Raaar

Saturday: 11 mile bike ride.

Sunday: Cider and barbecue at the park.

Today: Hangover and sunburn.

Email to colleagues

As I'll soon be heading west to the gossip-filled hot air balloon that is Unit 3, Jonathan and I (or Foss and Boss, or Foster & Allen if you prefer) thought it might be a good idea to have a few drinks to commiselebrate.

I know it's short notice, but this Friday (26th March) seems the best day to do it. UnFortunately, Friday also brings the return of open mic nights down at the Bell. I will using a guitar and mouthwords - some of them rhyming - to make a prat of myself.

I think it starts around 8 but I COULD BE WRONG. I'll check tonight and get back to you...

Won't you come and laugh at my stupid face?

Foss

JoCo

Why yes, this is Me, Ryan and Jonathan Coulton at the JoCo Bristol gig. Thank you for noticing.

My email to colleages

I sent this out office staff today...

Hello, you!

Some of you may be aware of my impending old age; more specifically, this Saturday I shall be turning thirty (for those of you (Rob) that don't understand the concept of using numbers as words, I mean 30) years of age. It's a fairly important birthday (as those that end in zero often are), so I thought I'd do something different, possibly even social, to make a nice change from sitting fully clothed under a cold shower, sobbing uncontrollably. Of course it will have to be somewhere public to provide as many witnesses (alibis) as possible. After all, I don't want a repeat of 2006.

As I've been working here since I was 18, I've known many of you for several years and have come to consider most of you as "colleagues". In fact I must admit I've even grown to like a handful of you, so I feel it'd be a great honour for you to help me celebrate my birthday. Plus it might make me look important if I'm seen hanging around with intelligent, attractive people (ie that lucky 25% of you).

Given Cornwall Council's inexcusable failure to open a branch of Hooters in town, I thought kicking off the evening in Harveys might be a viable (although inferior) alternative. Sure, the drinks are expensive, the atmosphere is depressing and the bar staff are judgemental, but at least the drinks are expensive. Please feel free to bring friends or partners (or mail order internet brides (Rob)). I think it's probably best to head there straight after work so we don't get stuck with the cheap seats, or end up talking to Les.

I am aware of the "recession", so if you'd like to save some money I recommend trying to pay for drinks using a drawing of a spider - see http://people.msoe.edu/~gormand/canihavemyspiderbackot3.gif for details.

I'm off work next week, so I feel it's only fair to apologise in advance for any of the following possibe occurences: Drunkenness, bravado, debauchery, nudity (voluntary or otherwise), swearing, brawling, teabagging, carpetbagging, spillage, throttling, cigar smoking, "cottage cheesing", chortling (and/or laughter-snorting), geese (sacrificial or otherwise), conversation, alcoholism, vomiting (with or without accidental teleportation), destruction of reputation, rumour-milling, backstabbing, ninjery, piracy, excessive gesturing, and chips.

So, for those of you (Rob) that need a recap, I'm saying drinks, Harveys, this Friday May 22nd, around 5pm. I hope to see you there.

Please pass this message on to anyone I may have missed, especially if they have a sense of humour.

Cheers :-)

Foss

700 posts, 7 things

Well, Detweiler tagged me on this damned 7 things tweet chain, so I have to carry it on. It's the law, and if I don't post it, 7 million people will die in the next 7 days as a direct result of my laziness. And as this is my 700th blog post, it seem fitting to bestow upon you this utter shit that you probably couldn't give a fuck less about. So here goes.

7 things (you may or may not know about me)

I'm very proud of my taste in music. Not necessarily some of the music I listen to, because some of it is, by regular standards, fucking terrible. I mean, I really like McFly even though it's bog-standard pop cheese, but shit off cockneck; I like it because it makes me happy. I like Evanescence because her voice makes me cream my boxers. I like Mr Bungle because his voice makes me cream my boxers. I like Prodigy because it's fucking wicked. I like Keane because it reminds me of some very good times in my life. I like metal and funk and jazz and pop and trance and alternative and punk... I like all kinds of shit, and I like that I like all kinds of shit. I know most of you people out there are the same, and can listen to just about anything, so I hope you're proud of your wide and varied tastes too. That said, I have always hated country & western music with a passion. But I think Dolly Parton is awesome - not her music, just her.

