The Life and Times of Marcus P.

It’s felt like a very long week, even though in reality it was only 3 days long! So Im very relieved to have a guest chef in the kitchen tonight cooking a Chinese Crispy Beef dish which smells wonderful! Thanks Becky!

Becky’s signature dish used to be an Asparagus Pasta dish, which is lovely. But mainly she likes to bake, but lets not mention the Chocolate Cardamon tart….

Im looking forward to this new dish, smells great!

Edit: Wow… it was rather good!!!

When did ‘February 3rd’ (Third) turn into ‘February 3′ (Three)?

Every-time I see the movie trailer for ‘Man on a Ledge’ the voice over guy advises that it will be released ‘February Three‘  and it makes me cringe! I do hope it doesn’t catch on as there’s nothing at all wrong with using 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th 5th, 6th etc; with dates.

Where will it end?

Recognise these TV and Movie titles easily?

• ‘Three Rock from the Sun’
• ‘Beethoven’s Two’
• ‘The Four Kind’
• ‘The Five Element’
• ‘The Six Day’

Is it another Americanism that will plague the english language soon?

Americanisms: 50 of your most noted examples

Related articles.

• ‘Man on a Ledge’ Extended Trailer: More Than Meets the Eye (screenrant.com)
• Review: ‘Man on a Ledge’ (mysanantonio.com)

I think I’ve started (and not finished) more Stephen King novels than any other author. I’ve actually finished a few of his books, The Tommyknockers, Doleores Claiborne and Misery if memory serves me correctly, however the list of unfinished novels is a little longer! Carrie, Salems Lot, The Shining, Firestarter, Cujo, Pet Sematary, Christine…. the list goes on and on! I did find many of his books seemed to drag on a litte, dealing in the minutate just a little too much.

So why did I own so many Stephen King novels?

I blame ‘The Book Club’ mainly, a mail order book club that you signed up with back in the late 80′s that allowed you to buy a load of books for a silly small price to entice you in, but then tied you in the club for 12 months or more where you had to buy a book a month… if you didn’t selet one, you automatically ended up with the ‘Book of the Month’ which was often a Stephen King or James Herbert novel. James Herbert being an author whom I did finish many of his books! (My taste for Horror tales left me many years ago though!!)

The End.

So it was some small relief that I finished one of Mr Kings latest books 11/22/63, a tale of English teacher who is introduced to a portal that leads back in time to 1958, and his subsequent journey in time to thwart the assassination of President Kennedy on 22nd November 1963. Overall I rather enjoyed the story, it was full of history and believable characters. Having that edge being based partially in fact really made the book a worthy read for me!

That and the fact Im a sucker for Time Travel tales! (The Butterfly effect (2004) movie, whilst glossy and teen movieish is a fine example of the genre!)

Tenuous connection time.

There’s a rumour that Mr King has a small tie with Fleet UK, my adopted home town now. Apparently he came to the UK early in his career looking for a spooky house to write a new novel, that search landed him in Fleet in the 70′s where he started Cujo, the one about the rabid St Bernard dog, maybe I should finish it and see if I can find some local hints in the text about his stay in Fleet, maybe he mentioned Fleet Charcoal Grill and it’s wonderful Kebabs near the end?

Related articles

• 11/22/63, by Stephen King. (Scribner.) An English teacher travels back to 1958 by way of a time portal in a Maine diner. His assignment is to stop Lee Harvey Oswald. (nytimesbestsellingbooks.wordpress.com)
• Stephen King and Hope: Religion in Shawshank (barnburners.wordpress.com)
• re re re re-evaluating Stephen King (3quarksdaily.com)

Well our 2 night break in the Peak District has come to an end and were both nicely relaxed and already looking forward to the weeks break we have planned in a few weeks time! I was armed with my trusty iPhone and captured a few photo’s mainly as we walked through Dovedale up to Milldale.

You can find all the photo’s here.

Related articles

• The best viewpoint in the Peak District? (backpackingbongos.wordpress.com)
• Dovedale Dash (peakdistrictview.wordpress.com)

We have seen every sort of UK weather you can imagine today, sleet, hail, rain and glorious sunshine and saw the temperature plummet from 11c to 2c. Thankfully the worst of the weather was experienced in the car as we drove to Dovedale for a 6 mile walk along the river Dove to Milldale and back. The walk was lovely, and we were both wrapped up from the elements, it’s such a lovely walk I’d urge anyone to pay it a visit if your close.

Back to the hotel for a nice warm bath, before finding another warm pub with an open fire please!

Louise and I have enjoyed one of the best roast dinners we’ve both ever had, a lamb and a pork dinner! Top notch from The Peacock in Bakewell!
Also, can’t fault the Swift Nick bitter!
Feeling very relaxed, perfect!

Today has rolled back the years for me…. I had to get my hands dirty looking under the bonnet of 2 cars due to 2 flat batterys! Such Fun. Im very pleased to say neither battery was in my Hybrid Auris! But I did learn a valuable lesson, it’s not possible to jump start another car from a Hybrid car… lets just say it makes the jump leads melt creating a fair ammount of smoke. No damage done thankfully!

I used to play around with cars a fair bit when I was younger, even owned a Classic Triumph Herald 13/60 convertible just like this one many moons ago, back then I did all my own servicing. I was always tinkering with my MX5, but these days I like to entrust my car to the professionals and go find more fun things to do! Like blog…. hmmmm!!

Cool Lego video

Anyway take a look at this, something else that reminded me of being a youngster! None of my Lego projects when I was a lad ever worked this well… Im surprise just what you can do with Lego these days, ingenious!

Short break

Early start tomorrow as Louise and I head to Bakewell in the Peak District for a few days away from it all, I intend to post a few pics from my iphone if it all goes to plan!

Related articles

• The best Lego ads ever (designbrother.com)

I treated myself to 2 books today, Flip it by Michael Heppell and Mindfulness for Dummies! Im away for a few days in the Peak District and I hope to have a quiet hour or 2 with Louise to start them both. I’ve slipped a little of late in my Meditation practices so Im looking getting back on the prana mat and getting back to more balanced me! I’ll tell you all about the books soon I hope.

Amazon links

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself ~ Rumi

A meagre offering today as I’m travelling to head office Burton-upon-Trent (The home of Marmite) today, with a stop over at my Mums on the way home, the last Christmas gifts eventually being delivered, YAY!

Christmas work schedule and on call support hampered a lot of Christmas plans but if you were to ask me ‘alright me duck?’

I’d still reply ‘Yam is’

So SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) day is upon us and some sites have shut down for 24 hours as a protest. The proposed bill basically gives the US Govt. the ability to remove DNS entries that will stop you and I reaching websites if someone launches a complaint, which to me is the crux of the issue. If someone takes offence at my blog or I link to something that I shouldn’t by accident my website could possibly be taken down.

Would I be consulted 1st? Would I be able to fight the judgment? Even worse if I’m on a shared server and someone else was doing something naughty that server could be banned, affecting lots and lots of other innocent sites. Where will it stop, the Govt. stopping you visiting sites it deems inappropriate?

It could possibly be the 1st step towards internet censorship and Im happy to see many internet users expressing their outrage to this draconian measure.

Related articles

• SOPA Author Attacks Wikipedia, Schedules Debate on Bill (mashable.com)
• Where Do SOPA and PIPA Stand Now? (mashable.com)
• SOPA Supporters On The Run (techcrunch.com)