a big guy in a big city

Posted by Bone at May 26th, 2005

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Beckham’s dreams of space travel

Now I expect this kind of thing from the red tops, but the BBC? Sadly though the headline is only mentioned in the first paragraph. Good to know that he like “jamon” and “percebes,” and that he is used to sleeping in the day.

Sometimes I just weep at such a hard time he has…..(sarcasm!)

Posted by Bone at May 25th, 2005

Of my parking nightmare…. yes, well, kind of. I received a card on Tuesday, which the ticket machine swallowed at the first opportunity, so I was very pissed off and shouted at the ticket box (the ticket box does have an option to speak to an operator, I ain’t that crazy). I was so angry that I was literally shaking, so I came home and shouted at the NCP customer service, who magically delivered a card to me by 8:30 this morning (how did it take so many weeks to get the others). And it finally work, it actually works!

Now all I need to do is get back the £200+ pounds that I’ve spent in the car park since coming back to uni….

Posted by Claire at May 25th, 2005

Ahoy there! Yes, this is what you have all been waiting for, and it’ll remain a feature of Bone’s Blog for many weeks to come I hope… Dah Dah Dah Dah Dah Dah… Claire’s Very First Drunken Blog! Bone promised to subsidise all the alcohol I have consumed in order to get one!

Well, it’s 4am guys and I’m still awake. Dedication to the cause, that’s what I call it. Even all the fricking birds are singing. It’ll be getting light soon and I have to carry on with this darned open paper exam tomorrow! English Words In The German Language. The most interesting topic of the 8 questions… and that’s really saying something…

Tonight was weird. I cried my little heart out in front of a whole bunch of assembled drunken students in Toffs. What a LOSER! Reasons are totally understandable, but totally too personal to talk about here yet. Not drunk enough - give it time, give it time! Dude is what I have to say about that. I shall no doubt reveal the more interesting details of the night tomorrow, which involves 6 shots of Baileys and a dance to Amarillo which cheered me right up, so stay tuned Blog lovers!

Oh and by the way, someone’s saved the (Green) Day. Gotta love that pun…

Posted by Bone at May 24th, 2005

Well, as a student we often do stupid things, with that in mind.

I’m not going to shave until the end of my exams.

It just so happens that last time I shaved was the day before my first exam, I’m halfway now and just have to go another 9 days till I can look like less of a hobo. Why a beard you ask? Well, people with beards are often intelligent. Stroking a beard makes me feel clever, which should aim the exam process. I’m lazy. I can’t be bothered to recharge my electric razor. So the answer was obvious, don’t shave, but making it some kind of crazy challenge makes it a lot less tramp-like, and more of a student-hero.

Posted by Bone at May 23rd, 2005

The fine folks at Threadless managed to go down in my estimation for about a minute, then went straight back up. I e-mailed them because my order was stuck in processing, which was a server error apparently (which they apologised for). The next e-mail I got from them was the bad news, my Flowers in the attic was actually already sold out when I ordered it, which is a huge disappointment, but they managed to cheer me up by refunding my money (including the amount that it added onto the shipping) and gave me a $5 coupon off my next purchase.

This means that shirts that were $17 last week went down to $10, my coupon then means that the shirt would be $5, if I send them a picture of me in said shirt, I get $1.50 of street team points, so that shirt would cost $3.50! Thats like 2 British pounds! Unbelievable!

When did this become the Threadless blog?

Posted by Bone at May 23rd, 2005

Threadless are having a t-shirt sale until June 6th where EVERYTHING is $10 (before postage), a slight contrast to when I made my order last week and paid $17 per t-shirt, but hey, it’s pretty cheap either way.

Posted by Bone at May 23rd, 2005

Whilst I never really want to become someone that helps people (this blog is ego massag, people), I am a student, and helping the heavily debt-laden, sleepy, lazy student population is in the interests of all. With that in mind I am posting this handy guide about eating well on a budget, its an American article by someone called Barbara Keck, of vidaville.com or you can e-mail ‘Barb’ at barb@vidaville.com. By the way, it looks a bit hypocritical, because I’m the worst student ever, steak anyone?

