Thermal

Is that you get to watch some occasionally good films in amongst the dross like Alvin & the bloody Chipmunks [shudder]. I still have ‘Nam-like flashbacks over that abomination. Anyway, How to train your dragon: Top film, if you haven’t seen it, watch the trailer above then go see. Very good use of 3D as well, none of this poking things out of the screen rubbish, just an immersive landscape. Still have to wear cruddy glasses though.

Just don’t forget to steal your kids popcorn……

Boom, and indeed boom. Following on from last photo, here’s a few shots from the recent snowfall here in Scotland. It’s beginning to thaw now, but as recently as last weekend it was 2 feet deep on the lawn. Feel free to mock/be amazed depending on your latitude…..

This was the fruits of nearly 2 weeks of constant shovelling. Four foot piles of snow that will probably be still with us in July

The back garden: check out the snow on the playhouse roof! Normally in front of you here is a rockery + some solar lights that are around 2 feet tall.

Thankfully these fellows went quietly as they were right above the front door. One of these straight through the top of your head could ruin your whole day…..

Anyway, that’s Winter done and Spring is just round the corner…… well, almost :-0

• This is actually the 4th year of this blog, though given that there was over a 1000 posts in the first year and about 4 since I’m not sure that counts.
• So many blogs in my feed reader have dried up it’s fairly depressing. Not that I can complain. Still, some have popped back up so I may as well join them.
• I feel like a change of direction, but inertia overwhelms me. A quote (by, of all people, a hobo to the youthful Henry Rollins) sticks with me: “I could have been a dancer, but I couldn’t get the shit off my shoes”.
• I am sick to death of empty-headed keyword spammers – these aren’t software bots, but actual real people leaving ‘nice post’ comments and thinking that I’m going to leave their links to ‘ultimate bowel cleansing’ up. Fuck Right Off.
• It’s been non-stop snow for a couple of weeks, with more to come, and due to the crapness of Britain the roads are so shocking I can’t go anywhere. Cabin fever sets in and my camera sits un-used…..
• I also know that my moans are trivial nonsense compared to that suffered by other people, but nonetheless, wah, boo-hoo, poor me.
• Happy New Year and all that

With thanks to the Curmudgeon for the prod, but he’s probably regretting that already….. How you keep up your quantity AND quality of posting is beyond me.

What could go wrong?

The weekend before last we went for a walk (though that’s understating it somewhat) around Loch Muick which is near Ballater and Her Maj’s Estate for those of you further afield. It started off as a beautiful Spring Day:

And was very pleasant. As you can see it’s a huge dark loch, contained within a steep sided glen. Our side was often in shadow on the way out, but the sun falling across the loch made for some good photo ops. The boys were as ever up for a good hike:

We don’t tend to take any chances, no matter the time of year, and although our rucksacks stuffed full of wet weather gear got the odd funny look, by the time we’d reached the top of the 2nd mountain on the left in the top photo (the one in sun) we were glad we had. The clouds raced over Lochnagar, the temperature plummeted and the wind began to howl. It was a tad breezy on top:

It was pretty freezing, and a mixture of rain and snow began to fall. It was a relief to turn and begin the long decent down the side of the hill, but even that wasn’t easy as a slip of old snow covered about 20 feet of path on a steep angle. We edged across on all fours, with the prospect of a 300 yard slide down the mountain focussing the mind wonderfully and returned to the valley floor, where again our gear attracted sneers from those in trainers and carrying umbrellas (using an umbrella up top would have resulted in me taking off and landing in Norway).

We finished off the thick end of 10 miles and 7 hours with a walk in soft Spring sunshine as seen below, feeling privileged to live in Scotland, but also reminded not to take it’s countryside lightly…..

Add Nurses, Counsellors, carers……. I used to wonder how politicians could sleep at night, then I realised they couldn’t care less. It’s a funny old world.

More from the incisive mind of Barry Deutsch at Ampersand.

• How the hell do you find people on Facebook? I search for ‘Fred smith’ and am presented with 500 Fred Smiths from around the world, but the only way to find out who they are is to randomly click on their friends to see if there’s any mutual acquaintances or add them as a random friend in a stalkerish fashion. There must be an easier way?
• While I’m on about this new-fangled social meeja, is there really any point to Twitter? It really looks like the most pointless boring thing ever, but evidently I’m in a minority, so can anyone explain?
• Oh, and up to the minute as ever I’ve finally started messing about with Last.FM and I can see the point to this one. If the widget appears to the lower right you can track down my eclectic musical choices, and perhaps share yours with me. Except Alison because Emo is for 15 year olds

Ta.

Ah dear. I turn the PC on with the full intention of adding some dross to this website, but instead find myself distracted by a 5 year old computer game.

It all came about because I re-read the excellent Emperor series by Conn Iggulden over Christmas, an historical fiction about the life & times of Julius Caesar. It’s a fantastic series and well worth a read, being very fast paced and where the true history is often more amazing than the improvised fiction. Anyway, it remeinded me that I bought Rome: Total War many years ago and barely got it out of the cellophane. As it gives you the chance to launch your own war of conquest on the world of 2000 years ago, from managing your empire to controlling legions in the field I thought I’d give it a go.

Whoops, hours passed, the family have gone to bed & I’m attempting to subdue Sicily. Eons later and I’m on to Carthage and Northern Africa.  Every time I sit in front of the PC, I think ‘just 5 minutes won’t hurt’ and then before I know it it’s 1am and Spain is mine.

So, in the absence of recent dross, here’s a Hamster for you to play with: (you may need to turn off ad-blockers as it’s Flash based).

It’s like they’ve been recording my life: Avoid getting your arm trapped under your better half when in bed from VideoJug: