Without Thinking

Rachel's post about stuff she did as a child got me thinking about some of the skeletons in my closet from my younger days. One incident happened quite innocuously one summers day while I was spending time in the back yard with the daughter of a neighbour.

The houses we lived in at the time backed onto a field, which was actually an exhumed cemetary. Although I say we were neighbours there was one house inbetween us and the occupant had recently died, he used to have an old shed at the end of his garden but it had been pulled down by his surviving family to make the property more saleable. One upright beam had been left standing for use as something to attach a clothes line to. My friend was female and about 3 or 4 years younger than me, I can't remember exactly how old I was - probably 9 or 10 maybe. We were on the field near the upright beam and for some reason had a length of white plastic clothes line wire - the type to really sting if you got whipped with it in a fight with a brother or something. I don't remember the conversation but the game involved tying one end of the wire to the beam and the other end around the girl's throat with a knot that would tighten. Her task was to run as fast as possible to the trees on the other side of the field. The wire is probably between 30 and 60 feet long and is clearly not long enough to allow her to reach the trees. But we are a little more than just friends, she's smitten with me and would jump off a cliff if I told her to. So anyway, she's motoring on and I can see her running through the heat haze above the grass. Suddenly the wire is at full stretch and silently she is yanked backwards off her feet and onto the grass on her back. I race to her and she's in tears. The wire is tight around her throat, really tight and she can't get it undone and is struggling to breathe. I start desperately trying to loosen the knot. I know it was stupid. It was cruel. Now all I'm hoping for is to get the knot loosened, slip the wire off her neck and comfort her with the aim of stopping her crying and from telling on me to her mother. Time seems to stretch out into an aeon of despair when horror of horrors - her mother comes into her yard and starts calling for my friend to come in for lunch. I can't loosen the wire, she's crying, her mother's yelling and now getting angry. Her mother is a fierce woman. The one Saving Grace is that we're too far for her to hear the crying and they have a tree in their garden that obstructs the view. It must have felt like years but it must only have been seconds because I was able to get the wire from her neck without her turning blue. She went in for lunch, after the tears had subsided a bit (although her mum must have known she'd been crying) and as far as I know that was the end of it. She probably got a telling off for being late for lunch, how unlucky is that? A scary few seconds though and how stupid could I have been to do that? I'm just glad it wasn't a hanging prank, I would definitely not have got the wire off!

Post-Easter Catch Up

Easter is over, it was OK actually. The weather was incredible - sunny and bright and warm. We all caught the sun accidentally on Sunday, it wasn't red hot but was obviously hot enough to burn. I feel awful that my son and daughter had red skin where the sun had been because we didn't cream them up.

On Sunday the Car Boot season began again. Car Boot sales are run by entrepreneurs who own some land and they charge something like eight pounds for you to park your car and sell your stuff. Somewhere close by, controlled by what I would loosely term "wardens", there is car parking where the buyers park. If you pay a pound each you can get to the sellers before 11am but after 11am it is 30 pence to get in. People sell all kinds of stuff - I like to see stuff that reminds me of when I was a kid because either I had it or I wanted it or I knew someone who had it. Literally anything can be bought and you often see the same stuff for sale on lots of stalls - kids clothes are very common for obvious reasons and kids stuff in general come to that. You have to appreciate how some stuff must have sold in the millions for so many people to be selling it in car boots - like board games, exercise equipment, kids annuals, toys and so on. We came away with the game Monopoly (British version) and it was in good condition for one pound fifty. OK so the new version does do away with money and has a "banker unit" but the old version with sorting out the money by hand is just as good in my opinion - it's nice to get loads of 500s in your hands because you know its never going to happen in real life.

Speaking of business, making money and financial greed. The Apprentice has started again on the BBC and it's as entertaining as ever. Jadine and Tre seem to be the most irritating people so far but they have narrowly escaped being fired. It's about the only regular programme, other than re-runs of Friends that I watch.

The fine weather is expected to continue for at least until Sunday, which is going to be very warm. So I expect to be out in the garden mowing the lawn at the weekend. I have Monday off, so I'm looking forward to that. Not sure how I'll use the time, my daughter will be with me as her teachers have training on that day. We might have to invent a game. She loves the re-runs of the competitive fitness and body building show The Gladiators. So maybe I can come up with Gladiator style physical challenges for her at the local park's playground?

Dirty Weekend

It's the Easter break yay! The weather is going to be fine. No work for four days in a row. We're at home, so no rushing about (apart from me picking my daughter up from the grandparents today). So it's going to be a dirty weekend for me, yes you guessed it - time to go out in the garden and begin sorting it out for the summer. I don't mean the patio, my wife has done her part - planting the pots and stuff. Now it's my turn, that means mowing. I have a hover mower that was the cheapest model in the range and although it cuts the grass, if the grass is long you have to go over it twice at different blade settings. So, as a consequence of that, it takes twice as long to cut it. It doesn't pick the grass up either, so I'll have dirty green fingers at the end of it (I don't like wearing gloves). There may be other dirty jobs to do too, like sorting the shed out. I've put this off too long, now its time for action - unless I can find something else to suggest we do instead (like go to the zoo) ;-)

Whatever you get up to over the break, I hope you have a great time.

Forced Absence

In the past week I've had time off, hit several IT problems, enjoyed myself 10 pin bowling, been away from home and generally been forced to take a break from Blog World and my podshow. Although the sequence of events was something I didn't choose, in a way I had a good time despite the difficulties.


The photo above is of Sooty and Sweep, two characters who have been part of childrens television in the UK since the sixties. I enjoyed watching them as a child and we took my children to a live Sooty show this week. Some shows appeal to children and adults alike, like The Simpson's. This was definitely a show aimed at the kids. Fortunately, for the first time in what seems like ages we weren't sitting in the first two rows and were infact several rows back and to the side. There was A LOT of water going into the audience within the first three rows, so I'm especially glad we didn't get a soaking. I didn't enjoy it very much, the kids loved it and I think a soaking would have just made me annoyed (a Grumpy Dad attack), a little bit of a water is OK but there some very wet people by the end - who must have found it uncomfortable to sit in their clothes.


I don't go ten pin bowling very often but it is always good fun when I go. We went out for bowling and a Chinese meal this week, as a small group of couples, and it was great fun. So hopefully, we'll be repeating the event in May. I prefer a lighter ball, it had a number 10 on it but I'm not sure if that referred to size or weight or what. I didn't score a strike unfortunately but someone in our group managed to score 4 strikes in a row, which I just find incredible. I didn't manage to win any of the games, the boys beat the girls, and I didn't even score over a 100 in either of two games. I did improve with practice though, it's just that I don't think I can afford to practice very often. Nevertheless, I enjoyed myself and it's a good sport to enjoy with friends.

