Top Hat, White Tie and Sneakers

Quote of the moment:
"You know I could have been in the NSA, but they found out my parents were married." - Martin Bishop (Robert Redford), Sneakers.

I only realised from looking at the IMDB listing that Sneakers also featured River Phoenix in one of his last roles. Just for Koel, that one. Looking at his profile I then noticed he was number 203 in the listing, a pretty high billing. I got curious and discovered that number one(000001), presumably because the founders liked him(?!) is Fred Astaire.

Blogger has had a litte makeover. There's now a blogger blog to house the geek updates. How rare! Speaking of which, new Weebl and Bob. Rob loved it, which just warns you that it has some rather sick humour. You love it really.

[Edit 1:56am - This, by the way, is post 200 on this blog. Yes, I am indeed a very sad, post-counting geek. If only Blogger statistics would get up and running again I could save myself the trouble!]

Results Day, Take 2

Quote of the moment:
P1: 88
P2: 72
P3: 56
M2: 48
- My results.

Total mark(including previous results): 435

435/600 = 0.725

0.725 x 100 = 72.5%

I AM INVINCIBLE!

K, so it's only a B. Nonetheless I am invincible!

I got 48 in M2! That's less than last summer! D'oh! But on the other hand I pulled P2 up from 25% to 72%. P3 also rose from 25%. So it was pretty schweeeeet.

So, now comes the great deciding. But you thought I was going to Cardiff? Now that the Army have automatically rejected me because of my knee, I need to find out if I'm automatically rejected from the OTC too, since that's a major part of Cardiff's appeal.

I also need to get a job. SIGH.

Mwahaha... Di-do-do-do-di-do... I am invincible... Di-do-do-do-di-do...

Leave PC to the police

Quote of the moment:
"A former lieutenant colonel says the ban on sexual relationships between men and women in the Armed Forces is "outdated" and should be scrapped." - BBC news.

She was in the nursing corps until they were amalgamated into the logistic corps. Perhaps back there away from the front line it wouldn't matter so much, but in the artillery and engineers, who are in the actual combat area, having relationships between people in the same command structure that could interfere with the running of that structure is blatantly foolish. This is particularly true of relationships between officers and other ranks, because officers have to treat everyone equally. That obviously wouldn't work if they were going out with one of them.

Relationships between people in the army who don't actually work directly together can work (as shown on Soldier, Husband, Daughter, Dad) but that obviously restricts the roles available to people in the same regiment. More importantly, what if two parents are both sent to war? What happens to their children? Let alone the problems of peace time postings to seperate places, that one argument prevents it. Would she recommend placing those children in social care, or does she expect the Army to provide for them out of its repeatedly slashed budget? Otherwise one of them will have to be removed from their unit just before it goes to war, so that the carefully trained team is incomplete. How handy!

Coming soon: political correctness advocates urge Army to accept disabled recruits!

Shooting Pool with Paddy

Quote of the moment:
"They're all going to taste oblivion... which tastes just like Red Bull."

"I'm a pacifist, I don't carry a gun."
"You're a what?"
"He's something comforting for little children to suck."
"No dude, that's a paedophile!"

- Red vs Blue.

I failed to blog yesterday (how tragic!) because Paddy summoned me to his house at 2am, just as I was about to. Halo 2 on Xbox Live followed, as well as some snooker on his new snooker table. It's pretty vast. It takes up most of the ground floor of the extension. :D

I got home about 7am, slept until 1pm, then phoned Paddy sporadically until he woke up and came over for about 2.30pm. Looked for wallet in amazingly similar way to that desrcibed by Emma. Hit Freeport Pizza Hut, stuffed ours crusts stomachs. Staggered around Freeport, looking for anything travel-related Paddy might need. Both bought Vans. Mine are a comforting shade of black and were a handy £29. (I am now one of the official fans of Timmy B and his Vans. Score!)

Went to Paddy's house again. Played more Halo 2 and snooker. Lost consistently at snooker, but won all subsequent games of pool. Watched Red vs Blue seasons 1 and 2 on DVD. Ate popcorn. Shot some more frames. Got whipped at Dead or Alive 3. Strategy of picking fighters on basis of girth deemed foolish. Returned home at a very reasonable 3am. Scanned blogs with very bleary eyes.

What I was going to write about yesterday:

An Italian female journalist was bought free from her captors in Baghdad. As the Italian secret service agents rushed her from the exchange point, they hit a mobile US Army roadblock. They drove straight at it and were promptly riddled with lead.

Morons. The woman has actually claimed the US was targeting her because she writes for an anti-war newspaper.

1. The troops were not aware of the Italian operation. Probably because Italian security is so lax they couldn't let their own people know.
   
