eep! – a blog

Apologies it has taken so long, but here is the follow-up to this entry from the other week. Thanks to everyone who commented, I will press on with the answers, scores at the end!
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So I’ve been online for a while now in various places, but how much do you, the reader actually know about me? How many of the statements below are true? (or, indeed; false?)

1. I am left-handed
2. I had a racing pigeon at home when I was younger
3. I have driven a Ferrari 360
4. I chipped my tooth in a swimming pool aged 16 and it still isn’t fixed
5. I went drinking with a band in Las Vegas after a gig they performed
6. I have a pierced nipple
7. I have performed in a production at the Bristol Hippodrome
8. I started training as an architect, but never quite made the cut
9. I’ve had two of my exes run away to sea
10. I was a VIP guest on Robot Wars

Ok folks, answers in the comments and I will reveal all in the near future.

(And people visiting this from facebook – the comments form won’t bite, it only asks for your email address to discourage spammers and goes nowhere else. Go on, you know you want to…)

1. I wish I had an attention span of more than 3 minutes with computer games. Red Dead Redemption looks awesome, but I don’t have the means or the patience to play it. Everything since Mario Kart on the SNES has been a disappointment frankly.

2. It takes longer than you’d think to make a hat.

3. I wonder if the Kenco “97% less packaging” coffee pouch can be recycled like the glass jar does? (Sub-question: Is it actually more environmentally friendly, if so, how much?)

Really loving this song at the moment despite the fact that it does remind me a bit of “Wearin’ my Rolex” (Whiley) and “Yeah yeah” (Bodyrox). It’s ok though, as I liked both of those tunes as well :)

And shockingly, I heard the tune before @IHaveaBoomstick did and he is always the one pointing me in the direction of new tunes…

Bring on the summer, festivals, windows open and stereos playing too loud :)

Awesome!

voteshare, originally uploaded by rob78.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last month or two, you’ll have noticed that there was a General Election on Thursday. Before you give up on yet another political blog entry as there must be millions out there, I thought I would share with you the split of the votes cast, in my constituency, as shown in the pie chart above.

The percentages that go with this are as follows:

40.8% Conservative
26.4% Labour
25.3% Liberal Democrat
3.1% UK Independence Party
2.7% British National Party
0.9% Green
0.4% Christian Party
0.4% Independent

What find more than a little bit disturbing here is the BNP turnout – if you type 0.027 (i.e. the decimal value of 2.7%) into a scientific calculator and hit the 1/x button, then you get the reciprocal value of the number. (If you want the explanation of reciprocal numbers, go visit Wiki).

But essentially, what this does is tell how many people voted BNP in my area. And disturbingly it works out at 1 in 37 people. I was in the pub on Friday and there were probably 120 people in there… so statistically three considered that the BNP’s views were the best way to vote. There are a hundred houses in my parent’s road… so that is two or three households. If you count the number of flats in my block and houses in the cul-de-sac, it’s roughly 37… You get the picture.

You’ve probably got your own view on the BNP and it’s not for me to say what anyone should or shouldn’t think, but I find those numbers pretty disturbing. Urgh.

iPad, originally uploaded by rob78.

My blog on an iPad! Kudos to Omar for the pic.

I was going to write something here about why I’m probably never going to buy anything made by Apple, but I’ve heard they’ve shifted something crazy like a million iPads already and you have to give them credit for that, regardless of your opinion.

(I bet it’s really lovely in real life too)

“Sometimes it’s the simple things. The rest of the time it’s usually Star Wars quotes or internet memes”

I made this up about 2 hours ago. Either rightly or wrongly, I think it sums me up pretty well. Thanks to @stepheneyre who led to it turning up in conversation.

rogan josh (mk2), originally uploaded by rob78.

I’ve been wanting to make my own curry for ages, this was my second attempt and I was rather pleased with it. Once you have the spices, the rest is pretty much standard ingredients, which is why I went for it.

Lamb Rogan Josh

Serves 3-4

Ingredients

5 small red, or 2 medium white onions, diced
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
A thumb sized piece of root ginger (about 20g), peeled and finely chopped (fyi: my thumb is 60mm long)
800g diced lamb
2 teaspoons tumeric
6 teaspoons garam masala
4 teaspoons ground coriander
4 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons chili power (I used hot, because that’s how I roll)
1 tin of tomatoes (chopped, or chop them yourself)
142g of double concentrate tomato puree (i.e. one of the little tins)
1 small 150g pot of natural yoghurt
3 chopped spring onions to garnish (completely optional, but I love ‘em)

Method

1. Heat a some vegetable oil in a large saucepan.
2. Add the onions, garlic and ginger; fry until the onion is soft.
3. Add half the spices and stir in well (I measured all the spices into a seperate container first)
4. Add the lamb, stirring in well.
5. Add the rest of the spices and fry the lamb until it is browned.
6. While the heat is still high, add the tinned tomatoes, tomato puree and yoghurt. Stir well, cover and bring to the boil.
7. Reduce to a low heat, uncover and leave to simmer for at least 90 minutes, stirring every 30 minutes.
8. Taste while cooking and add extra chili if required.
9. Check that the meat is tender, serve and sprinkle the spring onions on the top.

Served with

Rice, a can of Stella 4% and a cheese naan (don’t get excited, it’s just a normal one with grated cheddar on the top, but seriously, you should do this).

Verdict

All good. Tasted like I expected a curry to taste like (i.e. what you’d get when you eat out). Was nice and spicy, but not stupidly hot. I got the recipe from here and only made a few changes to get to the above, as it seemed sensible to use a whole can of tomatoes and a whole pot of yoghurt rather than odd amounts.

sniff, originally uploaded by rob78.

I developed hayfever sometime in my early 20′s although I can’t remember exactly when. Regardless of this, it’s always been pretty acute and I feel as if I have tried pretty much all the meds that are out there, including the prescription ones.

Anyway, last year, partly out of desperation and partly out of curiousity, I purchased the little device shown above.

The idea is that you shove the two prongs (probes?) up your nose for three minutes, three times a day and it shines a bright red light up there, which somehow inhibits the productions of histamines, which cause all the soreness and sneezing. Needless to say, I was sceptical (sound the snake-oil alert!), but for the sake of £15 (on offer from £30) it was the same cost as two and a bit prescriptions, or a few weeks of off-the-shelf pills.

And the insane thing? It only bloody works. I noticed results within the first day of using it, and within a less than a week, had consigned all my pills and eye drops to the medicine cupboard. I have no intention of using anything else this year.

Your mileage may vary, but for £15 I have never looked back! (And for anyone suffering, you have my every sympathy – hayfever sucks)