Muted

Teatime last Thursday our Internet dropped again and it only came back on this morning. This is starting to become a monthly occurence and I've had enough, so we'll be changing our Internet provider. I'm also experiencing problems uploading last week's podcast and lack of internet has meant I've not been able to follow the problem up and I've been unable to do the research for this week's show, which I would have recorded over the weekend. So it's not been a good week for me techno-wise. I feel like I've been muted. I'll post again later to today, I've got today off so have things to do now - catch you laters.

Shocked and appalled

I just read this. I'm just so shocked and appalled at the level of mysogyny and lack of restraint some men show to women. It makes me want to stop blogging and have nothing to do with the Blogosphere, it's a salutary lesson in the dangers of blogging. I hope this explains why I don't stray into areas of my life that reveal more about me than I'm comfortable with and to regular readers: I thank you from the bottom of my heart that you continue to come back and read my thoughts, even though I'm not giving out the full details of places and names.

What colour is yours?

My wife's anniversary present for me this year was a Ninentendo DS Lite, a truly wonderful present. It came with the game Bomberman, which is one of those maddening addictive games that transcends generations. I've never played the game before but I love it. The DS Lite makes my existing Game Boy Advance games look great too, the backlit screen is such a massive improvement over my old unlit screen. So I now have my first new game console since I bought my PS2 at the beginning of 2005. I was looking at the PSP and considering it but I'm so glad I went with the DS Lite, there are so many really good GBA games that I can play on it. Backwards compatibility was something I went for on my PS2. Over time, you grow out of the older games and move on and the double screen, touch screen, microphone input and wifi mean that the DS is going to be a console I keep well into the future. My wife and I are already discussing buying the baby pink version for my daughter for her birthday: the really fun part is called Pictochat where you can chat with friends by both typing and drawing pictures and sending them to each other. Also, you can play games wirelessly with friends - Bomberman allows up to 8 people to play with just one game cartridge! A terrific gift. Now I have to match it, which won't be easy.

The Wriggler

I went shopping with my son at the weekend and we ended up in Hawkins Bazaar, which is a shop I love because it has toys that remind me of my childhood. There are loads of little things that are very cheap, which is another reason I love taking the kids there because it's one toyshop that includes toys that require imagination. I ended up buying a few small items, one of which happens to be my daughter's new pet Melissa - see the Magic Wriggler picture above. It's just a bit of fluff and a strand of nylon but it's great fun to watch kids marvel at it in the playground. I remember really really wanting one of these as a child and I was so happy that after begging for one for days that my mom finally got me one. I think I played with it for a few hours after that and then got bored as kids do. I'm sure it was called something different to Magic Wriggler when I was a kid but I can't remember what it was.

I have to also mention the weather here. I cannot believe the weather in just one day:- it's got really cold and it changes from being sunny and bright to dark and pelting snow in what seems like an instant. Most odd. I have got to travel tomorrow and I don't think I'll have much time for checking up on the Blogosphere until the weekend unfortunately. Have a fun week though, whatever you get up to.

Losing Stuff You Never Meant To

Tara's blog post inspired this.

Every year for certain things, like car tax for example, you need to be able to bring together different documents: in this case an MOT certificate from a garage, an official form, your cheque and a valid insurance certificate. I have to hand it to my wife for instigating the introduction of "the grey box", which is a filing cabinet system to help organise our stuff. Some documents you have are not necessarily required annually. Documents like examination certificates, birth certificates and passports (we don't leave the UK that much in general) and so I think some stuff has been forgotten and just not made it into the "grey box". The other problem is that the "grey box" was getting rather full and it was getting harder and harder to put stuff into it easily, so she bought a set of drawers. So unfortunately now we have the "grey box" and "the drawers". But that's not all, we also have "the pigeonholes" that are part of our computer desk, my own "daddy's cupboard" which is where I just file stuff (ie. put it in a disorganised pile) and separate "car folders". This organisation crap has got totally out of control in our house and it drives me nuts!!! I can't find anything and the worst is I'll ask about something and even though I've been told where it is I still can't find it. I'll get all angry and hot in my frustration and I'm sure that this actually prevents me finding stuff even when it is under my nose because as soon as my wife looks again (in the same place) she usually finds what I was looking for: arrggghhhh! But what I don't understand is how someone who is as good at organisation as my wife loses her car keys everyday. We have a bowl near to our front door and I make it a habit to always drop my keys into it - I find the jangly clang noise satisfying in a "Honey, I'm home" kind of way even if its just myself in the house. But my wife just seems to drop her keys anywhere and then shouts "Has anyone seen my keys anywhere?" in a mild panic - arrgghhh!!!!!! The sooner they implant chips in us that bring together all this stuff so we can get rid of paper and keys and everything the better. There - that's my rant over with.

Have a simply wonderful weekend everyone :-)

Friday 5

I Got these from here.

1. What do you like most: Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays (and why)?

I prefer Friday's because I can look forward to the weekend with anticipation all day and really relax Friday evening knowing that I have two days of rest to come.

2. What was the best weekend of your life?

I've had so many good weekends, if I have to choose I'd say the weekend I got married because it was so wonderful and I'll never forget it.

3. What weekend of the year is your favorite?

This is a hard one. I think it would be the first weekend of the year when the weather gets warm and dry enough to stay out in just a T shirt and shorts all day and much of the evening.

4. Do you have any weekend routines?

Absolutely do, involving alcohol during the evenings and possibly takeaway food (though not every weekend), certainly watching a film or two and playing videogames, visiting our library and playing games with my kids. I have boring stuff to do too though, like cutting grass, visiting the dump, doing the weekly shop etc.

5. Describe your ideal Saturday night.

Spending the evenings laughing and talking with friends, listening to some live music, drinking beer, going for an inexpensive but really satisfying meal with friends and falling contentedly asleep with my wife .

Springlike?

The weather over the last few days has been bright but cool. In the car or the house you might think it was warm and Springlike. Outdoors though it is still a little too cold to gad about in T-shirts, not that that stops some people I see. When I see folks wearing just a thin shirt in cold weather I don't know what to think:

• don't they feel the cold?
• are they just concerned with the fashion of how they look?
• maybe they forgot their coat? Or it was stolen?
• maybe they didn't realise how cold it was, or they just came out of a really hot environment?

It does puzzle me.

