Yes, instead of focusing on the now, which as I type consists of listening to ambulance sirens bellowing out their ever-increasing wails to non existent traffic outside, let’s have a post dedicated to that year which no-one remembers fondly: 2009, the a**hole of the noughties.

(Note: Must find out what this decade is going to be referenced as by those silly radio shows.) And now for a brief news rundown of the year, complete with sarcastic remarks;

Meanwhile back here at Ooh Sometimes, if any of the content was to go by, very little actually changed over 2009. The number of posts were still down, the lack of anything substantial of note proved to be the deciding issue amongst money struggles, visits to Spain were the most in any one year, setting a new record for….err….something.

The best month for actual fun and frolics was indeed March, though that was more due to the over eagerness to write about 2008, more than then current events such as the discovery of a YouTube video where a turtle get his freak on with a shoe, and wondering why there was so much built-up anger most of the time about, well, anything as it happened.

The further discovery that Sweden can do Vampire Horror while also making us laugh with cats, only made the situation more bizarre to grasp what was actually going on here at all.

While there were some posts about the films of the year, Star Trek being on of the better films of course, Gamer’s Corner all but dried up with content, only coming back in some for towards the end of the year, and there was no sign at all of the Ooh Sometimes Podcast to be heard. Mr Voice Over Man has long since assumed that Europe had been destroyed in some accident involving beans and went to tend to his farm in Texas.

The highlights for sure had to be meeting Mr. Micheal Ironside with Mrs Jewel Staite, with the second best being annoying to the Spanish prostitutes in Madrid, taking photos and running away. The Eurogamer Expo also ranks highly.

And that’s it as silly as all this is, 2009 was actually a bad year for most people, and there was not a lot of fun to be had other than repeating the same routine every day, getting fatter and lazier than ever before and become perhaps far more cynical about everything than a 27 year old ever should.

Therefore, this single crappy (note the header of this post has one less p in it, thus perhaps insinuating that it’s so crappy, it can’t even be spell checked properly) post should be taken as is, 2009 was indeed a year to forget in many ways.

What’s worse, 2010 has not started out any better, with the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Haiti, more terrorism alerts, even more silliness with the MPs because they still want our cash to get into office, more people are inquiring about divorce… the list goes on and it’s only the 25th of January.

Nothing has changed at all then, we are all even doing exactly as we all were before the end of last year. That new year, new start rubbish has indeed proven to be entirely that; rubbish.

Man, I used to be cheerful.

And so it’s that time of year once more, and that means a festive Ooh Sometimes message to be displayed on the 25th of December to those who are too bored to talk to their families and prefer to hide looking at smut on the internet instead.

First of all, Merry Christmas to everyone today, hope you got what you wanted or indeed perhaps you just got to spend time with your loved ones, and if not, just remember, EBay allows you to sell both your crap presents and your loved ones on as required.

By the time you read this, I’m away from it all once more, back in the Midlands with friends and family, more than likely right now I’m on the floor under the influence of yet more questionable substances, all the time laughing at shiny things. Damn, that cheap Tesco bleach is powerful stuff.

At 7pm or thereabouts we can all neglect each other and watch Doctor Who…Again. Christ, it’s almost like Groundhog day, only once a year. Only this time we get a new Doctor. Well, New Year’s Day we do anyway. More than likely this is just setting it all up, but enough speculation on one of the very few new pieces of programming to grace our screens this year.

Last year, I wrote about little things like the sales already started before christmas, the ongoing terrorism that is the financial market will make sure that no-one spends for some time to come, and more and more people lose their jobs.

I also tried to point out that things could be a lot worse, and really that still stands. 2009 was a hell of a hard year in many respects, and trust me that will be covered in a fabulous all star post soon, complete with hurtful remarks and reasons to see if rope on a dangling light is a work of art, and would it look better with your neck in it.

But for the time being, we’ll all off, we’re all drinking heavily and possibly having naughty with someone you know, or not, we don’t judge here, though if they have a sexy sister with no self-esteem, let me know.

So to finish off this year’s Christmas message, enjoy the moment, and let’s look forward to eating 70 days worth of leftovers.

Well here we are again on the internet on a Sunday evening typing out various questionable in terms of grammar sentences in an attempt to write something people actually would want to read.

