After the mega-fail attempt to buy a TV on Boxing Day and the Electronics Store not having the choice of TVs I thought they would I finally picked it up from Tesco. I’ve been looking at the display models over there since the end of October.

Or it was, but it still is. If that makes sense!

I went down to the electronics store to buy a TV today. Unfortunately I couldn’t find what I was looking for (read: they were too damned expensive!) so we went to wait for a bus at Warrior Square. Opposite this bus stop is a Memorial for Queen Victoria, which today (and probably for the last few weeks) was donning a Christmas hat. It was pretty amusing to see, so I snapped a few pics with my mobile. What makes it amusing is it’s a nice change for the Traffic Cone she’s wearing all year round.

This entry is more for my own reference, but by all means keep reading if you’re interested…

I developed a problem on Windows 7 where I was being prevented from right-clicking on pinned items on the taskbar, this further extended to selecting certain options in the start menu and applications such as Photoshop. Another symptom of this was the top bar of the window flickering, like a key was being held down on the keyboard. I did the following to try and remedy this:

- Rebooted (natch)
- Checked all keys on the keyboard, even unplugged the keyboard – the problem still persisted.
- Created a new account to see if the problem continued, it did.
- Restored my PC back to 24th December before this issue occurred.

After reading around and finding nothing I tried something else and it worked.

NOTE TO SELF: UNPLUG THE GOD DAMN MEMORY STICK WHEN I’M FINISHED.

I’ve just gotten back from my Nan’s house. Turkey was eaten, alchohol was consumed, Pokémon was played and the grim Christmas Day episodes of Eastenders and Coronation Street were watched – despite the fact I don’t watch either throughout the year.

I decided it was time to go when The Royale Family came on. When I came in I checked the TV listings and noticed that BBC1 has the following back-to-back, The Royale Family, Gavin & Stacey and then Catherine Tate. C’mon! It’s meant to be Christmas, not a taster day for hell! The bright side though is Speed is on later on tonight, though I may pass because I was meant to be watching Die Hard when I got in last night, but in the end I got sleepy and ended up falling asleep for around three hours!

Anyway here’s my Christmas presents haul this year.

3rd Generation iPod Touch 32GB
Bluray Drive (PC)
Borderlands (PC)
New Super Mario Bros (Wii)
Family Guy Season 8 (DVD)
Robot Chicken Season 1 (DVD)
Robot Chicken Season 2 (DVD)
Tin of Roses
Pyjamas
T-Shirts

Hope you guys are having a good one, I’m currently sitting here syncing my iPod Touch 32GB for the first time. I’ve also managed to make myself a strong snowball – more advocaat than Lemonade, it was an accident. :\ Not really up for spirits at this time in the morning.

I’m off to my Nan’s at 1:30 for Christmas dinner, w00t!

Thanks to the the recent Speed Gamers Pokémon Marathon I have been in the mood to play Pokémon, the last time I played the series properly was Pokémon Sapphire in 2003, in which I managed to get a free legit copy before release. This year is also the 10th Anniversary of my absolute addiction to Pokémon Blue. Playing Pokémon against the guys in Sixth Form, now those were the days!

Anyway my copy of Pokémon Platinum came today and its brought back all of those good memories! It’s an excellent little game so far and the DS seems more suited for it than the original Gameboy did. Managing your inventory on the touchscreen makes life so much easier. I’ve been playing for an hour and a half now and I haven’t seen a single Pokémon from the original yet… then again their numbers have risen to 490-odd from the 151 in the originals.

I’ve got to catch me a Pikachu! Team Rocket 4 Life, yo!

Just doing yet more tidying in the room. It’s at times like this I wonder whose dumbassed idea it was to put a 96 litre tropical fish tank upstairs. Then I come to the stark realisation it was mine. FML.

It’s that time of year when for the entire duration of December (and late November) that you hear wusses from around the globe declare “it’s not Christmas until the Coca Cola ad has been on”. I call bullshit on this one, an ad does not dictate when Christmas starts for me. No! For Christmas does not start until I’ve seen Die Hard AKA the BEST GODDAMNED CHRISTMAS MOVIE EVER!

Yeah, you know the one, its the movie where a single cop (Bruce Willis) gets caught up in a terrorist takeover of a 40-story building. It’s NOT Christmas when the Coca Cola ad plays. But you know that part of the movie where John McClane has a scuffle with the nerdy looking German guy? They eventually fall down the stairs, breaking the guys neck in the process. Yeah? Then John sends the guy’s dead body down the elevator wearing a Christmas hat with “Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho.” scribbled on his shirt? THAT’S when Christmas truly starts!

I’m a bit disappointed that it won’t be on Terrestrial TV in the run-up to Christmas, so I guess I’ll put the DVD in sometime before Christmas Eve.

In my house we have a cellar and as the years have passed by its seen much less use. Once upon a time we used to store tinned food and bottled drinks down there as there was nowhere else to put them. Needless to say we’ve become more lazy and the dining room has paid for that. After much pressure we are now using the cellar for this purpose once again, mainly because I’m tired of tripping over boxes of cider and tins each day when grabbing my bag and coat for work!

FUN FACT NO.1 – My house is on a stream, which means there’s an open hole full of water down there. Back in July we had some heavy rain and due to some toolbox throwing rubbish into the stream it blocked which overloaded our pump. Within minutes the cellar was five foot under water.

Click through for the pics.

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