It's the time of year when my thoughts turn to the Eurovision Song Contest, an annual TV song competition I've loved and watched since I was a kid. The British entry hasn't been chosen yet, it's being chosen on March 17: contenders include Justin Hawkins (ex-Darkness singer), Brian Harvey (ex-East 17 singer) and Liz McClarnon (Atomic Kitten). Unless I'm mistaken it seems this year that the individual performers in the selection contest are of a higher quality overall than in recent years, I hope this is good news for a good UK position in the competition proper but you never know what's going to happen with Eurovision, that's why I love it.

Mugshot

Here is the mug my daughter painted for me. It says "I (heart) tea" on it, very true - I do love my tea. The box it came in is behind the mug.

What's Your Personality Cluster

My phone went off yesterday morning, so I had no internet again for a day and a half. It's back today though.

Your Personality Cluster is Extraverted Intuition

You are: A true wordsmith - a master of words Original, spontaneous, and a true inspiration Highly energetic, up for any challenge Entertaining and engaging, both to friends and strangers

What's Your Personality Cluster?

Sunday Sunday Ah Ah, Ah Ah Ah Ah

I've enjoyed quite a good weekend. Shame its almost over. On Saturday I picked up my own copy The Sims really cheap, I bought it for my wife a while back and she loves it - her Sims are certainly enjoying the high life. I picked up my copy really cheap and its just the original version but it runs alright on my old PC upstairs, which is what I wanted it for. My Sim house is very humble compared to my wife's, she does enjoy lying on the bed telling me how I should run the world though bless her.
My daughter painted a mug I've had lying around since Christmas yesterday, it was a present to me. It came with some paint and you just paint a picture on the white mug and put it in the oven for half an hour to fix the paint. I'll have to post a picture of her handywork.
Today we went as a family to see a show, a sort of comedy/pantomime show. We went last year. I was dreading it slightly because I sat on an end of aisle seat and there's part where they come into the audience with custard pies and you can guess what happened. The custard is actually shaving cream and while its funny to watch, it is a little bit uncomfortable to sit with the dampness and the smell on your clothes. Well fortunately this year I only got squirted with water! I managed to cover my son with his coat before the water hit him, he cried last year when he got wet but he's older now and even the "baddie" made him laugh out loud - especially when his wig got pulled off. Kids laughter is very infectious.
The last act of the day has been to launch the second series of my podshow, the opening episode is a special longer edition with me talking to a friend who writes songs. Great fun to do, hope you have time to check it out.

Five on a Friday

Five in a Row

1. Name one thing you do everyday.

Drink tea. I'm a tea-aholic, I drink far too much tea but I do love my brew. I especially find it reviving after a shopping trip with my family and I get home, put the TV on and settle down with a cup of tea for 5 minutes peace (not that I ever get my 5 minutes).

2. Name two things you wish you could learn.

I would love to play guitar better than I do. The other thing has to be that I wish I could swim. I know I should take lessons, so I should probably do that. I just feel so stupid that I can't swim at my age.

3. Name three things that remind you of your childhood.

Penknives. I always had a penknife as a kid. I've never owned one as an adult.
Ice lollies. I like nothing more on a hot day than sitting down with a plain orange ice lolly.
The Stranglers. My first crush was the older sister of a boy I used to play with, she wore Stranglers T shirts and wore incredibly tight jeans.

4. Name four things you love to eat but rarely do.

Anything with prawns.
Malayan curry.
Thai food.
Strawberry pavlova.

5. Name five things that make you feel good.

Dancing
Making love
Jogging
Watching shoppers file past as I sit with a coffee and a paper in a cafe
Laughing and joking with my kids

Midweek Happy

This week started badly for me. A lot of things seemed to be going wrong for me on Monday, I was just glad to be able to get into bed and rest. Tuesday came and I knew I had a list of stuff to do to put right what had happened the previous day. This included taking a new headset back to a shop, it wasn't working on 3 different computers I tried it on and when I was given the choice of trying another or my money back I took the money. At least my old headset works and I'd rather that than a new one that doesn't. My daughter is having a bit of a rough time at school and I had to go and see the teacher about it. I had a lot of stuff to sort out for work but got all of it done. I did some more work for my forthcoming podshow and I'm pretty nearly all set for the new series starting on Monday. Today was fine, I allowed extra time for travelling past some roadworks on my journey but infact I turned up early for my appointment so I went for some breakfast. I was glad I did because it was way past lunchtime before I ate again. I did make myself a tasty sandwich though: ham, tomato, mayo, salad and sweet onion sauce on white bread but its somehow white wholemeal bread - I don't know how they achieve that but it tastes good. So the final bit of today was attending a private viewing of my sister inlaw's art. Some really cool abstract paintings, I like abstract art because there are so many levels to it. I like depth.
I'm also quite pleased it is midweek and that the weekend is coming up. I've also got to book some holiday time before the end of March to use my allocation of days up, I can't carry any unused days over unfortunately - which means I can't store them up. I hope you all are having a good day today too.

Meet Wilbert

My son had first choice and therefore the name of our first goldfish is to be Wilbert. Next weekend we'll get him a partner, they wouldn't sell us two at the same time - I hope Wilbert doesn't get territorial about his fishtank. He seems happy enough on his own but he could use some company.

Remembered Post

This morning I had a good idea for a blog post and I didn't write it down. Now I'm left with a blank space and I just don't know how to fill it.

I just remembered what it was about!

I was pondering that insects and humans don't get on. We squash them or step on them or have zapper lights on walls or sticky papers. What if, one day a giant super insect came into being. Imagine something the size of a car that could multiply extremely fast. Imagine legs as hard as steel rods. Human society and insect society are totally different things. Imagine how hostile it would be to live in insect society. They would be like robots (The Terminator), killing without mercy. I remember as a child being terrified by a black and white science fiction film (it was probably called The Incredible Shrinking Man but I probably never knew the title). In it a man reduces in size every day until eventually his human friends lose him and he has to fend for himself. He has to fight a spider with a pin that, to him, is the size of a lance. It's horrible. Probably the reason I don't like looking at spiders or insects too closely even now. I once wrote a poem about the insect world (that I can't find tonight). If I ever do come across it I'll post it.

Post Pancake Day

Yesterday was Pancake Day or Shrove Tuesday. We made some panckes and I also picked up a couple of offer packs of frozen ready-made pancakes. The ready made ones were smaller and not as tasty, not surprising I guess. However, we had the for breakfast today and they were nice and quick and easy. We don't tend to have pancakes for breakfast but I know this is more commonly eaten by some people in the US. We didn't have any Maple Syrup and that is my favourite pancake topping, we made do with squeezing orange juice over them and sprinkling brown sugar.

Yesterday was also very important for us because we received the official letter telling us which school our son was going to start attending from September. To out greatest relief, he got the same school as our daughter. It would have been really really hard for us if he hadn't got in. So I'm heaving a massive sigh of relief!

