Max needs to lay off stuff.

Max, who is almost 16 months, got some medicine today. On the bottle it says he has to stay away from alcohol and driving. He is a bit upset about no alcohol and not driving but it is for the best.

Bath

Had a bath today, yes it's my birthday.

Toad the size of a dog

No not a Peter and Jordan story but in Oz they have found a huge Toad up in Darwin.

Story from the sun here

When we was traveling we went to a cane toad race night and had a good laugh, no damage done to the toads !

I do have to say though the Aussies fucking hate Cane toads as they have killed loats of Oz wildlife. The toad happen to be poisonous to most animals but a few are doing well and just eat the legs !!!

The toad, if I remember right, was only introduced to eat a sugar cane beatle in the 1930's but it never ate them and loved living in Oz so much it met a wife and had kids that had kids that had kids etc. etc.

Secret discovered.......

Damn those BBC News articles, they have now printed a secret location that we have been to and I was hoping to keep it that way as it is hard enough to park round there anyway !!

The place is Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum, Tring, Hertfordshire, dont tell anyone !!!

It's really good and costs you nowt.

BBC site article here

Their website is here

Have a good weekend.

Edward Scissorhands meets Kit

Nearly walked out in front of a car yesterday. It was one if those hybrid cars by Toyota, a Prius, and I really think that they are great cars and very good for the environmental BUT you can not hear them !!! They are quieter the Kit from Knight Rider in hush mode. Personally I think that they should have some sort of noise so that a child does run out in front of it.

Here's a tip to Dads out there, Your child's hair should be cut by a pro ! For some reason I thought I could trim the fringe but I was a bit worried about his eyes so went a bit higher then maybe I should of and then he moved oops end result is a boy that has a dumb and dumber fringe. Doesn't look too bad when you brush it over to the side. Looked like Faye was going to cry tears of happiness. She has now taking the scissors away from me and to be honest I'm a little scared of sleeping tonight :-)

Here he is looking very happy before the event.


Not so happy now :-) I think it is alright actually. Just waiting for the phone call from his Grandma when she looks here !




I thought all the trendy "kids" had really short fringes at the moment !

Old man

I mentioned before about turning into my dad, well this weekend I was driving my dad style A4 auto estate when it hit me again......I was driving to pick up a 2nd hand roof box ... At least I never had driving gloves on. I did mention to Faye that I quite fancy changing my car to a manual because it doesnt feel "right" and started to look into a S4 Avant but they are about 2K more then mine and about the same age so I do not think that I can afford it (see below !!).

I also moaned about todays music, the "drippy" nature of the youth and found grey hair in my sideburns although I like to think of it as Silver because that is cooler. The Neil Young song Old Man is really starting to be my song.

Need a new freezer now !! our fridge / freezer has now gone bang, well not bang more of a really annoying loud buzzing noise that vibrates through the walls to directly where we sleep. It only seems to affect me though as Faye just sleeps through it. It has been in the garage since we moved and to be honest I think that has killed it. Now we need to see if we want a chest or tall freezer. Quite like the idea of a tall one. Just glad I have got a bonus coming this week ! not that there is anything left of it. Need to sort the fencing out (think I will have to get a man to sort that) , lay some slabs to create an additional parking space and also need to look into a new kitchen.

To be honest I think the fence will be my bonus. Any one know a rough price for about 20 meters of fence 6 foot high to be supplied and installed?

Look out for the blog when I approach the neighbour about a 6 foot fence because he currently has a 3 foot one up thinks that he owns that part of the fencing and it will also, unfortunately, lose him some light. We have a raised garden so the actual garden is about 2 foot higher then the bottom of the house and we can both see right in to each others house :-0 Should be fun.

Also what is the best slabs to use to park a car on and how deep should I lay hardcore?

Stinging Soup

Had bit of a role reversal yesterday, Faye sanded down the stairs, lounge windows and then painted it all while I took Max for a stroll round the roads, we then went shopping and off to the park. When we got back I made nettle soup. Had a great day, I hate decorating !

Nettle soup, yep, heard Chris Evans talking bout it on Friday radio 2 and thought MMMmmm I could do that so on Saturday morning we collected the nettles. Like a fool I forgot the gloves !

Best time to pick nettles is now and until the end of April while they are young. Try to just take the tops off so that they continue to grow.

