big bad blog

http://www.platters-restaurant.co.uk/

Quality over quantity or quantity over quality? This place give you both and then some. The slightly high prices are more than justified when your plate arrives with what could probably feed you for a week. Its great food too, with a wide selection of same-day caugh fish, from the simple classics fare of cod and salmon to the seabass and lobster with around twenty different types of fish.

http://www.havanagoodtime.co.uk/souk_contact.php

If lively atmosphere and exotic munchies are required, the souk fits the bill perfectly. The souk serves up morroccan cuisine in a traditonal setting, traditional in this case meaning more bright colours than you can shake a stick at, a healthy buzz of the conversation and hosts that endevour to actually meet their guests instead of merely being food dispencing robot waiters. Its a place that gets you up close and personal with your friends, the noise around you and the furniture makes it a requirement and happily puts you in a perfect position for pilfering a portion of your fellow diners dinner as soon as they’re distracted. The food is as good as the atmosphere and reasonably priced too. Well known dishes such as cous cous done properly and new tastes to explore, with a menu set up to allow you to sample a variety so you don’t feel bad about risking missing anything.

Rice, it costs about 5p for a huge bowl, it provides oodles of carbohydrates and is idiot proof to make.

step 1-buy a big bag of rice, the cheapest stuff you can get, the expensive stuff won’t make a difference. You have the choice of long grain, which will make a fluffier chinese style rice, or basamati, which will make a firmer indian style. theres also funky rice like the kind you get in sushi, but we’ll just pretend they don’t exist for now…

step 2-You can go look up the way to make “perfect” rice later. for now, just stick roughly one cups worth of rice in a pot with enough boiling water to cover it, plus a little extra. Boil it for a couple of minutes and then turn the heat down a bit and then cook it for another few minutes. take some out with a fork and try it every so often to see if its done. if its still crunchy, its not done yet. If it starts to go too dry, add a bit more water.

step 3-when its edible, drain it with a seive, stick on a plate and eat it.

Microwave rice?

You can microwave rice pretty well by the way. Just stick a bowl with rice and water in the microwave on high for about 5 minutes (leave enough room in the bowl so the water doesn’t boil over too much), stir it around a bit, then put it on for another 5 minutes on low power until its absorbed all the water.

Bonus steps-rice on its own is pretty dull, but you can

• cover plain rice with a bit of sweet chilli sauce (buy from your local ethnic foodshop. about£1.50 for a bottle that’ll last for ages) or a bit of soy sauce. Any sauce you like will do really (although putting ketchup on rice might make baby jesus cry)
• stick a stock cube (or half of one if you’re not making much) in there when you’re cooking it

• drop in a tin of chopped tomatos and cut down on the amount of water. boil until for a bit until the tomato cooks a bit and then rop in the rice like normal and then cook until the rice has absorbed most of it

• keep a bag of frozen peas, sweetcorn or whatever in the freezer and whack in a handful while the rice is cooking to add some good old fashioned vitamins.

Still a little unknown by a lot of people, lentils are awesomely cheap, full of protein and carbohydrates and idiot proof to make.
buy lentils. dead cheap at about 20p to put more lentils on your plate than you can deal with in one sitting. Red ones are more common, but the same vague gist of this applies to most beans and pulses and suchlike (not all mind you, some beans need funky preperations like soaking in water overnight, so check the label)
stick a pile of lentils in a pot of boiling water, enough so that the water covers the lentils, plus a little bit. Stick in whatever spcies and flavourings you like and then boil them for a couple of minutes, then turn the heat down and taste every so often to see if they’ve reached the consistancy you like. Drain off the water and then eat…

Lentils are kind of dull, although quite edible on their own, so put some flavour in there

• Some chopped tomatos or tomato puree and basil or oregano will give it a nice italian spagetti taste
• for a spicy indian dahl, stick in some garam masala, chilli powder, tumeric or tikka masala powder and some coriander
• if in doubt, whack in whatever herbs, spices, sauces or vegetables you’ve got lying around and see what happens.

and oddly enough lentils actually taste better reheated….if you leave them in the fridge they absorb all the liquid and spices and form a thicker, tastier goo.

Yes, I know churches and organized religion are evil, but that doesn’t mean you have to go and throw away the real message.

I get people telling me they don’t do lent, or confession or whatever because they aren’t christian, in the same tone of voice a muslim would respond if you handed them a hot dog.