A new week begins

A new week and I'm posting this from an older PC I have up in the bedroom. Boy is the screen bright, or maybe its just that I'm tired, I can't tell. At the weekend my wife bought a fish tank, so next weekend we'll be buying a Goldfish - poor thing, I hope it lives. We haven't had any pets while the kids have been young and I'm a bit disappointed in that because pets are great but where we live there is no room for a dog and I'd be frightened that a cat would be killed because the cars drive down the road so fast. So, out of the range of available pets my wife chose a fish. I guess she thought it would be relaxing to watch the fish after a stressful day at work and I suppose she might be right. It was just a bit sudden, her coming through the door with a big box like that. She bought me a game called Mancala too, its a wooden board and has glass beads you move from hole to hole. It's good fun, I played it with my daughter. I think several games probably go by the name of Mancala, so I'm not sure which variation we play - I got the rules off the Internet because the rules that came with it were just impossible to understand - there were no pictures and whoever wrote them, well, English was obviously not their first language.

It's been a weird time with the media at the moment, all I seem to notice is news about Anna Nicole Smith or Britney Spears or Robbie Williams. It's all about rehab, going nuts and dying young. What is wrong with everyone these days? It seems like you can't be famous unless your infamous. Sod dying young, its not worth it to put poison into your body. I'm not a practising Christian really but I think religion could definitely play a big role in the lives of people who have enough money that they will never need for anything else the rest of their lives. If I made millions I'd want to put my money to good use, rather than squandering it on drugs or whatever. Maybe I'm being unrealistic, afterall I have no idea what life is like when you can't go anywhere without being recognised. Maybe a Fame City is needed: where just famous people live. There would be no photographers or press and everyone would be treated equally, money wouldn't buy you any dream tickets. Huh! Never gonna happen is it?

Frustration!

It's been a disjointed, unnatural week. The biggest problem with the week has been the lack of Internet access since Tuesday afternoon until this morning. It's been very frustrating not to be able to see what the world is getting up to and not having access to my favourites. I've had some days off with the kids this week too, so I've not had a good chance to sit down and get work done apart from Monday which was business as usual. The problem with the Internet wasn't of my doing either, so its not like I could have done anything about it. I am seriously considering changing ISP now because its happened three times in the last twelve months. My wife and I need Internet for work as well as for home, so its not acceptable to be without it for two and a half days.

Monday Monday

I had quite a good weekend. I did miss my wife and daughter who went to Disneyland Paris for the day on Saturday: pity the weather was wet and miserable. I spent the day on Saturday with my son and we had a great time together shopping, playing, eating, watching TV and reading stories. Saturday night I was in online multiplayer mode on the Playstation 2, had good fun but got shot up many more times than I needed to. My wife and daughter were back really early on Sunday and it was a relaxed day. I went out to see some friends on Sunday night, which was great. Then today I realised I should try and take some leave because my daughter is off school. Luckily, my boss was OK about it and I got Tuesday and Thursday off, so tomorrow it will be great to be off from work. The other piece of news is that I bought a personal DVD player on Friday. It was going to be for my wife to take on the trip to Paris but she didn't take it in the end. This may strike you as odd but my wife and I don't always watch the same stuff, but now I can be close to her in the same room AND watch what I want to, instead of having to sit in another room.
At the weekend I also sorted out the accomodation for our summer holiday, a nice apartment near the beach in Bounemouth where we went at the end of last summer. It's nice to have something to look forward to and this time we're away for seven nights instead of three.

Weekend Ahoy!

It's a Boys Weekend coming up as the women in my household are spending most of the weekend travelling to Disneyland Paris and back. I hope they have a great time while they're there and especially that the snow stays away. It's freezing snow tonight so tomorrow is not going to be good driving first thing.

Not too much to say in this post, it's been a tiring week at work and I haven't slept all that well this week - I think its the cold.

I'm working my way slowly through the first series of Star Trek on DVD. Admitting you are a Star Trek fan is a little risky because some people take it really seriously - doing degrees in Klingon and dressing and living like intergalactic tribes. It's the best series for me and I love the young William Shatner in it as Captain Kirk. It's the series I saw as a kid and I remember being fascinated and scared at the same time while watching it. So many of the gadgets I saw as a kid in Star Trek have actually come true in todays world of technology. Bluetooth earpieces, communicators (3G phones) and the like. There is a sort of camp quality to the stories as well. I love the sets and costumes. And the women were really awesome - not skinny models but women with curves and an attractive shape. What's your favourite version of Star Trek and why?

Weather thoughts

I just noticed the temperature for London at the moment is -6C and given that I live in a rural area some distance outside of London I bet its colder than that. No wonder its so cold in our bathroom this morning. I wonder whether we'll have some snow later?

Everyday Object Photos

I visited my mum's today. Here are a few shots I took of everyday items, including a food label. Tara's blog entry asked for everyday food labels, my mum gave me this bottle of mulled wine as a leftover from Christmas. I'm not sure I could drink a bottle of mulled wine, it's a bit spicy for me.

Online Gaming

I did something this week I've never tried before. I hooked my Playstation 2 up to the internet to try out the world of online gaming. The games are good fun but you join games with people of all different levels and the main problem is that if you don't know the game environment well and all the moves and combos (who has the time?) then you can get turned into toast pretty easily. I tried out the free game military game Hardware and its good shoot 'em up fun, just driving around shooting other players but after a while it is a bit repetitive and there is no story to play out. But that's OK, it was easy to join a game and worked well and the environments and vehicles are pretty cool, which made up for the repetitiveness of the action. I was doing well to turn 5 other vehicles into toast but some players were getting scores into the 20s - probably mostly off charring my vehicle. The other game I tried out was SOCOM a game about Navy SEALS where you play either with a team of SEALS or a team of terrorists. I was a terrorist in the game and I played about 7 games and didn't manage to kill another player. I seemed to be quite good at getting shot up though. I have other games with online modes, I'll check those out over the coming weeks.
I also wore my USB headset naively. It's a bit strange and there isn't really anything to say - I heard a variety of questions that went mostly unanswered, I certainly didn't answer. Any talk was minimal, it was mostly "Nooooo" as someone was blown up. There were a few "Good game" comments and stuff. I heard some swearing and in one game a guy and a girl were chatting constantly in an accent I didn't understand or recognise but they spoke as if they weren't playing the game at all. I don't think they were talking about game, odd really that they would be choose to be chatting in a public game rather than somewhere else more private. I don't think I'll bother wearing my headset again.