2. The car drove at the roadblock. Just like suicide bombers do.
   
3. The US troops should get commendations for good shooting. 3 out of 4 passengers were hit, 1 fatally, 1 seriously, one slightly(the woman). The car, needless to say, was stopped.
   
4. The Italians should never have given in to the terrorists in the first place. There are talks with terrorists to end the violence(as Rob has mentioned the US doing). Then there are morons who by paying up cause more kidnappings.
   
5. The Italians haven't conducted a succesful operation since the invasion of Abyssinia.
   

A seperate story: 'Black boys are failing! Put them in special classes quick!'.

Incorrect. Inner-city children fail because inner-city schools suck. The pupils are mostly black in these areas. Black boys need special treatment = wrong. Inner-city schools need the money wasted on regional planning authorities and bureaucrats planning government targets = right. Another point raised was the lack of a proper father figure in many black households. Ditto, a problem in sink estates, race = irrelevant. Moral of the story: living in the country applies a strong force via a leg-shaped pendulum to any buttocks in the vicinity.

Harrison Ford!

Quote of the moment:
"I'm sitting in the bar of the (something) hotel and I can see Harrison Ford!" - Koel on the phone just now. Impressive! She sounded rather hysterical about it. Apparently she was so excited she had to call someone and breathlessly tell them about it. As the resident pseudo-film-buff, I was chosen. Go me. I did instruct her to get something signed, but I don't know if she'll remember in her ecstatic glee!

My exam results are out on Thursday. Zoinks, Scoob! I'd pretty much managed to forget about it!

PS: Please note the lack of suggestions that Koel was so excited she felt like crying :p

Boromir, Steward of O2

Quote of the moment:
"31 Brits have died since 1996 by watering their Christmas tree while the fairy lights were plugged in." - One of several reasons to be proud to be British, courtesy of Yahoo Office Attachments and Vinnie.

Spotted today in Tesco: Mr Chamberlain and the Lee sisters. Fortunately I managed to avoid their notice. Particularly fortunate that I didn't get a
"HI WILL!"
from Alie. Phew!

Spotted in The Times, in an article about celebrity advert voiceovers: Sean Bean is the voice of O2. As in "See what you can do: O2". Hmmm...

"Give me the phone Frodo. I MUST have the phone! It is the only way to save Gondor!"

Perhaps O2 should start their own rival to Orange's Lord of the Ringtones?

The Haribo Conspiracy

Quote of the moment:
"Excuse me, do you you have any Haribo snakes?" - a three year old in Tesco. I knew it. There's a secret plot by Haribo to take over the world.

I also saw Jim's mum in Tesco. Aye carumba!

There was some proper snow today, enough to be still thick at 11am, so that I could go stomping through it when I took the dogs for a walk, in my lovely green wellies. Being childish is awesome.

Jilbab Jesting

Quote of the moment:
"Today's decision is a victory for all Muslims who wish to preserve their identity and values despite prejudice and bigotry.

The decision of Denbigh High School to prevent my adherence to my religion cannot unfortunately be viewed as merely a local decision taken in isolation.

Rather it was a consequence of an atmosphere that has been created in Western societies post 9/11, an atmosphere in which Islam has been made a target for vilification in the name of the 'war on terror'." - Shabina Begum, talking about a Court of Appeal ruling that she should be allowed to wear her Muslim Jilbab dress instead of school uniform:

Interestingly the ruling actually said that the school had made a procedural error and is actually allowed to ban pupils wearing non-uniform dress because it has a specific Muslim uniform.

That's not the point of my little tirade though. The point is that she came out of the court and spouted a load of blatant propaganda. Prejudice and bigotry? Imposing your religion on other people is bigotry.

Coincidentally her brother belongs to an extremist Islamic group, banned in Germany and Egypt(where it tried to mount a coup), that advocates turning the entire world into a Muslim state. I'm sure the speech she read out was entirely of her own composition.

Of course, when extremist Islamic groups do run countries, as in Afghanistan, girls her age aren't actually permitted to attend school!

All Your Rhapsody

Quote of the moment:
"This movie has warped my fragile little mind!"

Jim has come up with an absolute gem. All hail to the genius that is Jim! It's a brilliant Bohemian Rhapsody remake of All Your Base! Hurrah!

Reminds me of the good old Starter Up Steve days!

In other news, I had a haircut today. Revolutionary! I would post a picture but my dear sister stole my laptop away again, ending the brief flurry of pictures. As if coursework matters compared to decorating my blog posts!

Starmix

Quote of the moment:
"Kids and grown-ups love it so, the happy world addictive taste of Haribo!"

Mmmmm... Haribo...

Mmmmm... Starmix...

The site I got that from is an absolute classic! It's called Boarders' Boxes and sells 'Tuck'! I found it through Google Image Search, I'm not actually a regular...

Anyway, Starmix is better than Maoam!