Odd Thomas Odd Blog

For at least a week now, I have been intending to write a post about all the crappy goings on but have been having trouble finding the words - not normally a problem, going by the length of some of my posts! However, I shall skip over the specifics of the car insurance people who screwed up my payment and the customer who put not only stuck the knife in but also twisted it for good measure*, and sum it all up with this: Idiots, the lot of 'em!! I would call them muppets but that would be a disservice to Muppets. Whilst I still have to deal with all that crap, I can now do so with a grin - which might make me look a little insane but if it helps, so be it. On Monday, I went to the Castle Combe race circuit with my cousin and took around 166 photos - not the most I've ever taken there, to be honest. Out of that little bundle, there were around half-a-dozen that I felt I could work with, one of which was of the gorgeous Morgan Aero . Unfortunately, the image itself was a little l...

Once again, time has run away with me ... not so much to spend eternity with me as to dump me in the middle of nowhere and run away into the night, laughing like a disturbed seaside attraction . Okay, the disturbed laughter was actually me whilst spending every evening last week watching all twenty-four episodes of Boston Legal, season 3 , so apologies to the neighbours for the late night cackling ... and apologies to any ladies out there that may end up suffering my interpretation of Alan Shore's approach to pulling! Whilst they can all tell me where to disappear to, my colleague in the drama group isn't going to have much of a say as she has to kiss me in the next production. Poor soul. Last week, we were psyching ourselves up for kissing for the first time, both as nervous as the other and both giggling like kids: I even made sure I had a shave on the day and had a packet of mints to hand, just in case. As it turned out, all that prep wasn't required as she had a migra...

I was supposed to be heading out for a run tonight but, as is usual, I was distracted by yet another Smashing Magazine post that had some tutorials I thought I would try out. Being a bit of a sci-fi fan ... and somewhat lacking in artistic talent ... I tend to marvel at some of the artwork that people create and wonder at how they did it. I know that there are numerous tutorials tucked away in every corner of the net and I have tried them before, but never with much success. However, yesterday's post filled with 50 Photoshop Tutorials for Sky and Space Effects , got me thinking I should have another crack at it, so I thought I would try out the second one down, the Space and Planet Tutorial . So, how did it turn out? Well, this was the target image... Image from Free Photoshop Downloads ...and this was my attempt... Hmmm, a tad over-zealous with the lighting and Clark Kent colours!

In the last series of Doctor Who , the biggest question of the series was: why is Billie Piper talking like that? Well, after this week, I think I might have a clue At some point over the weekend, I succeeded in biting one side of my tongue, right at the back.  I'm not sure what kind of oral gymnastics I was performing to achieve this but I suspect it was when I was doing my usual trick of bolting food down my gullet - unfortunately for all of us, nothing more interesting than that! The result of this meaty encounter has left me talking in much the same way as Billie as I try not to clamp my gnashers on my half-swollen tongue ... only with a deeper voice, of course. As if to add insult to injury, my body has taken this little incident as a cue to start producing excessive amounts of saliva, so not only am I speaking like a failed ventriloquist but I am also on the verge of dribbling over people like our little Alien friend here... Image from www.best-horror-movies.com ...and getti...

I have never deemed myself a particularly scary person but it seems that I have an unnatural talent for unintentionally frightening people. I say unintentionally because if I make the effort to scare someone, it doesn't work - they seem to be more aware of me if I sneak up on them than if I just casually walk up to them and start talking. A case in point is Helen, a young* lady I used to work with who had an equally unnatural talent for making me pass wind when she thumped me: consider it a defence mechanism!! If ever I tried to sneak up on her it seemed that whatever radar was installed in her head made her turn around: you could almost see the moment the 'ping' went off. If I just wandered in and sat on her desk to wait for her to finish what she was doing, there would be no 'ping' moment, so seeing me filling up the space behind her would result in a series of expletives and reactions that would invariably result in a thump. My Mum is the same ... barring the t...

Reading Foshie's blog today, I thought I would go and check out this airship jobbie - something I wouldn't mind trying out for myself ... credit card allowing. At least, I would have gone to check it out if the tech numpties had been on the ball: So, any guesses as to what message I should have got?? I'm guessing the naming of this server is not a coincidence considering Eris is the Greek Goddess of strife and discord!

Ever since I passed my driving test last Millenium*, I have always made sure that I have carried my license around with me in case I get pulled over. For the first twelve years, my license remained in pristine condition as it hibernated in my cash box for eleven-and-a-half of those years! Then, back in 2000, I bought my first car - which I am still driving today - and my license found a new home in my back pocket, where it was subjected to all kinds of abuse from being sat on to enduring the heat generated by a little salsa dancing. People always said to me that I need not carry it around as it was unlikely I would get pulled over. Being the kind of nervous person I am, that didn't stop me worrying about it. Fast forward to last Thursday and it finally happened. I had been allowed out of rehearsals a little earlier, so headed to my mate's to play PS3 for a bit as I have still to get one of my own. As is normal with gaming, things went on a little longer than expected so I di...