Another Missing Post

The more eagle-eyed among you may have noticed the absence of yesterday's post. This was due to a latent infraction in the space-time causality loop which resulted in a quantum geometric subsidence* as is clearly demonstrated in this diagram.



As you can see, the haptic points are directly affecting the causality loop in a negatropic fashion, throwing the loop outside of the nominal range and thereby tripping the illuminatic tremendum.

Obviously I was able to correct this problem with a simple inversion of the polaric codex**.

So now you can read it.



*I forgot to press the 'publish' button.

**I pressed the 'publish' button.

Bank Holidays and Bored Cats

I am firmly of the belief that as it is a Bank Holiday and I work for a bank, I shouldn't have to do anything today. That's certainly the basis I was working on when I bullied Dr K into making me breakfast in bed this morning.

So I officially declare that on Bank Holidays, bankers should be waited on by non-Banker members of the household. Any household that contains only bankers should kidnap a non-banker member of the public to perform the service (tramps are good for this - they are often grateful for a bit of work. Not the junkie ones, though as they may steal your breakfast and trade it for drugs!).

It didn't last though. I had to make lunch, albeit very, very late. And I'll be putting dinner together later. But breakfast in bed was worth it.

It's been raining all day, and neither of the cats want to go outside. I'm pretty sure Dexter thinks it's my fault as he keeps shouting at me!

I think he's bored.

While Rochester deals with the bad weather by getting a few more hours of sleep on the window sill, Dexter doesn't seem to know hat to do with himself. He's been following us around, grumbling. Every time one of us goes into the kitchen, he follows and has another little shout, in the hope that we'll feed him and take his mind off his boredom. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't work.

You Sexy Thing

Yesterday, Dr K bought a kettle.



I think you'll agree that it's a damn sexy kettle! And not only does it look good, but it whistles when it's done!

Dr K arrived at the decision entirely independent of me, having dragged me into a kitchenware store in town. She saw the gorgeous rich purpleness of it and instantly fell in love. The whistling was just a bonus.

What's interesting about this whole affair, is that just the other day, I was round a friend's house and happened to admire their kettle, which was pretty sexy and whistled when it was done.

'I wish,' I mused aloud, 'we had a sexy kettle that whistled when it was done.'

After a short discussion, we came to the conclusion that Dr K's practical frugality would mean that there was no chance of my getting a sexy kettle that whistled when it was done. We did, after all, have a perfectly functioning and relatively new, albeit less sexy kettle. So I chalked it up to experience and looked forward to many future cups of tea from a less sexy kettle that didn't whistle when it was done.

How wrong we were.

And so it was that with genuinely no input from me, Dr K bought a sexy kettle that whistled when it was done.

In unrelated news, I plan to spend the rest of the day whistling when I've done stuff and see how long it takes Dr K to punch me in the mouth or staple my lips together!

Starting... now!

Whhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooeeeeee!

No Loitering

Today, whilst out walking, I came across a sign which instructed me not to loiter.



As you can see, I followed the instruction to the letter.

Dr K and I were out for a walk along the path that runs along the western bank of the Avon from Bristol, under the Clifton Suspension Bridge and eventually, according to one if the signs, to Gloucester. Needless to say, we didn't go that far.

I've been eyeing it up as a walking destination for ages and have only just got round to investigating it.

It wasn't everything I'd hoped it would be. Mostly it smelled of dog poo. I did get a couple of nice pictures, though:











That last one was taken from directly underneath the bridge. Although it has no particular artistic merit, if you look very closely, you'll see that some enterprising graffiti artist has painted a radioactive symbol On the bottom of the bridge, in the best tradition of Bristol graffiti. I don't even want to know how they managed it!

Anyway, during the walk, despite the aroma of dog poo, my stomach became convinced that what I really needed was an awesome hot dog from the Sausage Shop stall in St Nick's Market.

