1000 miles

1000 miles! That's how far I've cycled since I got my new bike in May. Just passed the 1000 mile mark on the way home from work today, made going out in the snow almost worthwhile. I think the first year I had my old bike I only did about 700, so I'm obviously cycling more than before. Here's to another 1000.

The Wire Season 4

Just finished season 4 of the Wire and by this point there isn't much to say. Season 4 is good, but nowhere near as good as the first 2 seasons and feels more like filler between 3 and 5. Not all that much happens plotwise, although a lot of the characters are fleshed out more. Overall, worth watching if you've seen the first three, but nothing amazing.

3.5/5

S.W.S. Chinese Takeaway

We received a flyer for S.W.S. through the door and since we didn't have time to go shopping at the weekend and it's almost Christmas, we thought we might as well have a mid-week Chinese takeaway.

We ordered Kung-Po King Prawn, Crispy Shredded Beef and Boiled Rice. The order came to £12.30 and it's that time of year where free calendars are given away.

First impressions of the dishes were that the sauces were quite dark. The Kung-Po was good, but not the best so far. The sauce was sweet, spicy and there was quite a lot of garlic in there. Vegetables definitely included some carrot and the usual suspects.

The crispy shredded beef was also pretty good, again sweet and full of garlic, with the beef being slightly crispy.

Overall, a good solid takeaway, but not quite as good as the better ones I've visited so far. 3.5/5

S.W.S.: 8 Stenhouse Cross, Edinburgh, EH11 : 0131 455 7804

FM

I caught a couple of episodes of this on ITV a while back, and thought it looked interesting, so sought out the full series. It's only 6 episodes, so I'd actually seen about half of it.

FM is a sitcom revolving around 2 radio DJs Lindsay (Chris O'Dowd from the IT Crowd) and Dom and their Producer Jane (Nina Sosanya from Teachers). O'Dowd plays a similar character to that of his IT Crowd persona Roy, Lindsay is a bit of an awkward character who constantly gets himself into trouble. The trio work well together and there are some hilarious situations that they get into. Cameos from bands/celebrities occur each episode but are subtley woven into the plot rather than to overtly thrown in there.

Overall, worth watching. 3.5/5

Amazon MP3 Download II

Amazon are obviously trying to aggressively expand their MP3 download side of things as they've just given me a free £2 to spend on MP3s because I bought a £7 album last month. Not one to avoid being persauded to spend money to save money, I just purchased another Toxic Holocaust album, getting it for the bargain price of £5. The 12 tracks only run to 30 minutes again, but it sounds good so far, despite being an earlier record, I think the recording is slightly better quality than Hell on Earth which had a bit of an echo to it.

Also picked up the opportunity to get "Killing in the Name of" for 29p for no other reason than it will be funny if it gets to be Xmas number 1.

Amazon seem to be doing a thing at the moment where if you spend money on CDs you get money off downloads, £5 gets you £1 back, £10, £2 and £15, £3. Might have to order a couple of CDs just to get the free MP3s :)

Time Trumpet

Originally shown on the BBC in 2006, I had never heard of this series from Thick of It creator Armando Iannucci until Amazon recommended it to me. It sounded pretty good so I took a punt and it payed off.

Set in 2031, it's basically a satire of these horrible TV shows you get where a group of celebrities talk about the top 50 movies or the top 50 events of the noughties etc. It consists of people ostensibly from 2031 looking back at events in the years shortly following 2006 and talking about things that happened then. These events include both current affairs based things like winning the war on terror and the time Tesco invaded Denmark as well as celebrity based things like the time Charlotte Church vomited herself inside out.

The talking heads are interspersed with fake footage and interviews from "fake" versions of our celebrities (e.g. old versions of Ant and Dec). The setup is quite good and there is a lot of really funny material in there. Some of it misses the mark and the 5th episode seemed a bit weak, but there are some comedy gems to be found in there.

Overall, really worth watching and probably something which will make less sense as time goes on, so watch it soon.

4/5

Once Sent from the Golden Hall

Once Sent from the Golden Hall, originally uploaded by chored.

Just received some stuff from Amazon this morning, including the album "Once sent from the Golden Hall" by Amon Amarth. Didn't realise I was getting the special remastered edition which comes with a strictly limited edition pop up guitarist! If you collect the 4 remastered versions, they contain pop-ups of the whole band :)