200 OK

First off I can’t spell maltesers, I just tried to google the word about 6 times to get the spelling right, each time google telling me to sod off. I got there in the end and have it copied to my clipboard for the rest of this post .

Anyway… I’m not sure how or when (recently) it happened but I have really developed a longing for maltesers! Even the packaging is appealing!

I think it might of been partaking in a maltesers milkshake recently which is basically chocolate milkshake with a packet of maltesers you can drop in and pickup with a straw spoon thing, argh i’m starting to want one now while i’m writing about it!

Now maltesers I think are ‘fairly’ ok to crave since I’m pretty sure they are no where near as bad for you as say a mars bar or boost but the problem I am having is the quantity I can get through. I started off small with said milkshake, then a normal packet on a couple of lunch times and now I can eat one of the big bags in one sitting and crave more! I am one step away from buying one of the huge buckets they do and saturating my self in a big malt honey comb chocolate mess!

I thought I had it bad with my thirst for diet coke but this product is slowly but surely taking over. Now i’m not a small bloke and my body cannot afford to have a maltesers addiction. Why can’t maltesers have the same nutritional value as broccoli? Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchins are very much correct when they bark on about how there is really quite honestly no fucking god.

Maltesers – they make girls get tits out: Win

Maltesers – you can do tricks with them: Win

Age, Its odd.

It is that time of year again, 365 days have past since the last time and I am now a year older. My twenties are on the downward spiral of running out and I must say it is rather strange.  As you get older I think you kind of reach a plateau where age does not seem to mean as much as it did.

For example I have a really diverse group of friends (age group wise) to those I had when I was 18-21. Back then I generally hung around with folks who were also about that age with a few exceptions of older people who in your youth you look up to some what just because they are older. Now that I am that older(ish) person I seem to know and hang out with people ranging from 20ish all the way into their 40′s and the age gap each way seems a lot more ‘ok’ then it did when I was younger. The mainstay of the people I know is still around my own age but its interesting how as you get older the line seems to blur about how you interact with people of varying ages.

I guess this is impart due to the ‘finding your self’ factor in that by your mid twenties you generally know who you are, what you like and are fairly secure and rounded as a person. You can chill with older people and not do it since they’re ‘cool’ because they’re older but because they have reached this level too and are just refining it, not making vast changes. You are on their level of maturity but still keep back a a bit of humbleness and respect for their extra years.

With younger people that you know, you can see the steady growth in them and you may well be that ‘cooler’ older person in their eyes but it is not a feeling of superiority. You see interesting stuff such as how they show signs of the paths you followed but often come up with interesting and new takes on the world that you didn’t even consider.

I am talking about normal people here, not chavvy twats etc… These people never get past the mental age of 13 because that’s where their reading age stopped.

So being my age is kinda nice, I’m still young enough to have a laugh and enjoy my self but have some years and experience behind me which really pay dividens in this shindig known as life.

Why do I not celebrate my birthday?

People get a bit dumbfounded when I tell them I don’t celebrate my birthday and it really just comes down to two key reasons really.

The lesser of these two is that I really don’t like being the center of attention. Now this may seem a bit strange because anyone who knows me knows i’m not really an introverted type (especially when drunk!) I am quite loud and often crass and it can get me in trouble at times. Its just when all the attention is directed at me in something like a birthday setting that I get uncomfortable I just don’t like people being nice and making a fuss of me en-mass.

The second and main reason is the same as why I don’t really celebrate Christmas, I don’t see the point.

See it sounds very miserable an Scrooge like when you put it like that but it couldn’t be further from the truth! I think people should value and look after the people in their life all year round. I don’t feel a need to celebrate and have a fuss made of me just to mark another 365 day cycle of when my mum had a very painful day . It is not important to me that this day of all days should mark some kind of Nick free for all.  For me it just (even if it isn’t intended) comes across as false and a way for people to release their guilt for not being a very good friend/partner/parent/whatever over the last year, no one treats you normally on your birthday its silly, there is no difference between today yesterday or tomorrow or next week…

I try to have a good time with people and make sure they are ok throughout the year, sure I don’t have time to pay everyone the attention I’d like or i do it in funny ways but I know they know if they need me i’ll be there. That is what is important really and wearing a silly hat, eating some cake and getting smashed isn’t a celebration of my life, the people in it and the day to day relationships I have with them are!

This is just my opinion on it and i’v not met many others who share it. A birthday is such a fundamental concept that’s been drummed into our heads since before we could talk that it’s hard for people to see my logic and even if they do it’s normally brushed aside as silly.

I’m fine with other people celebrating their birthday and inviting me out (please continue!) as it means something to them which is fine and i’ll have a great time with them. It’s kinda like having Christian friends who get married in a church, I’ll come along to the church and be happy and enjoy their wedding… does not mean I’m gonna find Jesus .

Thank you to all the people who called/texted/facebooked/emailed/msn’d even though they know I don’t celebrate it (hehe its that childhood brainwashing, ye cant help it) today. As I have said before just keep being my friend, talking to me, inviting me, listening to me, helping me, letting me help you, all year round and that’s the biggest pressie you could ever give me.

Now i am not a great cook, my timing and measurement skills leave a lot to be desired. However there is one thing I can do and do well and that is the humble bacon sandwich!

The times this skill has saved me from many a hang over is uncountable! Here is my way of doing them, it may not be to your tastes but you should at least try it for the awesomeness.