It’s been a few weeks since last time I wrote on these fair digital pages, where it seems that being freed from the woes that is Adulthood, being responsible, having to wash and then fail miserably at being socially acceptable, I proceeded to board an expensive EasyJet flight back out to the promised land known as Spain for the forth time this year.

Remarkably I achieved very little during this period of time, that was the aim of the trip to be fair. Wake up, wander round, have better coffee than what they serve in Britain, and not spend time in front of the screen, staring at the Windows Clock watching my life disappear one minute at a time.

Just before I left for the sunnier 27 degree climb, I was resigning myself to the fact that IT Support in general is a soulless profession and it appeared my mouth was becoming looser than a lady of the evening. Clearly the lack of fun needed to be addressed at the time, and for once not by destroying zombie hordes and saving the last known hot woman for your own naughty needs.

That was the whole idea of the break from it all; Have not many any goals whatsoever and simply return to a simpler time where you had more pressing questions in life like “Where is the bacon sandwich from last night?”

I’m not quite with some of the people who insist on having a plan for everything to the last detail, why not just turn up and see what you feel like doing, agonising over the decision over a row of high volume alcoholic drinks?

The only thing to be said was it wasn’t long enough, though it seems that in coming back to Britain, time actually stood still as everything was exactly the same, with all the exact same problems awaiting my return like a dog missing his master’s leg.

But there was another thing awaiting my return, tickets to Live at the Apollo, the cheap yet successful BBC comedy show where they rent the Hammersmith Apollo out and fill it with pretend famous people and the staved for entertainment public for the comedians to come out and play with;

Well we got two shows for the price of none that evening, therefore I am less inclined as a result to not watch the first two shows of the series, simply because well, I’ve seen them now, I know who’s on and everything.

Five of them I’d heard of, The impression guy who turned to acting, Reg D Hunter, The Kevin Scottish bloke, Rob Welshy, The high pitched Geordie lady who needs her “button” seen to quite often it seems, and err…. the other Irish guy on the second show…. thanks for turning up, though to be fair he did a fair job on the magic trick at the end.

Though there was an extra bonus, Rachel Stevens of S Club 7 fame, and a regular on my internal Adult Channel alongside Jessica Biel was also in the audience, looking as far I could see from the rafters, mighty fine, so there could be the added incentive there to see from the TV camera’s point of view.

And once again my brain’s command of the English language and imagination fails, with the potential mark being an D- for turning up. The moral of the story from this post would be, do things but also not negate the need to practicing certain writing skills.

Horno Chips. The new viagra for fat people.

Yes, some people have been in contact wondering where I am right now as there has been nothing on most of the sites I tend to abuse like twitter, facebook and even the mighty OohSometimes.com Well, I’ve been working a lot this week, and then still had a ton to do on the weekend, therefore Saturday evening and today has meant really today was my weekend away from thinking about SQL Server, Anything that’s broke, anyone moaning about their useless things being broke….blah blah blah etc.

And what I had to look forward to was this:

Washing.

It almost makes it all worthwhile doesn’t it? (Note, Irony used here does not extend to those getting blown to bits in other places which are having harder times, nor those without jobs struggling to survive, so letters about all that are a no-no, mmmkay?)

It does make you wonder, now that we are in the 21st century, (well on paper, there are plenty of people wandering round London dragging knuckles on the floor, staring at other people and wanting to bash them over the head.) that certain things like this surely could be done automatically, thus leaving more time to waste on other more peaceful solutions to life, like sitting down.

My gym fat exorcism hasn’t gone too well recently, in fact, going once in a week is not overly fantastic news, again considering the amount it costs here. It appears now more obliviously than before (which I have been told anyway by others when I appear back in the real world) I am a workaholic and have no real thoughts or inclinations about doing something else.

It again all has given me pause for thought in-between playing the second episode of Monkey Island and eating things which burn the roof of my mouth and perhaps now there is nothing to be done about it.

I think I’ve reached the point where I’ve become a boring middle of the road adult who thinks talking about work is interesting.

Merde.

I feel like the baby mutant off Total Recall….”Start the reactor”

There are certain times in our lives where we wonder if we even should have bothered getting out of bed, lived off the bed lice and then die of boredom with our hands round our genitils, being unable to produce any more liquid from any opening on our bodies.

To some, that’s the ideal living, except for the death part of course, but with the behaviour and level of stupidity I see in London, sometimes it does make me think.

