Ophiuchus

Tuesday January 24th 2006

So what's an Ophiuchus I hear some of you say? I shall reveal all. I was dredging through the internet trying to find something to put in this thing and came up with the idea of the 13th sign of the zodiac. 13 ? there are 12 you donkey, you may say. You would be wrong. This is because Ophiuchus is a Sun sign. The Moon and planets all are seen against the stars of Ophiuchus. Ophiuchus isn't in the Tropical zodiac. This is not because there is something wrong with Ophiuchus but because there is something wrong with the Tropical zodiac. The Tropical zodiac is an inaccurate oversimplification of the heavens dating from a time when we did not have telescopes or computers. So the stars in the paper are crap? If they ain't why am I not rich with a headboard close to falling apart from all the notches carved in it. Next, it ain't the 13th sign its the 10th. Now, I'm sure your all wondering how this is going to affect you but don't worry I'm sure there are support groups out there. This is how it should be for all you misled Meg's out there.

01 Pisces - The Fishes – 12 Mar to Apr

02 Aries - The Ram - 19 Apr to 13 May

03 Taurus - The Bull - 14 May to 19 Jun

04 Gemini - The Twins - 20 Jun to 20 Jul

05 Cancer - The Crab - 21 Jul to 9 Aug

06 Leo - The Lion - 0 Aug to 15 Sep

07 Virgo - The Maiden - 16 Sep to 30 Oct

08 Libra - The Scales - 31 Oct to 22 Nov

09 Scorpio - The Scorpion - 23 Nov to 29 Nov

10 Ophiuchus - The Serpent Bearer - 30 Nov to 17 Dec

11 Sagittarius - The Archer - 18 Dec to 18 Jan

12 Capricorn - The Sea Goat - 19 Jan to 15 Feb

13 Aquarius - The Water Carrier - 16 Feb to 11 Mar

So this makes the star sign of your very own Welsh Bloke, Ophiuchus. Spooky Hu. The serpent Bearer. Do I bear a serpent, well I don't like to boast. I also read this Ophiuchus is also a symbol of the medical profession. Which one I don't know. This dude has got a whole load of mythology type stuff going on. At this point I am going to drop this subject as I found out that Ophiuchus became an incredible healer. Indeed, he could even bring the dead back, and Hades, who ruled the underworld, complained to Zeus that his realm was threatened. Finally, Zeus struck Ophiuchus down with a thunderbolt, but placed him in the sky so that he might be remembered. I don't fancy that. And yes I did nick loads off other web sites.

Dry January

Sunday January 15th 2006

Dry January lasted till the 13th Doh !

New Year

Tuesday January 3rd 2006

Happy new year to you all. Hope you all had a good time and unlike me didn't get to drunk. I decided to get out of London and except a kind offer from my good friends of a privet knees up at there club. At about seven ish the men folk went over the club to secure seats for the two clans. This was no small task as there neighbour had about 16 plus our 5. So there we sat, four of us on three tables. It must have looked quite odd with my bubby at one end, there next door neighbour on the middle table and me and there other neighbour at the other end. Now most of you will not know that when loud music is playing I find it quite hard to understand what people are saying. No smelly stuff Sherlock I hear you say. I will explain. Many moons ago your very own Welsh Bloke worked in a rehearsal studio. I was called into room one which had a 4k rig (a 4 thousand watt PA for y'all not in the know) as the band was unable to get the monster to make a sound. The bands would very often mic up the drums, guitars as well as the vocals for that authentic gig sound. So the taffy trainee sound engineer set about prodding the beast to wake it up. It turned out that the cable that linked the two speaker stacks and four stage monitors had come a bit loose. Dopey nuts here had forgotten that he had left the volume slider on the mixer full tilt. So as I fiddled with the wire I pumped lord knows how many thousand watts of feedback in to our canisters. I don't think the guys were two happy about that and my ears had a ring in them for three days. I think it messed my ears up a bit. Anyway I digress. After what seemed like an age the rest our clans turned up so we set about working on our hangovers. At about 10:30, 11:00 I found I was still more or less stone cold sober, so despite being in a whip I started dipping in my own funds for a whisky chaser. Yes I know that now, it was a bad move. So fun was had by all even when we were the only ones dancing to Hersham Boys. Just to top things off one of our clan won a bottle of vodka in the raffle. Midnight came and went and so did we. Back at my friends place we had a little night cap and the conversation came around to how much we had left in the whip. It was at that point we realised we had left it on the table in the club. So like superman out of a phone box I was out the door to see if it was still there, which it was, still in the glass on the table. After getting back I can remember having a ciggy and that's about it. The black cloud has clamed the rest. Next morning half of the vodka had gone and I was not a well man. I had a cup of coffee which I didn't keep long. I was told to drink something with sugar in so I had some blackcurrant. This turned out sugar free, DOH ! The next one had sugar in which lasted a little longer but it wasn't long before it saw the light of day again. Which was quite distressing as I thought I had brought up blood, completely forgetting I had been drinking blackcurrant. My mind was put at rest when I brought up the orange, and it was orange. After that I decided to do dry January.