Sadly, due to Dr K's refusal to turn round and go back, and a dastardly conspiracy with her bladder, by the time we got to the Sausage Shop, it had sold out of sausage and I had to settle for cold pie instead.

Hmph.

Distracting You With Cats!

Yeah, that's right. Tonight I am going to distract your attention from the fact that I can't be bothered to write a proper blog post, with cute pictures of cats.

It's hard to believe that once, Rochester was a kitten.

Well, it's true. Here he is, fifteen years ago, balancing on my mum!



Teeny tiny, wasn't he? Here's me using him to warm my lap. He wasn't so good at it back then!


Mm. Nice 90s hair, Daz.

Next up, another cute Rochester picture:


He had a little furry friend back then. One that he got along with, I mean. Look at this vomit inducing bit of cuteness!


As they got a bit older, they even liked to partake of the odd threesome:


Apologies for the nude chin. It's obscene and immoral, I know. But look how skinny, I was, back then!

Here's a better look at the bundle of fluff that was known as Elliott. Sadly, he is no longer with us:


He was an awesome little chap.

Finally, because I don't want him to feel left out, here's a cute, kitteny photo of Rochester's current feline companion, with whom he refuses to sleep:


Captions are welcome!

I Am Currently Out Of The Office

I had to work a little late today, and at about quarter to six I had to send an email out to a whole bunch of people. Being quarter to six I pretty much assumed that they would all have gone home and, to my surprise, this was confirmed by a whole bunch of out of office messages informing me politely that the people I had emailed were now out of the office until the following day.

This seems to be a slightly strange new fad as I've seen it a few times recently from people that have been in right up until 5pm, and then set an out of office for no apparent reason.

In addition to this I have a workmate (lets call him/her Colleague X) who does slightly... er... exotic hours. There's a weird pattern of 6am to 10am then then three hours off and then 1pm to 3pm and then 4pm to 7pm and so-on. Colleague X does plenty of hours - too many if you ask me - but they're pretty random. This odd pattern probably wouldn't even be noticed by the causal observer, if X didn't detail the entire week's timetable in a curiously precise out of office message.

In honour of these weird and wonderful out of office messages, I present my own:

To whom it may concern.

Thank you for your email.

I'm afraid I am not at my desk at this precise moment in time.

My official working hours are 7.30h to 16.15h from Monday to Thursday, although I usually start work at 7.00, unless the traffic is really bad, and often leave around 17.00h unless it's really busy, in which case it may even be as late as 18.00h. That said, sometimes I slope off at 16.00h to buy comics or generally lark about, so you never can tell.

Also, I take every other Friday off as a non working day (although I call these Freaky Fridays).

If you have received this message outside of these hours then it's tough luck really.

On the other hand if it is within the normal range of my working hours, then I may have popped out for a sandwich, gone for a walk or nipped to the loo to relieve myself. I often have a poo mid afternoon, so if you get this at about 14.45h, you're out of luck for about 20 minutes. I never rush poos as my mum said that if I strain I might get haemorrhoids.

I enjoy receiving messages from you and look forward to reading this one as soon as I am able.

Thanks,

Dazza.

Boredom Wees

I'm drawing a blank again.

I haven't found anything to blog about all day. It's been one of those dull days with no incidents of note. It's about quarter to ten, so. I think if anything interesting was going to happen, it would have by now.

So I'll write about boring days instead.

Some days I get so bored* that I go for a wee just to break the routine. I did that twice today. Boredom wees.

Don't look so appalled. You know you do it too.

There you are, sitting at your desk reading some interminable report or writing some mind numbing code or filling in some tedious spreadsheet for the forty ninth time and you think to yourself:

'Self,' (because that's always funny and not an overused underfunny little quip)' 'I'm totally fed with this report/code/spreadsheet and if I don't do something else, my brain is going to melt and come oozing out of my ears. But what can I legitimately do? I know! I'll go for a wee!'

