07.26.11
Dog!
We have a new family member!
His name’s Paris & he’s a seven year old, perfectly trained, super obedient, great big bag of utter soppiness.
So far all of us, bar the cats, are bowled over by how much of a lovely fella he is 
11.24.09
Recurring dream…again
I had another Mucky Foot office dream again last night, this time though Lionhead had to move in for unknown reasons. It felt really odd having loads of familiar out of context faces hanging around in my favourite dream location.
What is my subconcious trying to tell me?
09.30.08
Recurring dream
I often have this dream (maybe not so much recurring, more episodic) where I go back to Mucky Foot. All the machines are still set up but covered in dust, & it’s like we all legged it suddenly, locking the doors behind us & no one’s been back since. It’s a really nice comforting dream, & always involves me switching my machine on & wiping dust from my screen & keyboard as it boots up. There are always a few other people around me, & we’re always really excited to be back & giggle at the prospect of doing new exciting things.
I had the dream again last night, except when I turned up at the office the bailiffs had been in & taken all the machines away. In the dream I remember thinking that it was amazing we’d gotten away with it for so long anyway, but neverless it was still a bit sad & I woke up feeling quite miserable about it.
Dreams are funny really & I’m sure there’s some big meaning behind all of that, especially as the dream’s stuck with me all day, but I’m really just curious as to what my subconcious does with it next.
08.06.08
The power of advertising.
Kal Simmons, age 5:Â Â Daddy, when can I get some of that spray to give me a “sharp look”?
!
08.05.08
Eurodisney…
…again!!! It’s turning into a bit of a habit, albeit a good one.
This time we avoided hotels & planes, & instead went the Eurostar, rental car & Davy Crockett Ranch route. All in all a good choice, but getting to & from St Pancras with luggage & kids was a huge pain in the arse, next time we’ll drive to Ashford & get the train from there I reckon.
The “ranch” itself was okay on the whole & the kids loved it, especially the pool & the horse riding. There was a half decent games arcade there too, but foreseeing the tantrums I told Kal it was a “scary hut” full of monsters & so managed to bypass that entirely. Having a car made a huge amount of difference, as we tended to skip back & forth between accommodation & the park itself, avoiding visitor peaks & squeezing sneaky swims in left right & centre. None of those horribly crowded, standing room only, sweaty buses for us, thank you very much!
The rides are nice & tame, which always suits the kids, although taking them through the “Haunted Mansion” on the first day wasn’t a great idea, as Kal kept waking up that night thinking skeletons were coming out of the walls! We rode Pirates of the Caribbean once or twice a day, & I think when I die I want to be laid out on a cart, set alight & pushed down into the depths of the ride, Viking burial style. We also mostly avoided the new Disney Studio park this time round, due to the complete disappointment last year…except on the last day, with an hour to kill before our train home, we wandered in there & rode the Tower of Terror. Brilliant BRILLIANT ride & next time that one will become a daily feature I reckon.
And so back home, knackered, aching feet but all with huge disney smiles plastered over our faces, & just to prove it, here’s the kids queuing up for the Dumbo ride:
 
04.28.08
Mucky Foot retrospective…
Really chuffed with this, thanks to Kieron Gillen for remembering us 😀
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01.12.08
Brown bread
Taurus T. Cat was given the long needle this evening, & tbh I’m absolutely gutted. I’m not a cat fan, never have been, but T was my little furry chum. He came as part of the package when Dom moved in, & at first we were pretty wary of each other, but it wasn’t long before he was up on my lap at every opportunity, sleeping on top of me at night, & draping himself across the back of my chair whenever I sat at my desk.
After we had kids Dom had to pretty much focus on them, & T became more my cat (I used to joke that I wanted him in the divorce settlement, sod the kids I wanted T!). Whenever he killed something & brought it in I’d go bananas & lock him out, & whenever he puked in the house I’d be cursing him to hell while wiping cold cat sick off the carpet, but all he had to do was rub his furry little cheek against my chin & we’d be friends again.
In the past couple of months though he began to seriously slow down. Numerous trips to the vets, many shaved parts & a multitude of bi-directional needle jabs failed to pin down exactly what was wrong with him. The vet finally got to the root of it today, FIV, & sadly there was nothing that could be done. The vet gave us the option of bringing him home for the weekend but we couldn’t bare it. He’d lost an incredible amount of weight over the past 3 weeks (anyone who met T always remembered him being an enormous cat) & I was pretty much carrying him from place to place & hand feeding him towards the end. As much as I wish he was laying here on my chest right now, purring away, neither Dom or I felt it was fair to keep him going purely for our benefit, so we took the decision to let him be put to sleep.
