i am sparticus: Words

Probably the most satisfying thing ever

Housemate - "The bathroom sink is blocked, it's taking forever to drain"
Me - "I know (Feeling guilty as he has been neglecting his chores). Don't worry, i'll sort it."
one purchase of sink cleaner later
Me - Pours bottle down the sink
Sink - "Gloop"
30mins to 1 hour later
Me - runs hot water tap, sink fills up without draining
"ah nuts."
Sink - "GLOOP swish swish swoosh drain drain drain"
Me - "Heck yeah"

Now do you see why if this whole youthwork thing fails i want to become a plumber?

www not

www.iamsparticus.co.uk is now iamsparticus.co.uk. Apparently the www is deprecated. I couldn't really care, but it's less letters to write in.
(Who would have thought that would break all the comments?! Fixed now!)

If you get scared during a scary movie

If you were ever visibly scared during a scary movie, don't worry! It's not real, they can't actually hurt you and more importantly no one has to know you were scared. Here is the ultimate guide to maintaining your fearlessness in the face of your friends.

If you are scared in a scary movie and you are on your own

You have nothing to worry about (well, aside from whatever it was that scared you)! If no-one saw you, then no-one can excuse you of being a wuss. Your reputation remains intact.

If you are scared in a scary movie and you are with your girfriend

This is trickier but still easy enough to get out of. First of all, after leaving the cinema do not deny you were scared! Instead, maintain you were scared and say how glad you are that you were with her. As soon as possible after this tell as many as your friends as possible that you saw this film with your girlfriend and pretended you were scared just to get sympathy. If you tell enough friends (or better yet tell them all together at once after buying them a round of drinks in the pub) you can persuade them that you're not only still amazingly fearless, but also that you're amazingly smooth with the ladies.

If you are scared in a scary movie and you are with your mates

This is very very very hard to get around. The best thing to do is when you start to get scared, stare at your friends. They will (hopefully) be less scary, and you can find out who else is scared. Then, before anyone has a chance to say anything about you after the film, turn on them! Hopefully this will prevent any accusations coming your way.

If you are scared in a scary movie and you are with your parents

Give up. You're a wuss and you'll never leave it down. Unless you can make sure your parents and your friends never meet you're pretty much stuffed. The second your parents do meet your friends they will tell of the time you hid behind the sofa / left the cinema in fear watching "Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang".

Diluted Squash

Sparkling Spring Water with a hint of...
This has to be the best con ever, better than the carling extra cold "we charge more for refigerating your lager an extra two degrees", better even than foster's new hit tap "we're selling this product on the basis of it having extra air". This is "we sell really weak squash with air in for only fives times what you'd pay for regular squash". Genius.

Cds

Everybody should follow my example and buy the new Easyworld single, the new Ryan Adams single AND the new The Zutons single. It's all good stuff.

When asked why I'm not going to get round to finishing off the time/sheep thing I say this man does the whole time/weather thing a lot better than me. I'm not jealous that it's absolutely awesome. Not even slightly.

Normal service resuming soon. No really. Other exciting services also starting up, although perhaps not so soon.

Php

Oh dear, stuff is going funny. It seems that php has rightly messed up on this server (it's doing odd things on other accounts on this server too). Not that it really matters, but it may delay the new design stuff even further. Ah well.

Birthday

Happy Birthday Dad!

Phantom Phone Syndrome

I'm going to start a campaign to coin a new phrase. "Phantom Phone Syndrome" is far too good a term to only be used by me. If you've ever had the feeling that your pocket is vibrating, or that you just heard that distinctive beep nearby then you know what I mean. It's actually become a big thing with me lately, so much so that I find myself checking my pockets even when I know my phone isn't on me. I blame my new phone mostly for the increase in it, as when it rings it starts off quietly and gets louder, leading me to generally pick up on the fact that it's ringing because of the vibration (well at least I'd like to think it's that, rather than phone radiation doing funny things to my thigh). Generally it's nothing more than an annoyance, however in social settings it's incredibly embarrassing as you continually check your phone and find nothing. Still, I know I'm not the only one. Others suffer too! I am not alone! Well, not in any mobile phone psychological condition sense anyway.

One Day Late

It's all good.

New Hosting!

I'm getting new hosting! Woohoo! Spending money on virtual space is so exciting!!!
Ahem. I'm getting amazing hosting! So if anyone wants hosting (and we're talking serious proper own ftp/cgi/mysql/pop/smtp here) let me know, and I'll sort something out for you.

Sorry everyone, iamsparticus.co.uk is not accepting new comments as important backing up is under way

More O2 Annoyances

I thought that having changed my mobile phone service providers from O2 Online three months ago to T-Mobile, I'd be through with all the hassle O2 Online seems to generate.
Ha!
Yesterday I received a letter from a debt recovery agent saying that I owed O2 Online £44.68. Seeing as I have never been informed of O2 about owing them money, and seeing as my parents paid my phone bill last year, and seeing as O2 themselves cancelled all the billing and the direct debits coming out of the account, it seems rather odd.

If a bottle jar lid gets stuck

If ever a bottle jar lid gets stuck and you can't open it, don't say you aren't strong enough to open it, instead say "The lid has fused". That way you don't look like a weakling but instead shift the blame for your ineptness to the manufacturer. Then when you finally do get the jar open you seem strong, because you over came great obstacles and did what no ordinary person has to do.

Get Rid Of The Letter C

What use is the letter C? Can anyone think of a situation in which you can't use either S or K instead? Away with it!

So Alive

The new Ryan Adams song (so alive) is great! But doesn't he know it's not meant to work like this? Rightly he should be releasing stuff this excitingly alternative at the start of his career. That way when he gets famous later on all us indie-kids can look mournful and say "the first album was the best". Instead we're stuck with having to admit that while his old stuff was a bit boring that new track is awesome, which gives no indie cred at all.
(Still at least you can score bonus indie kid points by pointing out how Mark and Lard "and so did I" it sounds)

Damien Rice

I've just finished listening to that Damien Rice album ( O ) and while he's good, he's no Tom McRae. Why do the media always pick up on a slightly worse artist who comes out a few years after the superior one? That sentence makes very little sense, but I can't think of any way of re-wording it better; I'll just give examples in the hope that that will explain it. Nirvana admit to being a cheap imitation of The Pixies, but Nirvana get all the press. And that's the only example that springs to mind, but I'm sure others will follow. Probably.

Dance, dance, everybody dance

So dancing eh? Everybody likes a good dance, getting down to the beat, shaking it like a polaroid and all that. Well perhaps not everyone but whatever, let's generalise.
Anyway, dancing, generally considered a good thing, so then what is it's place in church? (If even it has a place)
As the primary purpose of church is to build up Christians, then if dance can build up Christians then it should be done in church. Here's where my knowledge of dance breaks down though, I'm sure that dance can be used to build up, however, I just don't know how.
Even if dance can't be used to build up others, then surely it can be used to praise God, and while that doesn't make it a nescessity in church it's a strong argument for including it.
I suppose that a good deal of the resentment towards dance in church comes from the fact that it frequently sucks. If we had less dancing around and waving hands to new age music that somehow represents the glory of creation and more dancing properly to decent music (Sigur Rˆs!) so that the dance is a glorious creation.