And then you do.

And when you come back to your report or code or spreadsheet and it doesn't seem quite so interminable, mind numbing or tedious.

At least until you can persuade your bladder to go again.



(*I should probably point out (because if you remember, my boss reads this blog) that it is entirely possible to be busy and bored at the same time. Ahem.)

Boobs And Murders

I have a couple of rather exciting things to tell you about today.

The first thing concerns my lunch.

I went into the bakery to buy myself some lunch. I chose a corned beef and salad roll, which was delicious. But that's not the bit I want to tell you about.

My eye was caught by some rather tasty looking coconutish delicacies. I decided to make further enquiries about these confections, and the following exchange (more or less) took place.

Me: Those look very tasty. Are they coconutty?
Bakerette: Why, yes they are, sir.
Me: In that case, please may I have two of your coconut boobs.

Yum.


The day did not end with my suggestive confections, however.

After work, I headed over to the local shopping mall with Dr K to partake of some spicy chicken. When we got there, however, there was a problem with our customary parking space. It had been taped off.


Further investigation showed that it was taped off because it was a crime scene. Apparently a suspicious death had taken place and the body was still right there:


I'm pretty sure that the usual suspect had nothing to do with this as it's about 10 miles away from his habitual murdering grounds. Anyway, he had already had his fill of murdering today as there was a 'present' on the drive when we got home:


So today was all about boobs and murders!

And spicy chicken wings!

The Relative Horribleness Of Foreign Sweets #1: Switzerland

Today, I had a conversation with the Fish Lady, who is foreign, about foreign sweets. She assures me that Polish sweets are delicious.

Whether or not she is correct in her assertion, this conversation got me thinking about foreign sweets. While I fully appreciate the generosity of my globetrotting workmates, in my experience, foreign sweets are generally pretty horrible. In fact that's almost the point of them!

Today, we got 'Milka' chocolates from Switzerland.


This one is strawberry flavoured. That's right: strawberry flavoured chocolate. Not chocolate with a strawberry filling. Strawberry flavoured chocolate.

And by strawberry, I actually mean 'shit'. Yuck.

I don't want to start my scale too low as I think the world has a lot more horribleness to offer, so Switzerland will be used as the mid-point, or the benchmark if you will.

3/5

(An additional weird thing about strawberry flavoured chocolate sweets from Switzerland is that the wrappers are purple, yet when photographed, they appear to be bright blue!)

Update: one of my workmates had a camera phone that could see the correct colour of the sweet wrapper:



So there you go!

Steel Chewing Mice!

This poster has recently been put up around my workplace:


There's plenty of sensible enough advice there, but it's all offset by the wild claim that mice can CHEW THROUGH STEEL!

Presumably the mice that they're referring to are some sort of evil mutant mice who go to the same dentist as Jaws from the Bond films.




If mice could chew through steel*, which they can't, they'd probably chew their way into our fridges and eat all the tasty cheese, which they don't.

If mice could chew through steel, which they can't, they'd probably eat our cutlery and colanders and things - then we wouldn't be able to eat our dinners and we'd starve to death. And then they'd probably eat our corpses.

If mice could chew through steel, which, as I may have mentioned before, they can't, then they'd probably rule the world by now, which they don't.

Unless they're fucking with us. In which case... I guess we're fucked!



*I'm sure there are pedants out there who would point out that mice could probably chew through, say steel foil or a very thin steel wire. To them, I say 'Feh,' and would then let them stew in the fetid mire of their own idiocy.

Chocolate Starfish

I'll keep today's post short. I know your time is valuable and I wouldn't want you to to waste too much of it reading my inane rubbish!

Yesterday, I bought a cake. Well, actually it was more of a biscuit. I bought it solely because it was in the shape of a star and was covered in chocolate.
That's right, it's a chocolate starfish.


What makes it even better, was that I let my good friend Scotty eat my chocolate starfish. He very much enjoyed it.

