Ikea by night

Another day, another trip to Ikea.

We went to Ikea again last night, as it didnt close till 10pm. That was probably my quickest ever trip, although I was pretty much dragging and pushing Viv through. We've decided to get the 3 shelves we were going for, they'll fit nicely across one end of our living room. Or they will do once I 'edit' them by sawing off about 10cms from one of them.

We're also gonna have to get the shorter version the bedroom cupboards we wanted, as our bedroom is too short by exactly 1cm. Oh well, we'll have space on top of the cupboards to put crap on instead!

Getting our 3 sets of shelves home was fun, bear in mind we only have a Fiat Punto (Very small car) and we were transporting 2m long shelves. We managed to squeeze them in though, with Viv sat behind me in the back and all the chairs down one side of the car laid back as far as they will go. We got a few other things as well, which weighed down the car quite badly. It was a 40 minute trip home, via Tescos, and we still got home in time to get all the stuff up stairs, tune in our TV and watch House. Ace :)

Oh yeah, It's my birthday tomorrow, I'll be 24!

Chopped Tomatoes Anyone?

Last night we got home from work just as the Tescos delivery man got there.

Viv's Mum was going to give us money for furniture, or something like that, but instead Viv suggested she go online and order us a load of stuff from Tescos. Viv's Mum is in Mexico, which is why she can't give us anything directly. Viv also mentioned the huge 28" TV that was on sale that we wanted, Viv's Mum said she couldn't find it on the website or she would have bought it for us. I should have taken this as a hint to just how much she was going to spend...

£247!!!

Now I shouldn't need to tell you that's a lot of shopping! We spent 2 hours unloading stuff from the van, taking it all upstairs and then putting it all away. Our corridor was full of bags, or kitchen is now packed, our fridge and freezer are bulging, all our cupboards are full. It's amazing! It's a fantastic birthday present. Plus she bought us a bunch of stuff we never would have bought ourselves, we have proper cooking stuff, like herbs and spices. She also got us cleaning stuff, like bleach, ironing and washing stuff, and loads of cleaning products, like cloths and sponges, it must have saved us a fortune!

So a big Thank You to Anita!!!

Although we will have to go and buy loads of 'Chicken Tonight', it's on buy one get one free and I'm lazy like that :P

We're In!

We have moved in! WOOOOOOOO!

It took ages though. Me and Viv both had the day off on Monday, so we could move all of our stuff into the flat once we had our keys. The trouble was, we were supposed to get our keys at about 12, while really it took until 3 to get everything sorted. Then we went to our flat and got talked through stuff for an hour before we could start moving stuff in.

My Dad helped us once we got back from work, transporting the bits of our new IKEA bed and some mattresses we were borrowing, as well as our chairs we'd been given by friends. The 3 seater sofa was a nightmare to get in to the living room! Once we'd got everything into the flat we hurried off for a takeaway before the Dudes started showing up to see the flat.

Finally we collapsed onto our mattresses on the floor, as we didnt have time to make the bed, and Viv was asleep before I had finished setting some alarms for the next day.

Yesterday we got up early, sorted ourselves out, left a key for the builders to fit our washing machine and then left for work. The builders were kindly fitting our washing machine out of the goodness of their hearts as they really didn't have to, we're gonna have to get them something to say thanks later as they've been great so far.

When we got home in the evening we cooked pizzas quickly, then went round to my parents to use the internet, I can't wait till we have our own. When we got home we sorted a few boxes and then spent the rest of the night making the bed. It was easy to assemble, but hard work and some of the bits were impossible to put together, so we improvised. By the time we'd finished that it was late and time for bed again. Lots more still to do!

Zelda on the DS!

Thanks to Kotadu I have found this amazing video of the only just announced Zelda game for the DS, how sweet does this look? It looks somewhere between a cross of the GameCube Wind Walker and old style SNES Zelda. It looks great though, with the touch screen apparently in use quite a lot of the time.

