Let's All Take Up F.A.G Breaks!

My Mother's idea of a cult: "A minority craze"

An insightful week at work this week in WHSmiths. A day when I was so tired, I spent the day in a dazed state doing whatever seemed normal. I was sat on tills all day which made brainless work easy.

Around 2pm, a customer bought a pack of 20 cigarettes for about £9 and complained that the weather outside made her feel horrible and that she "needed a fag break" She then exclaimed about the price of said "Fags" and left.

The customer after her wins Pasta's "Thought-provoking quote of the week" award. He looked disgustingly at the last customer and said this:

"You can buy 20 chocolate bars for £9, surely if you're going to wreck your health, you may as well do it with something that tastes nice"

In my dazed state, I smiled and bagged his newspaper, sending him on his way. About an hour later, when his words had processed- I had the fantastic thought.

Freddos are great. You can get them in packs of 20, everyone likes them. I even know people who are allergic to chocolate who can eat Freddos and not die. They bring happiness in their little frogg-y form and cost around 17p each.
Those of you 90s kids out there who remember when they were 10p each, respect points earnt there.

Inflation hit everything, but Freddos are still great.

I'm thinking of promoting a new type of "F.A.G break" where instead of the word "fag" being slang for a cigarette, it will infact stand for "Freddos Are Great" and be a calling for all Freddo-eaters to congregate together and share a freddo or two. It's illegal indoors, it won't give you lung cancer and they can make you happy on even the most dreary day.

Excuse me, I need to go on a fag break.

Dedication to Cheese, Our Favourite Imaginary Friend

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends was a TV show created by Craig McCracken (Who also happens to have one of the best names known to man)

The show was aired on Cartoon Network until 2009 when the show finished.

Cheese is one of the most well-known and, in my opinion, best characters of the show.

This post is a little tribute to that fantastic character voiced by Candi Milo.

Lost: Virginity

A few weeks ago, everyone at Bath Spa University, UK recieved this e-mail from a lady in the office:

With the subject "Lost Glasses", we learnt of Alison's sad story about her lost glasses. A few days later, we recieved another e-mail informing us that her glasses had been found. Thank the lord.

However, a few days after this e-mail went out. EVERY student at Bath Spa University then recieved this:

The e-mail sparked a range of responses, mostly of congratulations and humour among the different accomodation buildings. A few days later, in the same fashion, we all recieved a second e-mail informing us of his "found virginity"

University is the best.

Christmas Craft Fair

Christmas season is well and truly upon us with the Coca Cola advert dominating our screens, the minutes-long Debenhams Advert and the fantastic John Lewis advert too all warming our hearts ready for the mulled wine and mince pies!

Christmas fairs are popping up all around the country as we get close to the big day and one I'd like to highlight to all of the people around the Guildford/Surrey area is the one at George Abbot School. This Sunday (25th November, 2012) 10:30am-3:30pm

I've been for years and it has only grown bigger every year! Last year we even had snow to really set the scene. This year there are going to be some fantastic stalls with all the best deals on them, perfect for treating yourself or Christmas presents!

A stall I am a little biased to promoting is the stall of Sue Masterton "Felt This". Felt-Genius and knitting phenomenon, she has been very hard at work producing a massive range of goodies to sell on her stall on Sunday for prices lower than low.

Some of the things available will be:

These beautiful tree decorations, to add a little hand-made sparkle to your Christmas tree this year! With tonnes of designs and colours, there's one for any "theme" you may have, or maybe ask your child to pick out their favourite colour!

Also on offer are these fantastic mug cosies! Lovingly Hand-knitted and come with the mug they're sat on, these make a perfect present for that special tea-lover, or of course if you fancy keeping your cuppa warm for the whole episode of coronation street this winter, treat yourself to one!

One of my many personal new favourites on the stall this year is the beautifully crafted woolly breakfast! The knitted kits are all different from one another (The one pictured includes; two mushrooms, one tomato, a fried egg, one sausage and one streak of, my favourite, bacon) The perfect fry-up!
Fantastic toys for children, hard wearing and prettier than the plastic ones available! Safer too!

This is a tiny selection of just some of the amazing products that will be available at "Felt This", there will definitely be something for everyone!

Also attending, Jane Cameron, a Silk-Painting artist. A beautiful range of silk paintings to choose from all at even better prices. Her website here (with pictures of the stall you'll be seeing too!)

So get your boots and coats on and head on down there on Sunday! There's also a raffle, tombola, cake-sale and activities for children!
Also don't miss a visit from guide-dog puppies at 11am!