To top it all off, as the day had already been filled with various pauses for thought, I actually went to Greggs the bakers today. Now, to those around the world who do not know the typical UK street shops, it’s a chain of bakers who seem to pride themselves on selling sandwiches and various pastry products all at the same luke warm temperature.

Now examine the below picture;

It seems having given away the fact that there is cheese in the Sausage, Bean and Cheese melt, they felt it of great importance to write “contains cheese” on the same sign.

Forgive me, but if that’s not the stuff of legend, I don’t know what is. So Greggs are certain the melts contain cheese, but as for the rest of what’s in them, they don’t know?

Welcome to London.

Good question. I mean, since the last update playing Monkey Island, this place has seen better days. I have been twittering a bit more and indeed my blogging absence has been sensed by the odd New Zoolander here and there. It also appears that as far as being a geek goes, I’ve gone off the deep end, hell even Stevie Wonder can see blogging about a Twitter client for that crack cocaine known as WOW and then making sure the video to Monkey Island is here, is about as entertaining as seeing if gravity has taken the day off when you fall off a cliff.

Well good people, in recent times, I spend so much time in front of the screen, pushing various buttons to make things work and in all honesty I was stepping away from the keyboard out of hours quite a bit, and I’ve been away where possible too.

Had been to Manchester for our good friend Tebbutt’s birthday thing, (in the meantime, just annoying them by butchering a few songs, he’s in a band you see) and the Sunday there was so relaxing and actually productive in a completly different way, different to the general malise I’ve come to embrace while here in sunny London. Shame it didn’t last longer, but as we all know from a certain TV show; All good things must come to an end.

And after that weekend away, it was a lovely three day work week. If only that could be every week, I would be a) be laughing, b) actually try to blog properly and maybe c) annoy that woman in Starbucks up the road from myself to doing naughty. Without being arrested.

The Friday was bascially a write-off, though I did watch for the first time Full Metal Jacket, a film where army people go off to Vietnam to do lots of things with guns, and then remarkably the next day I actually went out, rather than staying caged within the batcave that is the studio flat, which is what I normally have to do to ensure what little money I have doesn’t slip through the fingers.

At the Empire cinema, Hairy Potter didn’t do a lot of stuff aside from getting randy along with the rest of the cast and a bloke died. Right, 3 hours well spent.

Sunday, was a geek again as I went to a Comical con thing over at Earl’s Court, meeting people from the telly and some films, which is nice and I’m sure there will be better posts about the whole weekend as it was a wee bit strange….which is rich coming from me but trust me, seeing a guy dressed up as an anime dogthing….yeah….

And I’ve grown a hobo beard;

Yes, I have let what little appearence I had go down the toilet as well, however this has had the strange result of putting off the charity workers hanging around Holborn approaching me for 1456 pounds a minute to help unborn donkeys fly or whatever it happened to be that day. May keep it slightly longer now as a result.

And that’s the highlight package of what little has happened over the last couple of weeks since the Monkey Island post, quite short really, but as it goes, I have to go back to the daily grind, and then maybe go to work (yes, I made that joke, you may all now vomit), and time is short, which also goes for my (WHOA Paul, back it up). I suppose I’m also still not used to writing more than 140 characters like on Twitter, so what cobbled together sense this all makes, I have no idea.

For now, until the next post which will be on January 23rd, 2034, have fun!

It couldn’t be going on too long with all this nonscense about things with lights, bits of script coding, and looking like a reject from the 70’s without placing some pictures from my time in Madrid. Yes, inbetween sweating in an office and sweating in a very posh hotel, there were a couple of oppotunites to look around briefly, so here for your dining and dancing pleasure:

Photos, only without the old folk’s voice telling about each picture in soul-destroying detail.

This view was taken from the top of a garden bar on the roof of some pub with the sun slowly drawing in on the second day. The view from the roof of the hotel at night was fantastic and you could see all around, and it was a good place to sniper people working in the government building next door.

For some reason, House got tired of mocking people with illnesses and decided to sell lemonade in Spain. Righto then.

And here we have an excellent example of Spanish design; some water pipes sticking out the ground. It’ll look nice when it’s finished….

And here we have an example of what one of Madrid’s fish bars look like. Though from the outside, it looks like you would catch a disease from looking at the sign.