A lot of the new game consoles like XBox360, Wii and soon the Playstation 3 seem to emphasize the online side of gameplay. I'm glad I tried it out but I wouldn't say I'm addicted to games online, I just don't play enough to get that good. If I could play games with other newbies it would be better but I think the stigma of any match called "For Newbies" is off-putting, that's why nobody was joining those games.

Computer Nerd

A friend of ours wanted me to look at her computer one evening this week, I get asked now and again by various friends. It was running slow, same problem that my mother in-law had but for a different reason. She had two different security programs running and they were working against each other. She has a teenage boy who likes to play games and do his music on the PC, so it was mainly to help him. He gave me a list of stuff that needed doing but I didn't have much time to do it all, so I removed the security program that they didn't want but couldn't remove themselves - it was a bit complicated but I got it sorted. But then as I rebooted, it wouldn't recognise any internet connection so I left her feeling bad about that even though she tried to reassure me it happens regularly. I refused any payment, as I would for any friend I can help. When I got home, I got a text saying that the internet was OK again and that her son was well impressed with me. Apparently it's much faster now, so I was pleased in the end. So I think the other playground mummies think I'm a computer nerd. My son was even called that by one of his nursery teachers because he likes his computer games so much.

Post 500

Yes it's my 500th post on this blog, that seems quite a lot. Nothing much to report though, it's a funny old week really. The slapped cheek virus is lingering round our household, now that my son has got rid of it the girl has come down. I'm trying to stay good eating-wise even though everyone else in the household is eating pure evil food - chocolate Flake bars galore. Somehow I'm managing to keep on the straight and narrow, well at least to severly limit my intake of intoxicating deliciousness. I am having great lunchtime sandwiches though - crammed with tomato, cucumber and lettuce with Paul Newman's Italian dressing drizzled in. Absolutely gorgeous!

The weather has improved, last week it was bitterly cold and windy but it's just grey and drizzly but not so cold now. Well that was a boring weather report wasn't it?

Is there no way I can liven up my 500th post? I could mention that Shilpa Shetty won Celebrity Big Brother on Sunday. I either wanted her or Dirk Benedict to win. I watched the few episodes and thought it was good but then when Jade Goody and her family went in I turned off, couldn't be less interested in the twiddle twoddle they talk about. From the pieces of footage I've seen I can't believe how someone can get so angry and wound up over something so petty and to be honest I can't quite believe someone so stupid exists. Then again I've not been confined to a house with ego-maniac celebrities before. But the thing that I find most annoying is that they get PAID to go in there! But putting even that aside, I hope C4 have learned their lesson about putting people who haven't really earned their celebrity centre stage like that. Well, that's my tuppence worth on the subject.

A perfect egg morning

Oh yes! I've cracked it on my second attempt at the microwave egg cooker. Here's how:

• use a medium sized egg
• with an 800 watt microwave
• set power to 50%
• set time to 1 and a half minutes
• break egg into one half
• take a cocktail stick and pierce the yolk and white lots of times (but don't mix it up)
  
• add 3 tablespoons of water to the empty half

Wireless and Wired

I've had 3 annoying days where I couldn't log into two of my favourites - Blogger and My Space - and my wife couldn't get her favourite online newspaper. The problem was since installing an adsl wireless modem/router to replace our usb modem. I'm glad to report that things are looking up and I think I've got to the bottom of the trouble - I had to change personal firewall software. It was getting out of date and needed to be changed anyway, I would have liked to have found the answer sooner though. Now though, I can work upstairs and my wife can share the connection downstairs at the same time. I might also try networking my PS2 but I need a rest first! All that troubleshooting and looking on tech forums really does my head in.

Tuesday Telling

Eggs are a great breakfast food aren't they? It's a pity about the cholesterol but they are pretty tasty to have now and again. I like the Egg McMuffin because of the round chunk of egg inside them, I like soft boiled eggs and dipping my toast soldiers into the golden yoke and I like the allure of the poached egg with its yoke veiled in a long white dress. Going back to the McMuffin, how do they get the egg perfect like that everytime? Is it that they buy them frozen like that and just reheat them or are they actually cooked on the premises? I don't know. Well, now you know I like eggs but I also like gadgets. OK, so now put the two together and you have Egg-Gadgets, that's right and I'm up for a cheap gagdet now and then. So here it is: I said to my wife as she left the house recently, "See if they have those egg cookers for the microwave, find out how much they are". Little did I know hours later that I would be blessed with my own microwaveable egg cooker. My wife unsportingly used it first I'm sorry to say and I wasn't around to oversee her (that's my metaphor for her telling me to get out of the kitchen). So I heard about the aftermath - explosions and all. Well, I kept the instruction on the card and put the device away until I required an egg next. Not for several weeks I have to say and by that time (this evening) I'm sorry to say that the instructions were nowhere to be found. "I have it!" I shout, running like a man possessed to the computer "t'net will 'ave it" (for suddenly I've adopted a Northern accent) and into Google I do type "microwave egg poacher instructions" and there I do find some instructions. 4.5 minutes on a 600 watt microwave at 50 per cent power. My stomach is rumbling well bad because last time I ate was lunchtime and it's gone 8pm now - I spent the early evening sorting out my mother in-laws computer around her house. So now I'm well up for some egg to go with the fries I'm cooking in the oven (that are just almost cooked). So I make some quick calculations in my head: we have an 800 watt oven. I have no idea what formula I should use to calculate this but like every good man I authoritatively dial in the first number that comes into my head (3mins 30 sec) pretending there is some scientific pretext. My wife stands back. I stand proud. On goes the light, round goes the turntable and my stomach shouts "FOOD!". I think to get a plate, take the fries out of the oven and arrange them (leaving a nice round shape for my lovely well-formed egg disk to go into). "I think I'll just..." BOOM KAPOW! Oh no! Egg disaster! Egg Alert. Egg Alert. Egg Alert. We have an egg down. Repeat. We have an egg down. Well not so much down as spread, all over the inside of the microwave. I reach into the blast zone and retrieve a fragment of yoke "Do you think it'll be edible?" I ask my wife, who has that raised eyebrow that says "I told you so". I did eat some egg at least. Shame about the timing. I've got to get that right. Many eggs may be lost in the struggle but I'm gonna do it, damn it!

My Dream Holiday

Rachel's post on this got me wandering what my dream holiday would be. I have two versions: on one level, a dream holiday would be where my family are all together on a hot sunny beach enjoying spending the days playing together. Eating great barbecue food and never getting burned by the sun or getting sand in our sandwiches AND never arguing once. There would be a creche to allow me and my wife to go visiting museums and art galleries. In the evening, we'd both be free for Love Duty.

