Today I made a girl cry …. and I did not kiss her.

The Bannatynes Calorie Count Challenge has come to an end this week and the scores from last week were posted in the gym. So I wonder over and see how fit I am and how weak and worthless the plebs are ….. but no …… something wrong …. I`m down in third place …… 3rd place ….. me, shockerooney!!!!

Fair enough I did not expect to be number 1, that place was claimed months ago by crazy Col, but second place was surely mine.

So on closer inspection the list looked like this:

2nd Some girl 3200 cals
3rd Edinburgh Festival Grinch (thats me) 3600 cals
4th Weak
5th Worthless
6th Wasting
7th Time
8th And money

Look at that, not only had they somehow managed to deduct about 6000 calories off my real score, they’ve got the 2nd and 3rd places the wrong way around.

I go off looking for the sales manager to rant.

So I explain the ridiculous situation to Simon and generally start a big moan about how the gym employs shaved chimps using abacuses to count up the totals. Sadly, the girl who counted up the totals for last week was standing behind Simon at the time.

She was not happy. I knew this because she started whaling that she was “the only one that does anything around here” and that “no-one else even gives a sh**".

Wow …. I think she heard me.

Then she runs into a room and starts to cry. I know because I was watching her through the window. Then she tells all the other gym instructors whats going on. They start shouting at each other, point at each other, then all point at me.

So I legged it.

Wonder if they sorted out the top ten list from last week like I asked them

When we moved into our new flat in Edinburgh about 2 years ago we left an old bit of carpet outside on the patio. The carpet had been used to wheel all the heavy stuff into our new place without getting the floors dirty.

The morning after though the carpet had become home to a cat.

Normally I dont like cats ….. I`m convinced that one day all cats will launch their plan to take over the world from us humans ….. anyway, this guy was alight so I let him stay on the patio. He came back everyday and soon we were letting him into the flat.

I even gave him a name ….. Dude. I plan on getting a new cat and calling it Sweet.

Anyway, a few months ago I introduced dude to my remote control Dalek:

and when of course I say introduced, I mean chased. It must have scared the fella because we did not see him again.

Until today that is. Walking along my drive way he started to follow me home …. then into the flat:

He didn’t stay for long because I shoed him one of my new birthday presents.

The Dalek alarm clock:

Dont think he appreciated being told that he would “make a good Dalek” because he bolted like a scalded cat, or at least a cat who was about to be exterminated anyhow.

One thing I like doing is clicking on the random article link on Wikipedia.. It throws up some great words that I never bother reading about, I just like looking at the shape they make on the screen and then dropping the words randomly into sentences and looking all knowing and clever (does not always work btw).

So the other night I was flicking through wiki and this word comes up:

Vestibule

Look at that!! What a word. Vestibuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuulllllllleeeee.

Brilliant.

I didn’t bother reading what it actually meant. I just like the way it sounds, and I`m pretty sure what I think it means is much more interesting than what it really is.

In my head a Vestibuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuulllllllleeeee is something big and ferocious with horns, not unlike myself actually. The thing is if I did read what it meant I would probably be disappointed, like say if turned out to be an entrance room or reception area or something else just as dull.

But this got me thinking back to other words that looked and sounded great, but ended up being a right real pain in the a*s. Back in my first year of uni I found out that we were all going to learn something called Polymorphism . How cool would that be?

Turns out not very cool at all, and worse than that it haunted me for years to come.

This then got me onto something called multiple inheritance which is kind of something to do with polymorphism. Basically for those of you that are still reading, MI allows code monkey to write software that takes on the properties of more than one other bit of software.

The classic example which is always used is that of the hovercraft which, as you might think, takes on the properties of a car and a boat.

For my last exam at uni I was warned that there would be a question on MI and that if we came up with an example other than the classic hovercraft we would get extra marks.

So I wrote in my final exam for my BSc that the best example in the world that demonstrates the use of multiple inheritance were the ladyboys of Bangkok.

No link for that you’ll notice

Anyway, I passed that exam which means the guy marking it either had a sense of humour ….. or a vestibule.

Well its here. Today is my 28th Birthday and I feel old.

