing huge traffic problems on one route to and from work. These new roadworks are going to stuff up my only other route. Not only that, but their positioning is going cock up the entire ring road. Great.

So I can look forward to my 40 minute bus journey, which is long enough as it is, will now be extended to at least an hour in the morning and, assuming I'm on the bus, the journey will be... indefinite.

Thank God for Stead and his Micra Power (although I can't take advantage of it tonight as I have a teleconference 'til 5. Grrrr...)

An Experiment

I've asked the Bored Board members to help me with a little experiment:

Now you may of may not have noticed a little bit of attention in the news to kids in the playground calling each other 'gay' as a taunt or insult. This of course it completely unacceptable behaviour that I cannot possibly condone. It does hark back somewhat to my svchooldays where we would call each other 'gaylord' or 'spaz' and so on.

So in these politically correct times, we must find an alternative to such patently unkind references.

I propose therefore, that we turn our attention to the cutlery drawer. Now there is nothing in the cutlery drawer that could possibly take offence, or get upset if we use their name as an insult. You can't hurt the feelings of a kitchen tool. Similarly, the public at large has no preconceptions about items in the cutlery drawer.

So the challenge is this. USe items in the cutlery drawere as an insult.

For example, the spatula is one of the most singularly pointless items in the drawer. So by calling someone a spatula (or 'spatch', in it's highly amusing shortened form) you are indicating that they are, in fact a pointless, useless individual.

Similarly, calling someone a 'spoon' is clearly insulting. Mostly because it sounds insulting. Think of the fun you can have with 'fork'.

Anyway. By using these insults around your friends, family and work colleagues, the plan is to introduce the concept of cutlery insults into the (inter)national conciousness.

Your measure of sucess is the number of times the people around you use these insults. Even better - if someone you've never met before calls you a sptch or a spoon, you know you've made a valuable contribution to the world!