bitsofbobs

I’m a big fan of our local tesco it always does good stuff at a reasonable price. These were there finest…apparently. I just assume they slap the word finest on everything just to bump the cost up a bit, these however only cost £1.23 for 6. Even at finest standard, a bargain compaired to starbucks solitary butter beast. First impressions were good, nice box, not overly christmassy. Non offensive.

Taste wise pretty decent, could have done with a bit more filling. The pastry was bang on and had a nice coarse sugary coating. This pie had been laced with cognac, not too much but a nice hint. Nicest one so far and at a decent price. I give it 8.5 pies just because tesco have so many different kinds of mince pies and can’t believe that for their finest these should be that cheap.

Tis the season and all that. I love christmas…everyone does, but it’s this time of year everyone goes nuts. All the ridiculous decorations go up, the annoying christmas music is piped everywhere, those crap shops that sell tacky christmas stuff turn up and the average shopper on the street turns into crazed must finish my christmas shopping today maniacs. But definately the best thing about christmas is the food, why does all the good stuff hide the rest of the year round? last year I went on the hunt for the ultimate christmas sandwich..any excuse. This year I thought i’d keep to the same theme but mix it up a bit. So it’s on…where can I get the best mince pie?

It’s not even december yet but I couldn’t wait. Straight off to starbucks for my cheeky gingerbread latte…the dark cherry mocha is by far the best. The order was in £1.45 for my all butter mince pie. First impression was good, it looked pretty hefty. Nothing particularly exciting about the filling if i’m honest it was pretty deep, I was a bit let down by the top however, too buttery almost like shortbread. Always difficult to get the ball rolling when you have nothing to compare it to.

But i’ll give it a 6 out of 10. Just because it’s pretty pricey and I could get a whole box from my supermarket for that.

Been fulling up doodle pads all over the place recently. Think I have too many on the go just now, some real big ones that are nearly finished. I have been filling my little sketchpad on the way to work with some nice drawn fonts which is turning out to be quite hard work. Not been adding any colour to the pad but scanning them in and photoshopping them up, I’m really happy with the results.

Quite funny the looks you get from people if you sit doodling, you just catch their eye then they do that thing where they don’t move their head but just their eyes in a quite obvious action man…manner. I was semi tempted to have a go at drawing people but I only really get about 10 mins on my train each way. Might try it with my next pad. More coming soon…some big uns.

Doodle-tastic. I had all of these. Still got most of them tucked away in my mum and dads loft. Had this doodle kicking about a while. Started off on paper…temporarily lost it, then resurrected it after I bought a nice shiny new portfolio a3 book to keep all my abandoned doodles in. Filled it in with colour in photoshop, quite like the result. Bit of shameless plugging here but for the colours I used fellow work mate daves colorToy™ app available for your Iphone.

I’d rather not stop and think how much over the years i’ve spent on video games. There were some real nasty controllers for some of them, worst probably being the orginal xbox controller, It was massive. My favourite would probably be the N64 one, It came along at just the right time. Nintendo always get it right…certainly where sega got it wrong.

Also converted this doodle into a natty little Iphone wallpaper. You can Nab it here if you want. Or have a look at the bigger doodle here, and do what you like with it.

A nice quiet weekend just past. Trying to save money by not going out, failed a little bit as nic wasn’t feeling so good and requested chocolate as the cure. Went to the local supermarket and picked up a massive tin of Cadburys heroes. This time of year is magic cause all the big boxes/tins are always half price. Spent alot of the weekend flopping about drawing, watching films and eating chocolate so I decided to make a font. It’s here if you want it.

Been doing alot of font doodling of late, It’s something I always leave till last. So I’ve been filling a wee doodle pad on the way to work every morning. I spent ages looking for tools to make your own font and finally stumbled over a belter. Go check it out it’s amazing. It’s called fontcapture , basically you print out it’s guideline form and fill in your individual letters , scan in the form and send it off. It magically converts your form into a true type font. I installed this one which I called Twenty Twenty on my machine and it looks awesome. Looking to make more, It is a tad time consuming but looks great. So here it is if you want it. Free to download…go crazy. Give it a go yourself. It’s almost too good to be true.

