The Wonderful World of Chalky

If, like me, you’re too lazy to wash your car properly yourself you’ll probably take your car to your local car wash. I’ve always been told not to use a mechanical car wash that uses brushes and I’ve heard a tale or two about the consequences. Now I have my own story!

For the past year I’ve been using the Premier Hand Car Wash on Queens Road next to Halfords. I’ve taken all 3 of my cars (Pipsqueak the Seicento, Percy the Punto and now Clarence the C3) as well as my friend’s Daihatsu Terios and not really had any problems… until now (and they certainly made up for it)!

I took my car in this afternoon because it was well overdue for a wash, I think I must have left it a couple of months and with the recent bad weather it was looking a right state. So I popped down to Queens Road and got my car washed. Everything appeared to be OK, but I noticed they seemed to be taking an extraordinarily long time to clean my car and kept blasting it with the pressure washer. I just assumed this was because my car was extremely dirty. 

However, once I got home and got out of the car, I realised the real reasoning for the extra time spent:

Front-Right Door

Rear-Right Door

Between Right Doors

Aerial

It’s pretty much the same on the other side too. Suffice to say, I wasn’t best pleased so I went straight back down to Queens Road. To be fair, they were very apologetic and did take full responsibility, but that doesn’t stop my car looking a complete wreck.

It turns out that they’d managed to spray the Acid that they use on wheels (to loosen dirt) all over my car and that they had realised which was why they kept spraying my car… Nice of them to tell me first time round! They’ve arrange for their bodyshop man to come and sort my car out next week. I’m a bit miffed that I’m going to have to drive the car for nearly a week in the state that it is in but I suppose there’s nothing I can really do. I certainly won’t be settling for anything less than the handles looking in perfect condition as they were pre-washing. If not, they’re going to have to pay for them to be replaced.

Whilst they’ve assured my that this won’t damage the paint work on my car, I’m not really convinced so I’m going to get my Uncle Nigel to check the whole car over. He’s hoping it will be OK but he says I’ll find out by Sunday if it’s not going to be (by the very fact that the paint will start to come off)!

So, the moral of the story is don’t be lazy and wash your car yourself! But, if you are still far to lazy to wash it yourself, you might want to think more carefully about where you take it!

A couple of weeks ago, I went to see Tropic Thunder. I was glad that I went to see it without first seeing any trailers. I think it’s nice to go the see something and not know what to expect beforehand!

The film starts with some amusing fake trailers starring the members of the cast for the actual film being filmed for the film…. if you get my drift. They really set the film up and it would have been good to see one or two of these being shown as part of the Trailers for the actual film.

The film was mostly well cast, with the interesting twist of Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.) having a “controversial skin procedure so that he can play an African American”. Kirk stays in character throughout the whole movie and even when the going gets tough, he reckons he still knows what on earth he’s doing:

I know what dude I am. I’m the dude playin’ the dude, disguised as another dude!

It was good to see Steve Coogan in the film even if it is short lived! Whilst watching the film, a friend pointed out that Tom Cruise was in the film. She was referring to the strange Film Producer Les Grossman, but when I looked, the scene had switched and I thought they meant the character played my Coogan (Damien Cockburn). It wasn’t until the end when the credits rolled that I recieved an “I told you so” whilst me, along with the rest of the audience remained extreamly puzzled!

There was only one real disappointment I noticed The role of Tugg Speedman’s (Ben Stiller) agent, had clearly been written for Owen Wilson who they obviously didn’t manage to get. Wilson was therefore replaced with a wannabe actor who tried too hard to be Owen Wilson instead of thereself.

Overall, a funny film. If it’s still around at the cinema, it’s definitely worth an Orange Wednesday!

Clarence, a literal shadow of his former self

On Monday, I took the extremely long way home, via Recovery Truck! I 

Whilst on the M180, I began to smell a funny smell. I’m almost certain it wasn’t actually my car that was causing the smell but by this time, I was so paranoid about the whole thing that I didn’t really want to carry on. I pulled onto the Hard Shoulder and called the AA. They said that I would be placed on the High Priority list seeing as I was stranded on the Motorway rather than being in a safer location. An hour later, a Recovery Truck pulled up behind me.

