Horizons

That's all sorted then.

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Time to be a bit contrary...

While Britain shivers in its worst early snowfall for 17 years and potentially as bad as it was in the 1930s, when many parts of the country were subject to 12 inches of snow before December even raised its head above the pulpit; I am again reminded that geographically Northampton has to be very lucky to see anything more than a dusting of the white stuff. It appears that last winter was something of an exception, but then again, everywhere last winter was an exception.

While the last thing I would want is for my wife to struggle to get into work, especially if the roads become blanketed with snow and then ice; she is driving my 4x4 at the moment and therefore should cope with the icy conditions better than when she had her Postman Pat box on wheels. This means, as I'm sort of stuck in the house, I wouldn't mind seeing some snow. Except that isn't going to happen. Earlier this week they said it might snow here on Thursday, but by yesterday that threat had all but disappeared; however, there were suggestions that Monday might see some significant snowfall, but now the forecast suggests the worst we'll see will be some thick cloud.

We were treated to a proper winter last year - as much as it pissed me off - and I think we all got a bit blasé about the snow; in fact, when it was still snowing in April, I was getting royally cheesed off about it, expecting to see some milder, spring like weather and still having to turn the electric blanket on at night! But, I'm not expected back at work until the 16th December, the dogs (especially Ness) love the white stuff and I have fur-lined boots and a balaclava ...

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I was searching through my countless (illegal) discs for something a bit different to listen to and stumbled upon a various artists disc that had December 2008 written on it. I thought, 'yeah, why not?' and put it in the ghetto blaster. Now my office music player is a useful little bit of kit, it has a display that tells you what song and whom its by, except this disc is all 'unknown artist' and that's proving to be a real bitch.

The reason, it seems, is that two of the tracks - 2 and 11 don't appear to have recorded. They're there, the first of these tracks is 9 minutes long and the second is a little over 5 minutes; but instead of the song there's just silence. It's like the disc has recorded the data but not allowed the song to play - I don't know, I don't understand technology like I once did (hell, I avoid self service tills at supermarkets because they frighten me!). This is by-the-by, the thing is, there are at least 4 tracks on this disc that I really like, but I don't know what they are because on the player they are 'unknown artist' and on the PC they are just Track CDA1, CDA2 etc., etc.

So, I downloaded some song recognition software, loaded it up and it doesn't recognise any of them (but to be fair I might not be doing it properly because it doesn't recognise songs that are well known either) and I'm now at the point where I must have known what these songs were in December 2008 otherwise I probably wouldn't have downloaded them onto a disc - would I?

Hopefully someone reading this will be able to suggest something that I can download that will explain to me what these songs are; or maybe not.

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Born Again Christians - hypocritical wankers or just complete wastes of space? Discuss.

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Sometimes, I get the urge to cook something not derived out of my head, so I will scan the 'net for interesting sounding recipes. Tonight, I wanted to do a veggie curry but fancied seeing what others do. I found something truly annoying...

My Glass Onion (oo-er missus) is at least recipes that I put together; yeah, my use of quorn can be an embarrassment at times, but they're generally ideas that have been developed by me. In my search for an interesting veg curry recipe (incidentally, I ended up using several as guides and devising my own - don't know what it's like as I haven't eaten it yet), I came across umpteen websites and blogs produced by individuals rather organisations; i.e: Betty's Food blog or World Recipes dot com, stuff like that. The thing that really amazed me more than anything else and left me slightly perplexed was the number of recipes put up by people on their blogs that use 'curry powder' or 'curry paste' of the shop bought variety. I mean, vegetable curry - take a selection of vegetables and mix with curry powder is essentially what all of these recipes boils down to; there's no spices involved, no skill in producing a masala that works, so no real point in wasting anyone who finds it. If I wanted to make curries the cheap and easy way I'd go and buy some curry powder rather than buy numerous whole spices and components and then make my own.

I'd like to think that I at least contribute something in my blogs - some originality, some sense of care and thought about what I'm doing. If wasting people's time with recipes that use, I don't know, cook in sauce jars, pre-bought spice mixes, jars of Italian seasoning or whatever, then why waste the discerning recipe hunters time... Gah! They should all carry a warning - You might be better off going to the Takeaway you lazy good for nothing wasters! Gah again!

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The curry was remarkably good; the wife was pleasantly surprised and I shall put it up at some point (oo-er missus, again).

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It appears that I'm getting my sense of taste back. Taste buds taste that is; I still have no taste, before any of you decide to throw that in!

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The Mighty Spurs will be playing Champions League football, still, in February. How good is that?

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I hooked up with an old 'friend' the other day. As she said, despite us having never met in real life, she still remembered me - quite specifically at that - and it made me realise that even if I hate comics and never really feel as though I want to be involved in them again, there are some genuinely wonderful people who earn their daily crust from the industry. Shawna Gore works for Dark Horse, but don't let that put you off, and is into hard thrashy music (she plays drums and guitar) and small furry animals - not a lot there you couldn't like really! It made my week reconnecting with her and one of her colleagues Mike Martens - two people who made my long time in comics worth remembering! Good show!