You don’t go to confession because the pope says so, you go because you’ve sinned (yes, yes you have. and so have I before you get sarky) and it gives you someone you can admit it to. Lent focuses the mind on other peoples suffering and strengthens your will power.

Jesus said love your neighbour. Just because the (probably catholic) church pissed you off, doesn’t make what he said a bad idea. Same goes for other religions. Heck, once you take out the bits about God, most religions are all telling you the same message…

Ok, see that pretty guy or guy at the other side of the bar you like the look of? They’re just dying for you to make their night by coming over and talking to them, they’re wishing some sweet funny, sexy guy will come sweep them off their feet, so why don’t you go over and be that guy?

What do you mean you don’t know what to say?

ok, first off, the Chat Up Line…

The most important thing about the line you use to introduce yourself with? It doesn’t matter. What matters is *how* you say it and what you say afterwards.

“do you come here often” or “if I told you you had a nice body, would you hold it against me?” work really well if you can say them in a deliberately cheesy way that the other person knows you’re taking the piss out of the idea of chat up lines. follow it up with an over the top sad face and tell them how you’ve spent ages practicing it in front of the mirror.

ok, then, you ask, what do I actually say?

Something situational-”damn, I love this song! you’d better be a <whatever> fan too or I don’t think I can be your friend”

ask a question-”excuse me, me and my mate are having a bit of an arguament and we need a girls opinion, blah blah blah”. personally I love asking if they know any good chat up lines. This one also tends to work better if you’re actually interested in the answer, otherwise it can come across as a little weird.

get noticed by her-last time I was out, I had some random sparkly cocktail sticks in my hair and some girl tried to steal them when I walked past her so I made fun of her for being so mean for a bit and after a couple of minutes got her number. Peacocks have big ass shiny feathers for a reason you know…

be silly-Go up to a girl and ask her to slap you in the face as hard as you can. tell her that its a top secret matter of life and death, but you really need to swap shoes with her. Say anything, it might not work, it might work great, but you’ll never get anywhere unless you try it.

be honest-Very tricky, but makes you look very ballsy. “I know this is a little random, but I had to tell you that you are really cute.” “Hi. I saw you here, and wanted to come say Hi. I’m Sean.” (both stolen from sean newman)

something about her-A tricky one, because you have to pick up on something thats not immediately obvious. she knows she has a nice rack for example, but no one seems to care about how long she spent doing her hair.

some random advice:

If you keep finding yourself stuck for what to say, think up some opening lines when you’re at home and relaxed and keep them on your phone or something. Try and make stuff up on the spot, but don’t be afraid to fall back on something you know works.

please, pleeeeease, please stop offering to buy girls drinks as a chat up line. Its an expensive way to get very little in return (remember, you’re already giving them the gift of your attention, really it should be them buying you drinks)

Don’t think bars and clubs are the only place to chat up women, hot girls still exist duing the daytime. Plus you get major bonus points for having the balls to walk up to them without needing to get drunk first.

Girls are not scary. Almost every guy gets nervous walking up to a girl, even the ones that are good with women. its just something coded into our brains. The trick is momentum-the first girl of the night is nerve wracking, but once you talk to her and you realise you’re still in one piece, the second one doesn’t seem half as bad.

practice! “what if I mess it up?” awesome, then you’ll learn something for next time. Go talk to random strangers who don’t matter to you, so if they think you’re a weirdo, who cares, its just some random person you’ll never see again.

(oh, and this rant is dedicated for the people that took the time to help me learn this stuff, I wouldn’t have got a tenth of how far I’ve come without them)

Sorry, but its never that simple, the truth is that men (or anyone else for that matter) are never really bastards, they’re just very, very stupid.

Women love to say men are all bastards because its easier than understanding why they do the things they do and theres a lot of things my fellow boobie watchers do that I haven’t the faintest idea of whats going on in their head. But no one just randomly decides to screw someone over for no reason. They do it because they’re afraid of getting hurt first. They’re just too dumb to realise how what they’re doing is going to make other people feel. They’ve been hurt in the past and shut out empathy so it doesn’t happen again. Or any one of a hundred reason.

When you really work out why someone did something that hurt you, half the time they didn’t mean to do it, the other half they’re just as messed up as you.

There are *no* exceptions to this. *ever*. No one is a bastard, you hear me?