The other version is where we go and visit Iceland and the Scandinavian countries because they always look so beautiful in the photographs I've seen and I've always wondered what they were like. Following that, we'd go to Germany for a beer festival and have a merry old time eating and drinking.
I've never been skiing, so that would be my next 3 destinations: France, Switzerland and Austria.

After that I'd like to visit Russia because of the architecture and the history. Next on my tour would be Turkey where I would indulge in the food and warm up after all of those coler countries. Italy would be next for a bit of clothes shopping and wine drinking.

Japan is a place that intrigues me too, I'd like to visit that country to meditate in a Buddhist temple and experience a completely different culture to the West. I'd probably round off my tour with a trip to New Zealand. I'm sure there are loads of places I'd like to visit that I've missed off this list.

I was looking at jobs in Canada just the other day. I didn't see one but I would consider living near Toronto. It must be beautiful in Canada near all those enormous lakes. I'd live in the USA too, the food is just amazing and so plentiful.

If you've never seen Google Earth, its really fun way to zoom around the world and look at places you've never been to. All of the above countries can be visited in less than 5 minutes and it's probably closer than I'll ever get otherwise.

2 Years Anniversary

This day marks the 2 year anniversary of this blog. I feel like it is in need of a makeover, so I'm going to investigating all of that stuff. Expect to see some changes to the appearance over the coming weeks.
When I started this I didn't really know what I was doing or where it was going. Today, I'm probably still not clear on either of those things but I do know it has allowed me to share some thoughts with people whom I never would have met otherwise, so I think it is a positive thing to be doing. So thanks to every visitor who drops in and leaves a comment, your comments are truly appreciated!

A Mix of Stuff

It's been a very windy day here in the UK and several people had their deaths attributed to the weather. The power of nature is a frightening thing, especially driving on motorways with rain, wind and heavy lorries passing. I always think about what could easily happen to cause my own death...

...maybe death by strange natural forces is on my mind because I've recently seen Final Destination 2 and 3 recently. I'm sure everyone has seen the Final Destination film and there are no big differences between all three films, they are and remain hugely enjoyable shock horror films. Worth a look if you've never seen them. I found myself chuckling while watching because I knew what was coming but first time around I must admit I was a bit scared. They have great replay value and are still entertaining.

The other thing I've got into recently has been re-runs of a TV game show popular at the end of 80s and start of the 90s called The Crystal Maze. It was adults running around a TV studio with four different sets styled as Futuristic, Aztec, Medievil and Industrial. They contained a series of rooms where one contestant from a group of six had to enter and solve a puzzle or perform a task to try and win a crystal that is traded for 10 seconds in the big crystal at the end of the show. This big crystal had a fan that blew gold and silver foil chits and the contestants had to try and capture as many gold chits as they could, any silver chits mixed in with the gold collected are deducted from the final score. I think it's a great show and I really miss this kind of TV.

The other TV game show I really liked was an earlier show called Treasure hunt. It involved two studio contestants talking to a "skyrunner" in outside broadcast who travelled by helicopter to find clues aided by the studio contestants. An adjudicator in the studio made sure everyone played by the rules. I liked the variety of locations and I admit I liked watching Anneka in the tight jumpsuit, the camera viewpoint sort of concentrated on her bottom as she ran infront: at least that's my recollection.

Behind glass

My last post mentioned the scene modes on our new camera. There is a scene mode called Museum and my wife used it recently on a visit to the Museum of London. There is also a mode called Behind Glass. Here are a couple of shots she took, they illustrate how well the behind the glass mode worked (click on the images for a larger version).




Your mission Jim, should you decide to accept it, is to illustrate your blog with a photograph that shows off a feature of your camera (or just post any photo you think is good!). This tape will self destruct in 5 seconds....

Hill top panorama (sort of)

We took our new camera when we went for a walk on Saturday, it had been raining and threatened to rain again. So it was soggy and muddy underfoot but even so, it's good to get out for a bit of fresh air.

I've stitched 3 photos together below, not seriously trying to make a panorama when I shot the photos but I thought they could almost make one so I've had a go, see what you think.



Here's our camera, the Olympus SP-310. I thought it was kind of odd-looking when I first saw it but looking at the spec I was impressed. I was also very surprised by the price too, very very reasonable and just the bracket we were looking at. It's the first Olympus camera I've owned but I've used Olympus digital cameras at work and have been happy with the results. It's not very often we get to buy a camera so I did my research and looked at a few for comparison but this one had so many scene modes and gave the possibility of so much control that I decided to go for it and I haven't been disappointed so far.

Musing on a thought provoking post

Rachel posted a deeply personal and thought provoking article last week and its been on my mind ever since I read it. This post isn't about Rachel though, I should make that clear. There are 30,000 deaths in the UK due to obesity and 1 in 5 are obese, this is due to increase to 1 in 3 within 5 years. Scary figures but like early anti-smoking campaigns the figures alone don't stop you from feeling hungry and when there are so many fast food outlets that offer cheap and tasty (but fatty) food, it just doesn't help. I struggle with food myself, every day I think about what I'm going to do in relation to the food I want to eat - this is my primary driver. As I've got older I find it easier to put weight on, I'm overweight now and am trying to lose more than I've ever needed to before. If I restrict my fat intake I know I'll lose the weight, I haven't been overweight all my life: I was very thin and skinny well into my twenties. As a child I remember my mom worrying and asking the doctor about my lack of appetite. I didn't like vegetables very much, I'm glad I've grown out of that. I eat food for comfort, it helps to know where I can find a burger or a sausage roll in a hurry. Eating between meals is tough too, whether it's biscuits someone brings into work or just helping myself to a bag of crisps or a piece of chocolate that goes nicely with a cup of tea. Nothing goes as well with tea as a nice chocolate biscuit. I love cheese too: melted cheese, tomatoes, pizzas you name it and anywhere you can have cheese I love it (except in pizza crust or inside sausages! yuk). All the marketing images you can imagine apply to me, I love food. These food connections have been implanted in my head since childhood. Every time I see an ad featuring someone reclining with a cuppa and a chocolate bar a spark jumps between synapses in my brain, reinforcing the memory that I need something chocolatey with my cuppa to give me comfort. This kind of subliminal message has been reinforced a trillion times over the course of my life, much more so than any healthy eating message. I think if we're going to tackle obesity as a society, its a responsibility that has to be shared. We have to make healthy food cheaper than fatty equivalents (the opposite of now) and better ways of supporting people who want to lose weight are needed, to make it easy for them rather than leaving people to feel alone and isolated in their struggle against what's in their own cupboard. Or to help us all walk past a fast food outlet without feeling the pull and the need for a quick and cheap meal every single time we happen by.
I don't know if I'm right in any of this though, sometimes too much society can be a dangerous thing. People should be allowed to do stuff they want, I'm not advocating laws to control us as individuals. I just think we need new types of help to tackle new kinds of problems and that includes tackling some of the subliminal ways that patterns are formed. I don't think there is a quick and easy way to do this for my generation but I hope it starts now for a new generation.
As for the lovely Rachel, I don't know her but she strikes me as being an intelligent, beautiful and brave person to write on the topic as she has. I wish her every success in what she decides to do and when, and in the meantime I'll continue reading her wonderful writing.