To make it I used a Veg Stock, potato grated, 4 small carrots grated, an onion, 2 sticks of celery, some butter, Garlic, Ginger, some spinich and of course a small bag of nettles.

First of all I washed the nettles and took them off the tough stalks, I then fried the garlic, celery, onion and ginger up a bit in the butter. Chucked in the carrot and potato and some stock while I boiled or the fancy word might be blanched the nettles for 2 mins in a little water. I then added this to the pain and bolied, once bolied I simmered for approx 10 mins and added some salt / pepper and a handful of spinach to help with the colour. Left to cool and liquidised it. Heated it up and served with a spoon of creme fraiche and some grated nutmug. Bloody good it was !!
The Nettles


The ingredients


The green soup


We are lucky to have Ashridge woods near us and here is a shot of Faye, Max and Jasper the dog from Sunday.

Went to the footy on Saturday and have to say i was shocked that some fans actually booed Ben Watson for taking the penalty. Fuck knows who else was meant to take it and I'm glad he rammed it down the throats of those morons by scoring. Well done Ben !!!

Skimmed

According to the fraud people my card has been skimmed. luckily nothing has gone from our bank account. Very strange as the card that was skimmed never goes into cash point so it must be one of the following places:
B&Q Watford
Toys R Us Bedford (interchange retail park I think it is called)
Matalan Bedford
Mothercare Bedford

Thats all the of the places I have used the card but I would of noticed if they reswiped the card and was watching me put my PIN in. I work in the retail industry so do keep an eye on it.

The only other debit that has been made is for Pipex who have finally billed me for my broadband. Realised the other month that i have not paid a penny for my broadband since July last year ! My card has now been cancelled so I will have to change my details or Pipex wont get anything next month !

We have got a dishwasher now. Got a good deal from Comet on a Smeg (Saved £100) and when I went on line to check out the Smeg site it turned out that there was a free 5 year parts and labour warrenty on it !! Result so I have sent my receipt off to them and hopefully will get that. It is plumbed into the hot water :-0 had to use a 'Y' adapter to split the pipe but Faye told me today that the washing machine has started to leak after I plumbed it all back in. Job for the weekend.

Not too happy with the quality of the glasses but will check that we are loading it correctly etc.

Max had his MMR jab today but I have not seen him because I have been down in Clevedon for work. Never cried, Max not me, when he had his jab.

He needs a haircut so I might try and give him one over the weekend.
Here is a couple of pictures of him, the first one is a bit of a cheeky sneer and the 2nd one is him having a rest after some walking in the woods.




What you all got planned for the weekend then? We are finally going out on Saturday !! Got a babysitter and off with some friends to the Thai and have some beers. Footy and food for me Saturday. We are out with Matt and Michelle (Plus another couple Gary and Eve if your interested) and they are off travelling round the world soon check out their blog. It's new and is being updated ! I will add a link soon. Actually thinking of having a change of format soon and redoing all my links etc.

Got to be gutted....

In a nustshell "the worlds most desirable car (in my eyes) the Bugatti Veyron has been crashed"
See Here

Oh well at least no one hurt and after all it's only a car :-0

Have plumbed in a dishwasher tonight but can not test the thing because we dont have dirty plates and no dishwasher salt !!! I got a few free samples with it but no salt unless I dont need any with a Finish 3 in 1 tablet. Maybe I will be able to test I have no leaks tomorrow night.

Turning into your dad

Peter Kaye says that you have turned into your dad the day you have a piece of wood just for stirring paint. I still dont have that stick but what I did over the weekend is turning into my dad for me.

My sister is 9 years younger then me and I remember when she was little and used to have powdered milk (SMA) my dad used to rinse them out and all the tins would have a bit of masking tape across them with the contents written on the said tape. I made my very own SMA tin containing curtain hanging "bits" over the weekend.

I have turned into my dad.........

Next week I am going to keep all the jars and stick the lids to a bottom of a shelf that I will create using an old plank and have my very own nuts and bolts rack with removble jars.

I'm joking by the way !!!!

Clowns are evil

There has always been something about clowns that unnerves me and makes me feel like that they must be evil

Lets face the facts, have you ever seen It by Stephen King.



The Joker in Batman, John Wayne Garcy who used to dress as a clown killed 33 men and boys all evil !!! Check out wikipedia for more on Evil Clown

Palace fans also call Charlton players / club / fans Clowns.