(and on a side note, girls, you do have a tendancy to twist things into insults even though dispite the person saying it obviously not meaning it that way. A lot of the time you get screwed over you’re doing it to yourself…)

(once again, dedicated to the people that helped me learn all this stuff, without them taking the time to help me, I wouldn’t know a tenth of this)

ok, so you’ve got used to walking up to random strangers with your new top secret “october man” chat up line, but now what? Yup, it happens to us all, the dreaded awkward silence when you don’t know what to talk about, so heres another rant of stuff I’ve learnt or been taught…

shut up and listen. If you can’t think of anything to say, fortunately other people usually love talking about themselves. Find out what they’re really passionate about or work out what it is about them you find interesting and ask them about that.

talk about stuff you know everyone talks about. for guys football, how drunk I got last night and the size of the barmaids breasts will always get them talking. For girls X-factor/big brother, ranting about men and gossip are fairly reliable.

Current events will always give you something to have a mutual rant about. Coming together to collectively moan about what ever stupid crap management is doing or the fun things that are going on in the city.

Learn how to chain conversations from what the other person just said, eg:
person 1:”mmm, i love fish for dinner”
person 2:”yeah, it tastes better going on fishing holidays and catching it myself though”
person 1:”nah, I prefer sitting on a beach on holiday”
take what the other person said, and think of something that relates to one of the key words. (yeah, I know its a crappy example. quiet you.)

Tell stories. If the other person is talking about holidays, tell them about the fun time you had in spain last summer, if they’re talking about work, tell them about the funny things annoying customers do at your place. Tell them about how drunk you got last week and woke up handcuffed to a zoo animal.

Find things you have in common and talk about them. If you’re both tiddlywinks fans, ask them what they thought about the 2007 world championship controversy (oren was never offside, it was fixed!). People love talking about the things they love (funnily enough) so you both win.

And don’t forget to practice. Like everything you need to try it a million times, watch what happens when you do whatever and tweak and adjust. You can read or complain all you like, but the only way to learn to be sociable is to go out there and talk to people. talk to completely random people if need be. See if you can make the person at the till at sainsburys smile.

speaking of which, if you want a way of working out what you’re supposed to be doing in a conversation, just make it your aim to make the other person smile. Thats it. If you can do that consistantly, they’ll love you.

Ok, got all that? Now for a few more advanced stuff…

Learn how to guide a conversation and learn how to pick up on and guide peoples emotions when you’re talking to them. If you tell someone a story about how no one loves you and all your pets keep dying, they aren’t going to be too cheerful, but if you keep an eye on how they react you can steer the conversation towards whatever emotional state you want (happy carefree stories, deep relationship stuff, whatever you want). For a simpler version, try and talk about positive stuff and avoid depressing or mundane things.

And on the topic of storytelling, I have a moral conundrum for you, courtesy of the legendary toecutter. Ok, so you tell someone a story about how drunk you got last week and how you’re now banned from the nunnery and you’ve got the person you’re talking to laughing their ass off. Now if the story wasn’t true and you’d just made it up, would that be wrong or is the only thing that important is that you cheered someone up and gave them a fun conversation? Just a random something for you to think about…

A fun one is learning how to keep sexual tension going in a conversation (presumably with a girl or guy whose pants you’re trying to get into). Its always a crazy ride when you’re trying to see how far you can push the conversation without being tasteless and for all those nice guys out there, half your problem is that you don’t realise girls love guys that can be openly sexual as long as they do it in a non needy way.

Lastly, just enjoy the ride. You’re there because you enjoy eachothers company, if you can’t think of anything to say, it doesn’t really matter, one of you will think of something in a few seconds and its all good.

For anyone stupid enough to want to see what I did for my final year project, here be it…

final year project report

it has some interesting stuff on FPGAs and a tiny but of image processing.

Also, should you be so mindbogglingly stupid enough to implement a CyloneIII FPGA, theres a reference circuit in there with all the power and configuration stuff explained. my

Some of the most compelling games in existence are so compelling due to their multiplayer aspects. From counter strike to world of Warcraft, pong to Gran Turismo, millions of collective hours have been spent in multiplayer games. Many games developers have seen this happen unintentionally, spending vast amounts of money on content for their ten hour single player campaign, only to see players spend hundreds of hours on the multiplayer component that was tacked on at the last minute.

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