Furtive's Fruity Friday

Over at Eclectic Spaghetti it's Buy a CD from an artist you never heard of before day and I just thought I'd mention my weekly podshow pick of independent artists over at Furtive Wangler's Playlist - if you're looking for some good music and want to support musical creativity you could do worse than giving one of the artists I've included in my shows a shot. Let me know if you go for it!

Classic Rock Of The Month

It's that time again, when I play a video of a band that I consider to be classic rock. This time it's Ten Years After, I still think their Stonedhenge is a record everyone should have in their collection. Enjoy the rock!

Important question of the day (ish)

Well not really all that important but I've just ordered 3 DVDs that are from the bargain sale bin at my usual online store for these things - I went for the cheaper non-special versions. My question relates to DVDs that are badged with "Special Edition" or "2 Disk Edition" and it is this: is the second disk worth the extra money or do you usually go for the single edition to save a few pennies? (Bear in mind we've got a 21" fairly cheap, standard TV - no widescreen, stereo or 5.1 surround sound to speak of - ah, shame).

Now, my answer is I would usually buy just the single disk edition but occasionally I've gone for a two disk edition only when it's on sale and my reaction at first has been "Oh great! I've even got the 2 disk edition for the same price as the standard" or words to that effect, only later on to realise that actually I never usually watch more than just the film anyway. Isn't life just too short to go through character bios, directors analyses, original trailors? I'm not a film student for cripes sake! Sometimes the blooper reels can be worth it - if they're extensive, but usually they just last 5 mins anyway.

It's not a world beating question of our times I know but I thought I'd pose it to get a few opinions on whether I did the right thing.

Are you more Yin or Yang?

You Are More Yin

Feminine Devoted Forgiving Fall Winter Afternoon Moon Time Passive Metal Honey

Are You More Yin or Yang?

Hey, just call me Mr Yin.

Over the weekend I watched the anime film Ninja Scroll and really enjoyed it. It made me want to go and play the Playstation game Tenchu: Stealth Assassins. That would be the only way I could be a Ninja. I need to lose a few stones if I'm ever likely to walk on rice paper without leaving a mark. Although, I don't think my diet is going badly, its just that there are too many temptations in the house after Christmas - too much chocolate left lying around. Maybe I should have purged the house of all temptations? But then, there is temptation all around in town anyway. I have at least been having healthy lunches but tomorrow I'll have to eat lunch out. Not sure how I'm going to handle that at the moment.

It's been a really windy day today. No, I'm not referring to a gastric problem. It's just been very blowy and breezy. I even wore my silly woolly hat to take my daughter to school. I forgot to put it on in the afternoon though when I picked her up, my hair was a right mess when I got home - I looked like a freakin' scarecrow.

Have a good Wednesday tomorrow all!

The New FW Mobile

We picked up our new (secondhand) car yesterday. A Toyota Corolla VVTi GS. It's my wife's car really so I haven't really driven it apart from the test drive. I love getting a new car and buying new car mats and accessories. You have to "move in" to a new car and make it your own don't you? Rather like moving into a new apartment or house I think. We're still working out the stereo and all the lights and seat adjustments. But we like this car, its nice and simple to drive and has a good boot size. For the last six months my wife has not had a clock on the dash that worked, so just the little improvements like a dashboard clock, a boot light, levers that open the boot and petrol cap and we're "Wow!". It's great fun!

Beer/Alcohol Appreciation Day

This is a smooth glass of Irish cream liqueur in honour of today's holiday from Tara. I have a small glass of this and it warms me up. It is so smooth and creamy, it's lovely and puts me in the comfort zone. It was my treat to myself for Christmas (as well as the port!).

A Look Forward

Celebrity Big Brother starts tomorrow and it's going to be disaster TV again, so I'll probably find myself watching it despite my gut feeling that it is completely pointless. The rumours of who the celebrities are this year are:
one of the stars of Starsky and Hutch
one of the A-Team
a former Miss Great Britain beauty contest winner
a member of the Jackson Five
a former Darkness member
a TV presenter who was once an MP
a woman who was formerly a man
and a Bollywood actress
I also heard that Jade Goody and her family were going in but this might just be press speculation, it would raise the watchability factor if true but only because she is so awful.

I'm looking forward already to Eurovision 2007, it usually happens in May so there is still plenty of time to get excited.

I'd like to get away on more holidays this year than last, I've had to get a passport renewal and found out the price went up in October! Typical!

I'm looking forward to picking up our new (used) car later this week and going to visit new places in it, I took a test drive today and put down a deposit. My wife is going to be the main driver but I'll drive it too. I'll try to post some photos when it's ours.

I'm looking forward to making my way through all the books stacked up under my bed waiting to be read. I got a couple more for Christmas and I feel guilty because I can't read them straight away as I like to read sequentially.

I'm looking forward to more blogging and podcasting in 2007, as I've found so many nice people out there!

I'm looking forward to doing more work in 2007, it may sound strange but I do enjoy my job despite the routine and the stresses at times.

I'm looking forward to losing some weight that I've put on over the last few years. This sounds dangerously like a resolution so I want to make it clear that this weight-loss will be an attempt via force of will rather than a diet fad thing.

I'm looking forward to doing more drawing.

I'm looking forward to collecting this DVD magazine series

I'm looking forward to listening to more great music.

What are you looking forward to?

New Year (same old, same old)

Is it just me or has the time inbetween Christmas and New Year has flown by especially quickly?

Well, the new year is a few hours away for me and I would like to wish all the other bloggers who have commented here and in my other blogs a very happy and peaceful New Year! Thanks for reading (and listening) and sticking with it, I can't promise my writing will get any better but I thank you

:-)

I'm a bit indifferent to the New Year this time around, some years I get either depressed or I feel optimistic but this year: nah, nothing! I don't know why this is, I just do.