1. Get frying pan and whack a bit of vegetable oil in it

2. Get the bacon and whack it on there, I do this right away and don’t bother heating the oil up. Now you wanna be liberal with the bacon here, like most of a pack we’re aiming for two sandwiches using four slices of bread

3. Whack the bacon on the hob and turn it right up to full. The bacon is likely stacked on top of more bacon, this is fine as it’ll be half the size in a minute or so.

4. While the bacon is heating up butter two sides of bread. The bread should be med/thick and white (rolls will do), don’t ask me why but white bread just makes it taste better. Put a thin layer of tomatoe sauce on each slice, if you don’t like tomatoe sauce then stop reading.

5. By now the bacon will need a bit of attention. Get a spatula and flip it about the pan a bit for a few minutes as it browns. Once it has lost it’s raw look you need to grab some Herbes de Provence and liberally sprinkle them on the bacon with a bit of pepper, at this point turn the heat right down. Keep turning and moving the bacon for a few minutes until it looks and smells too nice to be left in the pan. If you have done it right the pan should be pretty full of juices and whatnot (didn’t say this was the healthiest meal)

6. Get the spatula and evenly deal out the bacon onto each slice of bread, the bacon should be fairly distorted but still in somewhat of a shape. Do not cut any of the fat off, it’ll task so much better with the fat. Slap the other two bits of bread on top and eat with a cup of coffee.

Optional Extras:

I often like to fry some cherry tomatoes in the pan towards the end, seems odd with tomatoe sauce i know but its lush. Sometimes I also use a bit of chopped up garlic or onions in the pan too. You could use basil or something in place of the the Herbes de Provence but it wont taste nearly as nice.

I recently got a new PS3 game that I am hooooked on and it got me thinking about this interest I have.

What Type of Gamer am I?

I thought I’d firstly talk about what kind of gamer I am. I’m a bit strange in this regard, I can go for months and months and never play a single game and then play one like a maniac for a while. I’d say i’m a casual gamer with hardcore hundreds an thousands sprinkled on.

I love playing retro games from my childhood. Mainly because my folks were not exactly loaded so although I didn’t go without I did not get (like some i know) every single thing I wanted, so the games I did have I played and played and played! To this day I still load them up an go though one of my crazy gaming binges. Games like: The Settlers, Simcity 2000, UFO:Enemy Unknown, Elite, Frontier Elite Two (lost days to these two), Doom 2, Age of Empires are some of the older games that you can reallllly spend a lot of time on. It’s one of my ambitions to own a classic arcade machine which plays a really retro game called Rampage, you can play it online for free these days but its not the same! It was a game I found as a tiny tiny young lad at the sea side and I loved it!

Sweet link: There is this guy called the angry video game nerd, he reviews old ‘crap’ video games, check him out.

That is not to say I only play older games, I am very much into new games but seem to rarely buy them. I have had a ps3 for a year or so but only own like 5-6 games, something I intend to change. I love first person shootery games and also racey type games, anything with a lot of action in it is all good. Although I don’t mind a bit of role play I really don’t ‘get’ games like world of warcraft, why people dedicate them selves to it I have no idea, having skills and levels is cool an all but that game is just on its own level of weird.  I’d say the GTA games are the most ‘me’ I’v loved playing everyone of them and GTA IV (the reason I bought a ps3!) is simply amazing.

Best value for money

I really should buy more games as personally next to my geeky(er)  hobby of war gaming, video games are simply the best return for your investment. Seeing a film at the cinema is like 6-7 quid and lasts what a couple of hours? Going out drinking is the same, few hours and if ya like me its 50-100 quid spent on a night.  You spend 30-40 quid on a video game and as long as its a good one you get 20 to unlimited hours of fun from it! The best thing about the good ones is the re-playability, you can’t really read a book or watch a film over and over again but you can play a game like GTA IV forever and it (for me) never gets boring.

PC or Console?

I used to be a huge supporter of PC gaming, I’v never really owned a console other than a master system way back when. It wasn’t until GTA IV came out that I broke this trend and forked out some cash on a ps3. I’v not been disappointed! I always preferred a mouse an keyboard to play games, especially since I was a bit of an FPS fiend (and still am) but there is much to be said for the likes of the latest generation of consoles. For one the games are just ‘fun’, they may not be as complicated control wise and a little bit more simple with game-play but they’re just so much fun to play! I’m really looking forward to the motion sensor controller Sony are working on, they demoed a protype at e3 this year and it looks awesome.

What i’m playing at the minute

I recently have been playing a game called inFamous on ps3 and I’m hooked on it, its like a cross between spider man, gta iv and assassin’s creed. If you have a ps3 go and check it out, you will not be disappointed trust me. There is a similar game called prototype which i’m gonna check out after this one. Before inFamous i’v been spamming Sid Meier’s Pirates from 2005, I love pirates and this game is rather addictive. Also on PC i’m still very much into Left4Dead which is a multi-player zombie FPS game, I also love zombies so this game gets a lot of play. If there is ever a game of zombie pirates driving sports cars and firing ak47′s i’ll be buying that shit!

Anyhoo just thought i’d share a bit about on of my pass times with ya’ll, take care.

p.s i’m watching flight plan on the tele as I write this, Jodie Foster needs a punch in the face! gawd she’s an annoying actor.