Happy Birthday to all Race Horses!

Hello readers, and welcome to 2007. If the title seems a little perplexing, don't worry, just do a little bit of research on Google and you'll probably come across the reason for it...

Anyway, on with the blog...

Christmas morning was... Well... about 10 minutes long. I woke up, came down stairs, watched telly while we waited for Nan and Grandad to arrive, shredded the paper off the pressies and then stuck my Xbox on. It was Christmas dinner I was waiting for! I must admit though, I did get some good stuff. My nan bought be Khet, a kind of cross between chess, egyptian myth, and starwars! Honestly, It wouldn't look out of place in the Mos Eisley Cantina! I also got the usual CD's, DVD's, Socks etc.

At dinner time, we had a big Chicken, and a joint of lamb. With challottes, and gravy, and roasties, and mint sauce, and all kinds of wonderful things....

... I love Christmas dinner!

Come Christmas evening we went down to fathers for more antics. My auntie had bought me a book called; Great Lies To Tell Small Kids. I have memorised some and will try them at school... There's stuff like "Milk feels pain" and "Clowns melt at 29 degrees celsius" My dad bought me Jimmy Carr's new book "The Naked Jape" which analyses the history, and science of joke telling. It is both very factual, informative, and down-right hillarious.

After the usual bout of christmas fun I went home to bed.

During the week of nothing happening, I have been bowling a few times with Jenny, Marcus, John, and Adam. Actually there is a story with that... I have never really put the "Video DJ" on my phone to good use before but decided to get creative. I discovered that there are pre-loaded "soundtracks" that you can overlay to videos on the phone and you can add titles, and slideshows as well. So I started filming marcus in black and white, just random shots of him bowling, sat down, by the ball return, etc and then created a series of slides in Black and White similar to old silent movies. I then arranged the clips of Marcus and added the slides in between them, and used the "silent movie" soundtrack across the whole thing. The end result is a "Charlie Chaplin-esque" short movie about Marcus and how he never seems to be able to get a strike. I don't know if I can load it on to blogger but if I can, I will.

I am going to skip to yesterday evening because i can't think of anything else thats happened during the course of the holiday...

Well... I drove to Jenny's for about 8:00pm with my mum in the car, picked Jenny and Marcus up and headed over to the Windemere in Moseley. Mum then drove my car back home so that I could have a drink. When we got there we went up stairs to the disco which was getting under-way. Throughout the course of the evening there was some awful dance music, but then some of the classics came along and everything was dandy. At the countdown to the new year everyone held hands and waited for the chimes and got ready for the DJ to play Auld-Lang-Syne...

... Which he didn't have... In fact not only did he not have it, I don't think he knew what it was!

So we all started to sing while the DJ looked puzzled. there was more dancing until about 12:30 when the final dances were slow-ones and then the big light came on to signal the end of the evening. Now I should point out that there was a plan for getting home... Me, marcus, and jenny would get a taxi. But, as ever fate intervened and James offered a lift to Marcus and Jenny. I said i would dive in a taxi with Jason and Gemma, but fate played a good hand once again... Jason and Gemma were going with other people and the taxi was full... D'OH!

In the end I got a lift and was home for about 1:30am wherre I went straight to bed! I was exhausted.

I was rudely awoken this morning by mother. Her car wouldn't start (the starter motor was stuck) and she had already phoned my Grandad for assistance. When he arrived and had a poke under the bonnet we decided to push start it... Now, I had just got up, was feeling horrible and to put some fluid in my system, took a rather large swig of Cherry tango... I say large swig, it was more like half a bottle... about a litre. So we went outside and rolled the car back... with the help of a neighbour. (Why is it that secretly, deep down, everyone likes pushing a car to get it started? it must be the sense of accomplishment, both in the physical pushing, and the enjoyment when the car actually starts!) anyway I started to outpace my grandad and my neighbour so I ended up pushing the car... At a fair ol' speed, down meadow Road... the first thing I then thought of was.... Oh shit, what about traffic. Fortunately the car jolted in to life and I walked back up the road while my mum turned the car round. Now, I don't know if you have ever pushed a car to the point your heart was going to give out, whilst having a stomach full of a popular fizzy beverage but let me give you a word of advise... DON'T

I ended up with a severe icky feeling and had to lie down... After half an hour of feeling awful it subsided, which is when I got up, and started blogging.

