Speling

I installed the latest version of Firefox the other day, and it prompted me to install the British English spell checking dictionary. It's great. I think spell checking has been in Firefox 2.0 since it launched, but as I had my language settings on en-gb (British English) and no dictionary installed, it didn't work. If you fancy getting your spell check working, so your posts on blogs and various internet forums look less retarded, but are too lazy to spend any time actually learning how to spell you can get all the different languages of Firefox dictionaries here.

Amusingly, according to the dictionary, the only thing misspelled in this post is Firefox. OK and blogs, but that's not funny.

Power!

Normally I would just comment on Mike's last post for this, but seeing as we need posts if we're even going to get close to the month's goal (which we won't, seeing as we've missed the last 2 months), I'll just blog it.

Mike's post either shows that he is nothing without me, or that my laziness is so powerful even he can't overcome it. I suppose that there's a 3rd option, that he really just doesn't give a damn, but that option doesn't make me sound awesome so I'm going to pretend like I didn't just say that. Why don't I just go back and delete it? Well, that sentance is about 1/4 of this post, without it this would look like an extremely lame filler post instead of a regular, old fashioned lame filler post.

Thanksgiving

So, not many blogs this week! Why is that? Well, as he mentioned Danny's away for a week. That shouldn't affect my contributions to the site should it? Well... no, not really, but it does.

As you might have gathered from some of the articles here, we can be a tad lazy from time to time. It might appear that our blogs are totally spontaneous, but in reality, behind the scenes we're goading each other on MSN to post stuff. If one of us posts, the other will take it as a challenge and try and respond. If you look through the history of the site you'll find a lot of days where we've both posted in fairly quick succession.

So, unfortunately, Danny's to blame for me not posting whilst he's on holiday because he's on holiday. That loser.

Dentist - Part 2

So, I went to my dentist appointment. Nice and easy, 15 mins in and out with a checkup, clean and polish. All for the lovely NHS price of £15.90. WOO! Dunno how I managed that. Nothing wrong with my teeth as usual, I don't why they suggest going every 6 months, every 5 to 8 years seems to be fine.

Failed Moments of Laziness

I'm currently on vacation in Florida. But I was going to show off and be awesomely nerdy and blog from a moving vehicle today to once again show Mike that I am Supreme Blogger of Lazy View.

Unfortunately my nerd powers were overwhelmed by my powers of stupidity. I forgot the cable to hook my Blackberry up to my computer. Now I'm just blogging from a crappy hotel like some travelling buisnessman trolling for barely legal hotties in the area. Which, speaking of, time to alt-tab and get to work on that.

HD-TV

Last night I went to a friends house to watch the football. At first we were going to to go to Friend A's house. Friend A is currently a bit of a LazyView hero or someone we hate and are jealous of. He quit his job and decided to have a few months off working and go on a massive holiday in the US including blowing all his money gambling in Vegas. Sadly he came back with more money than he left with. The utter bastard.

We were going to watch the football at his house but he had a power cut. When I phoned him to see whether the power was back on, he was in the casino. I'm at work and he's galavanting around the casino. Told you he was a bastard.

Anyway, this meant we had to change location so we went to Friend B's house, and Friend B has a HD-TV box with the BBC HD channel. This meant we could watch England's players be extremely shit in extremly high quality. My first thought was "it's like watching Half-Life!" (or any other recent high resolution game with relatively realistic sets...). It's definitely very odd at first having PC level resolutions on a TV, but it is very good. Especially for football. If I could afford either an HD-TV or a Sky HD box and subscription I'd definitely want to get one. It's the future.

Anyone want to give me a few grand?

Great Moments in Laziness #4

Today's great moment in laziness is once again one of those life changing pieces of technology that so drastically change the fabric of our lives that it's nearly impossible to remember what life was like before its introduction. I give to you.....THE MOBILE/CELLULAR TELEPHONE!!!!

Here's the convoluted history of the cell phone. What an amazing history, eh? Full of interesting stuff and dates and acronyms and people's names and sex and violence. Ok, you got me. I didn't read that shit but that's not important. The real question is: How did this effect laziness? Simply and profoundly. With the power of mobile communications people no longer had to be super organized when leaving the house. Grab you keys, possibly put some pants on, and leave the house. You can text and call people on the way. No need for prearranged meeting coordinates and times. No need for tactical precision that rivals the highest trained military units in the world. Planning social events has now become the domain of uptight assholes. Besides, your cell phone has an alarm clock, a calendar, e-mail, the internet, and (in the case of mine) a single shot pistol so you still be an anal retentive jerkwad on the go! How the hell did people go outside before the cell phone?

