Judging books by their cover

Why do murderers, sick perverts and rapists always look dodgy? Anyone strange looking should be locked up before they can commit crimes - I suppose Chelsea would have to find a new manager if that happened. *

* for legal reasons, I must say that Avram Grant is neither a murderer, pervert or rapist. Hopefully he will be a league champion in a few weeks time (at the expense of Man Utd)

Grand Theft Auto 4

I have it! After waiting in a MASSIVE queue, I finally have it. As I blog, the game is installing and the milk for the cocoa is being heated in the microwave... I am going to have some fun!

5 hours to go

Tonight’s the night. In little over 5 hour’s time, I will (hopefully) have my grubby little mits on a copy of Grand Theft Auto 4. I’m off to Asda at 11pm, hoping to buy the game at 00:01.

Ever since I got home from work, I have had the soundtrack for the original GTA game playing on loop – “Take it to the edge, there`s nowhere to hide, and call up the boy; let`s go for a joyride...”

You know that feeling you got as a kid the night before Christmas? I’ve had that all day, and I am so tense with excitement right now. To calm my nerves, I am meeting work colleagues in town for a few pints, before driving to Asda *.

* don’t worry. Even though it would be rather fitting for GTA, the driver will not be drinking.
If, however, we are not able to get a copy tonight, there will be a car chase after the person who buys the last copy.

Undercover agent

This evening I dared to enter the caldron of football that is The Carlsberg Stand at Yeovil Town’s Huish Park. I posed as a Yeovil fan in order to watch my real club, Leeds United, play.

While I was discreet in my support, some other Leeds fans pretending to be ‘Yeocals’ were not. Firstly the broad Yorkshire accent gave it away (something that I didn’t have to worry about); but the thing that really revealed their identity was that when Leeds scored, chants of “WE ALL LOVE LEEDS” broke out. Cue an army of police and a departure of joyous Leeds fans.

Luckily I wasn’t found out. Luckily Yeovil didn’t score. Luckily Leeds won. Luckily I got home in one piece (even though it did take 45 minutes to get out the car park)!

Despite not being a Yeovil fan, I was amused by some of their chants...

HAVE YOU EVER WON THE CONFERENCE, HAVE YOU F**K
– As if Leeds United care about non-league competitions

I’D RATHER BE A FARMER THAN A CHAV

And when the “record” crowd for Yeovil was announced...
- YOU ONLY CAME TO WATCH YEOVIL...

The darkness

After last night’s fiasco with the floodlight failure in the highly prestige Somerset Cup Final, I e-mailed the Somerset FA to complain...

In the politest possible way, I called them all useless tossers, asked for a refund on tickets & travel and, in true Dr. Evil style, demanded one hundred BILLION dollars *

Let’s see if they reply...

* OK, that last bit was a lie

No surprises in Devizes

This morning I had to go to Devizes on a top secret work related mission. Ahead of my trip into Wiltshire, I was warned about locals with webbed feet and six fingers. Having spent an hour in the town centre, I can confirm that it is indeed Webbedville.

After missing the 12 O’clock bus back to Bath, I had an hour to kill while waiting for another. Once I had visited Marks & Spencer’s and Greggs for lunch, I took a few random photos. Sorry – no pics of the locals; they’re too frightening – even for the internet!

The centre of local activity

Amazingly, Devizes has it's very own Clinton Cards and Phones 4u

I actually forgot it was St. George's day today... should have been a Bank Holiday

Feed me money... Boom! Boom!

What a farce

I’ve just got back from Weston Super Mare, having watched Bath City play Paulton Rovers in the Somerset Cup Final.

After 90 minutes it was 1-1.
5 minutes into extra time, the flood lights failed.
4 minutes into the darkness, we hear the game has been abandoned and will be replayed in the summer.
2 minutes later, the floodlights come back on. Can we carry on playing? Can we f##k!

That trip cost me £30!
I do hear that the Somerset FA are planning on compensating fans by letting them have a piss up in the Bath Ales brewery; however, they are yet to find anyone capable of organising it.

Pants on fire

[ Prescott tells of bulimia battle ]
What a bizarre story. I can see John Prescott doing the binge eating part. Think he has forgotten the bit where you stick your fingers down your throat.

How the hell did this happen?

Obviously Sutton didn’t read the script. The rock-bottom team were supposed to roll over and die, allowing Bath City to get into the play offs. Grrr...