See you there!

DoodleBug

I doodle ALL the time, and I've always felt that it helps me concentrate, but have always felt a little rude doing it while someone is trying to give a talk or chair a meeting.
However, a video posted on TED recently has got me thinking, and has luckily proved that it is infact a very healthy habit.




See the comments and whole page here. Also lots of other talks that are very inspiring and not too long. I know what you're like, you teaspoons, you.

I did lots of doodling today whilst listening to my seminar tutor, and didn't feel bad about it at all. I learnt a lot (and even corrected her on one point...)

After waiting an hour in the rain and galeforce winds, a bit of electroswing and sweetcorn is in order. Life is good. 

Hey, You- Geek!

Do you read comics?

No? Would you like to?
Yes? Brilliant, then you've probably read some bad ones too.

I've started writing reviews for the comics I read so you don't have to waste your money on bad ones.

You can find it here: www.isitworthreading.tumblr.com

It's only just been born, so be nice. It'll copy whatever you do, it's learning.

VistaPrint is Cool.

 The lovely lads and ladies at vistaprint have given me all this suffs for free :D

You can get some free stuff too, just head on over to vistaprint.co.uk

< That picture right there is of my bedroom wall. Batman is a favourite thing, so is Johnny Depp. but in the top left is my favourite thing. It's a banner made for Pasta Needs More Salt! I love it.

<These bits are on my bedroom door now, A big yellow and red poster and a car-door magnet.

 These stars are postcards with pasta's stuff on it. Our taglines and our names.

 and the backs of the postcards down there.

Finally the last piece, some sticky notes done up with our taglines and blogspot website. Wonderful.


This stuff is supposed to be helping me choose a design for Pasta, since it needs a colour-theme.

Please do comment if you like some designs better than others, or if you think some are definite no's!

and for heaven's sake. Salt your pasta.

Thank Cheesus for Olbas Oil.

Olbas oil is one of the best things in the world.

I was in uni the other day and this sign was on the male toilets.

To be honest, I have to be blunt here. I nearly needed to use the toilets opposite these ones after laughing so hard.

Raised Manholes? In a male toilet?

So it's lots of men on the floor with their arses in the air then. Wonderful.
Of course, since punctuation is non-existant, we can be a little more creative and imagine this actually means "Care-raised Manholes" Bum holes that have been raised caringly. Equally, what a lovely image.

This sign did confuse a lot of the males who went to enter the toilet, they seemd timid when opening the door... I wasn't sure if they were expecting to see the first suggestion.

What made this photograph awkward, was the first two times I tried to take it--- either a man came out of the toilet and I caught him, wet handed (Hopefully with water) or a woman wanted to walk in front of me.

She did give me a strange look.

This is wonderful, I want it on a t-shirt.

Also, this:

That face.

Good Food, Bad Food, Good Food, Bad Food....

On a scale of bad to good.

In the bad corner we have:

"Heart Attack in a Tin"
Courtesy of my Aunt, this marvellous tin of left-over birthday cake and magic was given to me to devour during a game of dominoes.

I had this tin, a gin and orange that made my eyes want to puncture themselves it was so strong and Jameson's dominoes. A psychologist once came up with the idea of a state of "flow" which is when something is SO good we forget anything else and we're just living the moment.

I was in full flow that night.

On the opposite end of the scale, we tip it to a £3.50 each (Between 8) roast dinner cooked by my housemates (Who are amazing).

On that table there's;

-Roasties
-Stuffing
-Leeks in Cheese sauce (With added cheese)
-Parsnips
-Yorkshire Pudding
-Carrots and Swede
-Chicken
-Green beans
-Cabbage
-Broccoli

Don't Trust Ducks

Train journeys.
Full of drunken underagers, grumpy train workers, smelly toilets, the odd dog and those one-off plug sockets sometimes in the back of chairs.

I like those plug sockets. Phone not fully charged?
Problem solved.

That little white circle down the bottom left is the plug socket. That was for moles who find most things difficult, mostly social situations, but seeing is pretty difficult too.

Another animal laughed at in social situations: Ducks.

Not anymore:

Pasta Goes on Facebook

The pasta told me to do it.

Since I think we have enough readers now to qualify for a Facebook page, I did it. I went ahead and I just did it.

Go "Like" it, Give it the thumbs up and then make stickers of the facebook address and stick them to your mother's back before she goes shopping. That's bound to get a few more facebookers halfheartedly pushing "like"


www.facebook.com/pastaneedsmoresalt

There you go.

