Mobile

Mobile phones don't like water, or being dropped on concrete as Nomi found out the hard way... thankfully all that was damaged is the screen, and a quick search on ebay resulted in a replacement screen for only £5. On taking it apart the LG Prada is a very well built phone, and simplistic too. Shame it's so susceptible to impacts.

Jelly Frogs

If you know my family, you'll know we have a thing about frogs and toads :-) My mum made these using a new jelly mould she bought... the green jelly was supposed to be a lillypad, but turned out more like frogspawn :-)

It all tasted yum tho!

Finally... holiday posts!

It's taken me forever, but the posts from my holiday are up... backdated but here's the links to them:

• Woodlands
• Devon Chavs
• Pecorama
• Bicton Park
• Rockpooling
• Astro-Mud
• Peacock
• Never too old...
• Trams
• Off to Seaton
• Nomi goes on an elephant ride
• Guitar Hero... Rocks the Caravan :-)
• Exmouth Market
• Techno Caravan
• Jumbled Posts
• Just popping to the shops
• We have arrived...

Solar Powered Lamp

I kid you not... This is indeed a solar powered lamp... It's not totally daft. As it has batteries. It produces a weak light that is somewhat useful.




Under a strong light though it looks quite impressive. Now if only the photovoltaic cells were 100% efficient it could be a perpetual machine :)

Pinball Wizard

Ikea has loads of games to keep the kids happy as mum and dad shop. Well at least they did until Andy hogged them all :)

Andy's a Chicken

They also sell these masks for children... Andy's seen here wearing a Chicken one. Naomi's mate Christian has a Dragon one... Now I know the secret of where he got it from :)

Andy Sleeps the Ikea Lifestyle

After running around the shop all day Andy needed a rest :) think this bedroom wardrobe is awesome... The corner unit is big enough to stand 2 people in!

Andy Lives the Ikea Lifestyle

I don't have the heart to tell him none of it works.

Ikea Train Set

I don't think me or Andy ever grew up :) surprisingly we've had no funny looks for running around Ikea like big kids :)

Shiny Black Monolith

I like Ikea furniture... It can be good quality stuff. Like this for example. This has got to be the most awesome TV cabinet known to man!

Bling

Andy just loves to show off his Bling :) i know this is a spoof item... But seriously. Who buys the real thing... It is just the rapper version of a Chav gold clown!

Not a Wii

Spotted another fake Wii. It's cheer and cheerful... I dread to see the face of the child that get's one of these... It's gonna be the total opposite of this:

Adsolutely mad... this is gonna haunt him in later life

Dumping Camera

The video just speaks for itself. Only the Japanese could think a camera that "dumps" a picture could be cute!

Accessable Keyboard

My first thought when I saw this was "It's a Fisher Price keyboard!"... Then I read the sign... And thought what a good idea, why's there not more of these about? If I had the balls to go freelance I'd be designing and making all sorts of "accessibility" products. I think it's there's a market for stuff like this. Everyone needs their independence.

Fine Purveyors of Burlesque

This shop had engraved on it's window "Fine Purveyors of Burlesque", I'm a little perplexed by this as I couldn't see anything go the shop that could warrant this. Must be a legacy of it's old trade... Shame as Nomi would've loved to visit it otherwise.

Whitstable Native

I've just started watching "Tipping the Velvet", it's a really good period drama... I'll let you form your own opinion, but i really feel for the main characters naivety. In the opening scene it shows her home town of Whitstable and the Famous Oyster Bars, sadly of the few that were left I couldn't find one open :-(

Albino Bagpuss

Think Bagpuss may be going grey in his old age :-)

Victorian Porn

Sadly this shop was shut... Otherwise I'd have popped in to get the postcards that were on the door :) I love the fact that one of the photos depicts a man taking a photo of a womans clothed bottom, ignoring the fact she's topless :)

Recycled Pavement?

Hmm... Weird is what i thought when I spotted this... It's a paving slab in the style of a recycling symbol, but raised like a crossing for the blind? What could it be for?

Ideal Statue

It's funny how cultures change. When statues were carved by the ancient Greeks to depict the gods, the men were depicted as extremely muscular... An idealised form of the male physique. Even Roman generals had a breastplate shaped as if they had a six pack (when more than likely they had a bit of a belly from eating rich food).

The idealised female physique in those days differs from today's... Not by masses, but enough. Both then and now women with trim figures were rightly considered beautiful. However, you'll notice no ribs... But a healthy mix of muscle and flesh displaying no ribs (I say flesh as opposed to fat... As in todays society fat implies obesity). But in stark contrast today women who are tall and large chested with rib cages showing are considered beautiful. Where as the opposite applied back then, a friend of mine argued that it was because back then you couldn't get surgically enhanced breasts... While I agree with him there... That doesn't stop natural big breasts. So I return to my original statement that the petite figure was idealised over a buxom one.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions... And it takes all sorts for a world to work... But to me the old idealised... the Venus physique... is by far the most beautiful.

