Mint

Sunday, December 25, 2005

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Santa Cole!

posted by Unknown at 10:42 am | 0 comments

Friday, December 23, 2005

Things that are mint today

  1. Jose Gonzales
  2. Jack Johnson
  3. Find the bands
  4. Last day at work

posted by Unknown at 7:33 pm | 0 comments

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Worms in the attic, poo at ten

Worms in the attic; this was the chosen warm up activity for the latest poker tournament, this time hosted at casino Thompson in Ashington.

We took the XBox and an ample cache of Stella up into the seemingly pre-refigerated loft. A 4 player game of Timesplitters 2 gave us a flavour of the Halo 2 tournament to follow. A few beers sunk and the Asda own brand nachos doing the rounds we decided to go retro and so fired up Worms on the Snes Emulator.

Worms is a fantastically adictive game which alongside with Super Mariocarts influenced the best parts of my time at university. I would often choose a 5 hr epic grudge match over a seminar in Video Game Animation - ironic when you think about it. Each player has a team of 4 randomly placed worms and has to use an assortment of ballistics, guns and explosives to knack the other worms.

Anyway - it was nothing like I remembered it. Using a 21st century xbox controller for a classic twentieth centruy game was like using a mobile phone at Beamish! We all struggled frantically to find the the button that unleashed the devastating cluster bomb before the timer would run out, leaving our worm looking Swiss.

In between controlling worms, Diddy decided to peel a square inch scab* from his shoulder and deposit it into a empty Stella bottle.

* This was apparently the scab from 5 a side

Beerless and Nacholess in the loft we left our gaming thrones to join the ladies downstairs to feast on home made curry and 3 big bars of novelty* chocolate (*the novelty is it has bits of honey and almond in)

After a couple of practice rounds to let Tracey at least pretend she knew what was going on, we started and Jose Gonzales set the scene with his chilled out ramblings.

It wasn't long until big Jimmy Beam joined us at the table, easing the losers pain and reinforcing the winners confidence. By this point I was up, in fact I think I was winning the most, best part of it was I didnt need to bluff, which is good cos my maiden poker outing proved that I'm shit at bluffing. Mrs Diddy was on a contrasting losing streak, as was the ususally prolific emperor Steven, losing to his former prey and buying in chips like Robert Redford in Indecent Proposal.

The games were puncuated by the essential toilet breaks which forged the opportunity for the cerebral among us to hide Chris H's chips. We seemed to wait for ages for Chris to return and so quickly agreed that he must be "using toilet paper" - On his return the focus moved quickly from the "Great Prank of 2005" to toilet behaviours and in particular the regularity of the group. I was suprised to find that Chris H also has a daily 10am appointment with Armitage Shanks. In my case this is more of a finely tuned money saving exercise than an accident; I only use toilet roll at weekends and for the occasional random fun poo! I wonder if all Chris's poo at 10am(GMT)?

I dont know how many rounds we played, but Tracey only won one, I think maybe I'd made her over cautious by saying "now, are you sure" anytime she parted with more than one chip!

At around midnight Taxi logistics were discussed and once 1am was decided as closing time, Mrs Diddy insisted Diddy phone Diddy Daddy to find out how Diddy Jnr was and to let them know of their ETA. After 3 calls to Diddy Daddy and no reply things began to get all Kramer vs Kramer. As Nichola became anxious at her inlaws apparent deafness, Diddy tried to appease by offering the explaination of his parents being currently engaged in intercourse. I think we all felt bilious at that point, except Diddy, choosing instead to bathe in the glory of his own sick mind.

The Diddy's persistance paid off, the incessant ringing clearly disturbing the parental romp long enough for them to learn of their son's safety.

The night ended at 1am. Despite Diddy's questionable arithmitic, I was £10 up and Tracey was £6 down so we walked away with £4! and a fridge full of lager!!!