Anna Friel

Birthday Ramble

Wednesday December 20th 2005

I thought this year (as every year) I would go on a little ramble for my birthday. As most of you know I am not one for celebrating my birthday as celebrating getting a year older seams a bit odd to me. Like the Pink Floyd song says “one year older one year closer to death”. Same with New Year. Why celebrate a year that aint happened yet. It could be crap. You could loose your job and get really depressed, take heroin and become an addict. Then, after falling in with a dodgy crowd of smack heads (who give you Aids, hepatitis C and herpes) you accidentally kill somebody while mugging them to feed your habit. And just to top it off you get caught, sent to prison for 15 years and sodomised by a 19 stone man called Stan who seams to be of the opinion that you’re his little puppy now. Would you really want to celebrate that? So I celebrate the year that has just passed as I know what happened and know if it’s worth celebrating. If your year was particularly bad you could celebrate a different year. 1990 is good for me as I gave the green green grass of home the boot moved to the big city and got a job.
The other ramble I went on started after work on Friday and was down to the Anchor for a couple of pints. It was there I met up with a few more ramblers and a few more pints. As this was going to be a long ramble for me I thought we would start out gentile and go to the Nandos next door. I decided that we should stop for half a chicken, corn on the cob, coleslaw and a couple of bottles of wine. After we were rested and fed we got a bit more ambitious and made for the Balcony Bar in Waterloo. We sat on the shelf outside the bar with a good view of bovine London passing through the station and had a few pints. It was here our party split up and I set off for Paddington in search of the strangely titled Sleeper train to Penzance.
Now some of you maybe thinking that Sleeper train to Penzance is in now way a strange title for a train that travels through the night and has little rooms with beds in for you to sleep in. You have obviously never used a sleeper train. I got to Paddington with half an hour to spare and bought some crap sandwiches. The train was boarding so I had no time to play with the sniffer dogs. I was most upset. A rather well spoken stewardess showed me to my cell (which was a 6ft square box) and showed me how to open and close the door (which if you locked from the outside stayed locked and you had to call the stewardess, so no trips to the bog in my boxers), where the bed was and where my toilet (or small sink as some people call it) was. I was offered a wake up call (HA!) with coffee so I went for 7:25 which would give me 45 minuets to wake up and remember who I am and where I’m going. Now, I had a plan to plug my laptop in to the shaver socket and watch a DVD. I have dongles to attach my laptop to anything in any country, except the shaver socket on a train. So sleep it was. I pulled my tartan blanket back and jumped in, stubbing my toe at the bottom and banging my head at the top. Six and a half hours later I was still laying there wishing I could have slept. Pulling into the stations was the worst coz it gave you just enough time to drop off then the train would set off again and wake you up. Of all the things I could have done in that cell, sleeping was not one of them but I tried anyway. And failed. Then there was a knock at the door. It was my complimentary coffee (yahoo). After putting me in a room smaller than a prison cell with no plug socket and no chance of sleeping the least they could do was give me a pot of coffee. Yes, you guessed right, it was crap. They must have made it in London and warmed it up in the morning. So I sliced the coffee in half, folded in the milk and sugar and sat there staring out of the window chewing my coffee. There was something strangely peaceful about staring out of the train window, chewing coffee and watching dawn break over the misty farm land of Cornwall. Then again I hadn’t had any sleep in 24 hours.
The train pulled in to Penzance about 8:15. I think I was the only one that got off. A walk along the front was called for, which by chance was the quickest way to my friends place. Provisions had been made for me to gain entrance so after passing the two sets of guards and the dogs I was in. After 40 winks, coffee, toast and a shower my new rambling party set off for Sean’s for breakfast. A mug of coffee and a number two breakfast was planted in front of me and I tucked in. It was at this point I came to the conclusion that I could smell somebody ironing a wet dog. Nobody was doing any ironing of any kind. The women across from me had let the arm of her rain Mac fall on to the fan heater and was smoking away. I tried not to laugh as they stretched out the arm of her coat to check the damage. I nearly exploded as the women behind the counter cut off the arm of the coat. It was the picture in my head of her walking home with one long sleeve and one short sleeve that did it. So after a hearty breakfast of wet dogs and lightly toasted rain mac we took a walk around the town to pick up a few things. I went to Penzance to kick back and whittle some, which is exactly what I did. In fact I kicked back and whittled so much I needed a cab to get back and a skip for the whittlings. So after Breakfasts, fresh air, Party’s, lots of fun and the largest pork chop I have ever seen it was time to go back to the smoke.
As usual I was in the deliverance carriage with the old folk so it was a quiet and uneventful journey apart from the embarrassing conversation I started when I thought an announcement said we were going to waterloo and not Paddington. I wish I had known you can go to Waterloo from Reading. I would rather spend an hour on Reading station than half an hour on the tube. In fact I would rather spend an hour banging nails in my foot on Reading station than ten minutes on the tube.