Anal retentive actions like organization and planning are the bane of the lazy. Such things are only done under the pretense of directly aiding future laziness. Technology leads the way in this area.

Sure it's probably giving us all brain cancer, but doesn't a little less stress now make up for a little brain cancer later? That was a rhetorical question. Of course it does.

Procrastination Aid - Hamster Flight

The latest Counterglow Free Game of the Week is absolute genius. It's called Hamster Flight, but I have to warn you, it's the kind of simple but addictive game you could waste hours on.

Snow!

Isn't snow a great thing for the lazy?

I just heard that someone has used the "I can't get in because of the snow" excuse. The first time I've heard it this year. I also read a teacher saying they were hoping snow would close the school. I know I always used to hope the school closed when I was a kid, but I never imagined the teachers did.

Some people, normally Canadians, laugh aboot our inability to cope with minor snow falls. Even people in the north of England laugh about how a bit of snow screws up the south of England. In LazyView terms though, the transport system being a mess and being forced to stay at home rather than go to work is a great thing.

Of course the downside is if you're stuck at work and can't get home. That'd suck a lot.

Dentist

I just booked myself a dentists appointment. Last time I went to the dentist he asked me "do you have any problems with dentists?" I said "huh?" (that's about all you can say if someone's holding your mouth open to look inside). He assumed that as I hadn't been for several years I had a phobia. I didn't, I was just lazy, but that was hard to explain in a dentists chair situation.

That time it worked out quite luckily for me. I had been transferred to my current surgery when my old dentist retired. I was registered as an NHS patient and if, as an NHS patient, you don't go for a checkup for over 18 months or something they take you off the NHS register and make you a private patient. I hadn't been for much longer than 18 months but luckily as I had never been to this surgery so they had never completed my registration. The first time I went they completed signing me up and I got to stay as an NHS patient. (For any non british readers, the difference in price between private and NHS is that it's about £15 for a checkup and clean on the NHS and about £100 if you are private) Which was a bonus. I have to assume I'm going to be paying private prices now unless I've somehow left it so long the system forgets about me.

I actually did go a few times after that, at 6 monthly intervals, until I moved house and never got round to sending them my new address so they never sent me the reminder letter. To gague how long it's been since I went, it seems I've moved house 5 times since the address they have on file for me. Ooops. The dentist I saw last time no longer works at the surgery, I doubt he'd have remembered me anyway.

Car Crusade Part 2: Nightmares

When we last left off, all seemed right in the car buying world. It was a Saturday, the car dealership found my exact specs at a dealership in another state. I had agreed a deal on that car. I had put money down on that car. They would let me know when the car arrived. And then I was off to celebrate at a local beer festival. What a great day!

Sunday came around, and despite a hangover, my enthusiasm for my new whip (as they say in the ghetto where I live) had not waned. Unfortunately the car dealership was not open on Sunday, so there was no news. Spirits were still high. Such things cannot last.

Monday came in its usual fashion. With all the grace and joy of a retarded sumo wrestler who had just missed lunch. There is no word on the car.

Tuesday waltzes through the door like an angry queer who just lost his rainbow flag. Sales Guy calls me around lunch and I can tell by his tone things are going to get very bad, very soon. He says to me, "I've got bad news. The dealership in Georgia sold your car on Saturday. I'm sorry. I don't have any other blue ones. I do have several in black though." My immediate reaction...silence....rising to anger...rising to rage....rising to FUCKING MOTHER FUCKING FUCKERS WHO FUCK THEIR FUCKING FUCKER FUCKHEADED MOTHERS!!!!

Choking on such rage I couldn't properly form a response so I mumbled out a "Must think, call back later." Now, if he had told me on Saturday he couldn't get me the exact one I wanted, I probably would have taken a black one. However, at this point I had been fucked with. I don't like to be fucked with. Especially when I've paid you not to fuck with me. So I call Sales Guy back after calming down a bit and thinking things out. He doesn't answer. I get angry again. I leave a polite message telling Sales Guy to shove that black car up his ass and find me a blue one or give me money back.

