Podcast Ahoy!

Don't forget to keep your pumpkin lanterns burning tonight (safely, of course!).

I managed to upload my first podshow, if you visit my playlist blog you'll find some great stuff like a Flash MP3 player to listen to the podcast with in my sidebar (see, I am good to you!) and some wonderful videos (check out the Sylvie Lewis one), and you can also say Hellodeo to me by following the Send Me An Odeo link on the left underneath the archives link.

Well, that's enough shameless self-promotion for one night.

Happy Halloween 2006!

Here's a couple of versions of my favourite Halloween song - the one hit wonder of Monster Mash by Bobby "Boris" Pickett. Have a good party if your going to one tonight. Th first is a version by The Misfits and the second is a video that has an intro with some spooky sounds before it gets into the song. See if you can spot the second or two that looks out of place.

Vigilante!

Ever since watching Dirty Harry the first time as a kid and Death Wish too, I've sort of been attracted to the notion of vigilantism. There was also the Edward Woodward show The Equaliser that I enjoyed too. I'm attracted to the appeal of cops who are tough and who cross the line sometimes in order to bring the bad guys down. This week I was lucky enough to purchase a copy of the Gameboy Advance game Max Payne. It has a great storyline and cool graphic novel slides inbetween the action. These story sections are narrated, knowing the limitations of sound on the GBA, you'll appreciate how great it is to get anything like real human speech out of it but Max Payne does a great job, the game was less than a fiver too, amazing!

If I had a gun I would have used it today in a vigilante attack. I was crossing the road at a leisurely pace, no vehicles in sight. When suddenly a massive cement mixer truck is bearing down on me, like a rabbit I dash across to safety only to see the driver laughing heartily. I shouted back "You think that's funny do you? Do you?" but he just kept laughing. Fortunately, I was fit enough to be abe to run across in time but an old person or a child might not have been. What a dozy wanker he was!

Side note: Blogger should be renamed Bogger. It's let me down badly this week. Does anyone else notice that it's getting worse? It seems to be down for maintenance a lot too.

Won't be around for a couple of days now, due to a family outing.

Miserable, Wet, Cold, Dark Day!

Well, that sums up my day. I'm exhausted and spent a fruitless day with strangers today. Mostly today, I have been waiting for something that didn't happen. It just goes to show that life is short and you might just as well do something you like instead of what you think you must do. But then, I do have a family and we need to keep living. So I can't yet quit the day job and go live in a beach hut on a tropical island being paid to blog and surf the web (by satellite, of course). Oh why, oh why can't I win the Lotto?

Does My Bum Look Big In This

Miles Mendoza mentioned this website the other day. It's a service that allows strangers to send in comments on how you look wearing garments in order to help you make a decision on whether or not to make a purchase.
So you'd walk into a clothes store, ask to try on a pair of trousers (for example), take them into the dressing room, put them on and take a photo of you in the mirror with your cameraphone, leave the shop saying thanks but your not sure. Then you send the photo to the site by multi-media messaging and then wait a few minutes until texts start arriving from strangers who view the image (now on the website), leaving a comment and can say honestly whether the trousers make your arse look fat or not. I think this is hilarious! I bet it was a guy who came up with the idea.

A Song for a Sunday

I can't think of a better singer songwriter at the moment than KT Tunstall. I splashed out on a few CDs this weekend:

• KT Tunstall - Acoustic Extravaganza
• Scissor Sisters - Ta-Dah
• Lily Allen - Alright Still...
• Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better
• Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I am, That's What I'm Not
• Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere

I watched the DVD with the KT Tunstall CD and it was brilliant. Recording an album in a day in someone's living room on the Isle of Skye in Scotland! Brilliant stuff. There was one video with KT and the band playing around with the effect pedal she uses, it was very funny. While looking for a video to play I found this one with the same pedal in it. It shows how adept she is with it, but also how rythmic and utterly blinding she is on her own with an acoustic guitar. I'd say she's mesmerising, a great end to a Sunday - hope you enjoy!

Creating demand for a toy this Christmas

People on some forums are attempting to earn a profit by buying all of these up and selling them for higher prices on e-Bay. The idea being to make parents think their kids are going to be distraught if they don't get one for Christmas 2006, as it's "the toy" to get this year. I have no objection at all to e-Bay, it's an excellent service, but I do object to individual profiteers who seek to manipualte parents in this way.

Dreams

I woke up laughing this morning after dreaming this:

Some bloke is talking to a friend, offering him advice on getting a new car for free. He is explaining how to dig a pit into which a rusty old car can be pushed and covered over with sweetcorn. He explains that in 24 hours time, if the sweetcorn is removed, a gleaming brand new car will have replaced the old banger.

It's odd what we dream isn't it? I don't know if watching the film Silent Hill influenced me to dream that or not but there was a lot of rust in it.

If you want to check out my review of Silent Hill, you can find it here.