Actually, its been a top day. Even had its own theme…… a mystery birthday.

It started out by Fi taking me on a “magical mystery tour". Which to be fair was mysterious, but only because we got lost and neither of us knew where we were going, and also, sadly, there was no magic, apart from me of course …. I`m always magical.

So when we got to our “mystery tour” destination it turned out to be the Isle of Cramond. Which is only accessible for a couple of hours each day because of the tides. Luckily the water was at lowest tide when we arrived.

There were some great views from the top.

And an excellent pub called the Crammond Inn, which served great food and as it was owned by a brewery, only served guest ales.

By the time we were done there the tide had started to rise which made getting back something of a problem:

Then back home to open my presents which, as Fi had forgotten to buy any wrapping paper, were all wrapped up in tin foil and brown paper:

The main gift was a ticket for two at a murder mystery weekend at the Winnock Hotel in Loch Lomond. I`ve wanted to do a murder mystery weekend for sometime now for 2 reasons:

1 - It will be cool.
2 - It will give me a real opportunity to “off” Fi and claim her life insurance cash - I cant go wrong this time, unlike my last two failed attempts at the jackpot.

I`ll be sure to let you know how it all goes —- from my mansion in Rio!

So tomorrow is my 28th (doh!) birthday.

The celebrations began yesterday with a session at the local driving range and then back to my place for beer and curry.

Pretty successful evening. Fi even got me a birthday cake:

It was a good mix of friends and colleagues , beer, curry, console games and shooting people:

The saucer shooters, which proved a big hit … literally, were a gift from a friend. Most people spent the night running around my flat shooting each other with glow in the dark saucers ….. and I`ve spent most of the morning trying to find the saucers.

Seem to have lost 4 of them. I dont even want to think where they might have ended up – they glow in the dark remember

Getting changed in the gym locker room today at lunch time and was just psyching myself up to go lift great heavy weights and show the others how its done … and then I realise that its much brighter in the changing room than normal. Where was the light coming from?

Turns out it was the sun.

The changing rooms are on ground level and back out onto another street in the city centre.

Someone had left the blinds open to the main window.

And there were a bunch of girls standing there taking a good look…..

at me …..

completely bollocko.

Now, I`m not shy, so I just stand there waving and giving them a good look at my personality.

Lucky ladies.

Next time I`m gonna sell tickets.

On Friday night after work we headed up to Braemar which is about 100 miles north of Edinburgh. We were there to meet up with some friends and were to stay in a big country cottage belonging to a friend’s family.

Great weekend it was. Arrived on the Friday night, drank enough beer to kill a baby elephant and then a hearty breakfast before our hill walking began. Here we all are just at the start.

The walk was going great until about 2 hours in the paths became a bit more challenging:

It actually got much worse after that, so much so that I did’nt really have a chance to take any pictures. Climbing trees for 2 more hours was great fun and a challenge so we definitely deserved a drink when we got back …. and boy …. did we shift some ale that night:

We also had a foot of snow fall that night which made travelling back on the A93 even more of a challenge.

But anyway, the most interesting part of the weekend was when we stopped for a break in Scone. I walked into this pub called the Scone Arms and the whole place was totally deserted. No-one to be seen and the only sound was a dog barking in the background. I walked around the whole bar for a couple of minutes then this boy shows up.

“Sorry mate, just been keeping the parrot company”

WTF?

Was this going to turn into a sketch out of the league of gentlemen?

“Come with me".

So I did.

Turns out that at the back of the pub is a great big talking parrot in a cage.

This parrot used to live with someone who owned a dog and so the only thing it ever says is “hello” and barks like a dog - very well.

Nice fella actually, goes by the name of Clyde.

If in the area stop in and say hello…… or bark like a dog, your choice!

A friend moaned at me before Christmas that there were no recipes on my blog.

Well, consider this post just for you dude.

I dont really do cooking. Arty and creative things are not really my thing. I`m an engineer (of sorts) and I need things to be logical, mathematical …… and simple.

Thank god for Cooking for Engineers. Full of simple, flavoursome recipes for simple people.

But what to make? So many tasty things.

Found it! Something to combine my favourite dezert and also make use of my favourite Christmas present:

A blow torch!

