Merry Christmas and all that!

How was your Christmas? Ours was nice and quiet and the three of us came away pretty much happy with what we received, hell even the dogs seemed to be happy and weren't fighting amongst themselves. Which was nice considering in recent weeks they've spent the evenings growling at each other and starting mini fights over nothing whatsoever.

I've been looking into modifying the appearance of Floyddseuss, although its difficult to find a decent guide on how to piece everything together and its been a while since I've edited any HTML or CSS in any form, and considering the time of night, plus it's still a school holiday, I really can't get into the frame of mind to be able to concentrate on something creative that involves more brain cells than the Workshop on Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.

So I've just stuck to playing with some fonts for the time being in order to find one with which to base the design of the template on, but I can't decide between the following three fonts.





Mind you, in retrospect, I quite like the last one.

Speaking of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, I recieved it from Missus and Sprog as one of my Christmas gifts and I'm really really enjoying it. It makes a nice change from all the shooting and racing that many XBox 360 games involve, and also means I can play it whilst Sprog is around, or even hand her a pad and let her pretend she's joining in.

We often do this together, sometimes, if the game permits two players and isn't too complicated she'll join in properly for a while. It enables me to experience some of the games that arrive through the post for me to write about on bitparade, whilst not neglecting the fact that one of my duties (and privelages) as a father is to entertain my child. Although her now being at full-time school has made getting gaming time in much much easier, but I also have to balance that with job searching, something thats becoming increasingly difficult in the current climate, especially when you take into consideration my lack of references because I've been the "stay at home" parent whilst Missus studies and works towards becoming a Nurse.

It's difficult for all of us really, but as I always remind her when Missus thinks things are getting too hard, its a means to an end, it'll take a while longer (she qualifies in two years time), but it'll make life better for us all and I've just gotta get my foot back on the ladder in any job (although I've ruled catering out because I know I wouldn't be able to stomach it).

Anyhow, back to Christmas, my gifts this year were:

Missus and Sprog:- VW Campervan model kit, VW Campervan mug, "My Dad Wished He Had One Of Those", Big Book of Top Gear, a Venus Fly Trap, The Long Way Down, Feeder - The Singles, Muse - Black Holes & Revelations, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts,a Nightmare Before Christmas Mug and a Light Sabre key ring.

Dad and Step Mum:- A Doctor Who T-Shirt and another one of those Camper Van kits mentioned above.

Mum and her bloke:- Smellies

Older Sister, her bloke and her two daughters: - The Dark Knight

So, not a bad haul for me really!

Christmas Eve!

Wow, that was easy! Sprog went to bed with no trouble whatsoever. Mind you, she did go over an hour later than normal...

Everythings done and out of the way too, Mince Pies are made, as are Cookies (Missus keeping Sprog entertained there) All the presents are under the tree, minus all the chocolate ones because of the dogs, there in the kitchen, as are the dogs presents. The Rats have had new hammocks made and Missus has strung freshly popped (plain) popcorn across their cages, and I'm happily drinking HobGoblin that was left out for Santa.



All that is left to do is hang Sprog's stocking on the back of her bedroom door to enable to have an extra five minutes in bed in the morning and its time for Missus and I to see in Christmas Day in our usual way.

Tomorrow will be less stressful for us than today has been, we're at Missus' Grandads, he'll pretty much have dinner all prepared and cooking away slowly when we arrive, she'll help dishing up and Sprog's Uncle will keep her entertained, that or she'll be in the garden on her new scooter.

I'm looking forward to it more than I have previous Christmases, which haven't been the most fun in recent years, however, there shouldn't be any problems this year and the three of us have a nice number of gifts each (of course, Sprog's outweigh ours by about 10:1). So all thats left is for me to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

The Devil in disguise...

We do alot of charity shop shopping, its great for picking up cheap books and Missus likes getting old material (usually bed spreads) from them in order to make into various things such as hammocks for her Fancy Rats. So whenever we're in town we pop into a few different charity shops, take a look and normally end up buying something, very rarely spending anything more than £5.

So yesterday we popped into Shelter, and Missus picked some material, Sprog was with us and she, as kids always do in shops, wanted a toy. She picked up a Firby, I began to cry inside, bought we bought it anyway, it only cost a £1 and it'll keep us happy.



Unfortunately I seem to be having a spell of bad headaches that won't shift just recently, so despite the fact she's had Coco (what the Firby has named itself) for less than 24 hours, I feel like throwing her (Sprog has stated its a girl) in the bin. Still, the person who had it before obviously took good care of it as its not really rude (Missus had one as a kid, her brothers taught it to swear) and has provided a couple of humourous moments, such as it burping whilst Sprog was having some supper before bed last night.

Ahwell, its Christmas Day tomorrow, so with all the stuff she's got waiting to open, maybe Coco will stay in her room like her other noisey toys. At least Mimi (one of our dogs) will be happy then as she seems to hate (or is at least scared) of it.

Audi design concept car, inspired by WipeOut much?

So, once again, using StumbleUpon, I come across this car:



And I couldn't help but think it looks a hell of alot like this:



The above is a piece of artwork depicting the vehicles in the futuristic racing game, WipeOut (need I say, WipeOut Pulse is an excellent game that anyone with a PSP should own). The person designed the Audi concept car in the first pic (this guy calls himself Tibor) claims the design was inspired by the shape of the bone of a cuttlefish (you can see this could be true in the picture below), however I think the guy's (or gal's) been playing a bit too much of SCE Studio Liverpool's (formerly Psygnosis) most famous series.

Desktop Update #2

So I've changed my desktop wallpaper again, this is from a random website I found via StumbleUpon.

Ready to doodle do!

I've always loved drawing, I've never been all that good, and I've never found a particular style I'm strong at, but nevertheless, I've always enjoyed doing it. However, in recent years its something I've really struggled to do, whether its just getting in the mood to do so or just being happy with anything I've done, usually I look at a piece of work before I've even got half way through and just felt unhappy about it.

However, I've achieved a quick doodle (mind you, I never spend long on any particular piece) that I'm quite happy with and I'm thinking of tackling the subject even further throughout the sketchbook its in. I guess I'm setting myself a New Years Resolution a few days early to try and get back into my drawing again.