Where there is a Will

I was wandering through the super-market today (don’t click away–this gets interesting), looking for a food-stuff that I haven’t tried before, which I often do to keep myself amused. A tub of what looked like mixed spices caught my eye. I thought it might add a little zing to my curry, so I picked it up. It was something called Pan Masala, which wasn’t curry spices at all, as it contained 48% betal nut. This surprised me because I had read a Wikipedia article about it a few weeks before, and I knew that betal nut is a mildly euphoric stimulant, popular in India and parts of Asia. Which is not the type of thing I would expect to find in my local Tescos!

Naturally, I bought it. I’m not the type of person to do drugs, but sampling an exotic pleasure from the far-east sounded like the most exciting thing that would happen to me that day. Back from lunch, I sat down at my desk and opened the Pan Masala. It smelled fantastic, which was encouraging. I took a mouthful and chewed–it tasted very sweet and the flavour was pleasant enough, but after a little chewing it became slightly bitter. The texture was dry and gritty, but didn’t put me off and I was happy to chew it while I worked. I chewed the first few mouthfuls until the pieces of spice had disintegrated to a point where I could swallow, but that involved a jaw-aching amount of chewing, so I decided to spit the stuff out when it had lost its flavour (like gum).

After a while it did give me a little buzz, kind of like an espresso on an empty stomach. It also numbed my mouth and tongue, (which lasted for a few hours). I stopped chewing after I felt the effects–mainly because the ever-growing mug of pink frothy saliva put me off further consumption.

Obviously, I’m not anti-drugs–drug laws are completely arbitrary, and ineffective–but I still don’t think it is a good idea for a carcinogenic stimulant (it can cause oral cancer), to be sold without adequate warning on the packaging. Although the label did say “Warning product contains betalnuts, chew with care”. I called Tescos and talked to a man who seemed a little amused at the whole thing (he asked if I wanted to buy it in bulk), but he did make some enquiries and call me back. Apparently the manufacturer was dismissive, but didn’t sound particularily trustworthy. He said somebody will investigate, and get back to me. It will be interesting to hear their response!

I think I’ll keep the betal nut for novelty value, but I wont be chewing any more of it. It would probably lead me to try harder drugs … like nutmeg or oregano.

The triops are just over 2 weeks old now, and as cute as a button. Tragically one hatchling died a few days ago, but the 7 that are remaining are doing well. Have a look at the photos.

(not actual size)

I spent most of 2006 working on Motorstorm, one of the first ever PS3 games. Work gave me a free copy of the recently released Japanese version. If only I had a PS3 to play it on!

Congratulations to my colleagues at Evolution Studios for all their hard work.

Today I played chess with my good friend Will. I had fun but after a dozen draws I got bored. It turns out we are quite evenly matched.

In my new job I just don’t get the exercise I used to. Sure I can do a little resistance training at home so I don’t look too out of shape, but you have to do a little cardio if you want to stay young and pretty for as long as possible. So I decided to resurrect a hobby of mine from my youth and bought a bicycle from a local shop in Chester. It really is true what they say; you never forget how to ride a bike - although my legs did seem to have forgotten they were strong. So I have spent the last 2 weekends cycling about Chester in glorious weather, and enjoyed it immensely.

Even though it had been raining most of the day I set out to find a route down to the river Dee, which is a stones throw away from my flat. On the way there I am free-wheeling down a fairly steep hill and even though it had started to rain I’m feeling pretty good. Nearing the bottom of the hill it occurs to me that I’m travelling a little too fast, so - naturally - I apply the brakes. At the same time I notice that I’m drifting towards the kerb and I compensate by turning the handle bars in the opposite direction, but I must have over compensated because now Im heading in to the road, so again I try to compensate. This little wobble, combined with braking on a slippy wet road at speed led to a situation where the bike slowed down but I didn’t. So I find myself leaving the bike and completely at the mercy of the laws of physics. Fortunately my cat like reflexes saved me and I managed to hit the pavement (sidewalk if you are American) and roll to safety. Only my right hand sustained an injury. I don’t think anyone saw the fall, it was a quiet road, but a local did stop his car to say “y’aright?” - they say that a lot in Chester. I suppressed my natural instinct for inappropriate sarcasm and replied in the affirmative.

My camera was in a pouch on my belt secured by a stud, but it had managed to come loose during the fall and bounce on the road a few times. Fortunately, unlike my hand is was unscathed. And was still able to record the horrible horrible injuries I received. If you are the squeamish type then frankly it is too late, you have seen the thumbnail and are probably thoroughly revolted by now. Otherwise click the thumbnail or visit the set on my flickr page to seen the pictures I took. Now you will have to excuse me, I’m going to walk down to the video shop to get a tub of ice-cream and a movie.

My cousin Mirren got married recently, and I went to her wedding. I’m not going to bore you with details of people you don’t know - this is not one of those blogs. If you are interested though, have a look at the pictures on my flickr page.

I love this photo I took - it could almost pass for one of those classic computer graphics images with spheres reflecting spheres, that you would see on the walls of students bedrooms in the 90s. Thank you Sony Cybershot!

Day 2 of my pseudo-holiday led me to the Blue Planet Aquarium, near Chester. Now since I was at an aquarium, you may be expecting pictures of fish. A perfectly reasonable assumption, but you would be dead wrong. It turns out that taking pictures of fish is actually quite difficult to do. The flash reflects off the glass and water, and the little buggers wont stay still. Fortunately there were also bugs* and amphibians to snap.

*Technically speaking, none of the above are bugs. A ‘bug’ is actualy an insect with sucking mouth-parts. This is one of those little facts that you can quote verbatim in order to appear smarter than you actualy are. I know I do.

One more blog-worthy event occured today, and that is an encounter with a surley swan. No doubt its ill temper was due to the beetle that was crawling around on its beak.

My sister visited to day and it gave me the opportunity to go out in Chester and take a few photos with my digital camera. Im not going to bore you with tourist snaps, I’m going to bore you with pretentious arty photos.

My cactus is in bloom. That’s all I have to say about that.