Check out the video

I seriously think that the DS is the most exciting bit of hardware I've owned for quite sometime. I am genuinely excited about most of the games I hear about, and for once I have such a long list of games I want. Plus I've now clocked over 70 hours on Advance Wars:DS. Games like Animal Crossing, Metroid Prime: Hunters, Tetris DS, Nintendogs, Zelda, Viewtiful Joe, Age of Empires, I can't wait to try out! If only I had more money and time :(

I'm sure they could sneak Final Fantasy VII onto the DS, although it took about 3 or 4 PlayStation disks to hold. What I'd really love to see though would be a Monkey Island or StarCraft DS, that would be so cool!

Update: Theres a better quality Zelda video here at IGN.com

Song Title Questions

I saw this on blogography and thought it was quite interesting. You answer the questions using the song titles from a particular band. Now in order to give yourself a chance I'd recommend an older band, with a couple of albums, otherwise it's gonna be well hard.

I chose Green Day, because I really like them and they have quite a few albums to choose from and a wide range of titles. I could also have gone for The Offspring, another favourite band, but I thought of Green Day first. So here goes:

1. Are you male or female?
"No One Knows"

2. Describe yourself:
"Dominated Love Slave"

3. How do some people feel about you:
"Best Thing In Town"

4. How do you feel about yourself:
"Welcome to Paradise"

5. Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend:
"2,000 Light Years Away" or "F.O.D. (Fuck Off and Die)"

6. Describe your current significant other:
"The One That I Want" or "Stuck With Me" or "Extraordinary Girl"

7. Describe where you want to be:
"Having a Blast"

8. Describe how you live:
"Blood, Sex, and Booze"

9. Describe how you love:
"Panic Song" or "All the Time"

10. What would you ask for if you had just one wish:
"Sweet Children" or "King for a Day" or "I Wanna Be On TV" or "Holiday"

11. Share a few words of wisdom:
"Nice Guys Finish Last"
and "Ha Ha You're Dead"

12. Now say goodbye:
"Good Riddance"

A Random Enemy Encounter

For those of you who have ever played a Final Fantasy game, you should know all about random enemy encounters. My first Final Fantasy game was Final Fantasy VII, probably the best ever of the series. I got it one christmas when I was younger, along with my brand new PlayStation, it was amazing. I love RPGs anyway and this game had amazing graphics (for it's time) and a huge world spanning story that covered a huge amount of ground and characters. Plus it went all weird and psychological near the end, making it a real trip for a young gamer who had never seen anything like it before.

The whole game took me about 25 hours to complete, and you spend most of your time fighting random enemy encounters. Obviously the guys who have made this video also spent a lot of time playing the game, and put a lot of effort into making it. The video features a real live random encounter, recreated for the camera. Enjoy.

On a side note, Final Fantasy: Advent Children is finally released in the UK on the 24th of April! This totally CGI film is based on the Final Fantasy VII game, taking over where the game ends. It looks amazing! It's a shame I don't have tiome to play the games again to remind myself of the story.

Moving Issues

It was just a matter of time until our finely tuned plan for moving from my parents house to our own flat encountered a few bumps. This bump is not a tragedy, but will be pretty inconvienient. The storage guy who has most of my stuff from uni, and a lot of Viv's stuff from her old house won't be able to deliver it until the 3rd April. We were supposed to be moving in on the 27th, next Monday. We have that Monday off and I was looking forward to getting everything sorted. Now I'm gonna have to take another day off to hang around and collect that stuff.

While the extra time for unpacking will no doubt be appreciated, it's still gonna suck, I lose a days holiday and we have to 'make do' for a week, rather than getting everything at once.

On a slightly lighter note, in preparation for another trip to IKEA, I discovered this IKEA Survival Guide, giving you a complete walkthrough to the IKEA game and exact instrustions on how to successfully complete your trip.

We went to IKEA last Sunday and found a bunch of shelves, cupboards and assorted goodies we'd like, we didn't buy anything, but we know it's there. Luckily we didn't need any kitchen or living room chairs, so I managed to skip those sections, making the trip alot less longer and less traumatic. IKEA on a Sunday with any kind of hangover is pretty much suicide, and several small children, old women and ignorant trolley pushers nearly lost their lives, and if that bedside table leg had been a bit sharper and quicker to come loose they would have.