I would like to point out to any hopeful chocolate starfish eaters out there, that I don't let just anyone eat my chocolate starfish.

The end.

More Things That People Say

People don't just stop saying brilliant things because I write a blog post about it. Here's nine more things that people have said since the last post!

"You gave me quite a bit of stuffing."
Dr K compliments me on my portion size... at dinner.

"Would you rather be a hag or a crone?"
I ask some really thought provoking questions!

"My chuff doesn't play music you know."
Dr K explains female anatomy to me.

"Get out of my bum!"
Dr K found my hand underneath her on the sofa once too often.

"Give it to your Daddy."
My mum was actually asking me to let my dad have the restaurant bill rather than encouraging some sort of weird incestuous homosexual encounter.

"The last thing you want is a leaking cat."
Dr K talking about... well... leaking cats.

"I've never ROFLed quite that much!"
Me, after literally rolling in the floor in laughter. In my defense, my little brother put me up to it.

"You should know this stuff by now, Archimedes!"
Dr K's comment when my bath almost overflowed.

"As long as she doesn't get her mash out as well as her bangers."
I love Dr K's food based euphemisms.

The Best Laid Plans Of Mice And Men Oft Turn Into Cheese Sandwiches

Hmm. I had a plan for this evening. I'm not going to pretend that it was my best laid plan, as I know how oft they go awry.

To counter this problem, I made what is known in the trade as a 'second best laid plan' which, common sense tells us, is less likely to awry than an actual best laid plan as no-one's coined a phrase or written a poem about it.

It still went awry.

I had a meticulously scheduled evening in which I took Rochester for a check up at the vets while Dr K cooked me a delicious dinner so that we had ample time to get to the cinema to see Thor.

Unbeknownst to me, the Evil Cabal of Evil had spent the afternoon recruiting.



You will see that the Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne has joined their evil ranks. As part of his initiation task, he arranged for an inconveniently timed power cut which meant that instead of a delicious cooked dinner, I had... a cheese sandwich.



Hmph.

Ironically, the power came back on right after Dr K finished making my sandwich. Grr.

The Best Laid Plans...

I think the evil cabal of evil CEOs have been at it again.

Take a look at what I spotted under my car when I left work this evening:



Here's a closer look!



Yeah, that's right. It's a couple of banana skins. Presumably they thought that it would send me skidding around the car park, eventually resulting in slight damage to the bodywork of my car and/or some sort of minor delay.

It's not their best laid plan. I mean simple physics tells you that it isn't going to work. I suspect that someone has been playing too much Mariokart.

I imagine the planning session going something like this:

Curry Pie

I like pie and I love curry, so imagine my delight when I got home from an arduous trip to London to find Dr K cooking me Curry Pie.

That's right. Curry Pie.



In other news, my absence from the office was celebrated with doughnuts. Here is the picture that one of my workmates gleefully sent to show me what I was missing!



Note the 'missing man' formation they've adopted for me.

Hmph.

Oh yes, and the lady who sat next to me on the train had a Tupperware container of something that smelled delicious.

The Cuppa Scale Of Craptitude

As a huge fan of tea, and a regular reader of the excellent New Scientist magazine, I was pleased to note some convergence of two of my great loves when they covered some tea related research in a recent issue:

You'll see the article in question at the bottom of the right hand page.  The resolution of this photo is a bit rubbish, so here's a close up of the article for you:

It pleases me that science is prepared to deal with the important issues instead of just mucking about measuring icebergs and looking for really tiny stuff.

The Charts Chart

You know how I love charts and diagrams and stuff?

I have decided that what the world needs is a chart that shows how much I like each type of chart:


The further up the scale the chart appears, the cooler I think it is.

As you can see, I really hate those filled in line graphs. And radar charts? Who's idea were they? Yuck!

Up the top are the reliable Venn diagrams and pie charts, which rock and those connected bubble charts that are so in fashion at the moment. I love those!