5000 Visits / Lets get real

My site statistics tell me that this blog has achieved 5000 visits, how cool is that? I began it in January 2005 and my first year it was me just dumping thoughts. But after a while I started reading other blogs and posting comments. So I consider that I've really only been an active blogger for about a year.

The next bit of this post is titled LETS GET REAL!

Next up, Madonna and her adoption of a Malawi one year old boy. There's a lot of hooha about it at the moment over here. I read a column in one paper on the way home tonight that called for people to stop the monster! I don't think she's a monster - although Lourdes portrayed as Damien from The Omen in Star Stories was quite funny. It's one of those issues that I don't consider to be a "news" story at all, I don't know if the facts are really known yet but a lot of people are blowing hot steam they're so angered by it. It's only because it's Madonna that people think they have a right to make a stink. As far as I'm aware she's also given money to the orphanage and it's a wonderful chance for a competely new life for a little boy. There may be fair criticism of what she's done, but she's no monster - let's get real!

I read with interest the story about Bono's stetson hat (trousers and a few other items of clothing) and the stylist who wanted to auction it. I'm not the world's greatest U2 fan, infact I find most of their output a bit ropey. With large acts there are people poncing all around them all the time I'm sure. Why the band has bothered to take issue at all confuses me. Don't they have enough money to buy several hundred hats? Obviously the items hold meaning for them, but at some point don't you just give up and say it's not worth it? Let's get real!

Lastly, on my way home this evening I bought a little pot of Greek Yoghurt with raspberries and honey at the bottom of the pot. Believe it or not, I've never tried Greek yoghurt before. It was absolutely the finest yoghurt I've ever tasted in my life. There was also some with muesli that I didn't try. I'm definitely going to buy me some Greek yoghurt and honey tomorrow to have with my muesli.

John Peel Day (Belated)

Well, I meant to post something last Thursday and it didn't quite work out for me. I think there were celebrations all over the world in one form or another, this link gets you to a list of the UK gigs held in honour of the great man. This is the John Peel Day Flickr group photo pool, you will see lots of band shots.

Radio just isn't the same without Peely.

I'm not quite sure how The BBC's Electric Proms ties in with the John Peel Day celebrations but here is a guide to what's on - it all kicks off on Wednesday 25th. The 28th and 30th look like they will be my favourite days. There is going to be a John Peel Night but I haven't found out yet when that is. The performances are going to be watchable online and through BBCi.

BBC Radio 6 is also having a week dedicated to Peel from 23rd to27th October, called Keeping It Peel. On this page you can find out what was in John's emergency record 7" records box (and vote for your favourite track: Johnny Fortune - 'Dragster' was mine) and hear the 6 part documentary he did with John Waters (friend and producer).

Sunday Tech Thoughts

A bit of a techie post tonight. I've a few things on my mind:

• Am I hallucinating or has the line "Switched to the new beta version?" just started appearing when leaving comments? What's different about the new beta Blogger? Can old Blogger blogs switch to the new beta version of Blogger? Anyone use it enough to be able to tell whether it's worth changing to it?

• I had a go on a friend's new smartphone and was disappointed to see that Mobile Word doesn't have the drawing functionality that Pocket Word had. Most of my Dinkums and Doodles contributions use the old Pocket Word

• I see that the Google Reader has undergone a user interface makeover and is much easier to use. The old interface was not very intuitive and I couldn't work it out but I get the new interface without too much effort. I'm going to try and use it to keep better tabs on my favourite blogs, I'm very hit and miss at the moment. On the other hand, I'm slightly worried that I won't visit blogs as much - I enjoy looking at the templates, links, profiles and all the other stuff my online buddies do to their blogs: I sometimes get just as much enjoyment seeing what other stuff people are into and reading (and adding) comments as I do from reading their blog posts: Google Reader doesn't cover that.

• I'm moving into audio territory in a couple of weeks with a podcast show and I've seen a microphone I want but it's like 50 quid, so I'll add it to my imaginary Christmas list

• I use Personalised Google as my home page, when I set it up I added a few widgets to it that I dropped but I haven't gone and had a look at what widgets were available for a while. Boy, was I surprised at the stuff that I can now plug into the page - practically anything I like. Cool! (although I suspect after my initial enthusiasm for adding cool stuff, I'll realise I can't possibly use all of it and return to my few staple widgets I use most often)
  

The last thing this evening is about a chef who made his bride to be a wedding dress out of profiteroles. I hope this link to the full story works. You might say she was good enough to eat!

The Baby (1973)

It's getting colder, the nights are drawing in. Winter is on its way and so is Halloween. Yes, it's horror film season, yay!! It's also Friday the 13th!!!!!! Now, I'd be failing in my duty to you if I didn't try and interest you in something bizarre and disturbing wouldn't I? So here it is, one of the strangest and unsettling horror films I've ever seen. It's so seventies, if you're into that scene you're going to love this film. The plot synopsis is here, it's a psychodrama and a classic that I have on VHS taped from the TV late one night a few years back. I had taped a documentary a few weeks back and fell asleep while watching it, when I woke up I realised that I had missed my documentary and there was something else on the tape. Fortunately I hadn't taped over this seventies masterpiece of sick! Enjoy it, if you can find it!!

