Drive to Work Becomes Plot from Duel (1971)

This image is from the wrong side of the road but shows the road itself. (click for streetview)

Holy Hell! That was a scary moment on the way into work today!

I left the house early, about 6:45am today, five minutes into my drive I come up behind a tanker doing about 40mph. I’m on a long strait which I know well so I move to overtake it. As I’m about half way along the length of the tanker he pulls across lanes; into the one I’m in – the oncoming lane! Not a lane you should cross into anyway, but certainly not if NOT if I’M ALREADY IN IT!

This manoeuvre on the part of the tanker forced two of my wheels up the bank, off the road, foot to the floor, flying through the air followed by a cloud of muddy dust. Obviously I managed to land the car fine or I wouldn’t be here to write this, horrifies me to think that if it had been wet I could have easily ended up in a hedge or if I’d been slower to react I’m pretty sure the car would have rolled. Not worth thinking about really.

I always complained about Stoke’s drivers, and with good reason, but I’ve never seen something like this in Kent before, you expect people to play by the rules, naïve perhaps but I thought people around here knew how to drive.

Below, for your amusement, is the horrible trailer for Spielberg’s first (made for TV) movie, Duel (1971).

Disney & Urination

Last Thursday found me not only going insane but also completing my dissertation (yay!). In the final three days I achieved a grand total of only three hours sleep which found me in a state of panic, sleep deprivation and over caffeination; thanks to a dozen sugar-free redbulls and copious cups of vending-machine coffee. If anyone’s seen the final episode of The Inbetweeners season two they’ll understand the effects of this lifestyle. Anyway, while I’d nipped out for a loo-break Neb helped my word count with a beautiful (though unreferenced) paragraph of work, I imagine only the four of us who were in the room, and suffering from cabin/library-fever, will find it the slightest bit entertaining but at the time it was the funniest thing in the world!

Urination was a key part of the Disney success story, the collected amounts of urine collected from all members of staff during a single year was the equilivant to fifty five five five football melon stadiums. This collection lead to mass profit and established the Disney currency. Times were not always happy for the Urine collectors, the 1974 outbreak of turtle flu directly contaminated supplies for a full fifteen years.

I genuinely considered leaving it in; it seemed to almost fit with my title; “The Disney Company’s Relationship with Control after Walt’s Death”, which is more than the rest of my dissertation did!

Post Grad Movie – Depressingly Apt?

Before you watch this trailer I want to remove any pre-conceptions that just because I’ve blogged it that this film might be any good; it looks exceptionally average. Having said that, watching the start of the trailer in which a girl graduates from university and finds herself unable to find a job and everything seems to go wrong.. yeah.. good old reality!

As a third-year under-grad who’s just taken his final exam and is in the midst of a 10,000-12,000 word dissertation, the day of graduation is looming and the glorious state of our current economic climate does not bode well in terms of employment for someone with half a degree in Marketing and the other in American Studies. Am I really meant to put my career on hold because the banks have been playing with crystal balls and monopoly money? Maybe my university will decide that Keele needs to employ someone to run KUBE as Station Manager alongside the KUBE President.. I dare to dream.

Making Ice FAIL!

One of my flatmates likes a few cubes of ice in her drink and always ensures she has a good supply in the freezer. While she was away last week I thought I’d ensure she had plenty of ice for her return and so made her some. I might have made a slight error in understanding the process, however. See photo for full details; anything look a little odd?

A Beautiful Day at Keele

Yesterday was GORGEOUS! The sun was out and an optimistic (and probably deluded) part of me thinks I might have even picked up a very little bit of a tan. I took my camera out with my girlfriend and took a few hundred shots, a few of which are on flickr. Only problem was that I forgot I’d been playing with my ISO settings so some shots were VERY grainy.. *delete*

Click here for the full set.

Bum-Dialling Prank..

Last week on NAGS we (Nick) invented a new feature based on when you accidentally call someone on your phone when its in your pocket.

Neb went through the show and put together a great little sample which I’m LOVING. I know it’s hard to click the play button on blog posts sometimes (I don’t know why but it always seems risky; what if it’s crap!?) this is well worth it! Satisfaction guaranteed, or your money back!

Direct mp3 link

Squink Does it Again!

You’ll probably remember my excitement when Chris (aka Squink!) designed the new NAGS logo for us on The Nat & Georgie Show, last year. Well, last week I had a very happy surprise when I collected my post and found my brand new, GORGEOUS, Squink! t-shirt (right) had been delivered! As a twitter follower I managed to call dibbs on the very first shirt  which makes me very proud (in a nerdy kinda way). As I write this I think the last medium sized shirt was picked up by Neb but there are still small and large shirts left in his store. If you can fit into one of the remaining shirts I’d suggest there are few better reasons to spend £15.00!

Now I’m off to wash and re-wear my Squink! shirt! :D

NB. That’s not me on the right..

So I’m Not The Only One Who Isn’t Feeling Christmassy

But why? Facebook seems to agree.

I love Christmas; I spend half the year looking forward to Christmas but I feel like it’s not even happening this year. What’s going on world!? Where is my festive cheer!?

