Meanderings of a Monkey Juggler

Finally got it sussed.

Got back on the net at home (via wireless) and, to add a nice cherry on top, managed to get my Nintendo RSI on-line via my router so I can now play Mario Karters from anywhere in the world. 

I had a practice go too.  I managed to win my first race by a nose, then I lost the next 2 by some distance, then lost my fourth by about a pixel.  More off-line practice needed I feel.

In other news:

Got Hitch-hiker's on DVD as well as another Miike Takashi fillum.  So fillum night soon?

Have fun.

(oh and my "Friend code" is 094551543526 if you fancy a razz round Yoshi Falls one day)

Sigh.  Today's my second day back at work after the hols.  Sigh again.

Work itself has been quite quiet although the people insisting on coming tend to be the ones you don't want to see.  You know the kind, the insistent ones; those who think all their problems are everyone else's fault.

Still I had a nice Christmas to look back on fondly.  K was working Christmas Eve into Day (7pm - 7.30am) so I had to get up early to give her a lift home.  She opened 1 prezzy then and went to bed.  I did too but got up at around 10.  Then me and her mum sat and watched about an hour of traditional music and dance from Bg which was surprisingly entertaining. 

I did the cooking and it turned out rather wonderfully.  So that was nice.

After food was prezzies:  Some surprises, some repetition, some known quantities of stuff.

Most notably was that I've now got the new Nintendo RSI (err sorry...DS) with 4 games.  It's very good by the way, but don't play Mario Kart (excellent game) for longer than about 15 minutes if you value your wrists and thumbs.  K got her home spa kit.  Between us we have 3 calendars with puppies on them (yes 3).  Lots of chocolate too.

One annoyance was that I spent some time trying to get the RSI to work online but they only allow you to use a certain kind of router encryption.  I converted my router and set up and have since been completely unable to get on line via that router with anything.  I saved all the passwords, wrote them all down and still can't get the bugger to work.  It had better be ready by the time that Animal Crossing Wild World comes out here!  Anyway that's why I've not posted recently.

The evening was great fun.  P, C, D and Mr and Mrs Silver all turned up for larks and frolics.  Silly games galore and some drinks and giggling was infectious.  Highly enjoyable.

Following day was partially spent round at Plumpton-Bears' eating P's rather nice left-over turkey curry.  So more nice company.

Did I say I'm back at work now?  Sigh.

Have fun.

This is an excellent news story.

If your partner suffers from snoring (or you suffer from their snoring) there IS a solution.

Apparently Swiss researchers have found that snoring is reduced if you have a go at playing a didgeridoo every day.  How cool is that?

Have fun.

PS The news link is here.

Music

Just re-discovered the joys of whacking the volume up and wrecking my headphones with some Slovenian techno or Finnish yelling or Japanese noise.  I wonder why I'd stopped listening.

Those Wacky Bulgarians TM

I've trademarked the title here because it should be a show on Five.  We were watching the Bg version of Millionaire tonight and they had a kids one where they could have a grandparent with them.  The kids must have been no older than 10 but there was something a little strange going on.  I eventually put my finger on it.  They are all not shy about talking on camera.  There was none of the clamming up that passes for interviewing kids on our tv.

Juggling

Just downloaded the Leeds show video.  Quite good but the criticisms of Tiff and Eek's choice of prop colour was fully justified.

Tempei only came 3rd in the WJF diabolo contest!

And have you seen the Gatto, Dietz and Walker video? Worth a look if only to see the 2 best jugglers in the world with another who's damned close to 3rd.

Civil Partnerships

Big news as Elton gets married for the second time.  More newsworthy as his new lady isn't.  Any road up this has been news at work (at least at one of the practices).  My colleague was sat in the staffroom and subjected to one woman's rant against such "disgraceful ideas".  Not sure if this woman realises that my colleague may well end up in one such union.

Incidentally I really like the term "Civil partnership".  It sounds very British.  It could even be a cricketing term.

"They had a very civil partnership of 138 before tea"

I wonder if me and K could ever be considered an "uncivil partnership"?

Those Wacky Bulgarians 2 TM

K asked me to go to the fish market yesterday.  So off I trot to pick up her pre-ordered carp.  2 of them to be precise.  I had to pay the remainder of them, and the total cost was £30!  For 2 bleedin' fish.  The purpose of this wastefulness and profligacy was so her mum could cook me a "special" meal of stuffed carp.  The stuffing was to be walnut and onion.  Sounds fair enough but then I had to go and get more walnuts.  Sigh.

The result of all this faff?  An average meal of ok fish with ok stuffing.  Certainly nice enough but nowhere near worth £35 plus having to drive all over town to get it all.  Kudos for the thought tho'.

Work

It's nearly Christmas so the number of people not attending is rocketing.  Scum!  You know who you are!

I'm in charge at the mo.  That's fun.

Oh I also discovered today that I'm now the junior's clinical supervisor.  Nice to be informed of this 3 weeks after it was decided (without my input).  It's not a problem and I'm pleased I've been put up for the task.  It's a vote of confidence at the very least.

Family

I was going to give my old PC to my bro and family as their prezzie this year.  Decided not to as they've no room at the inn (and they can't really keep the PC in a stable).  Anyways the day after I decide that they wouldn't be able to fit it in the house my bro phones up asking for advice re buying a PC.  Yay!  They'd like a laptop but I think that a freebie would go down very well.

