Irony

I nearly got run over by a VW campervan today.

Goddamned beatniks!

...on Second thought...

First of all, I'm very sorry.  Twitter has turned me back into a crap blogger.  Curse you twitter!

This was originally a post about work. Here's the short version of what was originally a ridiculously long post:

From what I've written here, you might be forgiven for thinking I dislike my job. This is not the case, I mostly enjoy it and I'm really quite good at it. However, people who talk positively about their jobs constantly are sociopaths, people who air their frustrations are just borderline sociopaths, like the rest of us.

I know I promised a few cooking posts, but unfortunately I lost interest in taking photos of the process of cooking/serving the curry and I didn't remember to do the roast post until the crackling was already done.

I'll use the magical mind-brush of my words to paint you a picture of last weekend. Prepare to have me go over the lines in the paint by numbers of your impressionable minds.

Good Friday - A slightly confusingly named day. 'Jesus is dead! w00t!' Friday. Anyway, I spent most of 'DingDong the saviour's dead' Day morning sleeping. It was awesome, I'm usually up by 9am which would be fine if I went to sleep at a decent hour. Instead I was asleep until 11am, I was very pleased. The rest of the day was spent watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I think it's what Jesus really wanted.

errr..does it have a special name? Saturday - I walked the 2 miles or so to the butcher to get some meats. One thing I noticed about this weekend is that the shops were open every day. I only noticed because everyone seemed to be planning for a nuclear winter. Very strange. As a result the butcher man was out of sausages, which was mortifying. I did get some lamb for the curry though. Then I went to the grocer's, picked up a bunch of fruit and veg and some generic looking chilis.

I started cooking a curry that was substantial in volume, I also had plans for a spinach & potato side dish with chili and ginger. At this stage I decided it might be wise to invite people over. Rob was going to come along with Hannah, she's a limp wristed veggy type so dashed next door to buy some spring onions, mushrooms, coconut milk and some limes so I could make a veggy curry. Good thing about veggy food is that it takes about 2 minutes to cook in all its forms. Anyway, made some curries and sides, we ate, we drank and awesomeness was had by all.

Easter "hang on, you're back a bit early Jesus?!' Sunday - Sunday I had a large breakfast and had roasted loin of pork in the late afternoon. I made roast potatoes and carrots, just doused them in olive oil and rosemary and lobbed them in the oven. Cider gravy again, yummy crackling. Awesome. Oh yeah, and broccoli.

"Sure he'll be here any minute" Monday Buffy. Pizza. night night!


There you have it. I'll do another awesome t-shirt related cooking post at some point in the future, probably the next roast that I do.

For my next post...

We have options here, but I am intending cooking both tonight and tomorrow - curry and roasted piggy respectively.

I could do a couple  more of my awesome cooking stuff posts, or would that be too repetitive?  I'll leave it up to you.

Of course I say that, but I'll likely ignore whatever is actually written down and interpret my own conclusions.

I should totally be a member of the clergy.

Chili Night!

For the preparation of a 'Matt's Chili of Variable Quality', you will need:

1 x Matt wearing an AWESOME T-Shirt.



1 x DAB Radio (Preferably one that won't cost too much to replace), tuned to a station of your Matt's choice. If this is not BBC 6Music[*] then your Matt is likely a pod-person and should be terminated. Don't waste though, pod-persons make excellent filler for a chili.



1 x Whatever onions and peppers your Matt has lying about the kitchen. In our example, 1 of the onions was a Tory, so was rotten to the core and the pepper unlikely to make it to the end of the chili-making process. A Matt's gotta eat, even when cooking. Oh and some mushed up dead cow (not in photo)



1 x Some cumin, salt, Tabasco, Worcester, dried chilies, mushed up garlics, Bart's minced hot chilies. Possibly a stock cube/some stock if your Matt remembers/can be bothered to find one. And maybe some Marmite.



1 x Some chopped tomatoes an kidney beans - be sure to inadvertently splash tomato juices over as many surfaces/appliances/radios as you are able during opening.



Preparation

1) Tell your Matt to quit taking photos and get with the chili makin'!

He may or may not follow the following steps:

1) Fry up the non-Tory onions.



2) Add the spices and stuff



3) Stir the spices and stuff. Add more crushed chilies.



4) Fry up the mushed up dead cow until it is sort of cooked. Add more crushed chilies because he forgot he just added more crushed chilies.



5) Add the tomatoes, stir



6) Add the beans, stir.



7) Behold all he has wrought.



8) Wait until the chili is ready, periodically adding crushed chilies because he forgot he added crushed chilies already. (Step incomplete at the time of writing).


*Exceptions to the '6Music Pod Person test' are 6pm weekdays, when Radio 4 is acceptable or on the off-chance radio 7 has something funny on.

The dream is over..

Yesterday was full of optimism and joy. DVDs and gadgets arrived in the post from a mysterious benefactor, known only as 'Mr M G Jones'. I had Fajitas for lunch. It was goodtimes.

Today, there was soup. I like soup, and this was particularly yummy soup. But no matter the soup quality, it's no fajita.

In an attempt to bring joy back to my life, I'll be making chili later. And tomorrow - burritos! Mexican food is made of happiness and beans. FACT.

I wish I had a poncho.

It's here! w00t!

OK So my shiny new Netbook arrived today. I am gonna post a picture of it here (as opposed to the full unboxing and whatnot I weas going to do!).

Unless you want to hear a spectacular line in bullshit, I would suppress the desire to ask 'But why?!' And just oooh and aaaah at the awesomeness of my new toy.

That is all.

Work laptop next to Junior (13" Laptop vs 10" Netbook):



To be honest I think I would have gone with something smaller but to make the thing useable for me, it had to have a decent keyboard. The one on this model has a keyboard almost the same size as a notmal laptop but the unit is a little over half the size.

As to the why? Well, if you don't have a use for one it's difficult to see the sense in them. I have some use for one that will make it a regular part of my day to use, but it solves some minor inconveniences rather than any problems. Essentially I am the secondary market for this thing, the people who could use one but primarily pick it up because they like the look of them.

I shall call him Tiny:Conqueror of 3am Support Calls!

Not with a bang but with a wimper....

Whilst residents in the fairytale rounabout Kingdom of Milton Keynes burn effigies of google executives. With much wailing and gnashing of teeth they proclaim how their privacy has been invaded and how they simply won't stand for it.

The fact that we have more CCTV cameras per person in this country than pretty much anywhere else in the world is not a worry to these people. The fact that they are being used not just to identify people who are criminals but also behaviour that may or may not result in criminality bothers them not a jot. The active targetting of particular socio-economic groups as software that tracks logos on clothing (as opposed to their wearer) is piloted seems perfectly fine.

The fact that as from today, government agencies have ready and free access to all our email and telephone communications without the pesky need for legal justification is of no concern to anyone. Move along, there's nothing to see here.

Google invade your privacy but the government is looking after you, it's for your own safety. It's double-plus good.

Here, there or nowhere?

So, I ordered a new toy off eBay last week. I crumbled like a big crumbly gadget obsessed cookie. I am a bad man.

Further to this, I intend inflicting a blog post on the subject on you all too - there will be pictures and geekery. hah! Flee mortals!