This story from the Daily Mail does not help things: Pictures available from the Daily Mail site

'Kasper the clown' faces jail for punching schoolboy
Last updated at 19:42pm on 20th February 2007

As a child going to the circus, you might expect the clown to throw a bucket of confetti at you, or squirt you with water from the flower on his lapel.

You certainly wouldn't be prepared for him to grab you by the scruff of the neck, punch and kick you and leave you needing hospital treatment for cuts and bruises.

As these astonishing pictures show, that's what happened when 12-year-old Amos Lutz met Kaspar the Clown at a circus in Leipzig, Germany.

Amos's mistake seems to have been to hurl a carton of his own confetti at Kaspar - otherwise known as Bernd Kalster, 47 - as he strolled by. Clown Bernd Kalster, 47, punched and kicked helpless Amos Lutzer, 12, to the ground at Leipzig, Germany, then claimed it was self defence.

Kaspar clearly failed to see the funny side.

He took hold of Amos and punched and kicked him, even as the youngster curled into a ball to try to protect himself.

The clown has now been arrested and charged with causing actual bodily harm. He faces the prospect of six months in prison.

Amos said: 'At first I thought he was mucking about. But I went down hard on the ground and I saw him balling his fists and growling at me behind his smile.

'He really hit me hard. He was punching and kicking, swearing at me the whole time. I was very frightened. It's not like I threw a stone at him, just some fluffy bits of paper.'

Kaspar claimed Amos had struck him in the face after the clown told him off for throwing the confetti in an area where there were 'no litter' signs. But bystanders said only confetti was thrown and nothing more.

Amos's father Stephan Lutz, 43, said: 'My son doesn't lie.

'He thought he was being jolly throwing the confetti and this is how he was repaid. The clown's a psycho.'

Fight Fight Fight

Saw an unbelievable article on the bbc site, now when we have had a few beers us Dads often have bit of a laugh about getting the babies wrestling but would we actually do it NO WAY.

Down in Devon though 1 family has actually started a Fight Club for their family toddlers.

The seven-minute footage, filmed at a house by one woman, was shown in a case at Plymouth Magistrates' Court.

In the clip, a boy wearing a nappy was called a "wimp" for not hitting a girl back after she struck him in the face.

Mad world we live in hey, Who wants to bet they are wearing Burberry.

News article is here

Faye and Max made it home OK last week.

I picked up some glasses today, I have to wear them for computer work. Feels a bit strange wearing them but my eyes do feel better and less tired. Here is a snap of me using the built in iSight on the macbook.



I have bought an external disc and I am making a media center using the macbook pro and it is looking good. I have the MacBook connected to the TV using a DVI to HDMI cable to keep it all digital, For sound I am connecting to my surround sound amp using an optical cable, connecting to the external drive (bought a 400 gig Seagate through Maplins for £86. how cheap and it has 16meg of buffer) using USB2 to connect. On the MacBook I have created alias' under the movies folder and what that does is allows the MacBook to see the external disc under Front Row.
Whats left, well I need a bluetooth mouse so that I can keep the Mac alive when the screen is shut and I need to work out what i am going to do about my photos. I dont want to store them on the macbook and also my iMac so I am probably going to look into using shared and wireless connection to the iMac albums. I have worked out that I can choose the library that iPhoto uses by pressing the Alt key when opening so I could leave the full library on the external disc and a smaller one on the MacBook. I'm also getting some High Definition movies on Monday.

Snow Joke for this car

This is a video posted on You Tube that I created earlier while working from home. It was done in my lunch hour for the benefit of anyone from work reading my blog ;-)

Here is the video

Hopefully Faye and Max will be back tomorrow, I am running out of plates and the washing up is mounting up !!!

Snow Joke

Well today I am snowed in down south and Faye and Max are snowed in at her parents.

The snow here is quite deep and I have been filming some cars, 1 car mainly because he just kept trying and trying ! getting round the corner and up a very slight hill.

Worst I have seen for a long time and it is still falling quite heavy. Hope it sorts itself out today as Faye was meant to be coming home.

Here is a picture from 22/1 at 7.33

and this is today at 7.48


This is the slight hill and 1 man is trying to solve the problem with a shovel of grit MMMMmmmm good luck.

Ifill Good

Footy News

Palace have kept up their outside chances of a play off spot with another good win today over Ipswich (got a double over them), we are now 8 games unbeaten in the league.

