Games I'm playing this Week:Special Edition Games I'm not playing

This Special Edition Games I am NOT playing is brought to you by Spore.
Yep, the every game in one, God game, Spore.


As you can see I have "Preloaded" the game on to my laptop but I still have "4 days and 12 hours" remaining until I can play the game.
Damn it.

Anyone else going to be playing this?

Meet Snookklberry; this is one of my creations. If you have Spore -or the Creature Creator- you can save that image and upload him in to your Sporepedia. That way, when the game is released, you will spot him/her when you're flying around your own Galaxy.

Check out my other Creatures here http://www.spore.com/view/profile/itsmoirob

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Plink plink fizz

I'd thought I'd let you know about some headaches I have been getting and no it's not the French.

Although I have a huge liking of all things fishy, lizardy and insecty there is one little critter that gives me huge headaches.

For weeks we kept hearing a loud noise. It sounded almost like a buzz saw. When I first heard it I thought it was the mechanical temporary lifts the painter had erected at the top of our apartment block.
I got around to recording it, but the sound doesn't do it justice. Neither does the volume. Imagine this sound, a little more bass and cranked up to setting 13 on your volume dial.



Just a constant noise. From when you wake up until in the evening. Very litle breaks aswell.

After many random lookings in trees, walls and bushes I finally found out what it was making the noise.
That really, REALLY loud noise comes from this tiny little guy. A cicada.

"Noise noise noise noise"

Look at him! He's smaller then a little leaf. How does something SO small make such a racket?
They have to be native to France. That's the only explanation. Why else would something so small need to make so much noise unless it had to speak over another lound living thing in order to attract mates?

Plenty more fish in the sea

Since my last trip in the sea a few weeks back I've been doing a bit more snorkeling with my camera.

I've seen quite a lot of these Striped White Bream now. They're always the same size fish and group. It's almost like the same shoal comes to the same area of the beach everyday. I can still some good photos of them though.

1. P8082050, 2. P8082034, 3. P8082047, 4. P8082039, 5. P8082037, 6. P8082041

But I was starting to get a little restless. I was always happy to be able to swim around withe these fish but what I really wanted was something a little more. So I started to swim around a bit near to the beach where there are some fallen rocks -and having told the missus that I will be very careful as she wouldn't be able to keep an eye on me from where she was- I set off.

And BOY did I have a great time.

Just swimming out to the rocks the sea floor was getting my hopes up. I seen small shoals of small fish zipping by, some anemone (the weird sea plants).

"Weeeeeeeeeee"

Then I got up close to the rock and spotted some fish I had seen alot of, only this time they were about 5 or 6 times bigger -the size of dinner plates. Unfortunately the photos don't bring out the size.

"Hey guys, I think someone is on to us"

But apart from seeing giant sized version of fish I have already spotted I also seen some new ones,
These tiny little fish I think are the culprits that kept making the popping noise. Kind of like the popping-candy you used to be able to buy that popped in your mouth. It was either them or a very hungry fat kid following me.

"Snap, crackle, pop"

Then there where these long pencil like fish. I haven't a clue what they are called.

Can you help name them?

There were zebra sea bream

"What's the time Mister Wolf?"

And cow bream

"Mooooooo"

A few different species of gobys. Actually I haven't a clue in this photo, they all might be the same species. They look different to me though.

The least racial fish in the sea

This colourful guy, what I don't know the species of. I think he might be a baby Ornate Wrasse.

"Eating some rocks nom nom nom"

And this large Ornate Wrasse, which I have a few pictures of.

This fish is my favourite fish I've spotted so far since I started snorkeling. After seeing thousands of grey fish it was great to see this colourful character.
This photograph was taken on a different day to some of the ones above. I had originally left the camera on the beach as I hadn't charged it the night before and the missus had used it taking some of her own photos (see below). When I spotted this guy having been snorkeling for about an hour I swam back as fast -and as out of breath- as I could. I think I managed about 1/4 mph top speed. It felt like the swim took forever. And swimming back with the camera just as long. Luckily fo me he was still hanging out at the same crop of rock.

I even spotted mini version's of the most popular fish. They kept swimming at me. Maybe they thought I was protection. But am I glad I had on my new small and tight swimming trunks on otherwise the fish would of swam up my shorts.

"When I grow older I want to be a shark."

In fact there have been so many fish the last few visits that even the missus got to take some good photos and she never ventures out in waters deeper then her waist. So these photgraphs are extra special considering her freakish phobia of fish. Well done pinkosa.


When I had finished all my snorkeling I made a visit to the diving centre. I'm trying to figure out whether fins/flippers would be helpful to me or a hindrance? I don't tend to swim for long distacnes, just mainly diving and I'm working out if they are worth the purchase?
But while there I got to see a leaflet with all the fish in the area, this is why I have been able to name most of them. And also I was told that the centre do snorkeling trips, were they take out groups of people to different areas of a Sea Nature Park and snorkel. Normally you wouldn't be able to snorkel there but they have permission too. This I can't wait to do.
But I need one more test dive trying to sort out some problems with my camera, namely image quality and macro mode.

But I do have a dozen or so great photos that I want to share. But I'll save them for next time. But if your bored check out some of my underwater adventures.

Hi ho. Hi ho.

So I've been working from home for about 2 months now. I've still not had my first proper pay. In fact it's been about 3 months since I last got a decent pay. But things are going well.