An Ode To A Bangin' Hot Chick I Know

Okay... I promise this is the last one.

Honest.


An Ode To A Bangin' Hot Chick I Know

Doctor K, you are so lovely;
Yes, it's true you are so lovely!
'Cos you're lovely's why I love thee,
Dr K, you're so great (and nice)!

You have hair that's quite long and brown
And you've legs that go all the way down.
When I see you I never frown
Cos, Dr K you're so cute (and nice)!

You're anatomically well proportioned;
When I first saw you I was properly stunned.
You're more appealing than a performing hedge fund;
Dr K you're so ace (and nice)!

Doctor K you're my favourite hot chick;
Anyone that thinks not is probably thick.
Unless they're blind or prefer man-dick,
Cos Dr K is so fine (and nice)!





Today's poem is brought to you by the tune of the one verse of Men Of Harlech that I actually know. Sorry.

Normal Service Has Been Resumed

The missing post has been restored.

Not by Larry Page, I might add. No, I had to rewrite it.

Nobber.

Anyway... Stay tuned for the next exciting instalment of my blog later today!

It's Not My Fault

Anyone looking for last night's post may well have been disappointed.

It's missing.

I wrote one, honest. It was another cat related sonnet. But unfortunately the service that I use to publish the blog died. Apparently they lost 30 hours of posts.

They promise that it will reappear at some point in the very near future. In the meantime, as Blogger is owned by Google, I think I can add Larry Page to the list of people who want to fuck with me!

An Ode To A Stripy Cat

After my awesome sonnet to Rochester shot to number one in the awesome sonnet charts the other day, I thought I'd have another go at it... maybe recapture the glory and prove that i'm not just a one-hit wonder:


An Ode To A Stripy Cat

Dexter, you're a cat
But you're not very nice.
You're prone to sneak attacks
And then you kill and eat mice.

Dexter you're feline
And you're furry and soft
But you don't like cuddling
Nope, you're off like a shot!

Dexter, I don't like
The way that you kill.
Its not like you don't get fed
You kill for the thrill.

But Dex, your little face
Is cute (says Dr K).
And I guess I'd rather have you
Than a fish any day.

And Dex, your stripy tail
And your furry belly
Are really rather nice.
And you're not even smelly

So Dex, even though you hunt
And you kill and you maim
I still think you're quite nice
Cos it's only a game!






If anyone is still reading at this point, you may be interested to know that this time, I ripped off the theme tune to Dexter's TV namesake, Dexter. Well... One repeating refrain from it, anyway.

I miss that show. When's it on again?

My Dad's Cock

There's really not much I can say about this.

I took my parents out to a posh restaurant last night, to celebrate my Mum's birthday.

My dad thought he'd ordered some sort of guinea fowl, but actually received some sort of... well... penis.


Of course the whole incident means that I now have an excuse to make a few willy related food puns:

Perhaps he could have had Cock a Leekie soup to start, followed by Coq au Vin and finally a bit of spotted dick for pudding. Mmm!

An Ode To An Awesome Black Cat

Rochester, you are so awesome!
You're the best cat I've ever known.
When I met you, you were really tiny,
But since then you've bloody grown!

You're black, so you look like Darth Vader
Or a miniature Batman.
You're even cooler than Fonzy,
And you could take down Jackie Chan!

Yeah, Roach, you're such a splendid cat.
There ain't no other cat quite like you
Even though once got quite fat
You've slimmed down and now it's quite true:
You are the best cat in the world.

Rochester you're brilliant,
And now you've grown much older
You don't run round like a youngster
But you're now wise like Yoda.

Oh, and when I look at you,
I just think you're so fantastic.
Even though you can't meow
And your hips have gone all spastic.
You're still the best cat in the world!




Now that you think you've experienced everything that this poem has to offer, go back and sing it to the tune of 'Summer of 69'.

