Friday, January 28, 2005

Wine Review 2005

Due to a complete and total avalanche of requests from all of my readers will proceed with the Wine-o-rama Review Galoré 2005

Cotés de Rhone - 1993 - reserve.
Best served with venison, filet or a strong game bird.
Warmth, warmth warth. This respected full bodied wine has been aged to its peak. The bouquet swirls itself and settles gracefully on the tongue with gentle cherry and apple hints. A must have if you could travel back in time and get it while its cheap. These bottles are expensive and unless you want to be a posh bastard don't spend the £50+ for any sort of wine.

Chateau Neuf de Pape - 1995 - Special Reserve
Best served all by its goddamn self.
Although this gorgeous red would do justice to any red meat i truly deserves a place of honour.
Drink and forget.

Vin de Tablé
Local Vintage - Exedieul sur Vienne - Last Weeks Vintage
It drinks. It drunks. It hangs.
Its cheap.


Thankyou


Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Cold, Colds, and Plastic Madness

Its freakin freezing. Whats that i hear you say? 'prav you pussy, you're a canadian! you should be hardened to the frigid realms of frozen snot!'

well my friend let me clarify... back in the bleak brown belly of calgary you lot are technically experiencing colder temperatures. True. BUT although its a mere 1C its a WET COLD. not this dry cold that just gives frost bite. This cold... well it bites the bones... cuts through clothing and lingers like the smell on laundry that has sat in the machine for 2 days too many. The palty heat that sluggishly emanates from the radiators makes half hearted attempts to warm the skin but lacks the vigour, the doggedness, to penetrate to the core of you. Its no wonder this a nation of bath people... sitting in a hot bath is the only way to heat up your belly! The cold hangs around your hands... slowly stiffening your fingers. It lurks in dead air spots in odd places in the hallway surprising you on the way to the kitchen. It just plain fucking pisses you off.

Now i can hear you say 'Ya well prav you moved there by your own free will you loser.' True, very true, and now i must reiterate and state that my life is better for it. But if one cant bitch about the weather one can really live! Summer will rokzor tho. our new garden is the PERFECT setting for sunny bbq's, book reading and insect hunting.

But my poor Bry is sick. The cold finally claimed another victim. She has mucus oozing out of various orifices in a rather dramatic way. So i am playing nursemaid. Its not so bad though.

Today is tuesday... that means its GW night! Games workshop! the blind kid will be giving me his Necron army to paint tonight.. hopefully. On my way to makin £60! I have yet to decide on what to spend it on! Im thinking ill save it until i get my discount at the shop and buy 4 dreadnaughts. or possibly 2 naughts and 2 whirlwinds. Then i will be an assault marine unit away from my ideal army. In the end i will also probably need 2 more 'naughts. In total i will have 2 full squads of tact 2 full assualt, my chaplain, 2 whirlwinds, 4 naughts and possible a retinue for the chaplain.. apothecary, champion, and a couple of cannon fodder doods. I may also have to buy a techmarine and some servitors. But basic 1500 pts will be everything up to the 4 naughts in the above listing. That should provide me with some nice plastic madness :)

But then i also have a few other items on the wishlist. I would LOVE to upgrade the PC. I need more ram, a new Video Card, preferably a 256megger... and the AMD 3000 chip.. ya i know its gettin old but that means it will be cheaper! bsides my MOBO cant support anything higher than 3k.

Then theres the fish... the poor blighters.. had to buy a new heater for em on the weekend... the old one cracked during the move... somehow i didnt end up electrocuted... as i had my arms in the water the whole time it had shattered. They have a horrible case of algae and IMHO the tanks a little small... so i need to buy a larger tank.. thats 100+ quid... 10 algae eatin shrimp, and some Rowaphos, the stuff that kills algae.. more or less.. actually its a phosphate absorber... half the fun of fishkeeping is the chemistry. I would also love to plant the hell out of the tank but finances are too tight for that at the moment.

Not to mention how badly i NEED half life 2... man o man.. that game is sweet.. the demo was hardcore and i played a mates full copy and had wood the whole time... it gorgeous.

Been playing FarCry a bit too recently.. not bad... pretty but then with all pretty games the pretty wears thin and the gameplay starts showing itself for its sloppy seconds sort of feel.

I also really want to play with the Developers Kit for HL2... working on a project here at work to make a 3d walkthrough of the campus... if i can get the Dev Kit it will be ez as pie to make.

In the realms of art ive made progress on the etching side of things.. pajman i know you dont get it but i LOVE gettin inky... almost finished biting my first plate in the Taoist Guilt series... will prolly run a test print off today... its a slow day at work so no worries there.

Well ive blathered on enough already.. was going to make myself a monetary list of my wish i hads but i think ill just get depressed about the whole thing.

laters
p

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Twiddlin my thumbs...

...when i have much better things to be doing.

