the newts.net

We’d been looking around for a decent set of Casino Chips for a while, so this Christmas Me, Gaz, Bov and Clarky decided that we’d go 1/4′ers on a set rather than buying prezzies for each other. We found our set at the Harrogate based Gamble.co.uk, ordered them online and they were delivered in 2 days as promised. There’s a wide choice and price range of chips available, but we went for the best, foil printed, 11.5 gram casino quality chips. You can buy in whatever colours / values you like, but the minimum order is 25 of whichever style you choose. Chip cases are available for housing your precious new set. I do like the aluminium ‘flight case’ style cases, but such a quality set deserved the twice the price quality of the solid oak case. At £210 for the chips and £60 for the case they weren’t cheap, but they are quality, fun and should last a lifetime.

Hover for description, click for biggy.

Don’t eat yellow snow! :mrgreen:

Submissions purely of an artistic nature of course. :lol:

Clicky to see the ‘WHOLE’ picture.

There was no program on Christmas day about the Beagle 2 Mars lander, but the capsule should have landed and begun transmitting it’s test signal at somewhere around 3am, so I wouldn’t have seen it anyway. The sad news of course is that Beagle 2 has so far failed to be contacted. It may not be transmitting it’s test signal, it may be and we just can’t find it, but I have a nasty feeling it’s all much worse than this. Not wishing to be the pessimist but I have a feeling all is not well and beagle 2 is scattered in many pieces across the martian surface. There are still chances to make contact with the lander over the next few days so I’m keeping my fingers crossed for all involved.

Just a quick note before I retire to wish you and your families and friends a very merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year. I hope you get everything you want and want everything you get.
Peace be with you all.

Scott.x.

The Christmas lights are shining,
Ben’s face is full of awe,
he doesn’t understand yet,
what all the fuss is for.

He thinks, this wasn’t here yesterday,
and what’s that thing up top,
he doesn’t know its a fairy,
made from a kitchen mop.

What are all those boxes,
the ones under the tree?
They just keep arriving,
I hope one’s just for me!

Are those baubles edible?
they sure look nice to eat?
why am I being moaned at
this tinsel tastes a treat.

The sparkly bits get everywhere,
when you pull them off the tree,
but I think I’d better stop now,
or next year that fairy could be ME!

Name that nose. Nose picking action. Do you know you Jackson, Michael from your Jackson Pollocks?

Whos arse? The great big animal arse challenge.

Animal, Vegetable or Mineral? Tougher than you might imagine.

Spot the GIF-erence. Gif or Jpeg, this is difficult.

Spot the CLIFF-erence. Your granny’s fave Cliff Richards undergoes a makeover for this one.

Gash or Tash? Fanny or facial?

Plump or Bump? Are theses chicks fat or preggers?

Meat or Accident? Joint of lamb or joint of limb?

Name that beard. Who’s who of mouth muffs.

Supporter or Deporter? Footy fan or trainee Nazi?

Jailbait or Legal? Are these chicks over or under 16 years old?

Gay or Straight? Puff or straight stuff?

Sexpot or Despot? Can you tell your dictator from your porn star just by a tash?

Female or Shemale? Chick or dick?

Female or Shemale? II Bernard or Bernadette?

Female or Shemale? III Bruce or Sheila?

Funnel or Tunnel? Are they taking it up the shitter or what?

8 Bit movie challenge. Can you guess the film from the pic?

Bloody foreigners! Swiss, Swedish, Danish or Dutch?

Man or Moo milk? Jizz or gold top?

Celebrity or Lookalike? The real McCoy or a real McFake?

Nonce or Babysitter? Have these celebs been convicted or not?

He cat or She cat? Pussy pussy or cock pussy?

Moobs or Boobs? Man boobs or birds boobs?

Crap Paint Quiz. Name the colours.

Flesh or Food? Part of you or part of dinner?

Coder or Killer? Beautifully done.

“Researchers found that men who get hitched are more likely to suffer mental health problems than those who simply live with their partners.”

One word for you Bov… UNLUCKY!

South Parade ~ aka Oli Newton, James Thundercliffe, Shaun Freeman and Tim Chapman will be appearing at Solid Entertainment’s Christmas party special at the Winter Gardens Cleethorpes later today. 22 bands on 2 stages in this all day’er. South Parade are on at 9pm on the upstairs stage and we’ll be there to support the lads on their 5th outing and 4th gig at the Gardens. I think it’s gonna be a great atmosphere with 22 bands playing, ticket sales are already over 1,000 which is more than the Winter Garden’s capacity. I think the idea is that with it starting at 4pm some people will come early just to watch their fave band and leave before the later bands are on. Well I hope that’s how it’s gonna work else I’m not getting in!

Anyway dudes, rock ‘n’ roll :devil:

Gutted. I was so looking forward to watching a tv program about the Beagle 2 Mars lander mission on Christmas day, couldn’t wait to see the live pics, both from mission control and the surface of Mars, feel the tension and watch the faces of all those involved who have invested years of work and dedication to the project, and there isn’t even a program on about it on Christmas day!?! I can’t beleive it. Surely they can find a spot between Jason and the Argonauts and Muppet show to fit it in the schedule! This amazing achievement of British engineers, designers and scientists that, lets face it could well go tits up at the last minute (which would make amazing tv too), and it’s all happening live and we can’t find a slot for it amongst our 4 / 5 terrestrial channels and infinite sattelite and cable channels? Bad show I reckon, damn bad show.