At first I wasn't getting that much work. I'm not doing a 9-5 job were I get paid no matter how much -or little- I do, my pay depends on how much work there is.

When I first started there wasn't that much. I was able to go the beach or pool of a morning, come back during the hottest part of the day and do my work and be finished before lunch. It didn't really feel like work.
And not being paid helped with that feeling too.

In the last few days there has been a huge leap in the amount of work I have. It's been good to do some actual work. It's taken up the whole of my day though and I've not really been outside. It's felt like a proper day's work in fact.
And for the first time in a long time I actually looked foward to the weekend -and that's not just because the football season starts. Infact I was so excited about the weekend I set the alarm to get up early and beat everyone to the beach -more on that later.

But working from home has some major downsides. Mainly there aren't many people to talk to. Infact there's just this one guy in the "office." He often gets distracted by the internet and wastes a lot of time. And he hardly talks.
Also he seems to go anywhere I go, canteen/kitchen; he's there, bathroom; he's there. He keep's following me.
Also there is this one other girl in the "office." I never see her work. I'm pretty sure she doesn't actually work for the company. And most of the time she will come in about 2 or 3 o'clock for a few hours and totally distract me. She'll just stick the TV on or make me cook her something to eat. She is quite a distraction. And then she will leave.

I miss being able to socialise with other colleagues -I'm still looking out for a bar job to help with this. I miss going for my lunch time sandwich.
But I get paid next week so things are really starting to look up.

A short path to inevitable

Before moving to Spain I got myself a few pairs of beach shorts. I figured I'd try and be cool and hip and hit the beach/pool in some surfer shorts.
Now it's been a few weeks and I've gotten myself a bit of an all over tan.

Well not quite all over. I now have white bits that extend down my thighs, from my waist to just above my knees. When I've been getting changed or having a shower it sometimes looks like I still have some ridiculously white shorts on.
Which has given me a bit of a image issue. Although I'm not a major fan of hitting the beach and laying in the sun for 12 hours, it's still something that I'd like to resolve.

So I tried wearing my swimming pool shorts a little more. They're much shorter but not quite short enough.

Now I've bought myself some smaller shorts. They're about the size of boxer shorts. Actually I think most of my boxer shorts are longer.
The first problem I have is now I have tanned shins, small shorts and in between bright white thighs. Something I'm going to have to work on now.

The BIG problem though is I'm going to get to the stage where I start to think that even these tiny shorts are giving me too much white bits.
So next I'll be changing to Speedos and walking around the beach in just them.

Which is eventually going to lead to the man-thong. It's inevitable. The Path to the Thong has started.

And that's a shame, as I thought that I would at least be in my 30's before I started walking around the beach in a thong.

I do have picture's but I think the mental image is more then you can take.

Twitter is down again, Mein Führer

I did want to write about some headaches I've been getting lately and the cause. But I've just watched this and had to share



Anyone who thinks they're too cool to use Twitter can leave the video.

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When I'm cleaning windows

Ever wondered how they clean the windows on really tall buildings?

Get along with el vecinos

When we first arrived in Spain one of the things we had to come to terms with was our new house.
When we seen the house for the first time I was pretty dismayed. I was expecting a lovely, small, Spanish holiday home. What I saw -on a drizzle afternoon in the middle of the Spanish Spring- was a residential home. Not just any kind of residential home, but a high rise residential home. The tallest building in the whole of Nerja.
Except for the fact that geography of Nerja is so that it appears to be built on the side of a valley so the building isn't as protruding from the skyline as you would expect.

After a few days living here I started to find more things I liked and disliked, close to the beach; pool is closed, those kind of things.
One of the good points was the "residentialness" of the building.
I figured that no one is going to want to holiday here. The building is going to be full of Spanish. It'll be good to get to know a few of the faces and eventually, and hopefully, get in to small talk with people.

It turns out I was wrong. I don't think I could of been anymore wrong?
This building is like a big piece of fresh, clean, bare skin attracting annoying, buzzing mosquito's from far away.

We get plenty of holiday makers here. Mainly the French. Although there is the odd English, Spanish and German holiday makers. But those nationalities are no where near as noticeable as the French.

I'd say that about 80~90% of mosquito's holiday makers arrive on Sundays. This is the one day that I've started to hate.
All day we get taxi's and minibuses pull up. Kids shoot out screaming and running about. Suitcases being pulled up to the main door.
I'd like to mention at this point that we are extremely unfortunate to be living on the ground floor and have our bedroom right next to the only door in to the building. So we have all visitors pass us.
Some times, if we are very lucky, we will get a French group pull up on a Sunday/Monday morning at about 2am shouting and banging on while removing their suitcases from the car to the door. All of this happens right. Outside. Our window.


Another annoying point to having different weekly neighbours is you never know who is going to turn up at the pool.
A few weeks back we had a large group of French kids. The flat they were renting must of had bodies laying down in all directions at night.
For the entire week these kids did nothing but sing songs, scream and shout as loud as they could while in the pool. Which is really annoying if you just want a nice swim, relax and sunbath.
Some weeks we just avoid the pool and don't think of the holiday makers.
The last week or two we have been very lucky. We've had quite a few new families/mature people who have been very quite and reserved at the pool which has been beautiful.

But Saturdays are always nice. Things are much quieter around here. The pool is more then often empty. And all this quit time gives me the chance to pray to the Gods of First Choice and Thomson Cook that the next visitors we get are quite....


...and not French