So tonight Mathew, I shall be making the Creme Brulee.

I wont bother reproducing the recipe, but if you fancy making one yourself its here.

So we start by making the custard, which must be about a trillion calories inself as its just cream, eggs and sugar.

Once its nicely settled into its pot you have to cook it in an oven. Once thats done they look something like this:

Then the tricky bit - you have to stick them in the fridge for 8 hours and wait. Never been much good at that. Anyway, it turns out that you go away and do stuff in that time, you dont have to stand there waiting

Then, cover ‘em in sugar:

and set fire to the bas*ards! (My favourite bit!)

Top!

And the taste? Well, I`ll be taking one into work tomorrow so I`ll a lucky couple of you will find out then.

For my job I have to be on-call about 1 week in 4. Its alright, you barely ever get called and the extra cash is top. But, supporting a 24 hours system things never stop, even at Christmas and New Year.

This time around it was my turn to be on call for hogmanay. OK, I can deal with that.

So I started to be on call from 18:00pm on 29th December, so before 6 oclock I can do what I want (within reason). So I spent the day walking around Chester:

Having a nice drink in the pub with my dad and suddenly my mobile phone goes off. So I answer it and its some young lad in a flap blabbing on about something going horribly wrong and is this the right number for emergency support.

My answer to him was to the point:

“Listen you pillock! What the hell do you do think you’re playing at phoning this number at 1 in the afternoon eh? Get onto Carbon Footprint Sandy and dont think of calling this number again”

Or words like that.

Continuing my beer in the pub I still cannot believe what has just happened. So I phone up the carbon one to rant some more.

“You know some clown just phoned me up on the support number while I`m not even on call? Tell whoever it was that if they pull that prank again I`m going to have to kill them”

Job done.

Until that is I get back to the office after Christmas. Blu-tacked to my monitor is a newspaper cutting with a ominous title….

PLUG PULLED ON NUCLEAR PLANTS!

You can imagine the rest.

Oh …….. bugger!

On the plus side I did’nt get called at all over the New year period, nor am I likely to in the future.

Well I`m now down in 5th place in the calorie count competition mainly because I wasn’t there for a whole week. Got some serious catching up to do.

Also I think my mother has finally gone nuts.

She has filled the house with ducks. Could have been worse I suppose.

Anyway, the mighty mighty Liverpool are playing Arsenal in the FA Cup 3rd round just now so I`m off, but fear not I shall return on Monday with the story of how I, over Christmas, was nearly responsible for the meltdown of a nuclear reactor.

Before I get going, I`d like to have a rant about something that happened at my office Christmas party.

I know how good I am on the dance floor. There is nothing quite like me in full flow, showing off all the moves to be found anywhere else in the whole wide world.

So showing off some of the patented moves at the office disco before Christmas and all is going well. Until that I start to get mocked by my colleague’s fiance and my own girlfriend. Unbelievable. I was showing off some of the good stuff and all they would do is laugh and then try to imitate me. Shocking. They have both been put on the list.

Rant over. On with the lesson:

Went back to my parents place over Christmas and got my first chance to visit my best mate Chris in his new house which he shares with his fiance Sarah. First thing was that I was totally freaked out by their three legged dog Jay jay!

… and if that was not terrifying enough already Chris had something else in store to show me….

Chris bought this house without reading the small print it would seem because it was only after he had bought and moved into the property that he found out that he is also the proud owner of:

The Allotment!

The above pictures scarcely do it justice, it truly is unbelievable how overgrown and jungle like this thing is …. and its big…. really big. Chris moved in a few months ago and it was only a couple of weeks before this picture was taken that he realised that there is in fact a shed in the middle of the plot of land. Perhaps with someone living in it.

I was almost scared to look back on the pictures that I took of it …. in case I saw someone’s face in one of the shots. I bet there are several people who call the “allotment” their home.

By the way in the second picture above the brown object is not the shed, thats just a rusted old compost bin. The shed can obly be spotted in bright daylight and from the air.

When Chris decides to have the place cleaned out I think I`ll have to make sure I`m busy doing something else.

Happy New Year to you all!