We have booked a DJ for our wedding. In with all the paperwork he sent us was a play-list which we can use to request tunes in advance. If anyone has an urgent need to hear a particular piece of music then please let me know via a comment on this post.
Let’s try to keep the joke suggestions to a minimum please?
It seems there are some people with way too much time on their hands. Someone has compiled a top 15 street-view sites – expect more to come along as more streets are added.
In selected locations you can now get a (blurry) street level view of the area. I managed to find the hotel we stayed in whilst in New York.
I just realised that this is my 100th post on this blog! Happy Birthday to Fuzzy news.
At the weekend me and Jessica took my parents to visit Hampton Court palace. The rooms (and building) were really impressive and I didn’t have to read loads of signs because we all got free audio tours 🙂 The palace has a bunch of food historians who were there cooking in the Tudor style – there wasn’t any tasting though.
The gardens around the palace are impressive but the maze is pretty weak; we managed to find our way to the centre without hitting one dead end. I was impressed (and a little scared) to see the massive grape vine they have there. I hadn’t heard anything about it before but it holds the world record for sheer size and it is huge!
I’ll put some pictures up soon.
At the weekend I finally got to have a go at paint-balling. I have wanted to give it a try for a while but not knowing of any trips, and being too lazy to organise it myself… nothing had happened. Thankfully Zig finally helped me out by inviting me to his stag do up in Newcastle.
Note: I don’t have any pictures of the paint-balling yet… so for the moment here is a picture of the stag – we begged him to dress up or something but he just came out in his normal clothes (and smoking that damn cigar he always insists on)!
The schedule was pretty tight – I arrived in Newcastle after 11pm and then spent the night in a sleeping bag (on the fold-out bed) before getting up early to travel to the paintball centre. It might be a bit much to call it a centre actually! In the woods outside Newcastle a company had placed a few containers (to serve as buildings) and a portaloo.
In all, 12 of us made the trip out for dulux warfare – Zig had invited friends and work colleagues to make up his team. We actually got split into two teams of six which were then boosted by reinforcements from other stag events. One team had black/blue (quite appropriate) hoppers on their guns and the team of which I was a part had red/green. We all loaded up with expensive (£6 for about a hundred) paintballs which were cammo green in colour but contained pink paint.
The games were good fun but there wasn’t a huge amount of attention paid to tactics. Most games involved capturing an object or just surviving for the longest – the more masochistic players charged at the enemy whilst others held back behind whatever cover they could find. One guy had his own gear and insisted on showing off by joining whichever team he felt like at the time and painting the opposition orange. Our theory was that he was rubbish and could only win by painting newbies.
All in all it was pretty good fun, my fears of being the first out every round where not realised and I scored quite a few hits. The hits that I received only caused minor bruising, except for the one that hit my little finger and drew blood. Zig was much worse off as he (along with his best man) had to do the stag run – leg it away as almost thirty guys attempt to colour-in your back. I think the only down side was the cost of ammo – I blasted my way through £30 worth. Lacking ammo, myself and Zig made a brave (but foolish) run in the penultimate game to try to “kick the barrel”. I had to stop as about five shots hit me… a quick glance to my left confirmed Zig had suffered the same fate. I was glad that we had at least tried – some people spent most of the day cowering behind the first defensive blockade they could find.
The evening was the typical stag fare – we hauled our bruised and aching (a lot of running around earlier) torsos through a pub, Indian (restaurant) and a club.
Thanks to Zig for an excellent weekend.
Unfortunately, every time I see a new trailer for Die Hard 4 it turns me off the movie a little more. I am not sure where the idea for all the ridiculous action sequences came from – the trailer is now showing footage of a jet fighter barrelling along a section of road – but I think they have forgotten the humour which made the first three films so popular. I have included the trailer here so you can judge for yourself.
Last night, Me and Jessica finally managed to visit the Malay restaurant near our house and enjoyed a delicious meal. We wanted to try everything so settled for a set menu (£35 total). I commented that one dish reminded me of Indonesian food, one of Thai and another of Indian. Looking at the map it is no surprise about the first two – my rubbish geography strikes again.
A quick look at the CIA files! shows the following ethnic groups:
Malay 50.4%, Chinese 23.7%, indigenous 11%, Indian 7.1%, others 7.8% (2004 est.)
So I guess that explains it.
I notice Vietnam is around that area (I know) so I am looking forward to May when a new Vietnamese restaurant opens next to the Malaysian one 🙂
An animal filled post today! Firstly I wanted to show you a snap I took of a fox lounging in the Sunday afternoon sun. The mattress it is sat on has been dumped in the waste ground behind our flat but this fox was obviously grateful – it has been resting there for the last two hours or so. Unfortunately I disturbed the fox when I took the photo but it was back on the mattress about 5 minutes later.
Secondly, a picture and a video of Fidget. We clean her cage every Saturday and on our shopping trip we bought a treat for her. The treat was a ring composed of seeds, honey and various over bits. 
We thought it would last for a few days and we tied it to the top of the cage to make things a bit more of a challenge. Fidget had different ideas and demolished the treat in about two and a half hours. She was intent on breaking the ring down into chunks that could be stored in her house. After an hour or so I began to fear for her heart and blocked the tube which led to the treat. She seemed unimpressed with this and was desperate to unblock the tube. I gave up and reinstated treat access, happy that she had at least paused for a few minutes and had a drink.
Here is the first picture of Fidget that we have managed to get in focus (she can move very quickly and always does so when we want to photograph her). She is sat by the bars which is where she positions herself when she wants to come out for an evening run.
We also have a few video files which we will compile into an exciting montage (!) before publishing via youTube.
Fidget-Felt
Me and Jessica had a fantastic weekend up in Yorkshire at my parent’s house. We had a party with relatives to celebrate our engagement – my mum and sister were kind enough to organise it for us.
On our return we visited “Pets at home” and bought a hamster plus a Rotastak cage and other supplies. We’ve decided to call the Syrian hamster “Fidget” and now have to spend a bit of time reassuring her that we are friendly. I’ll put some pictures up when we can take some without scaring her.