I had a poo at 10am on the dot monday morning, comforted in the knowledge that Chris's around the globe were doing the same!

posted by Unknown at 11:41 am | 0 comments

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

No balled lover from Liverpool...

Another 5 a side match! - This time we had the Green Goddess in the court opposite pumping techno at full volume, issuing impossible twist commands at a regiment of pre-Christmas chunky davina wannabes. It was odd having to play football to music, it felt like I was in the computer game Fifa 2006® (but with shit dance music instead of obscure indie stuff).

The opposition fielded an older team this week, choosing to go with experience over the hot headed youths that had tried and failed last week!

I can't remember every detail of the match (I am writing this on the following Tue) but I will try and document the highlights. The most important of which was undoubtedly "my first hattrick" (not a primary coloured toy from Tomy®). One of the trio at least was borderline spectacular as I twisted to the rhythm of Culture Beat and skinned ole yella to poke the ball in the net with a sweet right foot strike. Another one was an embarrassing pass back by McVittie which I gleefully intercepted punting it smuggly into the corner.

Somewhere in the match it was little Jimmys turn in nets, an opportunity he often uses to orchestrate a team talk with angry chants punctuated with the odd profanity. This time was different, we were 5 goals in front and looking the stronger of the sides so Jimmy was more relaxed, prefering to use his time in nets to admire the skill of his outfield brethren. Then suddenly our complacency forged a cheeky uber strike from the half way line striking the tranquil Jimmy in the jacobs. There was a definite pause, maybe only a second while we all including Jimmy, wondered if the ball had indeed made contact with his knackers, and then as expected the familiar ball ache yelp echoed in the hall and was followed by a chorus of 9 men empathising with a swift draw of air through the teeth. (ouch!)

As the ole fellas tried to build on our sides ball related weakness, Marc's russian performance drugs kicked in and he decided to run with the ball much like a steam train into their half colliding with Warren who despite being blessed with a favourable center of Gravity pivoted at his heels and fell back. Always the samaritin, Marc must have snapped out of his goal driven trance and he grabbed Warren saving him from the impending collision with the floor.

Diddy played his usual physical battle with Ron and ended up losing a square inch of fur off his shoulder.

We have decided to chart our players scoring records starting from this match, this is how the table looks so far.



























Top Scorer
Date Chris Diddy Jimmy Marc Mick
08/12/2005 3 4 1 3 3
Total 3 4 1 3 3

posted by Unknown at 2:43 pm | 0 comments

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Representing the Mammy Massive (well, a bit bigger than I used to be)

Thought I’d better contribute to this blog, before the seal is set on my reputation forever as a technophobic, child-abandoning lush.

I am none of these things. I just don’t have a great deal of time, and my baby brain was not capable of retaining the password for my blogging account. Nor was it capable of remembering to bring any lunch to work today, or remembering to collect the pound trolley deposit from Asda last night. A crime I could easily forget about, you would think, however I may receive several reminders from one Mr Thompson.

Cole is with Grandma Doreen today, until 3.00 when Grandma Val takes over. It’s a sort of Grandma tag team – without the leotards.

posted by Tracey at 10:52 am | 0 comments

Monday, December 05, 2005

Ploob's all day Daddy

I had a christmas shopping day today, a free day off courtesy of my gratefull employer. I didn't do any christmas shopping thpugh. My 6 month old son, Cole needs looking after, he's not special needs or anything, aparently it is normal that humans of this age need supervision, I don't remember.

The alarm call sounded at 7am sharp, he doesn't cry in the morning he just chirps and chimps on and we have an intercom set up so we hear him loud and clear! I'm looking forward to when he begins to talk and we wake up to Cole tranmitting "Mam, Dad, I'm awake now, my nappy is full of that awful stuff and I'm hungry - Over". Perhaps I will reply with "That's wall to wall and tree tops tall no need to take your shoes off" ( this was a quote from a trucker themed pillow/quilt set I had when i was a child, a Trucker themed quilt set - what silent psychological damage has this done I wonder, maybe my Star Wars quilt and curtain set mitigated any gayness)

So after his 7am bottle there is, I am told, a window of opportunity for me to eat. 7.45 - 8.00, a 15 minute window to ram down 2 slices of toast and a cup of tea whilst preparing his second course (expensive creamy porridge). Cole likes his dad to clap and dance at all times, a dad that doesnt clap and dance is not a good dad.

