Popping mad!

According to this, one UK chain of cinemas is taking steps towards banning popcorn at their screenings.  I am sure I am not alone in declaring this to be lunacy.  I don’t usually buy cinema popcorn since it’s hugely overpriced, but if this catches on, it will surely mean that profits lost from popcorn sales are recovered through increased ticket prices.  And this is not good; they are already sky-high.  For the ticket prices payable at most London cinemas I would half-expect each seat to come with a footstool (other than the seat in front), recline electronically, offer at least seventeen massage settings and to have a set of buttons on the arm which one can press to get any item of food/drink delivered on a silver platter, by a waiter in a tuxedo, direct to the seat - all included in the price of course.

But I digress. Even if I don’t eat it all the time, popcorn and movies go together!  OK, it’s a bit noisy, can be messy, and you can get a bunch of stupid kids throwing it around - but it shouldn’t be banned.  This is silly.

Woo

It’s my brother’s birthday tomorrow.  The little scamp is going to be 12.  I remember when he was born…well, not his actual birth, that would be horrific. But when I went to see him in the hospital later that day I remember feeling so excited!  I had spent the first seven-odd years of my life as the only-child, and it was good to have some company - well, after he got out of the ‘eat, sleep, crap’ phase, anyway.

This is making me feel old, so let’s fast-forward to today.  During my lunch break today, I got him the Zelda ‘Phantom Hourglass’ game for DS, which I’ve heard is awesome (Zelda always has been - Ocarina of time = masterpiece).  Anyway, hope he likes it.  He had asked for a Wii but we didn’t fork out for that since we just got a new TV last week and want to save a bit.  Maybe for Christmas!

There’s no real plans for his birthday tomorrow, we might go out to eat, or maybe just get a pizza.  It’s a shame I’m at work or I could have taken him out somewhere during the day.  But ah well.

On another note, the stream of comments seems to have dried up!  C’mon guys, leave me something to read, it’ll feel less like a soliloquy.  Hope you’re all well though.

Recycle, recycle, recycle

On the way home from work today, I stumbled upon one of the cheapest conceivable scams.  I saw a group of stocky Eastern-European blokes with their heads deep in the bins of a public recycling facility.  ‘A highly unusual sight’, you might comment.  And you’d be right.  They were pulling out aluminium cans and busily stuffing them into their own bags.  Probably to sell them on to a recycling plant somewhere.  At first I thought this was just one-off (extremely) petty theft, but further down the road they had parked their car - an old banger, filled with bags containing hundreds and hundreds of cans: the scale of this can theft became immediately apparent.

So, the next time you consider saving the planet, don’t.  A bunch of burly foreign guys are making a quick buck.

So, an update…

Been almost a week since I last bothered writing anything.  I’ve been working the last few days, and even did a couple of hours yesterday (Saturday) morning.  I am enjoying it. Because of the way the unit works, I do a couple of hours in the morning, get a 2-3hr lunch break, and work a couple more hours in the afternoon.  I’ve been finishing by 4pm most days, so avoiding rush hour on the Sardine (Central) Line.  I was half expecting the campus to be deserted since it’s summer, but every day it seems to be packed with foreign visitors, presumably on some kind of tour, with their overlarge backpacks, silly shorts and bulky cameras.  Not entirely sure what makes our university a good tourist attraction - perhaps its the culinary excellence of ‘The Unity’, or the almighty orange-ness of the Greenwood theatre.  Or, they just want to steal our grass.

Anyway, having such silly-ly long lunch breaks at work, I’ve had lots of time to go wandering off.  I ended up in Borough Market on Friday, and found a stall selling really nice burgers….not stuffed with processed cow intestines, but with Venison!  It tasted great!  This, of course, solves the mystery of what actually happened to Bambi’s mother.

I also saw a shop selling unusual meats.  It had more than your typical butchers; zebra, crocodile, and wildebeest meat were on sale.  It also sold ostrich eggs, and they had one on display, cracked open in a bowl…imagine the size of an ostrich omlette!

Yesterday after work I met up with George and Angela for a couple of hours, munching hotdogs and enjoying the sunshine.  Should be meeting up with them, and hopefully others this week.  Looking forward to it, hope the weather stays good!

First day of work!

And it was really good. Just had a bit of an intro; putting in the solid hours of 11am-1pm. I had a look around the labs and met some of the others there. I don’t even have to go in tomorrow! My first full day will be Wednesday; from then I’ll have to be in all day Monday-Friday, or occasional weekend days to help out.

It should be good!

If I were a cyborg…

Get Your Cyborg Name

Step aside, Wall-E!

Monotony

I’ve not written anything the last few days because nothing special has happened really, just the usual summer lark of being lazy, meeting friends, and sleeping. Not all at the same time, mind.
Work starts soon and so this laziness will soon be a vague memory. Or it’ll just come with me and I’ll get yelled at and prodded in the face with a pipette for ‘lying down on the job’ (and snoring).

So, hopefully things will get more interesting next week. I am in dire need of entertainment right now.
Anyone got any jokes? Preferably not Penguin ones…

Hooray!

I have achieved the unachievable.

I have a job.

From next Monday, until September, I’ll be a temporary lab technician.  Whilst I’ll be glad to get out of the house, earning some money, and trying not to break stuff, a part of me is saying, ‘Congratulations……on flushing away endless hours of free time, you berk!’

But I am looking forward to it. I have a little less than a week of freedom remaining, before I start, and submit myself to a daily hell, to the unbearable torture borne by countless others in London.  But enough about the Underground; I hope that the job itself will be interesting!

Well I was bored…

So I went and bought myself a new bike yesterday (not the one in the picture, but the Penny Farthing is cool). Yes, I know I should be saving up for a car now but I’d been wanting a new bike for ages, ever since I outgrew my old junior one and could no longer reasonably get on it without, a) looking like a clown, and b) sustaining groin injury.

I was pleased with my new purchase. Looks pretty sweet and it’s quite lightweight.  Raleigh are, after all, renowned for their hardwearing, solidly-constructed products.  So, I took it out today down by the forest and was enjoying it.  Until the right pedal refused to go along any further, and fell off.  I searched my pockets frantically for a spanner, but sadly couldn’t find one. I wasn’t too far from my house so I walked my disabled bike home and repaired it there.  It’s working fine now; I don’t think the pedal was screwed in fully to begin with.  Thankfully it was only a pedal that fell off, and not the front wheel.  But, if this continues it’s going back to the shop.  Well, that or get a storage rack to clip onto the frame, and carry a toolbox everywhere.

Exam results…

The following may have come from my mouth at some point:

Doesn’t the conductor have a GREAT haircut?