Wee hillwalk

Today we took a trip to Muirshiel Park near Largs.  It's a country park with quite a few signposted walks, including one up a hill called Windy Hill.  We opted for Windy Hill, as from the visitor centre it looked like there was a trig pillar at the top.  Turned out it was a cairn and not a trig, but it was a good wee walk with a nice view at the top.

Once we got back down, we headed into Largs for a curry at the Star of India, which I can recommend.  They do a really nice set meal for £6.95.

Cairn at the top of Windy Hill, Muirshiel Park

So that was Christmas then

A............nd that's a wrap.  Christmas 2011, thank you, it was good.

After heading over to my mum's first thing, we went over to Richard and Sarah-Jane's for dinner.  There was a between course walk to the park to feed the swans, then back for dessert and some drinks, before heading home to veg out and watch telly, eat sweets and have another beer.

The kilt got an airing, and I found out that it is better protection against the elements than trousers, as I was the only one who's legs weren't soaked after getting caught in the rain after feeding the swans. Result.

Anyway, roll on tomorrow and the sales.  I've got HMV vouchers and I'm not afraid to use them.

Crimbo do - the aftermath

And there I was thinking that not much had happened.  There was a couple of things I saw, but nothing major, but here's the breakdown from the corridor gossip the morning after the night before.

1 - lecturer in psycho mode.  After looking stressed/freaked out, a lecturer hides in a corner with a drink and starts looking angry.  After announcing he's leaving as "this is not my sort of place, I don't feel comfortable here" he's spotted at the bar with not one but two drinks.  Proceeds to get pished and have a good time.

2 - admin lassie absolutely blootered, staggering about with a drink in each hand telling anyone who will listen, about the "sleazy b*stards who keep groping her arse on the dancefloor.  She then proceeds to name them before falling over twice.  Once in the venue and once in the street.  Horribly hungover the next day, and eventually threw up.

3 - married academic caught snogging single admin girl who (rumour has it) is involved with another (married) academic

4 - lots of really bad dancing, which, due to the amount of booze sunk, the perp think is the best dancing ever done.  The highlight being one academic (do you see a thread here) dancing like a condemmed man who hasn't been strapped into the chain before they've turned the current on.

5 - possibly the weirdest one of the night. Male academic walking round in one of the admin girls' high heels.  This is not the first time he's pulled this particular party trick.  Is there something he's trying to tell us?

Anyway, that's it for another year.  Thank God.

New dress code for work

Actually the post title is a lie, we're just off out for the work Christmas lunch today.  It's at the Corinthian, so bearing in mind the bar prices, there's a good (every) chance I'll be leaving asap after the meal and sloping off somewhere a bit cheaper.

'tis the season

Well the Crimbo season is upon as, and that means for some the annual binge/purge night out, when they go to the pub with colleagues from work that they normally wouldn't associate with, and after binging on so much booze that they either (a) fall into the "You're my best mate you are, I've always liked you" mode, or (b) they tell them exactly what they think of or (c) really screw up and tell the one person they have a wee crush on that they really fancy them, which might lead to a shag, or it might not, but either way will leave them waking up the next day thinking "I did WHAT?  With WHO?  OMG kill me now", before staggering out onto the street, where the next morning, the results of all the purging is there for all to see in the various shapes and sizes of pavement pizzas that can be found littering the streets.

If it's been a particularly chilly night, the pavements can resemble the frozen pizza aisle on Iceland or Farmfoods.  If it's been an afternoon bash, then you may be lucky enough to witness the local pigeons tucking into a warm meal of freshly boaked pavement pizza.

All of the above can be enjoyed best if you pace yourself with the booze while everyone else is throwing it down their necks like it's going out of fashion.

Is Blogger trying to tell me something?

After posting, I occasionally click on the "next blog" button on Blogger.  Now, either Blogger is trying to tell me something, or there's (excuse the pun) a hell of a lot of Christian blogs out there, because the hit rate for me landing on a "I live my life for Jesus" type blog is probably in excess of 50%.

Should I be worried about this or is this pretty standard?  Are the Christians out to save my soul without knowing if I need saving?  Who knows.

Here endeth the thought for today

Finally....

....set up the 360 and started playing Assassins Creed.  Ooooh nice :-)

Watch the birdie

Just found a roll of film in the cupboard.  Time to dig out the slr and head into Pollok park to get some photos old school style.  Will the tension be too much when I have to wait till I finish the roll, then get it developed, before I find out it the pics are shite or not?

Anyway, as I type this, I'm re-watching Bronson.  Too be honest it's a movie I didn't expect to like, but I absolutely love it.  It's totally theatrical, and not at all what I was expecting. (I thought it would be a bit more like A Sense of Freedom)

Fill your head with rock

On Thursday, I braved Hurricane Bawbag to go and see Bonafide at Stereo in Glasgow.  It was a great gig.  the venue was a basement with a cracking atmosphere.
Anyway, when the drummer threw his sticks out, I got one (first time in almost 30 years of gig going!).  When we were leaving, the band were at the merch stand, so I wandered over and got my ticket and the stick signed.