Go on now, don't worry you won't miss anything by clicking off of this window.

END OF THE RAINBOW: No skittles.

 Walking to the bus stop at uni the other day, this happened:

A magnificent rainbow appeared.


But it wasn't any ordinary rainbow.

It was a rainbow that I could see the end of. I've never seen the end of a rainbow before (I genuinly believed the "ends" were complete myths)
I had to stop myself QUITE hard not to run over to the tree it stopped on to check for gold.

 I swear a saw a unicorn running about with a cat who had a poptart for a body too.

It's ok, I worry too.

Call Me Maybe

Derren Brown. You magnificent fellow, you.

I swear his magic and witchcraft has been keeping me alive these past few days. His showmanship is astounding and with the little hints of psychology in it, makes for good background noise whilst doing university work!

All of his "Trick or Treat" Series were VERY good, worth a look and I'm working my way through his "Trick of the Mind" series now. Also magnificent, do take a peeky there too.
Both are available to watch for free on the 4oD website here.

As I mentioned in my last post, this post has something to do with "Call me Maybe"

This is why:

I pictured this beauty on the side of a student block in Bristol, the same trip I took the pictures of Nelson Street on.

This has been seen on the internet before, but it did make me chuckle seeing it for real.

I would have preffered it the second person (Let's call him Mr D.One) had been a little more creative like this:

Stop That Door!

First offs, An apology for taking so long to let this post out of its packet.
I've contracted a HORRIBLE DISEASE from a clown. It's the flu. It's horrible. I've been sat in bed all day with only my snot bubbles for company. They're quite cute, really.

Anyway, down to business. Sweet, sweet business.

I went to Bristol a few weeks ago for the first time, perhaps in my life. And fell across Nelson Street.

After getting lost I found a popup shop called "SeeNoEvil" It intrigued me, its name and its stock. So I went in and had a look around. I ended up buying some fantastic bits of art by a guy called Peter Parker. So it's not only cool because they're good art. They were also drawn by Spiderman.

After getting into a long discussion with the owner of the shop (He was a graffitti artist, he had a LOT to say) I found out that Nelson street is the largest area dedicated to Graffitti in the whole of Europe. And to think, I just stumbled across it when I was lost. How typical of me.

Here's some more graffitti you can find down that street too. Isn't it beautiful?

I had a long discussion with the man in "SeeNoEvil" about whether it was art or just dirt, or destruction.
Comment where you stand if you have any strong feelings.



This photograph here. Is taken of the bathroom door in my house. I don't know if it's clear what's happened here, but the little black dot on the door is a black hole that has obviously been created by the "Door stop" on the wall on the left.

Don't ask me how I got this photograph. Just laugh at the fact that clearly, at some point (Not since I've lived here) Someone has needed to visit the toilet SO much, they threw the door open so hard that the "door stop" didn't stop the door.


So I think this post has had enough writing and photographs for one post.

Thank you, Penguin for pushing me into finally publishing this beast.

Next Post: Call me, Maybe?

Here's to Diglett

This. This is "The Great Mole of China"
Named by the artist who did this lovely little piece for Bath highstreet outside of my work at WHSmiths.

The mole took less than quarter of an hour to sculpt and was more than popular with the public.

I know the artist has my card and has been looking for the post about his beloved mole for a few weeks now, so a quick apology for him for taking so long.

This little mole reminded quite alot of a dear pokemon that holds a place in every 90's kid heart.





Diglett. The MS Paint Pokemon that baffles us all.




Here's to Diglett.

The Elephant With No Name

There's only 15,004 days left of oil according to Worldometers.com Does that scare you? No, me neither. That's an incomprehensible amount of days. That's more than 5 years, and I'm not interested to know how old I'm going to be in 5 years (Though at a guess, about... Twenty... thousand and sixty four, I think)

In my blog post "Apocalypse is spelt..." I mentioned an assignment that I had recently done on Drugs Education in schools and strangely enjoying doing it...
Anyway, writing essays, as with a lot of people I know, isn't the thing I find easiest in the slightest. and sometimes I found myself wandering to Facebook for a quick break and felt myself thinking "I wonder if I'll have time to finish this tomorrow" but no. I didn't do that, I finished the damn thing and I got it in with plenty of time to spare and it was such a good feeling.
and you know why I did that? Not only because I'm just awesome, but because of this guy:

 This is my new friend. He's an elephant. With an afro.
He's wonderful, he has a cheeky grin and I can assure you he's the most motivating face you'll ever look up and see. I found him in a sale basket in Claire's Accessories and when I took him to the counter, the lady had no idea they sold them. He was the last one and I was damn pleased that I got to take him home. He is yet to have a name. If anyone has any suggestions, do comment them down there somewhere and I'll choose one.

