gaggle64

My dad was coming to see me this weekend but my grandmother died today so obviously he has to stay and look after his dad & himself. It's a disappointing turn of events on numerous levels.

The official Williams Martini Racing livery. Absolutely gorgeous.

After the final testing results I'm quite excited for the new season: Not only are Red Bull struggling and Lewis is likely to have a great car this year, Williams actually look potentially good enough to score multiple race wins. How great would it be if it came down to a repeat of the 2008 championship between Lewis and Massa in a finally resurgent Williams? Perhaps not likely but now not a distant dream either.

Long story long, had some student who looked like he could barely shave ask for cigarettes so I asked for ID (we have to ask anyone who looks like they might b under 25). He started whining. He then whined to the only other person working in the store. He then started badgering other customers in the store to buy cigarettes for him (failing to spot a proxy sale is just as bad for us as failing to ID is). Then I raised my voice at him and told him to get out. He slunk out like a kicked puppy. He then came back twenty minutes later demanding to see "the manager" (which was me for the night). He wanted to complain about me raising my voice and "looking past him". I offered him the number to make an actual complaint but he didn't take it, pretty obviously just wanting to leave still feeling like he had a pair. My colleague came over said she'd leave a note for the manager and he slunk off again. She was probably lying but I hope she did. It's not bad enough to get me fired and I'd actually like to have it on my record. Frankly, it felt good. It felt good rediscovering myself. Rediscovering that I have the ability cut somebody's nuts off without even having to say anything identifiably grotesque because I'm in a minority that has the wit and confidence to achieve it - no matter what the uniform I'm standing in suggests. And frankly some people don't just deserve it - they need it.

I shouted at a consumer today. I shouldn't have but I'm so glad I did. EDIT: Changed the word "customer" to "consumer" as it seems more accurate somehow.

All right but if you get yourself sold into a sheik's harem again I'm not coming to fetch you.

I've decided once 4G arrives in my area and if I'm not imminently jumping for a PS4 I'm going to swap my 360 out for a PS3 and enjoy the highlights I've missed until now. I've been surfing around ebay over the past week and you can almost sit and watch the prices of PS3s tumble downwards.

No. NO. Bad Sméagol. Bad man.

Finall got round to playing the first episode of the Walking Dead as I work through my backlog. It's really quite exquisite. Also, not nearly enough Clem/Ellie crossover fan art out there. Not for my emotional needs.

The one reason to do the stars-thing is for a science date and you need a partner to help track the course of Perseus Minor for the next three nights. Or if you're in Wales, anthropological studies.

Spent a stupendous afternoon at a roller derby game and I absolute recommend the experience to everyone. It's a really fantastic spectator sport and deserves to become a huge game nationally & internationally. I'm so glad I read up on the rules before so I can understand what was going on - there's a great mix of tactics, rough athleticism and personality all at play. My local team got a bit of drubbing at 121-211 despite some good late efforts but it was a great experience. Will be going at the next opportunity. And now, here are just some of my favourite names from the roster:

The one thing this has to do for me is to not have iron sights. If any gun other than the one obligatory sniper section has iron sights it's no sale.

This looks like the kind of dumb fun I could potentially get behind. The sort of game I can play with a half-and-half gin & tonic in hand.

Awk, I am so sorry to hear about all that @jayseven & @Raining_again. I hope things seem brighter for you both soon. Maybe you should engage each other's strengths form up into some kind of unstoppable Megazord-type construction?

As non-football fan both are solid but PES has generally tended to be the more enjoyable to play. FIFA's got a bit much of that whole fiddly-hyper-realism thing going on.

Today I won my first campaign of Civ V. And then I kept playing...

I really like the Defoe style universe, I hope the central characters are worth sticking with.

*spits tea* *drops monocle*

I've been really pleasantly surprised by how good this looks. Might very well consider buying it at launch. Still not regretting holding on to my 360.

It's been confirmed that Martini will be the title sponsor for Williams this year after a shirt was accidentally posted and then removed on the team store with the car expected to be livered accordingly. It's going to be sexy. Fan mock-up - Also Sauber has a new female driver, American Simona De Silvestro who's gunning for a seat next year after five years Indycar experience including an Indy 500 win. Would love to see a competitive female driver in F1, the sooner the better.

As an Englishman who used to live in Scotland I think it should. I think it could do very well as a small European nation and I think the Yes campaign has been able to deliver a cogent long term strategy while the No campaign has barely been coherent. All Scotland's got to look forward to with further Union is increased isolation and ignorance from Westminster politics without even further autonomy to look forward to.

Maybe Zelda wasn't into it but you and I both know every female between Death Mountain and Lake Hylia was desperate to ride him like Epona at a five-carrot-tilt.

I always thought being Link seemed kind of awful, constantly saving the world and half the time not even being recognised for it. I always wanted to be a member of the Starfox team, flying cool-as-fuck space fighters and getting paid for it.

I hear those hybrid drives are a pretty good investment right now.

Civilization V might actually be too good. It's one of those games you can play until 3am without noticing time go by. The only problem with it is it keeps overheating my laptop for some reason, thereby stopping me from playing more Civilization V.