Brilliant weekend. Macca invited me & nic to join him and his lady friend up in Aviemore for some form of relaxing adventure. No real plan other than just make it up as we go. Loved it. The weekend revolved around food pretty much. Which is all you could ask for. Arrived late friday night after work and just chilled with a few drinks. Early night, early start with monster Bacon rolls then out Loch Insh to investigate what water sports it had to offer. It’s about 6 miles outside Aviemore along the road to Kingussie. None of us came prepared but we ended up hiring a canoe each and heading out into the unknown. £15 for an hour which got us out over Loch Insh and a little bit up the river Spey. Amazing day for it, got some great photos. Ended up trying to get up a wee fast flowing stream that was totally overgrown. Proper adventure which finished with a hot chocolate in a log cabin. Tick. You want some more info? here it is.

Back at the flat to cook an awesome big chicken and chorizo dish then out on the town. All the mist fell in as it began to frost up making walking in the dark a tad creepy. Few beers in town and a clash tribute band thrown in for luck. Aviemore is great, it’s a completely different place every time I end up there.

Sunday. Again another massive top notch fry up. Headed out in the morning, it was freezing and the ground was turned snowy white. Everything was crisp and clean, loved it. Bit of pottering about then headed out to the highland Safari park. I’d never been to one as my folks went to one once and monkeys ripped everything they could get there cute little hands on…off. I loved it. Drove round the enclosure which was filled with deer, bison, wild horses and allsorts of mad looking goats (like a really basic jurassic park). The road ends in the middle of the park where it has a more outdoor zoo type feel about it. I love this stuff. We managed to catch feeding time with the tigers which had 6 weeks old cubs (awwwwww in a cute rip your face off kinda way) with them. Snow monkeys which were up to no good. The latest arrival of mercedes the polar bear, who to be honest looked a bit bored, but must be happier than in that little concrete prison she had in Edinburgh zoo. Some cute little arctic foxes and snowy owls. All in all a great day out and an allround awesome weekend. Cheers macca!

Some more photos up on Flickr.

Well, this weekend my wife to be is away leaving me free reign over everything. Quickly I setup my xbox and played games until I was numb. Left the dishes and rummaged through the fridge and freezer for anything I could just eat that didn’t require a plate. The flat is full of possibilities, today was actually quite a nice day and I did consider heading out for a little cycle, ultimately I couldn’t be bothered putting socks on.

Hidden away down the back of the sofa are all my arts and crafts booty, There’s allsorts. A collection that has gathered over many years. Sat about watching some discovery channel LA ink was on. It’s crap tv but some of the art they do is pretty cool, anyway to the point, they had this women on who wanted one of her paintings as a tattoo. It made me a bit envious cause painting was something I always wanted to be better at. Then I remembered I had loads of paints…right then…what to paint. Nic has quite alot of nice art about the flat. I recently added a few bits including a nice photo I took in Skye, which she blew up and framed and my sigur ros poster. But I didn’t actually have any of my stuff framed…hmmm. A few weeks back I tiled our kitchen and whilst admiring my handy work and doing the dishes noticed a big frame hanging above the sink from ikea with some nice but pretty average artwork, coffee mug related. That’ll do nicely. I found some proper heavy duty oil paint paper while I was having a little tiday up that was just the right size.

Took me best part of 5 hours to do all in all (whilst watching random documentries). Mixture of gouache, watercolour and acrylic paint. So it’s Milk and 2 (tea or coffee) if you’re making. Right, back to playing games now.

Bigger one here if you want it.

Been drawing this for a while over a series of lunchtimes. Drawn in pencil first then finished with a 0.2 uni pin fine line. Looks great on my desktop. get yours here.

Was at a gig on Monday night at ABC (Bat for lashes for all those interested) and on the way home after the gig noticed how awesome Glasgow looked at night. I had no cameras with me for the sake of not getting stopped at the gig and was gutted as I could have taken about 30 amazing photos. So, decided when I got back I was going to make an effort to get all my gear out (tripods etc) and have an evening Photoshoot about town. I’m always heading out at lunch time snapping and know where all the good wee lanes and alleys etc are like the back of my hand (just don’t know the names…sorry ). A friend from work who’d also just spent a ridiculous amount on new lenses was up for it also,always better to buddy up. Was a bit nervous more than anything heading out as I thought loads of people would give us hassle, the exact opposite, loads of people stopped for a chat and ended up having loads of good banter with folks. Felt really relaxed and were just surrounded by loads of amazing architecture, we both went mental. Loved it, The whole expedition was sponsored by bar 91, black friars and adlib. Wouldn’t have been right not to have a few cheeky pints. Today I feel hungover.

Will definately be doing that again. If you’re into it and fancy tagging along give us a bell/email was a great night. More results on my Flickr.