I'm immensely shy around people I don't know, while totally hitting the other end of the scale when I'm around friends. I'm not sure if it's part of being British and I don't want to embarass myself in front of strangers, or whatever. But I'll totally make a twat of myself in front of my mates, and I'll have a damn good time doing it. The only exception to this rule is with music. If I'm singing, or playing guitar in front of strangers, I'll still make a twat of myself and love it. And as always, this extroverted behaviour is multiplied when booze is involved. I can be a very loud drunk around friends. But if I'm in a nightclub (which is very rare) and I'm expected to meet new people, I clam up. I'd much rather sit in a corner talking to one or two friends, but the nightclub noise makes it difficult.

I'm too nice. I let people walk all over me, and I'll bend over backwards just to please most people. If someone needs a lift back from Plymouth at 2 in the morning, I'll get out of bed and drive to pick them up (this has happened). If some old lady down the hall needs me to go do her shopping for her, I'll do it (again, happened). I know it's nice to be nice, but sometimes I take it too far and people take the piss for it. This has landed me in several very bad, one-sided relationships. I should toughen up and learn to say "No". And "get a fucking job or do some housework".

On the plus side, I give quite a bit to charity and I've been doing youth work as a volunteer for 10 years. Yeah that's right, now you have to love me.

I still don't have any tattoos. I have a fear of permanence. I got my lip piercing instead of a tattoo because I figured I could take it out if I got sick of it. That was 10 years ago, and I'm still not sick of it. I keep thinking "well, I don't know if I'll find a design I like enough to keep for the rest of my life" but I know that's bullshit. I've wanted a tattoo of a lizard, on the upper left part of my chest, since I was in my early teens, yet something in the back of my head keeps screaming "WHAT IF YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND?!?!" and I never book it in.

Cous cous makes me heave. I can't stand the smell, the texture, the taste... Even the look of it makes me want to start laughing carrots at the carpet. When the guy behind me at work brings it in for lunch, I have to concentrate on something else and try not to let the smell overpower me. Sometimes I have to leave the room for a while. If aliens invaded with the soul intent of eradicating cous cous for the rest of eternity, I'd be a happy bunny. Evil fucking stuff. It should be locked away forever, in a vault on the moon, along with Noel Edmonds and country and western music.

I like made up words. I like making them up, and I like using other people's. From Mr Burns' "velocitator and decelematrix" to Trys' "elsewise" via somebody's "twunt", words that aren't real words are like honey to my vocabularBEE. See what I did there? Yeah, I know, you're amazed. But I'm also a bit of a spelling and grammar nazi, which is one of the reasons I hate MS Word so much. Anywayses, the best made up words are definitely swears. Thundercunt, fuckknuckles, cockstick, they're all good with comedy and they roll off the tongue.

I love learning new stuff. I loved School, but I realised it waaaay too late. I loved Maths, Science, Music, English, French... I still love it all now! I love learning new languages - especially insults - but am often too lazy to study it by myself. If someone's helping me, I'm in my element, but if I'm on my own with a foreign language book I get bored after a few minutes. Science and Maths are different though. Physics books are wonderful, especially when they confuse the shit out of me, because I love trying to get my head around it all.

When I was supposed to be studying my French, Chemistry and Maths A-levels, I went up the park and got stoned with my mates instead. Everyone used to say "School Sucks" and somehow they convinced me. I wish I'd tried harder back then, but there's no use worrying about it now. No use regretting it when I could be spending that time learning new stuff instead!

Damn, writing this post was hard, and has taken me well over an hour. Now I have to think of 7 other twitter users to tag....

@fatherjack
@toralya
@jack_franklin
@sniffyjenkins
@imarco
@zombiepresident
@akelaa

You guys have to post 7 things now. Go!

Edit - @TBMimsTheThird did this awesome list of 7things posts.

Red Alert 3 and other updates

Ryan and I completed the Allies chapter on RA3 tonight, which leaves only the Red Sun missions left to do. It's getting NAILS, and I don't think I'd be able to do it without the co-op help from Ryan.

At the end of the Allies chapter, Gemma Atkinson (yes! yes!) invites you back to her flat for "dinner", and you get to see her looking hot as fuck in a white dress with boobs and everything.

I'm hoping I can redeem the invitation IRL soon.