Phono cables in the bin

Just connected the optical cable to the PS3. Gran Turismo Prologue sounds so much better in surround. This is seriously wetting my appetite for GTA4 - I want to mow down pedestrians and shoot policemen in high def!

What did I do wrong?

While showing a colleague something on my blog at work today, I was surprised to find out that the July 2007 page had been blocked by the net policing system – normally in place for blocking porn, gambling and terrorism websites. Apart from my war on terror against the spiders, I don’t think Sparkster.net falls into any of these categories.

Looking through the page, I wonder what has caused it to get blacklisted? There are a few words and phrases of minor controversy, but nothing major. I won’t post them here, as the main page will get blocked!

The DVD is dead

Cue a massive Homer Simpson style “Mmmmmm”

My HDMI cable arrived today. Hooked it up to the PS3 and gave Gran Turismo a spin - it looks absolutely lush! I can’t wait to watch a Blu Ray disc on it. I don’t think I’ll be buying any more DVDs now!

Meddling kids

Now, I’m used to taking the odd but of stick; especially at work, but an incident that happened today really took the biscuit! I was walking home, when a couple of kids, who can’t have been anymore than five years old, started on me! As I passed, they asked “Are you small?” Looking down at them, I replied “Not compared to you” Grinning, they said back “Well, we think you’re small!”

I might not be of Peter Crouch height, but I’m not a member of the Pygmy tribe, either.

I wasn’t offended by their comments, and to be honest, I thought their cheeky attitude was quite funny. That said, I’ll be taking the long route home tomorrow – I’m a bit scared they’ll try and mug me for my wallet. Five year olds can be dangerous.

I predict a riot

I had a lucky escape on my trip to Eastbourne yesterday. The Bath City coach was driving along the M4 when it passed a Southampton fan bus. I gave their fans a grin and a wave, before giving them a ‘going down’ gesture. Their fans replied with a much more offensive fingered salute. Luckily I was on the safety of the coach and there was no way the rabid supporters could get to me. I got rather frightened when we pulled into a motorway service station 5 minutes later – I was expecting a mob of angry Southampton fans waiting for me with baseball bats and sticks. Luckily they weren’t there.

On the way home I met a group of Swansea supporters. They were celebrating their win and promotion to the Championship. I dampened their celebrations a little by pointing out that they were not officially promoted, and that if Leeds got their stolen 15 points back next week, Swansea may have to make do with the play offs. Luckily those sets of supporters took it with the friendly banter it was intended and there was no need to start a fight in the car park.

Going for a curry

After traipsing around the west side of Bath, I finally found a retailer that can reserve GTA4 for me and guarantee it’s availability on the release date. Everywhere else is sold out, but apparently not many people thought about checking out the Twerton branch of Currys – luckily I did.

Before going to Currys, I tried Blockbusters – I got nowhere; and I just seemed confused the PC World “Techguys”.

Me: “Is it possible if I reserve a copy of Grand Theft Auto 4?”
Tech Guy #1: “I don’t know what that is. I’ll go and find out”
Tech Guy #1: (to Tech Guy #2) “What is a Grand Theft Auto?”
Tech Guy #2: “Hmmm... I think it’s a racing game”

Yes, the “Auto” part of the title would allow anyone who is an expert in stating the bleeding obvious to figure that out. Unfortunately for this Techguy, GTA4 isn’t your typical racer. If it was, Formula 1 would be a lot more interesting!

This whole mission may well turn out to be pointless anyway. I am accompanying Adam and Sam from work, in a trip to Bristol on the midnight of GTA4’s release. We’re hoping to find an all-night Asda stocking the game, enabling us to be one of the first people in the world to own the title. My Currys reservation is simply if Asda don’t stock the game.

I MUST own Grand Theft Auto 4 on it's release date.

Aaaarrrrggggh!

Aaaarrrrggggh! Terrible news! NOWHERE appears to be taking pre-orders for Grand Theft Auto 4. The game of the century, set for release on 29th April, has received so many reservations that no shops are guaranteeing to have it on the day.

I've been frantically calling around shops, trying to get myself a copy.

GAME – Say I have absolutely no chance and won't take my reservation.
GAMESTATION – Think I will be lucky to get a copy, but suggested I come into town and try.
CURRYS – Won't even put me through to my local store. I got nowhere.
AMAZON – Sold out for 29th April.
ASDA – Not taking pre-orders, although we may come down at midnight and look.