Aunty Sarah and cousin Niamh arrived at 9.30 in time for the guinness book of records attempt at the smelliest nappy. I reckon we had a new world record.

At aproximately 11.30 am we witnessed the deforestation of Pooh's 100 acre forest. Cole had managed to undo the elasticated folliage cover on his pooh themed play gym. It snapped up packing him into a little green ball. It was like something from the Matrix, his surroundings suddenly falling away revealing the rubber ring in all it's plain white plastic horror. (It also reminded me of the £40 I paid out for a rubber ring and some cloth! )

I only hope we didnt compromise Pooh's ecosystem.

posted by Unknown at 7:09 pm | 0 comments

Sunday, December 04, 2005

I'm a baby get me out of here

Tracey returned to bed hungover so I took over the role of Cole's jester. He made a nasty thing in his nappy not sure what it was but i don't think it was inert.

He was bored with dad's chicken impressions, bored of songs of praise and bored with his feet so we went to pooh's hundred acre forest (we didn't drop any acid for this, it's a baby gym see.)

In what soon became comparable to the generation game I showed him every toy at his disposal. The hanging Tigger and the strange inconsistantly scaled bees nest seemed to offer the most enjoyment, quieting his winge gland for at least 10 minutes!

Beer fear (type 2) has so far prevented us from doing our weekly shop at ASDA. We had sausage and beans on toast instead of a sunday roast. (that ryhmes)

How MINT is this????




posted by Unknown at 12:09 pm | 1 comments

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Real goats don't drink lager

The long anticipated "Works Christmas night out"
The beer fear began early in the morning whilst I contemplated my wardrobe for the evening event. For those not familiar with beer fear - it comes in two flavours:
  1. Pre-beer fear involves anxiety relating to the prospect of imbibing hideous amounts of beer.
  2. Post-beer fear is brought upon by the aforementioned hideous volume of alcohol and usually manifests itself in the form of clammy palms, flashbacks of embarrassing episodes from the previous night and a fear of visiting IKEA (or any other dept store that forces you to go through every section before you can leave)
The plan was to go straight out from work, a plan that was engineered to save time and money whilst compromising our sobriety. When the 4 bells struck we were changed into our carefully selected beer uniforms and were soon hurtling beerward courtesy of Alistair and his Alfa 147. The beer fear (type 1) had reached it's climax now with only moments before we would start our extraordinary journey into beer, staff gatherings and all things that come with it.

Diddy, Alistair and I arrived at the Telegraph for the maiden pint, a pint that I consider to be the most important of the night since it offers an insight into how your relationship with the beer will be for the remainder of the evening.

The beer was good, I was safe, things were going to be fine. We spent the first hour settling into our chosen demeanor for the evening, testing out which genre of humour was most appropriate for the occasion. JPM's fantastic multi game machine provided additional entertainment and some real trivia gems for later.

In what became comparable to the magnificent seven or some sort of beer fueled pathogen.... our numbers grew, picking up new recruits as we moved from the Telegraph to the wallet friendly Union Rooms where we would strategically dine on beer mopping cuisine to avoid an "early peak" or reaching premature beer capacity.

6oz Beef Burger with Chips (fries) - £5.29 The perfect choice for it's purpose thanks wetherspoons! It was here that Diddy introduced me to Kozel (meaning Goat in Czech!).