In other news: I linked a new blog, Am I Human Yet?, that one of my twitter friends has just started up. Go give support! And while you're at it, go see the awesome music reviews on This Is Not Pitchfork.

Open mic night tomorrow. I'm all excited because I'll be playing The Future Soon.

Wales

LivElin : Wales is the most significant area for sheep raising in Europe.

Andrew Foster: Uh-huh, "raising", that's right. There's a lot of sheep "raising" going on in Wales.

And fucking. They do a lot of sheep fucking there. In Wales. I'm saying the Welsh fuck a lot of sheep

Oh Honchie

Go here: http://www.charliestephenson.com/v4/

Click on Honchie -> Overview

Watch the video

Love Honchie

It's fucking simple, genius!

About Rob

Rob likes jamming shit up his twatshaft.

Happenings

What a knackering weekend...

I finished work early on Friday and headed to the flat. I had to be there for the BT engineer to get the new phone line sorted, but BT being BT didn't give me a definite time. "Between 1 and 6" they said. I must say though, the engineer was very helpful and explained loads of telecoms stuff to me. Open mic night was that evening, and I stupidly had drinks before I went on so I fucked up the songs. Apologies to anyone that witnessed my horrible rendition of First Of May. You Look Like Shit went down well though, as always. When I get my guitar back from the flat, I'm going to practice like a motherfucker.

Saturday I took Elin into Plymouth to buy DVDs and a cabinet for the bathroom. We also met up with Rob & Anwen. Three awesome friends all in the same place, good good! In the evening I got hammered on cocktails (cheers, Millsy), sang karaoke, watched Juno and crashed on the sofa. Today I worked 8:30 - 4:30 with a hangover and bad guts. Yay!

Right now, Slimey is taking a bath. She has a couple of mice defrosting on top of her vivarium - I should have fed her earlier in the week but I totally forgot, like an irresponsible father.

Payday on Tuesday. This is a very good thing, because I'm completely broke. I should also be getting broadband at the flat tomorrow, but I haven't had my username and password through yet.

I'm really looking forward to moving back into the flat once Elin's gone. I mean, it's great having her around, she's one of my best friends and I'll miss her when she's gone, but I'm also going to love having my own place again.

Captain Cosmic!!!

Just found this video on my PC. It's an old Captain C*smic and the Daves song, called "Don't Fuck With My Funk".

Time off with Elin!

I had time off work last week, and Elin came to stay for a few days. I really enjoyed her company! We mostly chilled out, doing fuck all except watch films and comedy. We got drunk a few times, went to Plymouth to buy DVDs, had a few games of bowling, but it was really relaxed and it felt great.

We didn't know each other that well before, but over the course of 5 days spending pretty much all our time together (aside from bedtime ofc) I felt like she became one of my closest friends. And that's the weirdest thing, she's only been gone a few hours but I miss her loads already. And stemming from that, I'm also really missing Audun and Tora, and I've rediscovered my enthusiasm for learning Norwegian.

Time to start saving for another trip to Oslo!

P.S. There are no pictures from Elin's stay here. She was very camera shy :(

Conversation with my cousin Duncan

12:19am Duncan
'lo mate

12:20am Andrew
hey hey! how's it going? :):)

12:24am Duncan
good ta, though at something of a loose end now I'm done with uni

12:24am Andrew
become a... high class prostitute!

12:25am Duncan
tried, the market is saturated with balding 20 something men trying to get laid already. apparently my charging for it makes me less desirable. who'd have thought it

12:26am Andrew
ahh, some bastard already got in there with the "free service" option eh?

12:26am Duncan
nod, ad sponsored
bloody google getting everywhere

12:27am Andrew
temporary tattoos were always a goldmine for corporations

12:28am Duncan
I'm sure there's some joke about a payload being delivered when you click on certain ads, but I've not quite perfected it

12:30am Andrew
probably best not to. stick with the innuendo, don't go over the line. :)

12:31am Duncan
fair point, the last thing the prostitution industry needs is to get involved in allegations of sleaze

The problem with Conan...

I'm not enjoying Conan as much as I should. Sure, it's an awesome game, but I've hardly teamed up with anyone yet and that's making the game much duller than it should be. Guild chat is quiet without headshopper and nahema and the rest of the crazy bastards, but I think the main problem is where the game starts you out in single player mode.