The Recovery Man was a very friendly man and had lots of interesting things to talk about. He had been a roofer for 22 years and then one day, a voice inside him said that he couldn’t do it anymore and explained that a few of his friends had had similar experiences, ignored them and then died a few weeks later from accidents at work. He decided to follow the voice in his head and gave up in favour of his current job.

We also talked about the current drinking culture in the UK and about Christmas and the New Year. It certainly made the journey a lot easier as I had visions of sitting in silence for the whole one and a half hour journey. 

After arriving just across the road from my house, we un-loaded the stricken Clarence and, after directing him to the local KFC, limped the C3 the rest of the way home. 

I’m currently using Percy, my Mk. 1 FIAT Punto to get me to and from work. Thank heavens I hadn’t got round to selling it yet! Looks like I’ll need to call in a few favours with my Uncle when he gets back of holiday! 

Thanks to Nitesh for suggesting my car should by called The Giddy-me-up to KFC Chariot instead of Clarence… He knows me so well!

For a long time now, I’ve considered myself to be a good listener and I feel honoured that people feel they can come to me if they need to talk to someone.

But who does the listener turn to when they want someone to hear them out; Who listens to the listener?

Tonight, I decided to take myself off to the cinema as I hadn’t been for a while and it might break up the monotony a bit. My aim was to go and see a really pointless comedy because at 8pm on a Friday, I’m not really looking for something insightful and intelligent (who am I kidding, it doesn’t really matter what time of what day, I’m still below insightful and intelligent!).

My plan was to go and see You Don’t Mess with the Zohan because that adequately met my needs of being both un-insightful and stupid. However, after only being out for a month, it seems that it’s already been pulled from the cinema! Unfortunately, I didn’t find this out until after I’d arrived! So instead, I decided to go with Disaster Movie.

Many people say that these kind of movies have had their day and it’s time for them to die a death. Whilst I agree that they are starting to get a little tiresome, a bit of satire is always good fun. The only problem for me was that I’d hardly seen any of the films that were being represented!

Films included:

• Juno
• The Incredible Hulk
• Batman
• The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
• Superbad
• Indiana Jones
• Hellboy

They also did parodys of Amy Winehouse (which I found particularly amusing), Jessica Simpson and Hannah Montanna.

Overall, I thought it was alright. Probably not as good as some of the other films, I’m not sure if it’s done too well at the Box Office either. But, if you’re looking for a film with some mindless humour to cheer you up a bit, this should satify your needs!

Whilst watching an episode of Diggnation I saw a video of a cat playing which is fast becoming my favourite instrument. I really need to get one at some point, along with a Pleo!

Yesterday, I ventured into town with Heather and Laura. The evening was certainly filled with randomness.

We started in the Benjamin Huntman, where I immediately made a fool of myself by knocking an entire basket of Salt sachets on the floor. Not a good omen for the entire evening!

We then headed over to Takapuna where Louise (Heather’s sister) was working. We saw her briefy and had a couple of drinks in there and I attempted to ‘dance’ for a couple of minutes. I’m sure I don’t need to go into the details of how disasterous that was as you can all imagine. After a while, I began to feel a bit short of breath and so I asked if we could leave.

We then ambled over to The Old House where we met Helen Clapham whom we knew from school. Luckily for us, she recognised us sat in the corner. I recognised her but I have to admit that I had forgotten her name. Anyway, it was certainly nice to see her and say hello.

We also met some of Louise’s friends, particularly Claire who greeted us with the words “I love Louise”. Her and a friend had bought some white fluffy/tinsel-y hats which were being passed around. Later in the evening I was left with this hat for a bit, afterwhich Claire came up to me and asked me if I was Gay, which was nice. After putting her straight she told me that the hat had cost her £4 and that I wasn’t worthy of wearing it, which was also nice.

Me and Laura also met two young ladies who had come up from Leicester for a night out in Sheffield and were staying at the local Travelodge. They were very ‘merry’ and decided between them that me and Laura were madly in love with each other but were too afraid to show it. It certainly provided the evening’s entertainment in between us repeating over and over again as to where the Leadmill was located and indeed what it was called!

Later in the evening, I began to feel short of breath again and began to realise that my Ventolin Accuhaler wasn’t really helping. I also started to get pains in my chest, so I decided to hop in a Taxi home. Heather joined me as she was feeling particularly tired after her first week of training for HBOS.