Dont ever ever ever do anything on ebay. Its like webcandy. It doesnt feel like your bidding with real money1!!!!!111 and you constantly find yourself checkin to see if your winning... since when is spending your hard earned cash on mostly second hand shite 'winning'???

hold on... DAMNIT some fucker just outbid me!!!!! wait.. thats not so bad.. wont have to explain that purchase to my gf then... sort of a bad time of the year for us to be buying shit anyways :)

but in other news,

Got a new for me etching process set up here in the Pottery of Art Coolness... Salt Etching!! No nasty acid to melt your skin here! just fungicide! and toilet bowl cleaner! ..........

omfg... im using fungicide... this never occurred to me before... i have... in a Scientifically labelled jar... the means to destroy this entire mould ridden country... wow... now im in a quandary!
'a quandary?' you say? yes a quandary... my fascination with the fungus archipelago and its slightly endearing mildewy windshields is threatened.. purely in an emotional way mind you. Should i be consorting with fungicide?? is it possibly cavorting with the enemy? well.. since i like the word cavort almost as much as archipelago i will... CAVORT AWAY!! hrrrr art is sexy.

im off to cavort and make shit... see ya!

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Contrary to popular opinion... it IS ez being green.

This is a post to fill the last half hour before i get to go home. What better way to spend the time im paid to waste than to keep up with my blogging! HUZZAH!

By the way, I feel that HUZZAH! is a very underrated exuberant word and should be used much more frequently. I take every opportunity.

FYI, for those of you who care... ive been growing steadily more addicted to online comics... so far i have 3 or 4 favorites!.. o .. wait make it 5ish.

Bunny
- contempory Bunny daily comics... dont let the title fool ya... its great.

Qwantz - Dinosaurs and their meta thoughts

CNTL-ALT-DEL
- humours comic on the joys of being a gamer/loser

MacHall - another gamer comic... but really really good.

AppleGeeks
- Gaming and life from an apple perspective... reassuringly still geeky

Megatokyo - Best of all... Manga but so so damn good.. even if fred is uberbleak

Well ill catch ya all later... its hometime now! its a good feeling when you get what you want accomplished done. isnt it?

prav


Monday, January 10, 2005

Gravediggers have it ez

God im freakin exhausted.

The holidays were amazing. France was stunning and refreshingly simple. Pipesmoke, Chateu neuf de pape, fois gras and confit... chuck in some guinea fowl veal quail/and eggs and you have one full marcus who visited the realm of sober only occasionally.

Then comes the portcullis of doom crashing down upon my relaxed and limp body like a... well portcullis of doom.

Firstly its fairly well known to the readers of this blog.. all 2 of you that bryony is a crap traveller... panic ensues... if godzilla were watching hed say 'whoa... why cant I get that kinda reaction... people these days'. 12+ hours on the train and i had 2 cigs... none on the way to france... it wasnt fun. luckily she managed to pass out for a bit of it.

So we get home. And more panic and general mayhem ensues... we had to move house by the weekend. we got back on the monday and packing started the tuesday. Personally... i think we coulda got it done hella later but oooo no... manic control freak bry goes into hyper-overdrive. So come friday and saturday.. the actual days we move our crap 3 whole blocks away it got a tad stressful. I try to console myself with a dubiuous factoid concerning moving and divorce to be similar in stress levels.

Well its monday today... i have no nerves left... and i need some serious alone time to find my chi... i think the chi stayed in france.. bastard chi.

But mucho thanks to mates who helped us move house... ben roxors and gareth who finally got a cure for his incredibly gross leprosylike contagion you roxors as well man. Pajman... ive been living above a real life zombie for like 3 months! i can feel the envy from here.

Ill use this space to make a note of 2 art projects i am working on.. yes actually working on. First... Insects i've killed and felt bad about. and Cyber tourism.

Insects ive killed... etc.

Taoism says you cant kill anything... think of the practical implications of this. Statistically we EAT 8 spiders a year in our SLEEP. so thats 8 innocents thoughtlessly snuffed. not to mention the mosquito who buzzes by your ear at night pissing the everloving hell outta ya. or the ants on your doorstep BEGGING to be squished... and the flies... omg i hate flies... all of that makes me a Bhuddist mass murderer. That doesnt sit well with me really. So i will eulogize the insects via the wonders of the press. Should be fun! and purgative.

Cyber Tourism. Well im gonna try to arrange to borrow/buy some online accounts to a few MMORPGs and play the cybertourist. Im really quite excited about this one. Wandering the landscapes of World of Warcraft and Starwars Galaxies... etc taking photos infront of gorgeous scenery... eating the local food... and screenshotting the whole thing.. then arranging a slideshow in a gallery. Should be shedloads of fun!! Hope i dont get inundated by a virtual Tsunami... what? too soon?

anyhoo, im off got some work to pretend im doing... cyas