You Learn Something New Every Day

So says the old adage, but do you really? By way of an experiment I started a new blog just a little over a week ago called ‘You Learn Something New Every Day’ smart title right? To ensure that I, and anyone else who wants to, does learn something new every day I’m making sure to post something new I’ve learnt on that blog each day for one year. I’m rather enjoying the excuse just to research for the fun of it. Subscribe, read and participate with your thoughts and of course share the new things you learn. Check it out at http://youlearnsomethingneweveryday.wordpress.com and let me know what you think. :)

My Sister the Elf

I don’t usually do ‘personal’ posts but hey, this is just too cute not to share and I promise not to start blogging about my cats any time soon.

Oh my God! How cute is Alice as an elf!? My mum sent this picture (right) to me yesterday, and also to just about every other family member in her address book, mind you; I did almost exactly the same thing.. Turns out she took it from someone’s facebook photos; she’s such a facebook stalker that woman!

I can’t believe that not only has my little sister just turned 18 but she’s also an elf! My big grown up little elf sister is working at Lapland UK this winter, making little kids dreams come true! I read an article about this place last night and there’s an awesome quote:

It’s a magical moment that brings to mind these touching words from Lapland UK’s terms and conditions: “We cannot be liable for any distress or disappointment if any child (or adult) loses his or her belief in Father Christmas.”

Ellie leaves with belief intact – and it takes us just under the hour to get back from Lapland. We’re both happy.

As I’m writing this I just received another email from my mum saying,

The hats have a bell on except a few and if you don’t have a bell, the kids are told you are a naughty elf – Alice was a naughty elf last week (you get given a different hat each time) and also they wear boots with curly toes and yesterday a little girl asked Alice ‘Why do your boots have curly ends?’ Alice said – ‘ To put my curly toes in. Where do you put your curly toes?’ and the little girl said ‘ I DON’T HAVE CURLY TOES!!!!!???!!!’ Haha ha – so funny!!

I think mum might be having trouble letting go of the fact that both of her kids are now adults and is stalking them to make up for it. I do love my family! :)

Thank You, Caroline Martin (Artist)

While she may not have a Wikipedia page as of yet, Caroline Martin is sure to be listed as an Artist when she does in a few years. Recently on her blog Caroline said she was going to be starting an Etsy store to sell some of her artwork; she is a phenomenal artist and so naturally I snapped up a piece of her work as soon as I got the chance and it arrived today! HOORAY! She sent me the most lovely note too which I hope she doesn’t mind me including at the end of this post.

In other exciting news, Caroline has started an art project called ‘Free ART’; and it’s beautifully simple; if you email her with a request and your address she will create a piece of art for you and send it out to you for free! She does this all out of the goodness of her heart so please check out her video to learn more.

Thank you very, very, very, very, much Caroline, I have both my Etsy purchase AND my Vimeo-styled free-art on my wall and I love them both!

If you – dear reader – fancy some free art like that at the top from the lovely Miss Martin then please do contact Caroline (details are in her video) I know it would make her almost as happy as receiving her art work today made me.

Tea, But Not as I Know it

Probably the hardest part of giving up caffeine, for me was giving up coffee but one shouldn’t underestimate the power of a good cup of tea when you need it. I gave up having sugar in my tea last year, though I would allow myself a sugary mug from time to time; that however comes under the banned category of ‘snacking’ in my book, be it decaf or not. Which leaves us with the important question of what to do? Thanks to Ben’s generosity I now have the solution; herbal tea!

Upon my return from work on Friday I discovered a package sitting outside my front door from America, within I found a foil bag of herbal tea and a note:

“Georgie,

I know you said you thought you’d drink some green tea, but here is some herbal tea that we really like. Katie doesn’t normally drink tea, but she really likes this. It’s called Evening in Missoula. It has chamomile, rosehips, raspberry, papaya, peppermint, spearmint, strawberry leaf, vanilla, passion flower, red clover, star anise, and wild cherry bark. Lots of wonderful things. Yes, this is a lot of tea. I didn’t realize how much 4 ounces was. Hopefully you like it and it helps you with your kicking the caffeine (and doesn’t drive you back to it :) ). If not, hopefully you can find someone that will drink it.

Enjoy!

Ben & Katie”

How lovely is that?! Thank you both SO so much, for the tea, and also for writing the very blog which made me want to start blogging again; b&k m online really is a terrific blog and I highly recommend giving it a read. But lets get down to the topic at hand; tea.

Damn this is good tea! When I first opened the bag there was an overwhelming smell of mintyness; and I’ll be honest, I was struck by fear; was I going to end up drinking a mug of hot mouth wash? Well, I am glad to report that no, I didn’t. It turns out that when you combine these 12 flavours you are rewarded with an absolutely magnificent cup of tea. I really enjoyed the mug I drank about two hours ago and I’m going to make myself another now. I’ve had green tea before, which I liked but now I’m struck with the urge to try all sorts of other herbal teas too. Hoorah for tea and hoorah for sharing!