But I have to admit at the beginning I totally succumbed to the Ikea Nesting Instinct, declaring that my entire house could be coated with IKEA flavoured loveliness, before I got bored and couldn't be bothered to look around anymore. I just wanted a 75p Hotdog.

Our Flat

We finally got to see our new flat today, it's just about finished. Well it had damn well better be finished by Monday as that's when we're moving in! We got to inspect it and check that everything looked OK. The carpets still weren't down, but that looked like pretty much all that was left.

We've been told by all the people we see relating to our house that everyone moving into the building is 'Young and Hip', I'm not really sure what that all means, but I don't think it'll mean alot of complaints about noise, thank god. Perhaps we'll have to rename the houses to something more young and happening. Unfortunately I can't think of anything right now and it's time to go home! I got in really late for work as our showing was delayed, so I'm working late tonight and tomorrow, so no gym! At least some good has come of this :)

Leeroy!

This is a really old video, but I first saw it when I was at uni and World of Warcraft first came out. I got pretty in to World of Warcraft, I used to play all the old games and had been following it's development. I really liked it, my only problem is it's aimed at groups and not really suited to individual play, and as none of my mates at uni played I had to make do. Eventually this got boring and I stopped playing, getting into Counter Strike: Source instead, before moving home and not being able to play online AT ALL. That's quite a break when you used to play around 6-14 hours a day.

Anyway, any online gamer will appreciate this video, hosted courtesy of albinoblacksheep.com, it's pretty funny.

Pfft, n00b

Places I've been

After seeing this on Used Hack I decided to do my own, mainly as I have nothing better to do.



create your own visited states map

As you can see it's not too impressive. I'm not even sure the Texas one counts, I was only there for a few hours as a stop over on my way to Canada, and I never even left the Airport. Although it was a bit of a weird stop, it's not exactly on the way from New York to Vancouver is it? And my ski jacket was not appropriate clothing for the 35 degree celsius heat! A bit better would be my visited countries, even though it's still gonna be pretty empty:



create your own visited countries map

Yeah it looks kind of localised when you see it like that... Although I am proud to say I've been to more countries than most people, who normally just get to go to the UK and perhaps Ibiza or Malaga. I really should head a bit more East though, I'm sure doing the standard 'Around the World' crap that really just means heading round the orient a bit, namely Thailand, China, Japan and Australia would be good. That's not exactly 'Around the World' is it? What happened to Africa and South America, are they not good enough? Do they not have enough Culture?

Further evidence that I am in fact the anti-christ:

You Are 90% Evil

You're the most evil person you know. The devil is even a little scared of you!

How Evil Are You?

See, even the Devil is a bit scared of me! Everyone should be a little scared of me...

Snow Day, or it would be...

If I was a kid, I wouldn't have had to walk through the snow today to get to the train station. I'd have been able to sit at home and play on my new PS2, with Shadow of the Colossus or The Warriors. But instead I had to trek to the Bus Stop, and then get bored on the bus and get off and walk, praying that trains would be cancelled, but they weren't. So I was an hour late for work. I wish I was a kid again, or worked from home...

Why is it that people turn into retards when the Snow starts? My sisters car got hit this morning on her way to work, as the woman behind her had tansformed into a spastic and forgotten how to drive. My sister was fine, unluckily the woman who hit her was also fine.

Following on from the further Chuck Norris post yesterday, I now bring you The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny courtesy of Weebl Stuff, I'd also recommend Magical Trevor for those who havent seen it.

I feel that Shadow of the Colossus deserves it's own post, it's a great game, I've never played or seen anything that looks or plays quite as well it does. And I haven't wanted to play a game so much in quite some time! But I think I'll save a full post until I've finished it.

For Chuck Norris fact fans!

Here is a real video of the real live Chuck Norris, reading out some of the popular facts about himself.

It's funny stuff

Now if only they could get Mr T., Vin Diesel and Chuck Norris all together in the same room and get them to read out their favourite facts about themselves, then get them all to fight, to see who was the best!

The Island

Not only is this a reference to the film, it's also about MORE LOST!

On Monday me and Viv watched 3 more episodes of Lost, it's brilliant! We're now up to episode 12, and it was a much better episode to leave it on, rather than the 'I can't wait over a month to see the next episode!' point it was at at the end of episode 9.