In Food News!
The photo on the left is a picture I took of the meal I got at the uni cafeteria. It's a pork mincemeat and apple pie with chips, broccoli and chips. and gravy.

CHIPS AND GRAVY. MMMM.

Oh, did I mention it only cost me £3.40?

I'll give you a second to pick your jaw up off the floor.

This, for those who don't recognise it immediately, is a Fray Bentos pie.

If you ever get the chance to cook up one of these tinned beauties. Do it. Do it so much you can't stand the sight of pie *No Guarantee you will ever reach this point*

Beware when boiling carrots though. They have to be boiled to death before they're squishy enough to be edible.

I don't think I need too much commentary with these photographs.

All I will tell you is that it's the writing on the pen that made me laugh when the tutor handed it to me to make a poster.

It actually means "Thick" in German. Which is also fairly amusing. It had a thick end and a thin end.




No. The other end did not say "Vagina".

Mayonaise, What? No, French Guy!

The next best thing out of France after Mayonaise:

Watch it immediately. It'd be rude not to.

My Mind is in Pieces.

Apocalypse is Spelt "..c-a-l.." Who Knew?

This beautiful comic from Cyanide and Happiness really made me quite happy. I'm going to start doing this (If I remember, which is very unlikely since I forget most quirks I want to pick up...)

Oh god, It's been a long time since I did this. I feel bad. Sorry internet folk. I've had a few messages from you asking me to post- so here you go. This is a post.

News in 30 seconds: I did my first assignment and it went really well and I've handed it in and I'm waiting for marks. NEXT STORY. I found this new guy called Richard Wiseman (His REAL name) and he's a psychologist-come-magician and he has a really cool blog here. It's wonderful and his youtube channel is pretty immense too. I'm going into a placement in a reception class next Tuesday and then every Tuesday from then for 9 weeks to play with PLAYDOUGH and read STORIES and have NAPTIME. I chose a good degree.
THERE NEWS DONE. That's what I've been doing. Fill in the gaps with university, eating, sleeping, breathing and WATCHING TV.

Only two channels on my TV work. BBC 1 and 2. Don't ask me why, I have no idea. Maybe there's a bird nesting in our SKY DISH. Or something, who knows? but I've been watching everything a day or two behind everyone else. It's like unvoluntarily living in the past, since if I were to voluntarily do that, it wouldn't be a day or two ago. It'd be the 1920s. All that show girl, feathers and kicking about in smokey bars for gangsters to wolf whistle at us a few times? Lots of Bugsy Malone-type situations going on and a WHOLE LOAD of canes and pinstripes? Yeah. Yeah I could do that. (Not to forget Jessica Rabbit, everyone loves her!)
So what have I been watching?

Derren Brown. Mind-Blowing Extroadinaire. He is wonderful. He's like a strange demi-god with an even more powerful mind than THOR HIMSELF. His brand new show (Brown's... Not Thor...) is called "Apocalypse" and with anything, if you're one of my beloved American viewers, you've already seen the second half. Don't comment what happens or I'll have to set a rabid bear on you.
Basically, he's managed to convince a young man that the world has ended and he's moved him to a location far away from anything and has set up a fake hospital where he woke up in and everyone's infected... blah blah. The fact is, it's insane. The guy wakes up and GENUINLY believes he's smack bang in the middle of an apocalypse and is really quite scared. If you haven't watched it, do.
Because of TV not working, I have to wait until it comes on "Play it Again" Damn it.

Some people will get the picture, some won't. Here's to you picture---getters!

In the Comic world, other things are going on. Batman's desperately trying to save Comissioner Gordon whilst also trying to arrest Dollface and vainly hope the Joker doesn't reapper to claim his face (Which of course he will), Batwoman is teaming up with strange folks and protecting a lesbian couple, Transofmer's Infestation 2 is still impossible to follow, so I have no idea what's going on... in "Irresistable" a man has developed a power to make any woman he wants fall in love with him, and soon he's going to find out it's not all it's cracked up to be. Ask Tom Cruise. It turned him insane. Rest his tormented soul.

This has been a long one. I need to put another funny picture I found on the internet on the end of this to make it seem like a comic SANDWICH.