And it is there that I will leave you dear reader. Have a good new year. see you soon.

TTFN

Christmas isn't chrismas without a drunk grandparent.

Hello readers. It's been 9 days since I updated but I purposely left it so that I can blog a fair bit, rather than 2 posts about not very much at all...

So we will start last saturday, when a whole host of the regular crowd went up Solihull. lank gave me and Dan a lift and we were in Rosie's (yes, I know it's chav central but thats where everyone decided we go) for 7:30. We met up with Jason and Gemma and started drinking without the others (well, it's what they would have wanted!) As the doors opened, we moved up to the Club... Loft, no Loaf, no wasn't it Bread? then it was Reflex at Loft, or was it Bread at Reflex?.... Actually it's now "Pop World"... Joy! (<-- sarcasm) Soon after we got there, Mark and Kate, Mattew and Naomi, and Benji and Katie turned up and we gathered at a table in the chavvy bit. It didn't take long for me, Jason, Gemma, lank, and Daniel to go off in to the '80's part and were bopping along to all sorts of classics. At one point we got hold of a set of comical glasses...

... Yes, dear readers... I have photo's...

Mr B. has always been an Elton fan... Now he's started copying his style!

Lank in full bop'!

At one point, they started playing 50's style Rock n Roll and so I grabbed Kate for a quick spin on the dance floor (bet you didn't know I can rock n rol did you readers? Well I can, sort of, thanks to expert tuition by Donna, ages ago!) At the end of the evening we all went our seperate ways, and I was home for about 1:30am...

... Ready to wake up at about 10:00am Sunday morning, where I spent ages wrapping everyone's Christmas pressies. I made a promise to myself that I would try and be organised this year, and I think I have been. I had a lazy day Sunday because I had to travel to Droitwich in the evening for a works Christmas party at a member of staff's house. Getting there is a story in it's self...

I set off at 6:30pm with my route written down and got in to Droitwich centre no problem, but then things started to go wrong... Now I don't know if you have ever been in to Droitwich, dear reader, but if you ever do then there are three oddities about the place you should know...

1. Street names are no not visible from the road, until you have past the junction
2. All road signs indicate every place in the universe, exept the place that you are going
3. No houses, at all, ever, in Droitwich, display their house number

Now because of those 3 little things I got hopelessly lost and was driving around in circles. Finaly I admitted defeat and parked up to call Richard (who's house it was) for directions. I called up his number on my phone and pressed "dial"...

.... *Beep beep* "the number you have dialled has not been recognised..."

"doh!"

I tried again...

... *Beep beep* "the number you have..."

Oh bugger! I had to phone Sally (head of Art, who lives in Droitwich) and ask her for directions. Fortunately she knew where to go and i got to the correct road in no time...

... But then point number 3 came in to play... which blasted house!? I started counting the houses and got to the one I thought was correct. there were a few cars outside it, so I knocked on the door. Success! It was the right house so I went in, and joined some of the other staff from school who were already enjoying the home made curry that was laid out for us. We all had a good time, and at one point the karaoke machine was bought out for a go. I didn't sing as I would have probably bought the evening to a premature conclusion. After the food, music and chit-chat it was time to leave, at a rather modest 10:30. I got home with no problems and watched a bit of Top gear before going to bed.

Monday and Tuesday at work were just 2 days of DVD's in lessons and not doing any work... I wil skip to yesterday, which was a bit more fun. there were no lessons, just an assembly for each of the 3 houses, (Brindley, Lanchester, and Cadbury) and then just dossing about in forms watching films. We played the year 10's Shrek and then put Peter Kay on. At lunch time we kicked everyone out and had a staff lunch with just the arty people and a few select members of staff. Elanor had bought me a christmas present and I was instructed to open it... She had bought me some racing grannies! I set up a race way (using tape and sugar-paper!) and we had a few races over lunch. At 2:00pm all the kiddies got to go home and it was time for the usual party in the staff room. we had speeches for staff who were leaving, and decided that after the speeches we would go up to the Packhorse. We were there for about 3:30pm, and left at 5:00pm... Unfortunately we were all driving so we couldn't get mashed anyway, but it was still fun.