Congratulations to Bov & Tracy who tied the knot on Sunday 14th December. It was a civil service at the Habrough Hotel, a fabulous setting and a really fantastic day. The wedding was wonderful and a big thanks to Bov, Trace (Mr. & Mrs. Oliver) and all involved in making it such a great day. The meal was gorgeous and there were some very nice touches on every table. The ladies got a mini box of chocs with a lottery ticket inside and all the gents got a personalised bottle of whisky. Smashing :)

Dunny, yes the same Dunny who lost himself and 13 others for nigh on an entire stag weekend in Amsterdam, managed to hang on to and deliver his speach without fault. Well done my son. And for his efforts he received a rather nice pocket watch from Bov & Trace. There was a bit of emotion in the air, and it was nice to see Bov shed a tear while Trace stayed composed and dashingly beautiful.

The happy couple are winging their way to the Big Apple as we speak for their honeymoon, and I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of the wedding pics when they get back. Here’s a few off the newts’s camera… Click for BIGGY.

But once again, just to say a big thank you to Bov, Trace and families for entertaing us at a fabulous do.

Recently got back from a trip up to the Lake District to see the Old boy & Chrissy. It was Ben’s first long run in the car and he was ace! Slept all the way there and back without a stop. We had a walk round the beautifully picturesque Tarn Hows on Sunday morning to work up an appetite before dinner in the famous Wild Boar. I couldn’t resist taking this pic of the lake or ‘tarn’. It just looked like an exclusive Canadian flyfishing water. I’d love to cast a fly there in the summer but I pretty sure it’s ‘No Fishing’ :( An hour of pushing Ben up hill and down dale on the mile and a half walk round the lake certainly worked up an appetite and our Sunday dinner was great. Ben was kept amused with the copious number of christmas trees and lights in the hotel.

Old slow hand himself has just recorded a cd of blues tracks. My uncle Steve picks a mean string or two and the sound he gets from his gorgeous Martin guitar is fabulous. The songs were recorded with a very basic setup that lends itself to the rawness of the blues tracks. There’s 3 tracks for you to download and have a listen to. 3 of my favourites…

Candy Man - 2:42 - 3.1MB
Cocaine Lil - 3:09 - 3.6MB
Hard Pill to Swallow - 3:08 - 3.59MB

Managed to get my hands on a 1987 Bang and Olufsen Beosystem 5500. My old boy’s got one and I remember it fondly as a young lad. There’s something mystical and special about a DO NOT TOUCH stereo. And luckily for me I’ve just inherited one for free :)

The sound quality was exceptional but the system had built in speaker protection so you couldn’t crank it up boomingly loud without it turning itself down. I’m working on this minor set back at the moment! First however I came across this minor setback with the B&O CX100 speakers. The rubber surrond on the drivers in the cabinets had completely perished. Gutted. I had a pair of CX100’s and a pair of CX50’s all with knackered drivers. Luckily, by far the most valuable speakers the Beo Lab Penta’s were both fine.

So it was a case of a temporary repair. I got hold of some german speaker drivers at my local Maplin store. They needed a bit of shaping to fit the square B&O cabs but after a quality soldering and rewiring job they sounded pretty damn good. The temporary job didn’t last long though because much to my surprise I had no problem getting hold of the original B&O drivers for both pairs of speakers. My local Bang & Olufsen centre ordered them from Denmark and had them shipped and ready for collection in 4 days! At £30 a piece with 6 to replace it seemed a bit expensive, but hey, I’d just inherited a five grand stereo for free.
All speakers repaired, the CX100’s are rear speakers to the Penta’s and my mini CX50’s are now bookcase speakers for my pc. Quality :)

We all set off from Hull bound for Rotterdam for an overnight stay in the city of ‘girls in windows’ and ‘joints in cafes’ for Bov’s stag do. 14 of us left and by some miracle of fate 14 of us returned (just). It was a great long weekend away and we all thouroughly enjoyed it. Even those who had to sleep in the lounge on the ferry cos they got locked out of their room and those wandered around Amsterdam alone all night kipping down for the night in a bar!
The ferry journey was a good laugh, the only drawbacks being the room being the size of your average khazi and the fucking BLING BLONG of the ceiling speaker waking me up 45 minutes after I’d got sleep to tell us that we will be arriving very shortly and to prepare for disembarkation. My advice to anyone taking the same ferry ride would be:
A) Buy your fags at the bar. £2.20 at the bar, £2.40 in the shop?
B) Disconnect the ceiling speaker in your room.
C) If you must play in the casino stick to roulette and avoid pontoon. Blackjack it aint!

A few pics, click for biggy’s:

All in all a great weekend away and I can’t wait to do Amsterdam again soon. There may be some more photo’s but that would involve Dunny finding his throw away camera… The same Dunny who had trouble finding himself, the 13 of us, the ferry and the hotel… so don’t hold your breath!

Well folks the newts.net is back in business. After much pissing around by my hosting company which resulted in the old newts.net being re-designed to the incarnation of thenewts.net V5 newtology, that had been running for a couple of months, a recent hack to the server (or that was their excuse) resulted in another complete reset for my account. The newts had to re-uploaded in it’s entirety back to the new (hack proof) server. While all of the layout files and pictures etc were backed up I had not yet backed up the database and so lost all my previous posts and peoples comments. Lesson learnt the hard way again

So the next few posts will be a case of re-posting some of the stories and pics I can remember from the last few couple of months since the new blog style newts.net started. Call it a trip down memory lane for regular newts.netters! For those of you who registered your details have been lost so please re-register. I think i’ve sussed out how to back up the database using a mysql dump, but god knows how you re-install it if required, we’ll worry about that when it happens!

Thanks for reading, check back soon and stay lucky

newts.