Photo from a trip to the beach

Kitesurfing a photo by Spacmonster on Flickr.

Kitesurfing looks like fun, this guy was flying up and down in the shallows jumping waves and generally having a good time.

I was dry and relatively warm (was v windy) on the shore though.

Snow in Guernsey

Snow in Guernsey
Originally uploaded by Spacmonster

I actually picked some tomatoes at the weekend. Which is odd given that the garden looked like this.

Still, a bit of ice is supposed to be good for purple sprouting broccoli, which is what we've got in at the moment...

Poh-tay-toes

Poh-tay-toes
Originally uploaded by Spacmonster

We've been eating salad, spinach and cabbage for a while. But the first potatoes were ready this week. And they are delicious.

Next - courgettes!

Cutesy Serenity Genius

Love this. Absolutely top brilliant awesome.

Belongs to Joe Spiotto.

Growing stuff and things

So the raised beds are in, various planters are made and filled with soil and other nice things, and we are now growing a whole bunch of stuff and things in our garden.

A rough list:

• Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Green beans
• Augbergines
• Courgettes
• Rosemary
• Thyme
• Basil
• Coriander
• Lettuce
• Spinach
• Strawberries
• Chillies
• Rocket
• Chives
  

We're making it up as we go along a little bit, but it is still nice to have stuff in there.

Ran out of room in the raised beds so had to make some planters out of things.

Oh - and we re-painted a wall so everything looks nice...

Next, adding a new barbecue!

Raised beds, stage two

Fill em up
Originally uploaded by Spacmonster

Here they are then, ready to be filled up. We successfully sunk them below the level of the gravel and started the process of filling them with a mix of compost and tompsoil.

The method?

Mark out the holes and dig them (a foot deep for our fence posts).

Attempt to put frame into holes. Realise holes are in wrong place. Make them even bigger.

Fit frame into holes. Realise that frame still doesn't quite fit. Scrape the holes around the posts bigger until they almost fit.

Give up and whack the whole thing with the heavy end of a pick axe until it is level!

Fill with soil.

Rub back!

More Star Wars goodness

I may be turning 30 this year (shhhhh.)

But lego still features pretty heavily in my wishlists.

And now this:Must. Have.

Star Wars Figures

Got, got, got... need.

Ah happy days. Remember when 77 varieties of action figure was a lot.

Click for bigger.

Nowadays I expect a pokemon collection (or bakugan or whatever) doesn't really get going until you have 77 toys.

Anyway, Princess Leia dressed as a bounty hunter, I still regret burying you in the sand at Albecq. One day I'll find you again...

Piccie nabbed from the Super Fun Blog.

Making some raised beds at Le Braconnier Cottage

Almost there
Originally uploaded by Spacmonster

Major project time, we're making some raised beds in the garden to grow some veg..

The basic idea is to use the bit at the end of the garden, which gets a fair bit of light in the afternoon. Also means that we can put off digging up the patio for a while!

Our design was fool proof - gravel boards and fence posts screwed together into two boxes (joined together in the middle).

All we have to do now is dig the post holes and find some compost and top soil and we are away!

Big question is what to grow first - after our efforts last year in the greenhouse we have a surplus of borlotti beans, so I think we are going to concentrate on green beans, herbs and salad for the time being.

More pictures of this epic construction project...

Prints for the Lounge

House decoration is very nearly done. So much so that rather than thinking about tearing down wallpaper and filling holes or making things out of wood and other things, we're now thinking about putting up pictures.

So I made some art for the lounge, we have a green theme going on, so some trees were in order.

This one is from closer to home - the Bluebell Woods:


And this one is from a bit further afield - the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia.

Up Red Creek in the Dolly Sods Wilderness, to be precise.

Did these in photoshop based on some of my photos, just ran them through the 'by numbers' filter a few times until they looked cool.

You can see the rest of our decoration efforts on Flickr...

Cocktails!

The scene - new year's eve. The place - my kitchen. The ingredients, half a bottle of ameretto liqueur and some cherry coke.

A cocktail, thinks I, harnessing the power of almonds and cherries....

To recreate my moment of clarity - here is how to do it...

Fill a tall glass with ice. Add a couple of maraschino cherries (and some syrup from the jar), next, chuck in a good double measure of ameretto.

Top up with Cherry Coke.

I call it a Bakewell Tart.


Piccie - Tarts by pikaluk.

Endings

Not mine, obviously - but these:



Are great. I particularly like 'EAGLES'. For obvious reasons.

Dresden Codak.

Via Boing Boing

Star Wars Awesome

Artists, comic book creators, toy designers, and celebrity fans are getting out their markers, paint brushes and glue guns to transform blank Mighty Muggs into one-of-a-kind Star Wars art to be auctioned by The Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Seriously, seriously cool...

I was in a race

Keeping my weight down
Originally uploaded by Spacmonster

I was in a sailing race, from Jersey to Guernsey. We came 4th. As you can see from the pic, much of this was due to my amazing weight distribution skills. I lay there for hours!

For more details on my sailing adventures you need to head over to the blog of the good ship Blue J'Ade.

That is all.

