Soon to be another internet meme

The Bad Astronomy blog had a post saying "I'm updating the server, don't comment until the update is up as all comments will be deleted."
So, of course, all of us put all the stupid silly and funny things we could think of down on the comments. Some were bad (the link to a bad music site) but most were brilliant, and now they're all gone. You'll just have to believe me that my comment was witty and well observed. :D

In a similar vein, amazon sell pens, and Neil Gaiman's blog pointed over to the reviews of the humble Bic pen.

And finally....
The squadrons at work have phone based briefings and at the start of each one they call us up and count down to the time check. For most of the groups when they reach their own number (eg for XV, when they count down to 15 seconds) a cheer goes up.
T'other day at the end of a shift I was briefing 12 and heard the count-down get to 12. All was quiet to I went, fairly quietly, "Yay."
All I could hear for most of the rest of the count was cheers and laughter from the aircrew. Still makes me smile.

Northern Lights

(There are soooooo many things that title could refer to...)
Or, to give it the name it goes by, "The Golden Compass."
I'm re-reading the book atm, so I'll tell you how they compare soon, but for the film itself, great.
First off, and google it if you don't understand, what a steam-punk world!!!! If you're a fan of girl genius or any of the other gas-lamp/steam-punk worlds, or a fan of the book, have a look. Not as much of a PG as some others I've seen, but not for very young kids (ie, Matt, don't take Ellen!). Obviously a set up for the next couple of films and the film manages to NOT mention the Catholic church at any time, unlike the book! But a huge cast, and Daniel Craig is brilliantly cast. Not as world conquering as New Line's other recent ventures (cough *LOTR* cough) but looks promising.

Thinking about the PG thing, went to see something a while back, can't exactly remember what but there was a scene in it that was a bit gory, nothing really horrific but enough that a few people I know would go ewwgh. On the way out I heard a parent, who had taken their child along with them, complaining to a member of staff. The queue monkey called over the manager who gave the complainer the address of the head office and two pieces of advice: you can leave the cinema any time (they hadn't), and it's a PG, which means that the parents are advised to view it first and then decide whether or not to take their children, so if they choose not to do this, it's the parent's responsibility.
I almost cheered.
As it was, as she went off in a huff I caught the manager's eye and grinned. Bugger me if there wasn't a flash of answering smile.
As we used to say in Blacks, the customer, while possibly stupid and potentially about to do something suicidal, is not always right but is always the customer.

Back to Family Guy

A good weekend

This weekend my good friend Tasha drove up, with dogs. It was good to see her and we got out to do some proper outdoors stuff.
Friday we went out to Cairngorm (starting out at 7:20 - way before sunrise) and started walking up the hills with head torches until the sun came up. We ended up doing two Munros and a few extra tops (peaks above 3000 ft only count as Munros if there's 500 ft drop between the highest named point and the peak you're looking at, otherwise they're tops) and went up Cairngorm itself at the end. This was pushing me to the limits of my endurance, Tasha was bouncing ahead and "encouraging" me. On the way down we stopped off at the Ptarmigan restaurant and asked the nice bloke outside if the furnicular railway was running, although we knew it wasn't supposed to open until the next day. It wasn't but he said to hang on and sorted us out with a free ride down on the railway. That saved us about 90 minutes to 2 hours worth of walking so I owe the mountain guys a few favours I think. While we were out Tash convinced me to wander over to have a look at the Larig Ghru (sp?) which is a HUGE glacial valley. It's hard to describe the size of the valley, we were sat in the snow level with the top of the valley and, no, I just can't describe it. Google it and have a look and any Colin Prior type photos, it's just immense and beyond what I can put into words.
Well, that night we went to take the dogs out for a walk on the beach, mainly to stretch our legs out a bit. Next day we went to take the dogs for a walk in the local woods, in this case Culbin Forrest, and the little 3 and a half mile walk tired out the dogs nicely and almost stretched out all the muscles. Not quite though, today (Sunday) we went to the Inverness climbing wall and Tasha once more showed that she can climb a grade and a bit higher than me, although I managed to boulder to the same level as her HAHAHA.
After a few routes I knew that I wouldn't be able to drive safely if we climbed to my limit so I called it a day, or to put it another way, wimped out like a little girl.
Showed Tash to the A9 (main route south) and drove home, wincing when changing gear, but that's the fun of climbing.
Weeked after next she'll be back up, as she's agreed to be my +1 for the mess ball, and just found out that there's a possiblility that Matt (EMB) may be up in the mean time, although it may be too short notice. Hope Matt can get up, would be great. I'd like to get all, or at least most, of my friends up here at some time, but that may take a few months to organise.......
Put my Christmas tree up as well, all 3 FT of it, drunk a bit tonight (enough to feel happy) and the Jameson's advert with the harp is back on, so happy at the moment. If I can keep my weight loss on track and get a few more forecasts right I'll be even happier. Or, failing that, if I can beat Guitar Hero II or III on medium, let alone hard.
Must stop blogging drunk though, may have to edit this for spelling or excessive honesty.