Wednesday passed, Thursday passes. Friday comes and goes with NO WORD. I formulate my plan. I involve my dad, The Destroyer (more on him in Part 3). If I don't hear anything by Monday, we lay waste to everything in sight.

Typical really. Every time I get excited or happy about something it turns to shit. I could list 38 other examples but I don't feel like shaming myself today. Everything always has to suck. If I wasn't miserable, I'd be dead.

Crumble

Right, as promised the crumble review. I got slightly hindered by stopping for a few beers on the way home, this also prevented any power tooling by my girlfriend, but the crumble still turned out great.

Simple Apple Crumble

Shopping difficulty: Easy.
Amount of washing up: Almost none, and it's easy.
Time from start to eating: 40 mins
Equipment: Some kind of baking dish.
Cost: £2.50 ish
Feeds: 4



Ingredients

Apples (get big ones, we had silly small apples and it's more effort to peel and chop them)
Pack of Shortbread
Sugar
Custard
Optional:
Cloves
Cinnamon
Brandy


Peel and chop your apples and stick them in your dish. How many you need depends on the size of your dish. Put the apples in the dish as you go, so you know when to stop.
Generally booze makes puddings better so add some brandy to the dish with the apples, and if you want some cloves and a stick of cinnamon. (count them in, you want to remove them later).
Add some sugar, you don't need much. With a crumble unlike an apple pie, the sweetness comes from the topping not the apples. I added a little sprinkling of dark brown sugar, but any sugar is fine. You could leave it out entirely if you wanted.
Cover the dish with foil and stick it in the oven for 20 mins at 180C/350F/Gas 4.

Whilst the apples are cooking away you need to turn your shortbread into crumble. You can put it in a plastic bag and bash it with a rolling pin, which is quite fun, or you can do it the easy way and stick it in a food processor.

After 20 mins, take the apple out of the oven, it should have softened and the sugar should have dissolved, but you still want the apples to look like chunks of apple rather than apple sauce.

At this point, remove any cloves or cinnamon sticks you put in the apples, nicer for people if they don't eat whole spices!

Leave to cool for a few minutes, then pour your crumble onto the top of the apple, spread it so it covers the whole dish and return to the oven for another 10 minutes.

Serve with custard. I just bought some ready made custard from the supermarket and microwaved it. You could theoretically serve it with cream or even ice cream, but that would be totally wrong, an offence against desserts. Why even think it you pervert!

Role Reversal

Apparently tonight I'm making dinner (steak and potato wedges followed by apple crumble and custard, get in!) whilst my girlfriend is using power tools to sand the basement walls.

Anyone know of a good site where I can look at soft furnishings?

The experimental easy crumble recipe coming tomorrow if it works.

Gambling

See, gambling is a very lazy way to earn money. You're basically trying to make money on other people's hard work. It's risky, and I suck at it, but I whole heartedly support this way of life. However, sometimes you're involved in the contest. What's the lazy man supposed to do then? There's only one option. You've got to work hard. That's right. You heard me. I said it. You've got to work hard. I feel more than a little sick typing that, but there are a few things more important than being lazy, and one of those things is winning.

What does this have to do with anything? I told Mike Tyson's Punchout that I'd blog this weekend. So here I am, blogging. Even though he never thought I'd do it. I win! Was it a real bet? Maybe, maybe not. Point is, it had to be done though. I had to win.

Suck on that, pal.

Bizarre Google Searches Part 4 - The Circle is Round

Someone found LazyView by searching for "bizarre google searches"! Brilliant.

The Circle is Round is one of my Dutch friend's literal translations of a Dutch saying. It means the same as we would when we say the circle is complete.

Poverty (not really)

Cash is a bit tight at the moment. The combination of the new mortgage, trying to build up some kind of savings for house emergencies, a series of holidays, various trips and birthdays has put a real strain on the finances. It's much easier to be lazy when you have money, in fact, part of the reason for the financial squeeze is through being a bit lazy and not fully researching some of my purchasing decisions. eg. The network rail card I mentioned the other day.

I'm lucky enough to have never really needed to worry about money. Nice comfortable middle class upbringing, decent job after university etc. I'm finding that having to actually budget and watch what you spend is a real pain in the arse.