Ipod

Monday September 05th 2005

At long last I have caved in and bought a 20 GB iPod. In one way I’m glad I did but in many other ways I wish I had cut my ears off, buried them in the garden and shoved the money up my arse. It was a little on the scratched side (the iPod not my arse) but then again I want to listen to it not look at it. It came with a remote, earphones and a case which I stuck in a draw. I’ll use my own earphones thanks as they sound better and they don’t glow white in the dark and doesn’t announce that you have an iPod to every mugger you pass. I had to buy a charger and cable to stack it up with mp3’s. The battery is crap as most people will know and is in no way good enough to fill 20GB of iPod. So after 5 nights of charging and updating I have managed to fill 14.26GB. I recommend USB 2. If you ain't got it, get it. The itunes software which you have no choice but to use is basic and crap. I spent 6 months making sure all my mp3’s were named in the same format (artist, LP name, track number and track name) all the crappel iPod left me with was number and name. I suppose it will save me the bother of renaming the other 2000. I have been wondering why so many people named there mp3’s like that. Now I know they have ipods and made the same mistakes I did. Once you eventually get the mp3’s on the thing it’s not too bad. I will want to delete certain LP’s and replace them with others but I can’t see how I can do it. If I have to reinstall the hole lot every time I want to swap an LP it will get sold VERY quickly. Maybe I should just give in and read the manual. It’s great if you got the time to mess with it but I haven't so when I put my mp3's on it they better stay on it. Maybe they will have sorted out some of the irritating eccentricities in some of the later ipods but third generation and bellow you can forget. Alternatively you can save your money and find an mp3 player with a battery that you don't have to rent for a year or at least one that is easer to replace. You can replace them yourself its just a pain in the arse.

Nick Cave

Thursday, August 26th, 2005

I went to see Nick Cave at Alexandra palace last night. Top gig as usual. It’s a bit of a hike to get there and only just got my last train home. Missed the first as we were not able to fit on it and the second as we could not find our way back into the station after finding a convenient bush. The beer was ok, 7 out of 10 for the sound and there were birds in the gent’s bogs. What more could you ask for. Brixton is still better. He finished off with Stagger Lee which had an extra verse. We now do not have to worry about going to hell as according to Nick Cave Stagg has filled the devil full of lead.

Wet Week Off

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

To busy to sort out my Blog ! How could this be true? Well it is not. Truth is I been sitting on my door step waiting for the rain to stop long enough for me to wander about taking photos. Tuesday was sunny enough for me to dry my washing but what with windows going belly up I've had a few other things to do.

On the subject of windows going belly up and having to reinstall everything I would like to take a few moments to talk about reinstalling The Sims Don't. I have the full set of 12 disks and its a pain in the arse. If like me you were into downloading stuff off the internet it's worse. I've done this about five time now and this is the first time it has gone well and all works. This maybe due to me only using stuff from the game and not downloading anything. I have lost more houses than I care to mention and so have other Sims addicts I know. One gave up and bought Sims 2. Its installed now and I'm just waiting for Bill Gates to come round so I can turn him in to a toad.

And on the subject of Photography, Next time I upgrade my camera I think I'll get one that's waterproof then I can take photos during the summer as well :-(

Not Again Again

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

My faith in the human race was restored just a little bit this morning. I was getting my all important first coffee when I noticed a young lady who had got on the same train as me the day before (see Not Again). As I stirred five sugars in to the vat of coffee I had in front of me she approached me and said "That woman who had a go at you on the train the other day ?" I thought o no, not again. What the hell is going on. I said yes to which she replied "You didn't do anything. I don't know what she was on about" I new I wasn't going mad.

Not Again

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

I got to the train station this morning in time for my train for a change. Went to the coffee shop and got my all important regular coffee then went and stood in the same place I had stood for the last 3 years. About four minutes later the train arrived and the doors (as they do every morning) stopped and opened right in front of me. As I stepped on to choose which one of the many seats to sit on, this little fat women barged in to me from behind. She then turns round and says "You did that" in a how could you do that kind of way. Well, I had been up for an hour and had three sips of coffee. I was stunned. I replied " What, when did I do that" It was at this point I noticed that the hole carriage was looking at us. I missed what she said next as my mind wandered off to thinking about the sausage sandwich I was going to have when I got to work. I really did not need this. So I said " I have not got a clue what you are talking about woman". She started to say something else but I cut her off by raising my voice and repeating my last statement, then went and sat down in the hope she would leave me alone. Which she did. When I changed she nearly got on the same carriage as me on the next train but one look at my face and she got on the next carriage. I had not touched a single person from the time I got up till she walked in to me. Not even when I was given 5 pence change from the coffee. Why do these people always pick on me ?

Talking about nuts, I bought a bag of Spicy Roasted Balti Peanuts. On the back there was the following Warning. This product may contain traces of nuts. For crying out loud if you take away the nuts all you got left is vegetable oil, salt and spices. Which is not to be underestimated. I got some in my eye and it was not fun. Stung like a good un.

Hello

As I was saying, this is my old blog so the post dates are going to be a little odd. Your going to have the date I posted it on here and in the text you will have the date it was originally posted. I will also include the comments, feel free to carry on commenting. When I finished it will meet the beginning of my new blog, Welsh Blokes Rant.