It was something to stand up, talking over everyone else while stuffing your face full of various bits of seafood. But I will have to say this, the food was so good, I wanted to take it somewhere, get to know it all better, find out what movies it liked….oh dear, I think we’re drifting onto the world of food porn.

And what possible visit to the seafood place be complete without a picture of two numptys wondering what the hell to do when a camera’s on them?

Ahhh……nah, I can’t think of anything.

Well that’s the thing with the visit away, it was mainly about Business, which detracts from any touristy stuff you could do in the limited time we had, but at the very least, I got the jist of what Madrid is all about.

Life is slower, people have more time for you, and a short lunchtime is an hour. Sometimes, a man has to wonder what it’s all about. Fair play to the spanish!

Well I guess I haven’t really said everything that happened, so let me quickly wrap things up so I can return back to the black and charred mess that is the Underworld, this trip was also the very first time I had ever flown with BA to anywhere, and stayed in a really posh hotel, drank overpriced water, had Starbucks for breakfast, and spanish food in the evenings, basically it was all good! I want MORE!

 

 What happens when boredom and booze mix: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Well seeing as I had already wasted 5 minutes doing the thing and I can’t think of better things off the top of my head to say, please enjoy my ramblings which are geeky and silly and I say naughty words in this too, so if you don’t know what they are, ask your mummy and daddy. Right, where’s my bottle….

Well campers, it’s been a strange week. A lot that was going on was all about work mainly which of course most people will suffer with that particular disease until we can all be like those people from WALL-E, or as we brits know them as: Americans.

But there were things worthy of note which also included waking up late each day to the sun beaming through the blinds like Scotty from Star Trek, and the weather has been lovely of late, but when all you are wanting to do is keep your eyes closed, anything which destroys that luxury will be viewed with the level of contempt only seen when a dog leaves a present on your foot.

There was also a Friday night out in Soho, but we’ll leave that confusing affair to a later paragraph which hopefully will allow me time to think of funny things to cast onto the white space. Otherwise, it’s back to the tried and tested sex jokes. So I’ll stick a picture about Soho, and carry on.

But to return back from the side step of the above writing, recently I haven’t been able to sleep properly. Perhaps it’s the guilty conscience of destroying another village in India, or maybe it’s just the sheer volume of traffic which passes my window at 6:20 in the morning. But now my nightly routines consist of playing WOW again, that soul destroying game where my communication turns into something you’d scrawl on a toilet wall using your own excrement.

In addition to that, it’s back to watching old shows and and then falling asleep to them, ready in time to wake up at 3am to switch off the TV. It’s become a kind of ritual this week, and I’m worried that this trend will eventually kill what’s left of my brain.

Saturday was a write-off again till about 4 in the afternoon due to the Friday Night that proceeded before and as I wrote in my cunningly leading third paragraph, it was jolly confusing why we wandered round Soho, not for the various naughty bars featuring women wearing clothes that refuse to stay on themselves.

It all started out pleasant enough, at a bar where we talked a little bit and headed on out to the evil place of naughty, where of all things, we ended just a very tiny bar where we had one drink, got bored and then we all split up for food. I guess the time I woke up has been all the proper sleep being missed catching up to me.

And then to turn the blog entry on it’s head once again about something so different, you wonder what was the point, Sunday evening brought about an interesting state of affairs in the world of Online Gaming. Or more accurately Left 4 Dead.

You see, Left 4 Dead has had some updates to it recently, one of which was a new Survival mode, in which you are certain to die, it’s just a question of how long it takes before you are overwhelmed for sheer numbers. Normal people call that the London Underground.

But it appears that most people on the Left 4 Dead servers are very upset if you’re not the world’s best at it. Today was the first time I had given the mode a go, along with a friend from Sunny Wales way, and we went onto a couple of maps, and at some point, a guy from one of those gaming clans out there, bugger knows there’s far too many to count, came on and started getting upset with the way I play.

Long story short, some written abuse back and he went. Some time later my friend was kicked off a public server by other people, who again seemed unhappy about dying early in a game mode designed to kill you. All in all, it seems that at the moment, there are quite a number of either kids or mentally starved for something more in life people who are playing at the moment, so perhaps it’s best left alone for the time being online unless all 4 slots for players are filled with people you know.

I guess that brings you all up to date. Time for traffic and weather, where you are.