10,000 g's

So - I passed 10,000 gamerscore points on my beloved xbox. That's a pretty decent return I think. Of course, looking at my achievements, I've got around 2,000 of those from Oblivion and Fallout 3 combined...

Don't tend to get many achievements in sporting games, as I tend to play one team, for a whole season - case in point Madden 09, my Steelers team need one more win to make the playoffs, but it means I haven't mined all the achievements for 'running 200 yds in one game with McGahee', as I never play as the Ravens. Same for FIFA 08, I've no interest in playing the same game over and over again in order to complete 15 tackles without conceding a corner. I'd rather guide the Saints* to European Glory.

Mostly, I get achievements for finishing games, my favourites, Oblivion, Fallout 3 (just downloaded the Pitt - going to see what happened to Heinz Field), Mass Effect, Call of Duty 4 and Viva Pinata.

Here is me and my xbox...

* Don't laugh!

One Third of a Triathlon

And only a novice one at that...

8 miles (and only one serious climb). Feeling pretty chipper. Old commute to work in London was 7 and a bit miles, so this shouldn't be too taxing. The hill (Rouge Rue) is a steep one though, and it is right at the end, so will probably be ready to collapse after that one...

Here is the course:


View Larger Map

Glad I'm not swimmin and running as well. Sort of.

Fallout 3 (or, as expected, OCD in disk form)

I'm addicted again. Along with the 150plus hours I spent playing Oblivion, a fair few of which was spent arranging my magical swords and armour in my castle, I've got the collecting bug again. Fallout 3 is simply brilliant (also broken in many ways, but we'll ignore most of that) and has me traipsing around another online world collecting things.

(spoilers ahead - maybe)

I've played through once, saved the world and all that, so now starts the serious business of finding things, unique items, sets of armour and so on. Luckily (or perhaps not) the game is full of easter eggs, like the Rube Goldberg machine, the crashed alien spaceship and the dog to keep me going.

Having played through as goody two shoes (no really, someone in the game called me that), it seems to be much easier to just kill everyone and steal all the cool stuff, so that is what I am doing currently.

Still, I wince occasionally when I make it back to my flat in Tenpenny tower and look at all the loot I've accumulated (I've arranged it on the shelves...).

Ah well.

Books Etc...

I have a weakness. Tis well known by anyone that has seen my collection (and the two sets of removal men who have recently had to shift the whole lot across the channel.)

I like books.

Specifically, buying and owning books and keeping them on shelves in series order. Wheel of Time, 1-11, Farseer / LiveShip / Tawny Man Trilogies and so on.

Imagine my reaction then, when cycling down a lane this afternoon to stumble across this:

Picked up Children of Hurin for a very reasonable 50p (and also something by David Gemmell, as I only had a pound note* on me).

So I shall likely be in trouble, after all, my books are all currently in boxes as I have nowhere to put them, and I'm just adding to the problem. Oh well.

* Another good thing about Guernsey - pound notes, none of that heavy coinage round here thank you!

Unemployed!

Momentous day today. I'm not at work. I am in fact at home. And currently, I have no definite plans to return to work*.

There's an entirely rational explanation for this of course, Mrs Spacmonster and I are moving to Guernsey (my ancestral home and all that) and me being me, I don't have a job to go to. So, whilst the missus is busy working away already, earning a crust to support me in my joblessness, I'm still in London, packing up the flat.

Course, getting all of our gear into movable order, is pretty much the hardest day's work I've had in a while, in fact probably since the last time we moved house, and I haven't even had to move the giant piece of slate yet.

Still - I had time to do this, and I've nearly finished The Force Unleashed so it's not all bad...

* I am looking for a job. Honest.

What type of Gamer am I?

Apparently, according to www.mygamemug.com I am a Helping Hand. It says a lot (generally nice) things about me based on the answers I gave to about 30 questions.

Not sure I agree with all of it though. Seems to suggest I don't like FPS's. And that if I did end up playing one on line, I'd probably be all helpful and supportive. Course, anyone that's seen me play Call of Duty will know that I tend to charge screaming at the opposition as soon as the game starts - usually getting myself very killed in the process.

But - then again, perhaps Brigadier General Spacmonster's tendency to get himself killed very often because he's not watching where he's going very carefully means that I don't take the game at its competitive value, for me, it's fun, and if TrickyWooToo kills me 3 or 4 times in a row because I keep running at his hiding place (becuase I know he's there see...) before I figure out how to get him, it doesn't bother me.

So anyway perhaps it's not %100 reliable.


The Helping Hand

Deliberate Sociable Fun Veteran (DSFV)
Generous, helpful, kind...a few of many positive attributes people see in you, the Helping Hand. Nothing satisfies you more than helping your teammates or friends out in all the games that you play. You may even look to assist people in some cases if there is no one around asking for help. In fact, the enjoyment that you receive from helping people rivals that of solving a puzzle, winning a battle, or achieving a hard objective in a game.

Heavily social intensive games tend to be what you enjoy the most although you can probably find something to take pleasure in with most games. For instance, if you happen to find yourself in a competitive first person shooter, you'd probably take the support class. We recommend you stick to games (and crowds!) where people will appreciate you more; these include more casual gamers seeking fun and excitement from games rather than the serious competitive ones.