If anyone knows of anywhere in Bath where I can get a copy on the 29th April, PLEASE let me know. Ideally on PlayStation 3, but I would settle for Xbox 360.

In case you were wondering; yes I am at work today, and yes I have been very busy.

There’s something wrong here

I see that Comedy Central have demanded YouTube remove the South Park clip I blogged about the other day. Seeing as it was a clip parodying videos from the YouTube website, I find it a tad ironic that C.C. feel the need to demand Y.T. remove it under copyright issues.

Blue death

I saw the first ever BSOD on a Vista machine today. Unfortunately it was on my own personal laptop. Vista may be a new operating system, but the memory dump and meaningless rubbish in the error message is just as meaningless as in previous Windows' blue screens.

I am hoping for this to simply be a case of Windows having a tantrum, and to never occur again; as opposed to a case of buggered RAM, which would mean a trip back to the good people at Compaq.

Ask us anything

Has anyone else seen the new 118 118 TV adverts? The commercials claim that the directory enquiries service will allow you to “Ask us anything” – presumably not just telephone number related queries.

Surely this new service is just opening the door to perverts, allowing them to harass some poor, young, call centre girl by asking “What are you wearing?”

Presumably they don’t have all the answers, and if asked impossible questions like the meaning of life, the weekend lottery numbers, or how to set up Mail Merge in Word; you won’t get a satisfactory response.

However, as long as we live in a country where parents hide their children under beds and claim they have been kidnapped, watch Coronation Street on TV, and drink pints of Stella; there are enough idiots out there to believe the commercials and call the stupid service.

Puss 3

This evening I did something potentially stupid. I dipped into my savings account and bought a PlayStation 3. Why? Because my work colleagues, Sam and Adam, convinced me that Grand Theft Auto 4 (which WILL be the best game ever) will be better on the PS3 than the Xbox 360.

I now have a PS3. My savings account is a £319 worse off. When I am finally able to get a mortgage and get a house on Twerton High Street, by the football ground; I won’t have enough money for a washing machine, but at least I’ll have a PlayStation 3.

On the other side of the coin, I am not taking a holiday this year, I don’t run a car, I don’t smoke and I don’t drink a lot. Besides football, I have very few luxuries, so why shouldn’t’ I get myself a new toy once in a while? I also work for the NHS and don’t get paid the biggest wage in the world.

Anyway, justifications over... I bought the PS3 from Currys . The PS3 comes in a rather large box, and for an AV dealer, Currys have very small carrier bags – the kind only suitable for holding tins of baked beans, certainly not big enough to hold a games console. The Currys’ staff wanted me to carry the PS3 home, unbagged, in its colourful box. Seeing as this was at 7pm, it was getting dark, and the local chavs were about, I wasn’t too keen. They found a bin liner, which I used. So instead of looking like some guy carrying home a PS3, I looked like some guy carrying home body parts.

The PS3 is now connected to the TV, albeit with my PS2’s component cable – why Sony are so tight they only bundle a non-RGB scart lead is very annoying. Two games came with the console – Gran Turismo 5 and a Viking game – coincidentally enough, I think it’s called Viking. I haven’t had a great deal of time to play these games, but after a short go, Gran Turismo has some cars in it, while Viking has lots of blood. Grand Theft Auto 4 will be a combination of both.

YouTube fight

This week’s episode of South Park was simply superb.

For anyone who has ever visited YouTube, even if they hate SP, this clip is for you...

Oh, and I almost forgot...
I’m not your friend, buddy
I’m not your buddy, guy
He’s not your guy, friend
I’m not your friend, buddy
We’re not your buddies, guy
I’m not your guy, friend

One team in Somerset!

The battle of Somerset was won this evening. Bath City beat Yeovil Town 2-0 in their own back yard. It may have been against a young reserve side, but these were fulltime, highly paid youngsters! Full credit to the City boys, who did a superb job - a fantastic result and a wonderful night!

The cider will be kept on ice for the time being, as City still have to face either Taunton or Paulton Rovers in the final - a walkover if tonight is anything to go by.

On my way home, I learn that Leeds won away in Doncaster and the local tax burden, Team Bath lost 4-3 to Bashley.

Night’s like this are why I love football!