Dom was with him at the end, but I ended up stuck in traffic leaving work and got to the vets too late to be with him myself, although I gave him a final cuddle this morning & said my goodbyes as I had a feeling it was going to be the last time I saw him.
And that’s it really. I’m already getting the painful reminders, the dent in the duvet where he was laying this morning, the food bowl in the kitchen with his uneaten breakfast in it, & tomorrow we have to break it to the kids. But tomorrow is another day & right now I need to head to bed to sleep. By morning the dent in the duvet will be gone, but the memories wont be & I’m grateful for that.
Sleep tight my little matey, you’ll be missed.
01.11.08
Short hair (with added pic)
I’ve just had the lot whipped off.
At 12:50, out of the blue, I thought “My hair has to go”, & by 14:30 it was
I now look like John Goodman as Fred Flintsone.
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Edit: Me today, & yes I do have curly dollops on top of my head.
11.13.07
Bloganory
I’ve been meaning to post something here for ages, but after reading Kirsty‘s most recent entry I’ve decided to actually put fingers to keyboard & finally put something out.
Right, where to begin…well since my last decent entry Dom bought a shop, this one in fact. The web site’s under construction but pretty soon you’ll be able to click on there & buy lots of lovely stuff
Kal had his 5th birthday last month, we had a bouncy castle in the garden & 30 kids + parents running around laughing & screaming. We were so stressed out we didn’t even think to take any pics, but here’s a recent one of the little fella on sports day during his last week at nursery:
There was a 10 year anniversary Lionhead party late summer, which was a drunken giggle. Unfortunately the battery on my camera ran out before things really went downhill, but here’s a pic of Gary Carr & Stu Whyte taken while things were still civil:
…
[Resuming after the wireless died (a frequent event here nowadays) & half a night’s sleep (it’s 4:18am atm)]
In between those two events was a work trip to Vienna to meet a lovely bunch of people, accompanied by another lovely bunch of people, some of whom are pictured here:
Let’s see, I had another project canned & my manager (mentioned in an earlier entry) got the boot, which wasn’t a great loss to be honest on either counts. I’m working on something new now, it’s very different & therefore on very shaky ground, but if we can maintain the current blistering progress & get the concept through greenlight then we could be onto something. I have to say though that for the first time in a long time I’m really enjoying working on something again There are the usual politics to steer around though, but Lionhead wouldn’t be Lionhead without ’em 😉
Home projects continue to slowly grow, SPOOGE (the Several Platform Object Oriented Game Engine) grows by at least one new member function a week, sometimes two, sometimes a whole new module! It continues to be nothing more than a hobby, but a really enjoyable one all in all, & one of these days I’ll post some pics of the various bits & pieces I’m working on.
Eurodisney was mentioned further down although I never actually reported back on it (Doh!). It turned out to be a great few days, the kids absolutely loved it & still keep asking when they’re going back to see “Mitty Mouse”. Here’s a pic of me & Poppalina, with “princess beauty castle” in the background:
…& my favourite pic of the whole trip, an uber confident Kal & a terrified Poppy clinging onto Dom for dear life 😀
Oh yeah Dom & I went to Finland back in February for a friends wedding, which I didn’t mention anywhere, but it was totally brilliant! In summary; Snow, reindeer(delicious!), huskies, cold, log cabin, sauna, elk(delicious!), glass igloo, ice chapel, snow, glass tee pee, northern lights, midnight snow mobile safari, skiing, ice restaurant, snow, drink, abba & snow.
Way too many pics to post, & I don’t have a fickr account or anything, but here’s a pic of Dom & I wearing our finest cold weather wedding outfits:
Ah wait a sec, I don’t have flickr, but I do have .mac where there’s a small selection of pics
Erm & that’s about it I think, loads of other stuff like 40th birthday parties I should have blogged about (all full of old fat bald people looking vaguely like people I used to know, & in fact turning out to be people I used to know, & all without exception turning out to be brilliant fun!), meetings with old friends, weddings, summer barbecues in the rain, autumn barbecues in the sun, work piss ups (honourable mention to Tim Swann), in, out & generally shaking it all about.
I’ll try & do more frequent ones in the future, & focus in on some of the comedy detail, but I’ve bored you enough for now & I need to get myself off to bed to finish my night’s sleep.
Night.