I dont even think that we are playing that well, and have not for few seasons, but we are still getting the points and maybe thats the sort of luck that we need.

We won 2-0 today and both goals were good goals, Lean Cort scored his 5th of the season (had to check the cpfc.co.uk website) although for some reason it seems as though he has scored more. The most he has ever scored is 6 goals so hopefully he is going to beat that !

Paul Ifill scored his first goal for the club and being born in Brighton and playing for Millwall for 7 seasons I thought he might be more "upset" at scoring for us :-) as it happened he loved it. He got the the man of the match today but to be honest he had a great spell in the 2nd half but I would not of said that he was the man of the match. Shefki Kuqi was my man of the match. He just runs and runs, he also got a great reception from the Ipswich fans and fair play to them as they brought a lot with them.

After Ifill's goal the song I Fill Good by James Brown was played. Now I sat there thinking it must be his fave song but after a while the penny dropped and I realised (with the help of a couple of people including my Dad) that it was "Ifill good"


Baby Toddler News

Max is getting better and better at walking and according to our friend Lauren that he walks like Elvis although I think he walks more like a cockney doing the Lambeth Walk.

I will edit some video tomorrow and post it.

Faye and I picked a table up today so Max came in the front of my car and he loved it up there. he was only in the front because we needed the room in the back of the cars and had to drop the seats down on both and my car has the ability to turn the passenger airbag off.

House News

Well as mentioned we have picked up a table today and it's really nice and means that we almost have a "proper"dining room. What it now means in reality though is that we have to decorate all of downstairs, Landing and stairwells. We are collecting our curtains soon and just took collection of a new mirror. All starting to come together now !

Faye decorated the bathroom last week, I did help honestly !

Next week I will post a bit more on the new media centre I am sorting out using the Macbook Pro. It is all looking good.

Snow and an Apple XP

Woke up to snow this morning so put my trip to Hull on hold thinking it wont be the best to drive there. Here is my car about to be started:



Have not loaded Vista on yet but tonight I did manage to get XP on just to have a play and it was quite easy BUT I did have to plug my keyboard in from my iMac (usb) to get the install to run correctly and I used to think having windows running through Citrix was "strange" on a mac..............

Get your motor running.....

head out on the highway.

Built this bike at the weekend:


Probably best with Max on it though:


Max is getting better and better at walking now the only problem is that he does not want to go in his buggy anymore. Takes hours now going round a shop !!!

On another note I might be able to blog a bit more because I have replaced my Powerbook with a nice new Macbook Pro. Hooray !!!

First impressions is that it is quicker at processing anything in iLife then my iMac (G5) but I need to spend a bit more time with my other applications. It will be brilliant when I am away with the built in iSight as I will be able to get internet access and then use iChat or Skype to video back home.

I have downloaded boot camp and might look at getting a beta of Vista installed, I dont want to buy the real version just yet (probably never !, it's out next week). I was actually at Microsoft on Friday and had a preview of some of the future applications and a quick look at Vista. Looks like OSX :-) actually some of the things in Vista (for the business) look very very good.
To be honest I was surprised at just how good some of the business applications seem to be.

Food for thought

We received a bread maker for Xmas and it's really good. We, well I !, have made a white loaf using the ingredient's and setting the timer plus have made a few diff types using bread mixes (bit easier then getting all the ingredient's) and over the weekend I set it to make dough and made some rolls. It's a Panasonic one and I rate it. Best ask in a couple of months though to see if we are still using it !!

Here is a picture of the rolls:


Max is getting better at walking and this is a picture of us in the wood:


And yes I have a beard at the moment :-0, just fancied a change.

First Steps

Well it's been a while since my last blog. We all had a great Xmas and we are looking forward to a great 2007. I got the Tomtom 710 :-)

Max has started taking his first steps and here is a video posted on YouTube it's almost 7 meg but if you are on a good broadband connection you should be OK.

I see that the UK are going to start to look into going to the moon. Once we get there though do you think the English spacemen will start drinking and kicking off while eating a greasy spoon saying that they hate all this foreign moon muck and cant wait to get home coz it's too f@cking "bouncy" and dusty. Not at all like the good solid gravity and concrete we have back home.

Take care,

Nintendo listens to Palace Fan

Well maybe not BUT they are replacing all straps now and all future ones will have a better strap.

Story on BBC here.