Lego

In a couple of weeks we'll be going to Legoland Windsor for the weekend. My kids love it there, especially my daughter - she loves to ride on the coasters. I love Lego. Of all of my construction type toys, I spent more time playing with Lego than any other set. I did inherit a lot of Lego from my brother, but I had some bought me as my own too. I made mostly vehicles and guns. I made a fair proportion of space vehicles. I play Lego building with my kids every so often, I should do it more often. It's good to play like a child, using your imagination. And I bet my models would be so much better now I'm older, LOL!

Blogrolling

I hate it when my Blogroll links don't load, it's happened a few times lately. I rely on those links to visit my favourite blogs. It's so annoying when they're not there!

(this was what I forgot from my last post!)

Wednesday Welcome

It feels like a long week for some reason. It was only Wednesday today. Last night, believe it or not, felt very much like a Friday evening to me. I didn't get much sleep last night: my daughter had a nightmare and came into our bed. Then a few hours later my son yelled out my name because he had peed the bed. I hate it when that happens, its not often fortunately but talk about a rude awakening! I've found motivation at work difficult this week, probably due to the tiredness and the feeling that it's a long week.

It absolutely poured down with rain this afternoon, we had dark grey skies and thunder and lightning - very exciting. More exciting than actually doing any work anyway.

There was something specific I was going to mention but it just plain jumped out of my head at the end of that last paragraph. Darn it!

TV Dinners

Not quite literally a tv dinner for me this evening, I am sitting at my computer rather than the tv. You get the idea though.

I'm trying to make the most of my tea tonight, which consists of supermarket chilli con carne ready meal and glass of flat lemonade. The lemonade has gone flat, it was originally bubbly. Making the most of actually consists of adding a couple of slices of bread and butter! You see, we were in a rush today and the children had eaten elsewhere and my wife worked late and then had to go attend a speech tonight. So I thought I might be starving when I came home and would be eating later than usual. So here I am, not really enjoying this very much.

I've never eaten a tv dinner as depicted in the picture though. It looks like it is highly packaged for tv convenience, it's quite appealing in that way. It's more appealing than my chilli con carne, which I've now stopped eating. I'm going to cut up some apple, cucumbers and cheese to have with a few grapes: we call simple stuff like that "bits and bobs".

On the subject of TV Dinners one of the first tracks I heard and liked by ZZ Top was TV Dinners. It must have been on of the first 12 inch singles I ever bought infact. Robert Palmer did a great version of the song on the last album he did before he passed away, Drive.

Coming soon....

I've been working on a new project. Here's a clue, just to tantalise you...

Friday night pubs

It's been one of those wet, cold Fridays. I'm glad its Friday and that I can put the heat on and settle into a relaxing evening knowing that I don't have to go out or get up early tomorrow. At times like these though, I know from past experience, its usually the best time to go out. There's something about wet, cold Fridays that make sitting in a warm pub getting a bit drunk and talking to your mates more attractive. Mostly in pubs people talk a lot of rubbish about work, relationships, who they fancy, who they don't fancy etc. It's good to talk though. And in pubs there's usually a fair amount of laughter.
That's a rather rose-tinted view of pubs. But from where I sit right now, I quite fancy a pint...

Dressing Up

It'll soon be Halloween. How the days fly by! I like to see the shops change their stock in preparation for different seasonal events. The supermarket has a lane dedicated to orange and black Halloween goodies like masks, devils horns, capes, cauldrons, witches broomsticks and so on. I don't yet know if I'll get an opportunity to wear the Dracula cape I bought last year. I had been invited to attend a kids party with my son and we both went as vampires. I liked dressing up as a kid and it's a shame that I don't have an opportunity to dress up in the normal course of my life. Actors get to dress up all the time. Other workers get to wear a uniform. I don't have any formal dress code in my job or my leisure time. It's a shame that dressing up is usually just limited to actors. Just the act of putting on strange clothes and prancing about must make you happy. It would make me smile, I think.

Second Chance

Have you ever felt something was broken so that you reluctantly had to let go, only to find some time later that it wasn't actually broken so bad and can be fixed? No, I'm not talking about relationships, I'm taking about my old PDA. I own an old Compaq iPaq that's been gathering dust in a drawer. The battery is screwed, but the screen is still OK and as long as it's not left on AC power too long it works. Long enough for me to draw with anyway. I thought I broke it a while back because it wouldn't even turn on after I'd gven it a good charge. It's probably some power cut out thing. I wish I could get my old digital camera to work but I don't think that's ever gonna happen...