Last night I watched The Island, I can see why it didnt do that well at the cinema, while it is big and pretty, with very nice effects and big things blowing up and falling on other things, which then blow up as well, it also has Scarlett Johansson. Which is a great excuse for me to put another picture of her on my blog. It wasn't a terrible film, and I could probably watch it again without getting bored, plus it had some great little lines in it, but for the amount it cost, it really isnt going to win any awards, or be a classic. It's was just average.

Sweet Jesus

I was originally only going to post one video, but with a number of topics floating through my head, this seemed like a more appropriate title.

First off, this video, wtf? I know it's Saturday Night Live and all, but that's just too weird. Funny though.

Secondly, how heavy would you guess an elephant is? I think I guessed about 4,000lbs, that's about 2 tons, seems a reasonable guess to me. But no! Did you know that an elephant is around 14,000lbs? That seems a little extreme doesn't it? 7 tons? A little survey here shows what people thought an elephant weighed. At least I'm not alone!

And finally, how much do I envy this man? Although women will have to tell me if that's acceptable or not, even if he is gay, would you really let him touch you up? Surely he deserves a slap for that? I should start pretending to be gay. It'll totally be worth it...

Lost - Season 2

Oh. My. God.

Viv recently received the first 9 episodes of the second season and over the weekend we watched all 9. I'll try not to give anything away to anyone who may be reading this...

It's amazing! Fantastic! Wonderful! Brilliant! Stupendous! And lots more similar words!

If you don't watch the series, start now, but you have to start from the beginning. It's one of the best excuses to own a TV I can think of, and was the only series (other than House) that me and Viv watched religiously. It constantly leaves you with cliff hangers and gives you so much background about each of the characters, they all have a story, and they are all interesting. Your always guessing whats going to happen next, and most of the time your wrong.

Everyone who watches has their own theory about what the series is about, are they all dead and in purgatory? Have they been abducted by aliens and put on a fake island? Is this a secret government research centre that could destroy the world? But we've only been given a few clues so far and they havent answered a lot.

On the good side, the second series does answer a lot of questions, but also gives you a few more, well lots more really. But I've loved every new mystery and marvelled at the twists and connections in the story and back history of each character. This is really is one of the best written shows I have ever seen. Amazing...

Plus: Viv's just been given the next 3 episodes as wel, so we now have up to Episode 12! I can't wait till tonight!

Check out this picture!

We have a date!

To be honest it's a guestimate really, but we've been told we may be able to move in on the 27th of March! This is excellent! For a number of reasons:

1. It's fairly soon
2. I can now start planning my life beyond just saying 'when we move in'
3. It's after pay-day, so we may actually be able to eat once we move in!

Also we're getting Sarah & Glen's old furniture this weekend, so we'll actually have it before we move in, rather than in July like we thought. This has provided a small problem in the form of 'where are we going to put it' but my parents have said it's fine to leave it clogging up the living room until we move in. This has come about because Sarah & Glen are getting new furniture on Monday, instead of arounf their wedding, so they obviously need the space.

So no more sitting on camping chairs for us then! :D

How to fold a shirt

This video is pretty old, but it's absolutely brilliant. I was a bit confused as to how it worked to begin with, but then I actually tried it and it changed my life forever! Only kidding, but it did make my t-shirt shelf look a lot neater...

See for yourself

I'm the Juggernaut, Bitch!

This is a pretty funny video, for anyone who likes X-men, in fact it's pretty funny anyway.

Check this out

It's an old cartoon that features a couple of X-Men with Juggernaut delivering an ass whooping, but with a new voice over on it. It's well worth taking a look at :)

My Eyes are red with passion

Not really, they're just red. I don't know whats wrong with them but they turned this colour about Friday. I thought it wasn't that big a deal, but it isn't really going away so I'm getting a bit more worried about it now.

I got some stuff off my sister yesterday to put in them, and Viv said today they look a bit better, if it hasn't cleared up by the weekend, I'll go to the doctors next week. They aren't really annoying, or feeling any different, they're just not very nice to look at...