Let's put this in context, the mortgage, all bills including Sky TV, broadband, food and even a healthy supply of wine, is paid for so I'm in a much better position than billions of people in the world, and probably most people in this country, so I probably should shut up and be grateful that I can sit here and bitch about it online. The difficulty really isn't financial at all, it's a mental issue because I now worry about something that was never really a worry in the past.

Our consumer culture doesn't allow us to sit at home and be satisfied with what we have though, we have to be out there all the time buying new shit otherwise how could we possibly be happy? This is especially true at Christmas. My family genuinely don't care how much any presents I get them cost, but I still feel the pressure to deliver decent gifts that they'll like and even spending a modest sum per person the total spend very quickly racks up. The pressure in a household with a tighter income than mine must be incredible.

I know, I should stop whinging and start racking up the £s on my credit card with a new TV, a digital camera, a video iPod, a car etc. (technically I don't actually own a TV, digital camera, a car or an iPod... ). It's good for the economy! But then I'd just be stressed about how was going to pay the credit card off. Where's the fun there?

The other day in the pub I was discussing with some people this theory that some psychologists have that our extremely comfortable lifestyle actually in some ways makes us unhappy. The things that really make us happy, once you have basic essentials like food and shelter sorted, are relationships with other people, but culturally at the moment we're so often striving for that extravagant lifestyle we see on TV that most of us can never attain. I totally agree with that. With my girlfriend rather than spending lots of money on stuff for presents we've started tending to give each other gifts of stuff we can do together. For her birthday this month I got her tickets to a cool sounding wine tasting which we're going to follow up with a nice meal out. That's if we're not too pissed, 25 wines to taste (no spitting!). I'm sure we'll have a great time together, only downside is, it still costs lots of money. Ah well!

The Perils of Blogging

Everytime I start a new blog post at work, EVERY SINGLE TIME, work comes and lands on my desk. I'd rather the corpse of a goose infected with avian bird flu land on my desk. It's disturbing and uncanny. Either someone is watching or God is trying to tell me something. But God is just like all the other voices in my head, yelling at me and telling me to do stuff. And He never tells me to do anything fun like watch TV or peek in the window of my neighbors house so I'm not going to listen. I'm just going to go home and have a nice wank.

More evidence that playing computer games enhances your career prospects

I've just seen another of those stories that points out how helpful playing games can be in your job. This time it's based on some research done by some mad scientists at Duke University which is just down the road from Lazyview's DV, in Durham, North Carolina. Previously I'd only heard of them in relation to their basketball team who were apparently doing quite well in 'March Madness' when I was in New York last year.

Anyway, the story, apparently the security guys who spend ages staring at x-ray machine screens when you are getting your bags checked at the airport have a really hard time concentrating on the screen and the scientist types think that playing on-line shooters might help them train to spot "target objects on a cluttered computer screen, even when the targets appear very infrequently."

Expect to see the [H34thr0\/\/] clan blasting your head off in Team Fortress II soon!

Network Railcard

My girlfriend brought home a leaflet for a Network Railcard yesterday. It looks very useful. You buy this card for £20 and get all your off peak rail travel within the First Great Western Network at 1/3 off, for yourself and up to 3 travel companions.

"Do you think it's worth us getting one?" she asked as I bashed my head repeatedly on the table. Having spent most of last week on trains travelling to various touristy destinations I calculate this card would have saved us £68, or £48 if you take off the cost of the railcard in the last week alone. Fuck. Considering how broke I am at the moment this is a big deal!

It's well worth getting one. If 4 people are travelling from Reading to London for a night out you'd have to pay £17.50 for 4 travel cards. If you get 1/3 off you'd save £23, and the card would already have paid for itself. Sure, you have to fill in a form etc which isn't lazy, but a little work for a lot more beer is worth it isn't it?

We're Back

Yes, that's right. We are back. I know we, especially me, were missed terribly.

We also did a horrible job of blogging, so I guess that makes me a liar. Go on, call me a liar. I don't care. I've got plenty of other things to cry myself to sleep over other than your hurtful words, you mother fucker.

Anyway, we've got lots of stuff from the trip to blog about. We did some seriously lazy (and cheap despite the fact that almost everyone involved is now broke) sight seeing. Will we blog about? Who knows? We're fucking lazy.