"It is a dark lager, and is often praised for its moderate bitterness and astringency, and smooth, complex aftertaste. "

I praised it for its moderate bitterness and astringency, smooth, complex aftertaste and continued to drink it for the rest of our time in the Union Rooms. By 8pm the majority of the PCT had arrived and it gave me a brief insight into what it would be like if we were allowed to drink at work (harrowing). I actually found it difficult to recognise some people and exercised caution, avoiding staring as I tried to decipher the casual facades and greet my colleagues with their real name.

* From hereon in I am going to be using a little artistic licensee, in this case endorsed by a lager called Goat.

SJ orchestrated a well timed exodus from the Union Rooms and directed the beer hungry masses to Revolution
Little Jimmy Osmond and Diddy smiling at my funny little camera phone.

There were a few lads standing behind me when I took this shot and as I recall they proposed that we were on the other bus! - well gents if you are reading this, we aren't, we just like to capture these happy moments!

Revolution offered a return to convention as we each entertained a pint of Stella Artois. The Goat might boast a moderate bitterness but the Stella has mind altering qualities unrivaled in the lager world (mmm.... lager world©)

Endowed with stella fuelled aplomb, the destination was Destination and the beverage was Grolsch. This place offered little more than a venue to drink, the atmosphere was contradictory to say the least / most.

Just as the night seemed to be taking the usual predictable course, Marc's mate Geoff / Jeff threw a curve ball and took his top off, which, if nothing else punctuated the night. Little Jimmy could be found bouncing from lady to lady laying down the ground work for later.

I don'’t think we stayed in Destination long, however by this point the beer had really started to monkey around with my frame-rate.

By midnight the remaining crowd made the short journey over the road to the Lounge and paid £4 entry for the privilege. I think we may have queued for a bit too.

The lounge reminded me of the Crystal Maze, there was only one zone (beer zone) but about 18 route permutations from the toilets to the bar / dance floor. I chose a skill challenge and pursued the confident to the dance floor downstairs where I found a few of the splinter cells that had abandoned the group earlier. By 1am the dead leg and awful dancing persuaded me to call it a night. Diddy took little persuading and we headed to the Haymarket to the taxi rank. Here we would find the token piss head doing the broken arse walk toward us and greeting us with "heyagutttaliteman" “ he then spent the next 5 minutes trying to light the cigarette that was next to the real one.

The taxi driver was the geordiest man in the world, nevertheless Diddy and I got to our homes safely for the princely sum of Fowtee Pund.

I woke up with some strange and extensive bruising on my elbow, what happened there then?

Next week it'’s the university web team night out.

posted by Unknown at 6:05 pm | 0 comments

Thursday, December 01, 2005

"....you might as well gan in nets!"

Today was 5-a-side day, I had a bad feeling about it upon waking this morning, my wheels didn't quite feel right, there were no pre-match visualisations of awesome strikes only a distinct concern that I was not match fit!

The match started well, Diddy struck a sweet shot stright in the bottom left of their goal smashing into someones bag behind the net (I hope they didnt have any eggs in there) and the theme seemed to continue with our team continuing to extend the lead. I had been outfield for about 5 mins when I suddenly felt like a 30 year old ex smoker and decided to go in goal. I regained some energy and during my next period outfield and within a few minutes I was on the end of a sublime cross issued from fletch that I obligingly fired into the back of the net (No one picked me up though). Adrenaline kicked in and for a brief moment I was able to run around (albeit like a headless chicken) .

With 55 minutes played we were one goal up and I felt like I was in some horrible gladiator simulator and part of me wished for the finale when the fella on the chariot comes by and takes your head off. I was knackered however little Jimmy Osmond clearly did not empathise as he relentlessy issued inspiring commands from goal, my favourite being (and im sure directed at me) "come on get stuck in - you might as well gan in nets!" It did the trick and the lads got stuck in - we won 9 - 8 (I only got the one)

Oh - I have a dead leg too, magic!

posted by Unknown at 7:34 pm | 0 comments