Signed Bonafide ticket and drumstick

When they get as big as AC/DC, that's my retirement sorted :-)

*ouch*

On Saturday, we went ice skating to Braehead.  I've only just started back after a gap of about 4 years.  I was getting seriously frustrated that I couldn't do things that I used to be able to do without thinking about it, and ended up going arse over tit and landing on my shoulder.  It's the first time I've ever gone on my arse skating!
Let me tell you, ice is hard.  My shoulder is still stiff and achey, and reaching for things just plain hurts.

On Saturday night we headed out for a really nice meal at Merrylee Road Bar and Kitchen.  First time we'd been there, but it won't be the last.  Really nice food in excellent surroundings.

Sunday we should have gone in-line skating, but ended up going to Linlithgow Palace instead.  For some strange reason, the gps took us home a different route to the one it took us out!
If you've never been, the palace in set in a really nice park with a small loch full of geese, swans, ducks and other aquatic birds.  The walk round the loch took about an hour.

Linlithgow Palace

New-old gaming

I just picked up an xbox 360 from a guy in work.  £50, so a bargin.  This opened up a whole world of "previously played" games in the game stores.  I currently raid them for PS2 and original xbox games, but hey, Assassins Creed for £7.99, and Gears of War will be added to that soon.
While I do go "ooooh" and "aaaah" at the ads for the new games (Skyrim is seriously floating my boat at the moment), the great advantage with being a couple of years behind everyone else, is I've still got all these games at my disposal for a fraction of the price.

I know Ed is desperate for me to get Dead Island, so I can help him kick zombie butt, but I really want a bit of good old fashioned adventure gaming*, so Assassins Creed will see me over the holidays I reckon.

(* I actually used to LOVE the old text only adventures on the speccy waaaay back in the day, so if anyone knows of anywhere I can play text only on the pc, pleas leave a comment)

Industrial action for the hard of thinking

On Wednesday if everything goes to plan, then the UK will grind to a halt as the result of a mass day of action by trade unions, in defence of pension rights and pay increases (among other things).  My division of the union I'm in wasn't balloted on the pension issue, as we're ok on that front, but we were balloted on action regarding a pay offer of less than 1/2%.

Bizzarely, the action was defeated 52%-48%.  Now, we are involved in action short of a strike, but I've just had the weirdest conversation with someone who isn't in a union, but thinks if you are, it's ok to pick and choose your battles.

Her argument goes along the lines of "I don't want to strike over the pay rise, so even if the union voted to strike, I wouldn't"
My counter was "But you're in the union.  They voted in favour of industrial action.  You're on strike"
Her "Not me.  I didn't vote for it"
Me "The union is democratic.  The majority voted for a strike, therefore it's a strike"
Her "That's not democracy.  If I don't want to strike, I won't"
Me "Fine. Resign from the union"
Her "I wan't to be in a union.  I wan't the protection it offers"
Me "Then you have to accept that you won't always agree with the majority, and just suck it up"
Her "No I don't.  That's not a democracy"

It's a circular argument.  She JUST DOESN'T GET IT.

I firmly believe that if you're a union member, then you abide by the majority decision as voted on by the members, and if you don't like it, get the hell out of Dodge.

Maybe I'm naive.

Nanananana Angus....

Just been to the AC/DC exhibition at the art galleries.  It's superb.  there's some incredible memorabilia, and some of the exhibits are actually quite moving (Bon Scott's jacket, some letters etc.)
After the exhibition, we headed to the Brew Dog pub, which I'd never been to before.  Excellent beer, and a really cool pub.  I'll definately check it out again in the future.

After the BrewDog, we went to the Three Judges for a pint.  We're now sorted for Crimbo, as we're heading over to theirs. I'll do dessert.

Other than that, not much been happening.

Zen and the art of movement

Karate last night was good.  It was a smaller class than usual as the national weekend course had been on at Largs at the weekend, and more than a few were suffering from aching legs.  I wasn't, but that was just because I hadn't gone to the course.

Anyway, they were concentrating a lot on things that were covered at the course, and concentrating on getting the body in.  A punch in itself doesn't have that much weight behind it.  But when it's you're body that's moving in to your opponent, and the fist is the last thing that comes into play, it's a hell of a lot more devastating than a punch from a moving arm alone.

We also covered moving towards a punch that's coming towards you, and how to deal with it.  This really goes against your natural instinct, which is to move back when someone tries to punch you, but it is really effective.  It also freaks the attacker out a bit as "that's not supposed to happen", and can cause them to pull the punch a bit, which is an added bonus.