Yeah. It's that good!

The Things People Say

Sometimes people say brilliant things. And sometimes they say quite dull things that are brilliant when quoted out of context.

Here are nine brilliant quotes from me and people that I know:

"I don't want to be an old minger."
My boss couldn't decide whether she was going to go with 'whinger' or 'moaner', so went with an unfortunate combination of both.

"I could put up with a few kids if it meant I could have some sausage."
I was debating the relative merits of attending barbecues at which there would be screaming children when I made this faux pas.

"It's all right, mate. I'm just just enjoying your smell."
Speaking of barbecues, this was my neighbour complimenting another resident's barbecue.

"It's poo o'clock."
I have a bottom shaped clock that's right once a day.

"I've just had a shower. I don't want to be sprayed with your cheesy crumbs."
Dr K came up with this gem when she came out of the bathroom to find me eating cheese straws.

"It's good to have stability and consistency in your life, even if that stability is the consistency of vomit."
This was me commenting on the dependability of a friend's dog's travel sickness.

"I celebrate my idiocy."
Me again. 'Nuff said.

"I've got VD Daz, and I don't know where to put it."
Dr K during a particularly tough game of scrabble.

"I'll just play with this while the girls play with their boxes."
Scotty was more interested in playing video games than helping Dr K and Gayle construct flat pack furniture.

Murder Most Icky ('Orrible Pictures Included)

Please note that there are a couple of gory photos in today's blog post. If you are easily put of your food by the sight of gizzards, innards or giblets, then this isn't the post for you.

---

Still here? Okay... don't say you weren't warned!



Murder Most Icky

It was around lunchtime on a sunny afternoon when the body was found. If it could be called a body, at all. A bit of intestine and something green and wobbly was all that remained of the unfortunate victim. A single foot was later discovered some distance away from the crime scene.



Fortunately the murder was caught on CCTV. A nearby camera took this image:



Forensic scientists were able to apply the infamous 'Hollywood Algorithm' to this image to zoom in and clear it up a bit, showing the murderer in the middle of his horrific business and thereby furthering the plot:



Despite dodgy TV plot device based software, the picture was still not clear enough to reveal the identity of the murderer, so local people were canvassed to see if they had seen anything.

One resident saw the horrible act in progress, but rather than trying to stop it, or call the police, decided instead to take some photographs, intending to post them on the Internet or sell it to the newspapers at a later date.



This photograph was perhaps the most damning:



Police cross referenced this face to their records and quickly came up with a match:



Dexter had a previous conviction for criminal footprints and detergent theft and is suspected of being a tiger, although that last charge wouldn't stick. His psychological profile suggests that he has committed other rodent murders although there is little evidence to support this.

He was easy enough to locate as he was attempting to break into a local house a few hours later. He resisted arrest and was abusive to the arresting officers



But he was eventually taken down town for processing.

Another murder mystery solved by good, solid, completely made up police work.

Facial Hair

Facial hair is brilliant. I have a beard and it looks awesome. Particularly because without a beard, I look something like this:



I do often wonder what I would look like with different types of facial hair.

It turns out that if I were to have a moustache, I would look exactly like a child molester:



I don't think I'll be going for that look.

Maybe I should go for something a bit Gangsta. A Brazilian on my chin, perhaps... A Brazilichin:



Hmm. Maybe not. I kinda look like the ugly one in a boy band.

So perhaps I could consider a set of really impressive sideburns:



Nope. You're right. Big sideburns never look good. Beards are definitely better than sideburns.




Now I like the look of the full beard. I think it makes me look distinguished but... well... old. Still good though. Shame I can't really grow those side bits.



No, I think I'll stick with the classic goatee. It's the only bit of a beard I can grow anyway, but I think it looks pretty good.

Dr K informs me that it looks much better when it's big and bushy than when it's short and neatly trimmed.

Who am I to argue with a scientist?