i am sparticus: Words

CD Organisation Detail

I had a worrying dream last night. I dreamt that I'd just finished putting all my new CDs into their correct alphabetical place among the rest of my collection and then, lo and behold, two whole armfuls of CDs turn up that I'd mysteriously forgotten about. I can't express how I felt when I realised I had to do it all over again, nor can I express how I felt when I woke up and realised that it was all a dream and my CDs were all in the correct order. I can however, express how I felt when I realised that I just felt an unexpressable feeling over the organisation of my CDs; mildly proud in a pathetic sort of way.

And while we're on the subject, when Ellie came down the other day she glanced over my CD collection and remarked 'All your CDs are alphabetised?'. My reply was something along the lines of 'and how else do you organise CDs?' and I'd like to think that the remark was so dry and the look that came with it so cutting that she thought twice about ever questioning my CD organisation again. However she was obviously absorbed by a CD and completely missed my remark, because if she had heard it she wouldn't have continued down the whole 'teasing my anal retentiveness meticulousness organisation' line.

Photo Gallery Made Easy

Being the last person to catch on to this flickr craze I'm now proud to annouce...
My Flickr Photo Album
Currently it's only got photos of the zoo up and it's not really intergrated into the site, but this will come little children! For now, enjoy the giraffes and the zeedonk!

Why You Can't Imitate The Welsh

Why is it that whenever you try to put on a welsh accent you end up sounding like you're doing a really bad impersonation of someone from Pakistan? If you don't believe this to be so try the following; think of the most Welsh sounding man you know (it works better if it's a man) and read aloud the next three sentences (the louder the better it seems to work).

Hello, my name is dafydd and I come from the valleys. My father used to work down the coal mine before it was closed. Now he owns an indian takeaway called the Good Korma.

Now look round and wave politely at all the people staring at you. The phrase "I'm just rehearsing for the Christmas pantomine in which I play a second generation Pakistan-Welsh curry shop owner" may come in handy, although then again you may just want to use the standard catch-all phrase for whenever you do something moronic; 'Sorry, I'm Welsh'.

Pastor Kids That Go Wrong

I'm going to assume that everyone here knows basically biology, so I'll make my introduction to today's topic brief. Pastors/Vicars/Ministers generally get married and, as most married folks do, generally have kids. These kids then grow up, go to church (their dad's a pastor remember?), go to school, go to university, get jobs, get married and have their own children. Pretty standard stuff so far yes? Not much different than any other kids of middle class (their dad's a pastor remember?) parents?
The difference is that while the majority of Pastor Kids end up leading bible studies, running Christian Unions and generally saving the heathen for burning coals and eternal damnation, at least one kid in each family will go at least slightly off the rails.
Not only that, but how off the rails they go is directly proportional to how many kids there are. So a pastor with two kids will have one angelic one and one slightly troublesome one, a pastor with two kids will have two angelic kids and one moderately troublesome one. A pastor with four kids though, will have three angelic ones and one crazy-messed up-havoc causing child.

I have no explanation for why this phenomenon exists, but exist it does. Probably. It should be noted that Missionary Kids are never anything but perfect and that only child pastor kids can go either way. It should also be noted that I once knew an American guy who was thinking about going into ministry. He had nine children.

The Zoo

What better place to spend your birthday than the zoo? So Ellie and I spent Friday at the zoo, and before anyone thinks Iím a looser for going to the zoo then let me say this. Youíre wrong. And youíre a looser. And you smell. The zoo was awesome, with thousands of animals from all over the world it was impossible to take in how awesome it was.

The Marmosets (possible Golden Marmosets) win on the cute level, but by far the best ever animal were the squirrel monkeys. Because it was so cold they all wanted to sit on the heater, and because the heater actually wasnít that hot they kept on jumping on each other and throwing the other off. It was a bit like those kung fu movies where a huge fight breaks out and some ninja has to fend off a thousand others and everytime one gets knocked down, or off a cliff, or through a wall the others jump in, except they were all kick-ass ninjas. Occasionally the fight would go outside and theyíd fight over wobbling hanging beams and hoops.

The amazing swimming penguins, weird dog/cat fossi creature, gibbons and white tiger were also highlights, with their crazy random antics. The lions, rhinos and sea lions werenít so great, but only because you have such high expectations of them that when they just sat around and did nothing you couldnít but help be disappointed. All over though, pretty much no animal wasnít fascinating in some way.