Whilst in the Taxi, I could feel my heart pounding and my chest feeling ever tighter so after getting out, I decided I should probably call NHS Direct whilst walking towards home. The operator was particularily helpful and after asking a few questions put me straight through to a doctor who then referred me to the local GP Co-Operative. 5 minutes after getting home, the phone rang and the GP from the Hallamshire told me that I should come in for them to check me over. This lead us with a bit of a problem as I wasn’t able to drive so this meant I had to reluctantly let my mum drive Clarence. The journey was certainly interesting and didn’t do much for my, already pounding, heart.

After arriving at the Hallamshire, we then proceeded to sit in the Waiting Room for well over an hour. My mum had took the initiative and taken her iPod along where I was left to keep nodding off and then suddenly jumping and waking up as I realised I was falling out of the chair, much to the amusement of everyone around me. By the time we got seen by someone, the symptoms had long since gone and the rather unhelpful doctor just sent me off telling me I should see the Asthma nurse at my GP’s as soon as possible. We didn’t get back home until about 5am so it was off to bed for me!

In the morning I didn’t feel too great, I suppose this had much to do with the fact I’d only been asleep for 3 hours. It’s funny, during the week when I know I need to get up, I could quite easily stay in bed all day. However, when I know I don’t need to get up, I wake up really early (no matter how tired I am) and simply can’t get back to sleep. I decided I might as well go to Church seeing as I had nothing better to do and I’d got a bit fed up of just lying there.

On returning home, I began to feel really tired again so I decided to try and get myself back off to sleep. A few minutes later, I found myself short of breath and my chest beginning to tighten up again. Jill brought my Accuhaler up for me but again, it made no difference. I then began to feel sick so I rushed downstairs to do so. After it got to the point that I was bringing up blood, my mum decided it was time to get back on to the GP Co-Operative. The helpful doctor told me that I should really go to A&E at the Northern General to get checked over again. Luckily this time, Jill was available to take us in her car so it wasn’t quite a white knuckle ride this time. We didn’t have to wait too long in comparison to this morning which was good. The doctor I saw was very thorough and did a proper examination rather than just poking me with a stethoscope. He explained in detail what was going on and the reasons why things were going on. He also advised me that I should take the Ventolin Accuhaler even if I wasn’t experiencing any problems, at least until I could go and get properly checked by the Asthma nurse.

I’m feeling better now and feel a bit more confident about dealing with the Asthma. Part of the problem when you have an Asthma attack is panic, the problem being, the more you panic, the worse the symptoms become. Thanks go out to Heather and Laura for looking after me and to Laura for looking after my coat which I foolishly left behind!

One day I’ll have something positive to post!

Well, I thought I’d keep on with the complaining about Social Networking sites. And why is the silhouette of a woman, let alone the face that if I was stood next to Russell Brand they’d also be a silhouette of a fist!

Does anyone actually still use MySpace?

Is it me, of has Facebook not quite gathered what a Contextual Ad actually is?

Here’s what our old friend Wikipedia has to say about Contextual Advertising:

Contextual advertising is a form of targeted advertising for advertisements appearing on websites or other media, such as content displayed in mobile browsers. The advertisements themselves are selected and served by automated systems based on the content displayed to the user.

This is what I also thought a Contextual Ad was. It is odd to me, therefore, that when I logged in a loaded up my Facebook profile today that I was greeted with this:

How charming is that. Get your contexts right Facebook, FIX IT!

I saw this article over on DigitalSpy and it gave me a chuckle!

A Christian clone of Activision’s Guitar Hero is to be launched for the PC and Apple Mac.

Guitar Praise, which is being created in the US, will see users play along to Christian rock acts.

Developer Digital Praise writes of the game: “Grab the guitar and play along with top Christian bands! Shred those riffs or blast the bass…you add a unique sound to the solid Christian rock… you’ll soon be rockin’ with the best while praising the Lord.

“As the song and lyrics play, colorful notes scroll down the screen. Players must keep up by matching the notes to the fret buttons on the guitar controller included with the game”.

The game, which has no association with Activision or Harmonix, will feature 52 tracks from original Christian rock bands and offers the option of unlocking more songs as the player progresses.

Guitar Praise is scheduled for release in the US next month. A UK release has yet to be confirmed.

What on earth will they think of next?

I’m pretty sure they’ll be several Lawsuits from Activision along the way!