Shopping on a Shoestring

Eating properly for health on a limited budget is always a challenge. One of the biggest money gobbling culprits is ready made processed and packaged foods and too many trips for fast food. Although they’re quick neither of these ways are cost effective. When it comes to shopping on a shoestring and planning great tasting menus at home you’ll be surprised how well you can eat following these simple guidelines.

10 healthy ways to keep food costs within budget…

Make three meals a week without meat and watch your food bill drop. You won’t even notice the meat is missing when you experiment and combo flavorful foods for meals. It’s easier than you think. Include other forms of protein to complete your required nutrition.

Cook regular rice it only takes 10 minutes longer than Minute Rice (which actually takes 5 minutes) and it’s half the cost. This works for many other products as well.

Left over rice, corn or other vegetables? Add it to tomato soup or any other favorite soup the next day.

Cook (boil, bake or microwave) enough potatoes to fry or prepare in any other favorite potato dish for your next meal

Shop from the outside aisles – this is where most of the non-processed foods are. The inner aisles of grocery stores are all packaged and cost more

When your favorite vegetables come in season, buy lots. Peppers are easy to freeze – no blanching required, just cut in slices, bag them and freeze them. Prices can be 1/3 of what the out of season vegetable costs.

To avoid throwing out food you haven’t used make a plan for the week that includes the foods in your fridge that need to be used before spoiling. This also takes the guess work out of what to have for dinner or lunch every day.

Cut your juice down with water. Most juices are heavy with sugar or glucose. Using this idea can make a can of juice last twice as long and cut your sugar intake as well.

Plan your weekly menus with tasty meals from your favourite recipes that use inexpensive ingredients. You will be amazed at how this plan helps avoid fast food meals.

And of course never shop when you’re hungry!

Following these 10 ideas will make a big difference to your food bill at the end of each month. Remember there are many meals you can add to your meal plans that won’t take much longer than quick cooking foods which cost more.

Posted by Bone at May 23rd, 2005

Flash � Learn to Dance with Napoleon Dynomite

I know that Napoleon Dynamite has slightly lost its culty edge but this is still awesome, especially for someone as dedicated to the art of dance as me. If you haven’t seen the film then it will only serve as an educational tool, which is good anyway.

Nerd note: one of the ‘moves’ says “Exit, Stage Left” but he actually runs to his right, is this correct? Perhaps it’s a theatre term from the p.o.v. of the director, who one would suspect would be sat in the seats. Goddamit Bone, just enjoy the damn flash application!

Posted by Bone at May 22nd, 2005

There may well be some downtime on www.bigguybigcity.com over the next couple of days as the design is updated and the relaunch is implemented.

I guarantee that the new look will blow your socks off (not an actual guarantee), it’s mighty nice, has a function to allow news to be propogated to the masses, and (hopefully) there will be random bigguybigcity.com related images to brighten up your day. Or maybe they won’t be random, I’m no HTML genius.

Posted by Claire at May 22nd, 2005

Dude. It’s sad days. We have to sell our Green Day tickets. I’ve been looking forward to Sunday 19th June, Milton Keynes, for a long long time. Unfortunately this gig has been a logistical nightmare and one long long stress. Still not sunk in that I will not be listening to the strains of Holiday among other classics on this aforementioned day.

But then again, how can I possibly be so upset when I’ve just had the most amazing day. I raced for life! Yes, I took part in the nationwide sponsored run in aid of Cancer Research. It was truly motivating be running alongside over 5,000 women for a great cause. I was saddened however, to see how many runners were racing for life in memory of lost love ones. It makes you realise how many people are affected by Cancer and I felt almost proud to be contributing to help these numbers decrease and I was inspired particulary by a lady displaying this simple statement - “I’ve beaten the big ‘C’ twice.”

On a lighter note, Eurovision last night! I was quite shocked to see the UK perform so poorly again, after all, Javine really wasn’t as bad as many of the other acts who received more points than us. However, the star of the show had to be the Granny from Moldova. Bang that drum grufti! I also didn’t sleep until 3am. That was largely to do with my friend Phil’s Thriller moves… I’ll say no more. Only this, this time last year I broke my toilet! But that’s a whole other story…