13 July 2000<\/p>\n
…So I’ll just keep this one brief and to the point. The most interesting My favourite line now: “Hey, there’s something on your arm.”<\/p>\n If I didn’t have a severe needle phobia, I’d be tempted to get one Unfortunately, it’s nothing too exciting. I called up my good friend at They’re sending us out a brochure on the Picnic, and a colour chart, so we If we we’re not going to have our own brand new car, we’re going to have to The ever-friendly staff at Enterprise mentioned that Budget might have So, a little disappointed, I ended up back at Enterprise, where they were only We saw two films last week, Music-wise, I bought three CDs on Saturday, Liquid Skin<\/i> by Gomez, And finally, I’ve just finished reading John Sandford’s Night Prey<\/i>. And that’s all for now!<\/p>\n -Martin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Slow news week 13 July 2000 …So I’ll just keep this one brief and to the point. The most interesting event over the past week was, of course, Abi getting a tattoo. You can read all about it on her section of the sunpig site, but that doesn’t stop me from mentioning it, too. Even … <\/p>\n
\nevent over the past week was, of course, Abi getting a tattoo. You can read
\nall about it on her section of the sunpig
\nsite<\/a>, but that doesn’t stop me from mentioning it, too. Even though we
\nhad to get up ridiculously<\/i> early on Saturday morning to get an appointment
\nfor that same day, it was still worth it. It looks great.<\/p>\n
\nmyself. (Not that I have any idea what I would like embossed on my skin for
\nthe rest of my life, though, so it’s probably more a mild envy of Abi’s than a
\ngenuine desire.) Abi has suggested that the next time I’m under general
\nanaesthesia, she’ll hire a tattoo artist to come and do one for me, so I won’t
\nhave to suffer through the whole pain and fear thing.<\/p>\nLatest car update<\/h3>\n
\nFuji on Tuesday, and asked him if there was any progress. He said that he’d
\nbeen in touch with Toyota, and that they were now getting ready to take things
\nover from him. Then, on Wednesday morning I got a call from Toyota UK, first
\nof all congratulating me on winning the car, and then explaining what was going
\nto happen next.<\/p>\n
\ncan choose what kind of paint job and interior trim we want. Then, we send our
\nselection back to them, and they arrange for this vehicle to be delivered to a
\nlocal Toyota dealer. Unfortunately, because they don’t have huge numbers of
\nPicnics in stock, this will probably take somewhere between 4 and 6 weeks.
\nSo we won’t be able to drive it down to Dumfries and the
\nPlumed Horse<\/a> for our anniversary
\nnext week. Oh well…<\/p>\n
\nrent a car for the weekend. Because it’s a special anniversary weekend, I had
\na sudden wonderful idea of maybe hiring a little sports car, rather than the
\nnormal tiny hatchback we go for. I went by our usual rental place
\n(Enterprise<\/a>, in Leith)
\nat lunchtime yesterday. They greeted me with their usual enthusiasm, but the
\nonly thing they had that came kind of close was a BMW 3-series. That was just
\na bit too big, though. I’d really had my mind on a Mazda MX-5, or an MG.<\/p>\n
\nsomething more along these lines, so I gave them a try, but they weren’t taking
\nany bookings until August. (Can I also say that the very fact that Enterprise
\nwere willing to refer me elsewhere is a typical indicator of their very high
\nlevels of customer service. These people are great, and really do their best
\nto make car hire an easy and enjoyable experience.) Lunch over, I scouted
\naround on the web for a bit and came up with
\nAvis Prestige<\/a>, which hires out luxury and sporty cars. A brief look at their
\nprices, however, told me that this was not going to fly, though. (\u00a3320 for a BMW Z3
\nfor the weekend? Hmmm…probably not.)<\/p>\n
\ntoo happy to supply us with a Renault Laguna-class vehicle for next weekend. It
\nshould have a CD player, and they assure me that it’s a really nice drive. I’m
\nlooking forward to it.<\/p>\nBooks, movies, and music<\/h3>\n
(Though not necessarily in that order)<\/h3>\n
\nChicken Run<\/i><\/a> and
\nMission Impossible 2<\/i><\/a>.
\nChicken Run<\/i> was very funny, and a great family film, and MI-2<\/i> was a
\npretty good action movie. (Towards the end, though, the stunts did cross the fine
\nline between breathtaking and ridiculous, though.) But between the two of them,
\nprobably the neatest thing was the “CR-1” Chicken Run\/MI-2 crossover trailer that
\nwas shown just before MI-2. Almost worth going in to the cinema to it on its own!<\/p>\n
\nDizzy Up The Girl<\/i> by the Goo Goo Dolls, and I Like to Score<\/i> by
\nMoby. Although since the weekend, the only thing I’ve had running on my MP3
\nplayer is Byzantium<\/i> by Deep Blue Something. (Remember the song “Breakfast
\nat Tiffany’s”? That’s them.) See my
\nreview of the album<\/a> on
\nDooYoo<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nIf you’re looking for an excellent police\/serial killer thriller, pick up one of
\nSandford’s Prey<\/i> series. I’ll have to do a proper review on DooYoo, or
\nsomewhere else at some point. (I’ve just found out about
\nThemeStream<\/a>, which seems to bill itself
\nas more of an on-line magazine and review digest than other reputation managers.
\nI’ll check it out and write some more about it, too.)<\/p>\n