Anyway, today my legs are a bit tired, as in a small class, there's nowhere to hide, so no slacking allowed :-)

w00t

Guy in work upgraded his xbox 360 from a 20G to a 250G with kinect. Sooo, he sold me his 20G machine for £50.  Result.
There's a brand new unused xbox Live headset as well.  Now, I know what games I fancy, but I just need to use a little sense and not run out and buy a shitload at one.  The plan is to work though Assassins Creed and Gears of War, with a little zombie action on the side.  Then, who knows.
All I have to do is see which of the original xbox games I have are still playable and then probably sell the original and the remaining games as a job lot and get my £50 back.  Failing that I need to finish the games that won't work on the new machine.
Either way, w00t!!!

St Andrews uni and the burning effigy

It's all over the press that Tory students at St Andrews Uni burned an effigy of Barak Obama, and are now being hounded as racists.  Lets take a deep breath here and without a knee-jerk reaction, consider if they actually are.
Now don't get me wrong, I can't stand the Tories, so anything that paints them in a bad light is fine by me, but come on, are they actually racist?

The burning of effigy's of people you have problems with has a long and noble tradition, especially in the middle east, where effigy's of political leaders (esp in recent times of George Bush) have been coming into contact with naked flames on a pretty regular basis.

Now, if the St Andrews students were burning the effigy "because he was black", then yes, they're racist scum. But if they were burning the effigy in protest at US policy's, then the skin colour is irrelevant, and they are not racist.  I may be a bit naive here, but Barak Obama isn't white, so if the dummy wasn't of a similar colour to the person it was meant to represent, no-one would know it was supposed to be the leader of the last remaining superpower.   Would they?

Politics is like football.  It causes way to much trouble and should be outlawed, but hey that's not going to happen, so how about a little bit of common sense and a bit less sensationalism from the press in reporting things like this.

Accusing the students of being racist when they're not, because the effigy they're burning happens to represent a black man is stoking the fires, and likely to cause actual race problems in the fallout.  Remember people.  If it was Bush or a white man in power, the effigy would have been white, and there would be no accusations of racism.

Let's all just use some common sense, which ironically doesn't appear to be that common.

Rediscovering bands

I don't know about anyone else, but my musical listening habits tend to be cyclic.  I listen to a wee group of bands for ages, then want to listed to something different, and move on.  Eventually I go full circle and end up back at the bands I've not listed to for ages (sometimes years).  And so it is that I'm currently on a King's X trip.

I first came across them when they supported Anthrax at the Barrowland in Glasgow, and my ex bought me Gretchen Goes to Nebraska, after seeing how blown away I was by them.  By the mid 90's my taste had shifted slightly (not always in a good way*), and King's x went on the back burner.  I recently downloaded XV, and was totally blown away.  From the opener Pray, all the way through, this is a superb album.  I've been going back and listening to the back catalogue again, and plugging the gaps in the collection (fortunately just a couple of studio albums.

If you like your rock music with a proggy (but not too proggy) edge, check them out if you haven't already.  They can rock out when they want to, Moanjam from Faith, Hope, Love is a case in point.

Click here and listen to Pray from the album XV.  Superb stuff.

Fandom and fanzines

It's been ages, so I think it's time to bung squeeze out another issue of Loose Stools (Glasgow SF zine.  Actually it's just 2 sides of A4).  I've also got an idea for a more general zine, covering SF/fandom/movies/music/shite.  I'm going to call it Die Fanboy Die!  Just because.
Cthulhu knows when I'll get round to it (over the Crimbo holidays maybe), but half the fun is in the planning.

Ye Olde Worlde Underground magazine

I've just discovered Alan Moore's wonderful Dodgem Logic.  It's an old school type underground magazine.
So far there's been eight issues published.  I've picked up the first two, and will get the rest of them soon.
Issue one came with a free cd celebrating 50 years of Northampton music.  It's an eclectic mix, so obviously all of it won't float everyone's boat, but overall it's a great cd.  Current favorite from it is "I can't show my face in that bar" by Gerald Claridge.

There's some bizzaro comic strips, recipes, and hints on guerrilla gardening.

If you've an open mind and like something a little bit different, then give it a look.

Zen and the art of aching thighs

For those that don't know, I do karate.  I'm attend two clubs, Caledonian Shotokai at the Caley Uni, and Waseda in the Whiteinch Community Centre.  Both clubs are part of the Shin-do Shotokai Association.  The Caley club is a Wednesday lunchtime, and Waseda is Thursday night.  Anyway, to get back on track, this week on Wednesday, we spent the majority of the class concentrating on proper stance, as it's easy to get sloppy, and if you do, you can't have a strong base.  The result was achey thighs, which after last night's class at Waseda, turned into VERY achey thighs.

I honestly don't think my legs were this achey after I ran the Edinburgh marathon a few years back !

Ach, it's all good though.