I went home to get ready for the evening because Me, Donna, Donnas parents, Lank, Daniel, Lanks friend Jo, Jason and Gemma were all off to the NEC for Jasper carrots Rock with laughter Christmas tour...

We arrived at the NEC for just after 6:30pm with the intent on meeting people in the main entrance. This went to pot when we realised that the arena was too big to meet anyone, with all the people walking round. We met up with Jason and Gemma by the staris to the seats so we went in and sat down. a few minutes later, Lank, Jo, and dan joined us, while Neil and Maggie were seated over the other side of the arena!

The warm-up act was a geordie with a guitar... He was singing a song called "everybody wants to be a bear" while people were still being seated. Quite funny.

When the lights dimmed, Jasper walked on and did a turn, and introduced the first act, an Abba tribute band called Bjorn Again who were quite good, then we had a turn from Lenny Henry, Journey south (those two from the X factor) the Royal Ballet, and Jimmy Carr. After the interval we had more Jasper, plus a suprise guest Ben-thingy-whatsit who was voted off X factor, Jethro, Roy Wood (who was playing with his Rock and Roll band, and finished off with "I wish it could be christmas every day") and the show was topped with Suzi Quattro, dressed in a leather cat suit and not looking a day over 50.......

... yes, you can imagine it, can't you...

After the final encore the lights went up and we started the long walk back to the carpark. Neil and Maggie were already there and me and Donna dived in because by that point we were freezing! They dropped me home where I made myself a hot drink before going to bed...

All in all a fantastic night was had by everyone. (I am definately going next year!)

And so that is where I will leave you dear readers. If I don't blog before, Have a very Merry Christmas, and a fantastic new year...

TTFN

'tis the season shops raise prices, fah-la-la-la-laa, la-la-la-laaaa.

Hello readers. It's the 10th of December, my christmas decorations aren't up and I've done absolutely no christmas shopping...

... Yes. I am a man...

...Right, on with the blog...

...Um... Actually I don't have much to blog about so I will randomise and think out loud for a bit. (just like my very first blog says! Go on, have a look if you don't believe me.)

Right, well, I suppose I had better make this random jumble of words into something you can read...

Ok, well at the moment I am selling the old camera I found in the stock room at Woodrush on Ebay. The money it sells for will be used to part-fund a staff meeting. (For those of you who aren't up to speed with the lingo, all staff meetings involve alchohol!... In fact, do you remember all those "staff training days" that the staff used to have at the end of half term? well they are basically a big free lunch, and more wine, beer, and cocktails than anyone could imagine!) I hope it makes a good price, it is only the second item I have ever sold on Ebay. The first was my degree piece (the furry car) but no one actually bought it.

On Friday (I'll just skip to the weekend) Me, John, Marcus, and Jenny went ice-skating in Solihull. We got there for about 7:30 and dived straight on to the ice. I had to swap my skates after about half an hour because the left one was digging in to my shin. It's remarkable, because I have the same thing happen to my left ski boot, unless I store it properly with the straps tightened to hold the inner boot in place. But the skates were changed and I got a new pair from the girl behind the counter. I wanted to have a real good go but being a Friday it was packed with chavs and people who can actually skate. I'd like to go when it's quiet so that I could practice a bit and have a real good go because I imagine it's really good fun if you can do it well.
After a couple of hours sliding along the ice, we left and went for a chinese. Adam joined us for some grub and we ate until we were bursting, which is what most people do when they eat chinese. We got home for 11:30pm and I dived in to bed, since skating and chinese food is the best combination for tiring people out.

Um... Other than that, the only other thing that has happened this week was yesterday evenings frivolity in Wolverhampton. Me, Jason, and Gemma went to see Adrenaline at the Little Civic. We got there for about 6:50pm and had a drink in the downstairs bar. At 7:30pm we went upstairs where the stage is and the first band (who were shit) came on a little while later. When they had finished bawling and jumping around the stage, they fucked off and let the second band have a go... They were better. And then at about 9:30-ish Adrenaline came on and played through until 11:00pm. When it was time to leave, we dived in to a cab and set off for home. £35 from Wolverhampton to Birmingham isn't a bad price, split 3 ways it worked out quite reasonable. I was home for 12:30 and dragged my self off to bed since I was partly inebriated by alchohol! Actually, as i sit here typing this, the effect of last night hasn't quite gone yet, which would explain the lack of detail, humour, or continuity in this passage of writing...

