#236 a norwich blog

I had this planned as a mighty update cataloguing the availability of Lion Bars in Norwich. I was to document the secret passphrases and masonic handshakes required to enter dusty backrooms of hidden stores where deals of cash and souls could be wrought.

However, it turns out that you can buy them for forty to fifty pence in nearly every newsagent in Norwich. Some vendors, such as REDS, go as far as openly selling king size Lion Bars.

Never has the truth been so disappointing, it’s like expecting a really good post after such a long break and then reading this.

The once-a-week update plan has really gone out of the window. I can’t think of any reason why you wouldn’t want to know about films I’ve seen recently, so here goes:

Death Proof

It might look good from the picture, but Death Proof is the most boring film I’ve seen since Timeline. 2/10. If you want a film that’s mostly talking, try…

The Magician

Chance rental by hungover Duncan. It’s about an assassin and is shot as a documentary that is filmed by his neighbour. There’s not much violence but the dialogue is solid and often quite funny, which makes this a black comedy of sorts. Watch it then impress people at parties with your knowledge of independent film. 7/10

Day Watch

If you’ve seen Night Watch, this film is great, see it. If not, the end of Day Watch will be totally meaningless, so watch Night Watch then watch Day Watch. 9/10. If two witches were watching two watches, which witch would watch which watch?

Bonus round: Chili facts!

Chilis aren’t actually hot like fire, but the chemicals in them bind to pain receptors in mammals (birds are immune to chilis, that’s their superpower). The body interprets the pain as heat and reacts accordingly. Use this to your advantage by eating chilis when you’re hot, tricking your body into perspiring more. Science is full of useful information.

The Scoville scale is a measure of the “hotness” of a chili pepper.

• A standard jalapeno scores 2,500-8,000 Scoville Heat Units
• Scotch Bonnets rate in the 150,000-325,000 range of Scoville Units
• Naga Jolokia, the world’s hottest chili, measures 855,000-1,041,427 Scoville Units
• Pepper spray wins with 2,000,000-5,300,000 Scoville Units

Chili research is all from Wikipedia, so could be lies.

Trial run for August 2007 diet.

Aside from binging on bourbons, I used my lunch break to look up the ending for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to see who dies. Turns out knowing what actually happens is less exciting than being curious about what might happen.

Shop of the week goes to Farmfoods in Norwich, partly for the offer on Bakin’ Boys flapjacks but mainly for the member of staff who has based his service style on Clerks. It’s like being served in Lidl but with the nonchalance raised to an art form.

Nobody cares about my internet related posts, so back to the other recipe. Sunday’s treat: home-made beef burgers.

Served in a wholemeal bun with grated mature cheddar, a shard of crisp lettuce and dollop of peri-peri ketchup. In the background you’ll notice a glass of 46% Arran whisky, from bottle 8 of 188 produced.

You might also notice Hitman Blood Money for the Xbox 360. I finally finished it using a guide – I just wanted to see how the story panned out. Really good game but could have done with being a couple of missions shorter.

PS. We have bought some Patak’s sauce for the next curry based on the collective wisdom of the comments. See – your words are valued here, so write some more.

Another new design for the blog! Though if you saw old versions of unfunked you’ll know it’s an update of an old design.

Just to prove that I don’t always live the rockstar dream of fish fingers and champagne, tonight I prepared this humble dinner:

It’s turkey tikka. I even had to settle for rum as an accompaniment.

Fish fingers served in wholemeal farmhouse bread with peri-peri ketchup accompanied by a side salad. To drink, Moët & Chandon Brut Impérial.

Screw the PS3, this is living.

If I made up a word which currently returns no search results and then typed it into this here blog, how long would it take to show up in Google? Let’s find out (with an internal link for prosperity)… rungleflot!

While I’m in target audience mode, I may as well suggest taking the web design survey over at A List Apart. Hopefully the results will prove something that will be useful to mankind me.

Bonus link for making it this far. If you’ve ever sat in MacDonalds wishing that your burger looked like the glorious backlit photograph behind the counter, this is for you: Adverts vs Reality.

All dazzle and no substance, that’s the way to win people over. By the time they realise, it’s too late and you have their £6.30. I watched 300 last night.

The battle sequences are excellent but if you want something to watch you’d be better off renting a good film instead. I suggest The Departed, Pan’s Labyrinth and Children of Men.

Alternatively, if you just really have a thing for Spartans, God of War 2 is out shortly. My neglected PS2 will be reunited with electricity on account of this.

The fish fingers fell out of the packet into the hot oil so I had to eat them.