WoW had that sorted out. If you wanted to team up with a guildie, you could start alts and team up straight away. Conan requires you to get into Tortage before you can hook up with anyone, and as I've already played through that initial 30 minutes several times, I don't want to have to do it again on my own and then wait around for the other player to catch up (or indeed, have to rush to catch up with the other player). And then you still have to do the single player nighttime bits to advance past Tortage!

So, does anyone have a player around level 30 or 31 that wants to team up? Or am I going to get bored and maybe even go back to WoW, before I've even gotten to the real Conan content?

Swansea pics

Find more photos like this on Awesome Lowbies

Spawn of Chuck!

Congratulations to Honchie Chuck and Annie who had their baby a few hours ago. Baby and mother are fine, but Chuck's a nervous wreck.

Zomg! Games!

My WoW account ran out today and I'm not renewing it for now. I have other games to play, such as C&C Generals (Zero Hour ftw), Assassin's Creed, Penny Arcade Adventures and Age of Conan (should be delivered tomorrow, yay!)

Ryan and I will be arranging a mini Generals tournament. If you have ze game and ze expansion, and are interested in joining, please show your interest by posting some profanities in the comments. Thanks honey.

Chats!

[19:38:13] Foss says: oh, speaking of drink, i think i have some vodka in the kitchen
[19:38:28] Livelin says: it's tuesday
[19:38:54] Livelin says: vodka and tuesdays don't fit in april, unless it's my birthday
[19:39:00] Foss says: yeah, which means it's not sunday or monday, which are both bad drinking days.
[19:39:12] Foss says: sure they do! have you never heard of... VODKA TUESDAY?
[19:39:42] Livelin says: what?? noone told me about vodka tuesday! amagad, what i've been missing out on.
[19:39:57] Foss says: There's hangover sunday, sober monday, vodka tuesday, lager wednesday, cider thursday, anything friday, and everything saturday!
[19:40:08] Foss says: brb
[19:40:17] Livelin says: amazing!
[19:40:22] Livelin says: why didn't I know that
[19:40:49] Foss says: because you haven't learned it yet!
[19:41:03] Foss says: it's only just been invented! by me!
[19:42:16] Foss says: there's a song to go with it too. it goes like this:

On Sunday we're hungover so we don't drink a thing
On Monday we are back to work so we don't drink, we sing
On Tuesday we're all set to go so vodka is our choice
On Wednesday we shout LAGER PLEASE until we lose our voice
On Thursday we have cider, be it from apple or pear
On Friday it's a wild one, drink anything we dare
On Saturday it's the weekend and so we have to drink
And mix them up until we're all too sloshed to even think!

That gig

It's on the 18th so that's next Friday, not this one. Gives me another week to practice, which is a good thing.

The songs I'm definitely doing are:

This is how you move me - Audun, Foss & Ryan
Lemme see those tits - Honchie

Possible songs:

Ebeneezer Goode - The Shamen
An as yet unwritten song - Foss

Ryan may be singing with me on Move me, and he'll be singing Ebeneezer Goode if we do it.

YOU HAVE TEETH OF SHIT!

The awesomeness scale

While talking to some online homies this weekend, it occured to me that I use the word "awesome" a great deal. In fact, I think I may have saturated my vocabulary with it, and have diluted it's meaning somewhat.

In an attempt to solve the weakness of awesome, the awesome weakness, I have come up with an awesomeness scale. Y'see, stickybuns, there are many things that are awesome, for example a new bike; free beer; having one of those days where you feel taller than you actually are; discovering new music that plain amazes you (Hybrid did exactly that, they're fucking extra-awesome so thanks to Nick from work for enlightening me); creating some genius graphics; being a ninja... They're ALL awesome things, but their awesomeness amount varies greatly.

I will, therefore, try to give a descriptive comparison for each awesome from now on.

If I created a website that the client loved straight away, without wanting to make changes, that'd probably be first time skydive awesome. When I get my new bike (not a motorbike, just a regular second-hand pushbike) fixed and ride it for the first time, that'll be free KFC for a month awesome. And if I won hundred quid on a scratchcard, that would be woken up with a blowjob awesome.

Me, Ryan and Audun? We're ninjas with the power to give mind-blowing orgasms just by looking at you awesome, which, incidentally, is exactly what we are.