After discussing that he tells me that he's had a bad back.  First I'd heard of it!  Why didn't he bother asking me about it?  If I had a beans query (as an example) he'd be the first person I'd phone for info.  Anyway he'd been referred to a local physio who'd given him the best advice I've ever heard from a physio.  Remember that about 60% of a general physio's job is backs. 

"You've got a bad back mate, it'll always be bad, live with it"

No no no no! Hasn't he read PhysioMonkey?  What an idiot!  I can't believe that physio is getting a salary.  What a waste of space.

Computers

Cheers to D for re-sorting my wireless jobby.  Ta.

Have fun.

When I lived in London I used to nearly bankrupt myself going to as many of the London International Mime Festival shows each year as possible.  Next year's festival is in January and I've had a look at the listings.  There's some interesting stuff on but particularly this.

Anyone fancy a trip to the smoke?

Have fun.

Those wacky Bulgarians just get odder.  Turns out K's cousin's son Nenko (who can be seen here) has just got himself lined up with jobs as a model.  Who'd have believed it?

Have fun.

PS addition - new post on physiomonkey.  Any feedback?

Right that's it.  I've just fired off an email to Urban Freeflow.  I can stand the crap on their forums no longer.  The straw that broke this camel's back was someone saying "I think I broke a rib" and the various responses.  Some were saying "You need an x-ray"   (Nooooo not unless there is a serious problem for instance with breathing), another blithely stated that a rib fracture would never repair because the ribs are always moving through breathing (what!!???!!????).  Arrggghh!  They do state on their site that you shouldn't give info if you don't have a clue.  It should be said that one person did actually know that the docs wouldn't do anything for a fractured rib besides pain relief but he's in a minority.

So I sent them an email asking if they might like me to have a say on such topics and added a smidge about providing stuff at their workshops.

Let's see what they come back with then.

Have fun.

Hoorah it's Christmas party time.  I've now been to one and there's another tonight.

Last night was me and K's meal at the Glenfield.  She'd insisted that we go so away we went.  Bad start one: it was in the canteen.  So canteen food and dreary decor (although their christmas decor isn't bad).  The food was a roll of turkey slice (quite a lot), carrots, sprouts, sausages in bacon, stuffing, roasties and gravy.  Not too bad on description but pretty insipid in reality.  So crap food, no company besides K, poor surroundings and no drinks.  But we got a cracker each woohoo!  I got a black plastic clip-on moustache, K got a pink star that may have been a clip-on ear-ring or some such, we couldn't actually tell.  What a waste of time and their money (it was free for us).

Tonight though should be loads better.  All our team is away to La Tasca in town.  We have prezzies and food and drink, partners are coming too.  Spanish wasn't the first choice, we were supposed to go sledging at Tamworth but the guy organising it is about as effective as me at organising things so didn't do it and the place was fully booked when he got round to it. Tsk!

I'll let you know how it goes.

Have fun.

Gobsmacking useless toss-pots galore!

I'm talking of the christmas light chavs of New Parks and the like.  I remember going to see my uncle in Southend a few years back.  This was where I saw my first real household christmas lights extravaganza.  Not at his house but a house down his road.  It was quite a spectacular sight and not too cheesy.  This may be due to [sic] it being new and unusual at that time.  But what has happened since?  Oh dear just what has happened?

I was dropping K off at work today and spent some few seconds looking at some of the chav's displays.  With no exceptions they were crap.  Really bad.  There's no imagination, no joyous attempt to create something merely a keeping up with the Joneses stab at being the brightest frontage on the street.  There's no co-ordination going on at each site.  Most houses have merely just stuck up some ready made shapes with lights round them picking out the shape.  Oh and add an enormous blow up Santa.  It's the house version of shitty blocky rings on every finger.  If you've got a big bright and garish waste of energy at your house then you're obviously better than everyone else.

Sigh, I'm realising I'm slagging off folk in New Parks for having poor designing skills and for having lapses in taste.  I think I need a lie down.

Have fun.

PS Could you all have a quick flick onto physiomonkey to check out my new article.  It's the first of 2 or 3 about back pain.  What do you think?

PPS Just noticed that this is my 150th post.  Happy birthday me.

2 really freaky things happened this weekend.

Firstly I was Christmas shopping and was looking through some books down at Smiths and saw one called "Welcome to Britain".  It's a different take on the UK and shows the bad bits and some weird stuff about this country.  So it's full of pictures of people feeding pigeons, crumbling estates, mad signs in shops and pubs (best one is "Come and see our resident midget").  On one page is "Street entertainment".  One of the pics is one of a friend working as a human statue/coin operated juggler.  How random is that?  A book I'd never heard of but thought looked interesting for K's mum turns out to have a picture of one of my friends in?  It's insane.

Secondly:  Just finished watching Top Gear and switched channels to see what's on and found The Royal Variety Performance on ITV.  Who comes on?  Only the bleedin' Umbilical Brothers.  They're excellent performers from Oz who I saw quite recently with some pals.  The act they did was new to me but rather good. 

An excellent couplet of surprise.

Have fun.