In fact since I have covered the basics, I wil leave it there readers. I'll quit while I'm ahead.

TTFN.

It's OK, stormtroopers can't shoot for shit, anyway.

Hello readers. 'tis time for some blogging...

At the end of my last blog I promised you a Gallery for ladies evening, and, true to my word, here it is...

I mentioned that Father was part of a drag act on the evening... Well here's the proof! He's the one on the right! (shameful... Just shameful)

This is a photot of a photo. Me and Jenny in our masks.

These next few are off Selenas camera. Me and Jen' at my dad's house waiting to go.

Me, Selena, and dad

Dad and Selena at the table

There we go readers. All Good... Now I can get on with this weeks blog! Last weekend was James birthday and he had his party at Wythall House. I arrived there at about 8:00pm and within half an hour the buffet was served... Which was good because I was starving. The disco started and spent most of the evening playing songs from way before any of us were born...

I have a photo for you all to enjoy...

Jenny, Julia and Lee gawping at a camera... By the look on Julias face, the picture they are looking at is pretty shocking!

ha ha! Anyway, after getting slighty merry and doing a few rounds of heluium, we all left at around midnight. I got a lift with Kate in her new Toyota Yaris... But thought it was a Peugeot... Oops. I got in and went to bed ready for the Sunday...

Because Sunday was... MEMORABILIA! woohoo!

I went to get John and shot over to Adams for about 10:00am and we set off for Marcus's house to get him and Jenny... The problem being that they were all the way back at Jenny's house... So we agreed that they would meet us at the NEC. We eventually got there for 11:00am and was in the exhibition for 11:30am. As we went in we saw the Tardis and a couple of Daleks, then went over to the new section that housed most of the famous people. I nearly walked in to Toyah Wilcox trying to get a glimpse of Lady Penelope's Rolls Royce... which was rather Fab' (hey-hey... Fab "FAB 1" get it? did you see the clever thing that I did there?)

Ahem...

We walked round for an hour, looking at all the collectors selling their junk for lots of money and looking at all the famous people... I walked up to David Prowse (Garth Vader meets Darth vader!) but he bored me so I walked off. I caught the eye of "Smokin'" Joe Frazier but couldn't speak to him because of the queue for his autograph. I wanted to walk up to Leslie Philips and introduce myself by going "Well, helloooh'" (his old catch phrase, for those who don't know who he is) but refrained from it as he might have got a bit annoyed... Walking round I noticed there was lots of Bond memorabilia due to the release of Casino Royale. I then heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire, coming from the back of the hall...

... It was an indoor shooting range! Replica weapons, powered by gas, firing rubber bullets...

... I had to have a go!!!!!!

I paid a bloke dressed like Bond for a go with a Sig Sauer pistol... And this was the result...

Check out the bullseye! He was actually impressed with my grouping. At a range of 50 yards most people apparently have trouble firing pistols unless they have been trained how to shoot professionally.

After walking back round and stopping to get a drink (where I saw Danny John-Jules ((the cat from red dwarf)) walk past the bar) I went back because I wanted a go with an assault rifle.

And this is the result of that little encounter...

Yeah, I'm pretty impressed with that. Obviously the rifle was a lot more stable than the Sig' I had a few shots on Semi' and then flicked it over to automatic and emptied the clip in sustained bursts of gunfire. The recoil wasn't really an issue due to the weight of the gun and it was comfortable to fire.

We left at about 4:00pm and everyone came back to my house for a bit before grabbing some food and heading home, while I went down to my nans for tea as usual.

... That concludes last week... I suppose I should blog right up to now... So I will...

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Yesterday were all boring. Nothing happened except that yesterday evening I went out with Katie, Jason, Gemma, Jenny and Marcus to the Barn in Solihull for a drink... Then I came home, went to bed ansd got up this morning and went with selena to the Snowdome because she wants to buy some snowblades for Skiing next year. Unfortunately, the Snowdome charge an arm and a leg for snowblades (still I suppose if that was the case, you'd only have to buy one!) so we called in to Widney Sports for a look at some cheaper ones. She still didn't get any though so I suppose it was a wasted trip... Ah well, it got me out of the house for a couple of hours...

Anyway, I am going out in a bit... So I wil sign off

TTFN readers.