That in fact, was itís only downfall. Because youíre seeing so many animals that are incredibly amazing, you lose the impact of how amazing they are. So seeing the orang-utans (which were the first animals we saw) was mind blowing and we stared at them for ages even though they werenít doing anything, by the time we saw the giraffes it was kinda like ëokay, so theyíre giraffesí. Not that the giraffes werenít mind blowingly amazing, itís just that our minds were no longer in a state to be mind blown.

Iím sure pictures will follow, as will the story of the last remaining zeedonk (not to be missed) but for now I leave you with this photo.

Google and Firefox Sitting in A Tree

Anyone else curious as to why the Mozilla site's link to the Firefox start page (http://start.mozilla.org/firefox) is redirecting to a special google page (google.com/firefox)?

Everyone said google wanted to own a browser...

Update

Turns out it's not news at all. Everyone knew about it and I didn't, I was just in the dark. Like the time in school when everyone knew about that glue on the seat and I didn't. Oh the humanity. (Note, that never happened, at least not to me)

Not As Long As It Could Be

As noted below, entries as of late have been along the short and to the point lines. Quick, precise and highly accurate, the sort of things that you'd like to be able to compare to the military. This style of different things in rapid succession may suit the millenial 'change change change' generation, but as a cusp Gen-X / Millenial I'm not a fan. I want long wordy entries, entries that ramble all over the place, that have no real aim and that stay a lot longer than they're welcome, the sort of thing you might compare to the military.

However, lacking any of that, here's a picture of me as a giraffe waiting on tables:

Winner

In the seemingly never ending stream of short entries that I'm churning out these days. The Winner Of The Great Phone Giveaway Is Annouced!

The Great Give Away - The Losers

Winner and first place loser to be annouced on Friday, but for now, the losers entries are up and online, with witty comments and put downs. Oh yeah!

Two Time

Word.
First off, the great iamsparticus phone give away is now closed. Winner will be notified in due course, yada yada.

Second, the great iamsparticus party is about to take place. PARTY!. If you'd like to come, please RSVP me, and I'm sure something can be arranged. PARTY!

NB I realise it's a meal, not a party, but who cares?
NB 2 Technical difficulties last night with problems with trailing slashes meant issues with people finding the party invite. PARTY! I hope this is clear enough

David Ford

I can't tell you how very very exciting I am that Mr. David Ford formely of Easyworld is releasing new material already. If you are even slightly interested in decent music go forth and download the free mp3s. State of The Union is by far away the best, but they're all very good. It's kind of Easyworld meets Tom McRae. Or to put it slightly more NME-like, It's like Easyworld and Tom McRae having a ******* in a BAR but using the LIBERTINES as weapons instead of broken bottles (Okay so it sounds nothing like the libertines, but I fancy them so I had to get them in somewhere).

YouLookSoHipAndTrendy

I was in London on Saturday, in one of those hip and trendy record stores just off Camden and I'm at the counter waiting to purchase a record (The colour and the shape - Foo Fighters, which I recognise isn't really hip and trendy because it's so popular, but it's a damn good album, I didn't own it, it was going cheap and they were all out of Pavement). Anyway, as I was standing there some guy comes up to the counter and goes 'Hey, you guys got a section for Japanese White Noise?', this guy looks at him and goes yeah, it's at the back on the right there with the psychedelic-funk'.

24 Hours!

Come on people! 24 hours left before the great phone give away is given away! 24 HOURS!

Wi-Fi in the pub

So, Did I ever mention how we're getting wireless at work? This may not seem like a big deal, after all, I can get online at work with a standard cable just as easily as wi-fi. However, there is one overwhelming advantage to all this...

The Great Iamsparticus.co.uk Phone Give Away

For the third year running, The Great Iamsparticus.co.uk Phone Give Away!
The deadline is this time next week. So get posting!

American Election Sweepstakes

Seeing as most of those who are reading this canít vote in the American Elections then let's do the next best thing; take bets on the issue! But rather than betting on who wins and who loses, as thatís too simple, instead let's place bet on how long it is before the losing side gives up contesting the vote. Iím currently betting that the post-vote shenanigans will last 42 days before the loser ëgracefullyí accepts their loss and tells his lawyers to stop challenging the vote count / method of voting / people eligible to vote in certain key swing states.

Monster Graffiti

I saw it and I thought 'wow'.