Guess that makes me a very lucky man in a classical sense (Not that I didn't think that before).

End of an era... Start of a new one

Incognito comics Maidstone was one of the first comic shops I ever went to. I was saddened to hear they'd shut... But at least they had the Canterbury shop still. Well a least until the 31st :( Thankfully they're not disappearing completely tho. As they're going totally web based. I'm glad they're still going to exist... But it's a shame. As without shops to go too how will up geeks get any sunlight?

Wonky

I'd be terrified to work or live in this building... Looks like it's going to fall over any second! This must be Canterbury's answer to the Leaning Tower of Pizza :) just look at the front door for one... But I guess it's been like that for ages... Wonder if the inside is all wonky too?

Cathedral

"You can't come to Canterbury without seeing the Cathedral"... Well in fact you can... Because it's not visible from anywhere but inside its grounds. Which you have to pay to go into. I'll give it a miss as I don't have my Camera with me :(

Che Andy

I've never eaten Cuban food before. And Andy highly recommended this place... So we went there for some healthy non fast food. I had tuna that was cooked with cane sugar... Really nice, and not at all sweet like I was expecting.

Canterbury

Went to Canterbury with Andy today. Wish I'd remembered to take my proper camera :( Not bad pics tho.

iJoy Ride

I have it on good authority that this is neither a sex toy or a rodeo bull... What it is, is it's a exercise "device" that works on your stomach and hips. Good to see that yet another industry is adding "i" to the front of everything. iWish I could go back in time and assassinate the person that thought of using iWhatever as a naming policy at Apple... iHate it... the only thing that iHate more is when other companies copy it. Even more so when it's totally nonsensical like this. iJoy? Really... I mean come on... Sounds like a vibrator attachment for the iPod... No wait that's the iVibe. Perhaps it should be renamed the "iLook Like a Cowboy on This Thing".

Retro Poster

Whilst sorting some of my crodge out I found this old poster. I can't even remember how I got it... All I do remember is that for years it was stuck to the underside of my pool table. Now I think of it , it might be worth something, being an original promo poster for the book possibly dating back to 1986. Shame it's not in mint condition.

Out of Sequence Posts

Some out of sequence posts have been added... see below:

• Mysterious Hole
• Beat It!
• Snowman Time
• And Then There Was Space

Edited 23-01-09

Corsetry

I love corsets... And I'm very glad that Nomi does too... As such I've learnt a lot about putting them on. For Christmas I got her this lovely new one. Unfortunately it saw laced completely the wrong way for Naomi's petite figure so I bought some more ribbon and re-laced it (Could have used the original, but wanted the cords to be longer). I was pretty impressed, even if I do say so myself, that I managed to get it perfect first time :)

My Heath... (Insert Gimmic Here)

I know Ubisoft are kings of the cookie cutter game. But this just takes the piss... What's next... My Health Coach Let's Quit Heroin?

Suggestive Cacti

Seriously... It's not just one... There's dozens of them like this in my local garden center. Whoever planted them must've been laughing hysterically! Either that or I have a depraved mind?

Robins are coming to get you!

My sister bought some garden ornament Robins for my mum for Christmas (she specifically asked for these ones), however on close inspection they just look plain evil! I mean those eyes! They just look like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie!

500

Woo hoo... 500 posts :-)

Irony

Went for a meal with my sister and a couple of friends to a Beefeater. The restaurant was decorated with photo's like this one with certain things highlighted in colour. Thought this flaming one of the kitchen was ironically placed below a no smoking sign :-)

Upgrading a PS3s Hard Drive...

... Is not as easy as it seems!

All was going well... I backed u[ the HDD on a new portable drive I purchased just for the job. Then come the trauma of fiddling with such an expensive piece of equipment. I fiddle about with computers all the time, but this is different, If I break something I can't just go down Maplins and get a replacement part!

I was warned that the screws that hold the drive in place were "soft and over torqued" little did I know that it must've been done with an air spanner! Crikey... I stripped the head off of three of them trying to get them undone.

Try as I might I couldn't get them off. So I decided to use a Dremel with a cutting disc to slit a groove into each screw and undo them with a large flat blade screwdriver. Thankfully this worked brilliantly :) tho taking a cutting disc so close to a hard drive made me very nervous!

I've now replaced the screws with propper computer case screws that are a lot tougher... Not that I'll be trying this again anytime soon!

Restoring the backup was a piece of cake, and now I'm sporting plenty of HDD space :-)

For those of you that are brave enough to copy me you can find a useful how to here and another here. If you need to back up loads of data, you'll need a USB HDD, but it's not as easy as just plug it in and go... fol ow the guide here to see what you need to do, an essential piece of software you'll need is a FAT 32 Formatter for large HDDs. And a dremel if those screws were made from blue tac like mine :-)