Post Christmas

It's been a busy week, seeing family and friends and watching TV and eating and drinking (mostly). Also done some online shopping. Bought a digital camera to replace our compact that went wrong, this was our present to ourselves - we had a small budget for gifts between us before Christmas, knowing that we'd want to hit the sales post Christmas. Despite the small budget I did quite well getting a good reaction from my wife on the things I got for her. I got some nice things too, one I'm looking forward to is a coffee mug I have to paint. Santa was good to the children this year, although the noise of electronic beeps and whistles has almost driven me insane! We've a shed load of Christmas crackers still to pull, I don't understand how we could have got so many. The Christmas tree went down yesterday, which I think is a little early, and our living room now looks spacious and bare! In a way though, I'm glad it's all sort of nearly over. I'm not glad though about having to go back to work later next week, nevermind though at least I have a few more days. We also have to try and organise buying a car - a process I hate having to go through but a necessary one.

Are you a Grinch?

From Tara and L.B.

Nope, You're Not a Grinch

Although you may feel Grinch-like at times, it's just because you're worn out from the holidays. You get into the holiday spirit more than most people - and you truly enjoy celebrating with your family and friends.

Are You a Grinch?

What holiday food are you?

You Are a Fruitcake

People pretend you're sweet and precious, but they know how weird you really are!

What Holiday Food Are You?

Oh, I see...

Holidays are here!

Yes at last, the holidays have begun. Now it's time to try and get everything that you dreamed of doing while you were at work done. I was fantasising about playing lots of videogames, little things like eating, drinking, sleeping and the family do tend to get in the way though! (only kiddin') But I have spent several hours this evening installing The Sims, House Party and Hot Date. It took a lot longer than it should have because we had installed the Triple Deluxe version and Makin Magic. And I found out this evening that there is a special order you have to follow for installations and if you get it wrong your better off starting again from scratch (including wiping any remnant files off your hard drive). But still, all is working now so my wife can play Sims to her hearts content - and I may even have a play myself. I've been trying out Rollercoaster Tycoon on an older machine we have upstairs and I'm enjoying learning how to built theme parks. What a great job that would be! You can see my handy work below.

What kind of gift giver are you?

You Are a Funny Gift Giver

Your gifts are wacky, offbeat, and even borderline naughty. You prefer to give a gift that makes someone crack up... Forget utility. You prefer to give something that's totally hilarious.

What Kind of Gift Giver Are You?

Christmas meme

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate. Hot chocolate just because I've never tried egg nog.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wraps, but only with special Santa wrapping paper that nobody else uses.
3. Coloured lights on tree/house or white? Coloured, on tree.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? Not this year but we have done in the past. Come to think of it I haven't seen mistletoe anywhere this year.
5. When do you put your decorations up? Second weekend in December.
6. What is your favourite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? A roast turkey dinner with cranberry sauce, sausage, bacon, chestnut stuffing, roast potatoes and sprouts (yes, sprouts).
7. Favourite holiday memory as a child? Playing Space Invaders on my Atari, after wanting an Atari for months and months.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? What truth is that?
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? No! (oh, alright then, yes).
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Lights and baubals. A mix of old and new decorations with a tinsel star at the top.
11. Snow. Love it or dread it? We get snow so rarely, I love it.
12. Can you ice skate? Nope, never tried.
13. Do you remember your favourite gift? Yes, my Atari game console.
14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you? Time off from work with my family, playing family games and visiting my parents.
15. What's your favourite holiday dessert? I don't really have one.
16. What is your favourite holiday tradition? Videotaping the kids coming downstairs to unwrap their presents.
17. What tops your tree? Uh, I answered this in 10.
18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? Both are fun, although I take more pleasure in giving these days - it was different when I was younger of course!
19. What is your favourite Christmas song? I believe in Father Christmas by Greg Lake, I just like his voice.
20. Candy canes? Never tried one. They look nice though, probably better than they taste.
21. Favourite Christmas movie? In my childhood it was Wizard of Oz because I only saw it once a year. Now I have kids they watch it several times a year (sometimes several times a month). I like It's A Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street is good too.
22. What do you leave for Santa? A glass of milk and a mince pie and we leave a carrot for Rudolph.

Finish the week out!

The weekend was going well, right up until the point a stomach bug caught up with me. So Saturday afternoon and evening I was asleep most of the time. So not a great weekend for me, I saw half of the carol concert and what I saw and sang along to I enjoyed. The second half went by in a bit of a blur though. I'm taking some holiday over Christmas though - yay! So I'll finish work on Friday and won't be back until 4th January, which is totally great!! Something to look forward to, just got to finish the week out....

Wii Games

If you fancy a little light entertainment over the weekend, try these Flash games for the Wii. You don't need a Wii to play, just use your mouse as the controller. I thought Off Sides was good but very confusing!

Classic Rock of the Month

A month has elapsed since I posted the Jethro Tull video, so it's now time for another trip down to the dusty archives to blow the cobwebs off another treasure of my audio heritage. This month my classic rock band is Caravan. I've got three Caravan albums on good old vinyl: Caravan (1968), If I Could Do It All Over Again I'd Do It All Over You (1970) and For Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night (1973). I'm sure my dad has Blind Dog At St. Dunstans (1976) on vinyl somewhere too. I dig the crazy screen effect!

Christmas Carol Sing A Long

On Saturday my family and I will dress in our best clothes and head into London, to sing with other families in a great big happy Christmas carol singalong! My boy is going to be looking smart and well turned out, my wife will be her beautiful, sexy self and my daughter will be looking fabulously pretty and princessy. I shall be smart and generally try my hardest to stay at least something like in tune (and pretend that I know the words and phrasing without making too much of a fool of myself). We did this last year and it was a great family trip out, we push the boat out a bit and get a box in the gallery which has a nice space behind the seats where the children can play and dance and we can eat and drink in private. The concert is at a brilliant venue in London known as the Royal Albert Hall and was built in honour of Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert. Bob Dylan played a famous concert there in 1966, I have a recording of that performance and it's something special - for that reason alone I'm going to enjoy the concert on Saturday, just knowing that my idol once graced that stage. Here are a couple of photos of the venue.

What classic movie are you?

I came across this on another blog but I've forgotten whose, so apologies for my bad memory skills. I only did 9 questions because, well, I couldn't be bothered to answr more than that! Does that make me a bad person??

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Stuff and stuff and stuff

Finally, I got the chance to move over to the new Beta Blogger yesterday, woohoo! It took a few minutes while all three of my blogs moved over but it's all done now at last. Not sure what I do with labels for posts yet though, does anyone know what they do? Group posts into themes?

My daughter's Christmas nativity is performed tomorrow and unfortunately I can't go :-( as duty calls and I have to be somewhere else for work. My wife can go and is going to videotape it though, so at least that's something I guess. The dates this year just haven't fallen well for me as my son's carols sing song unfortunately also falls on a date when I'll be elsewhere. It's not great that dad's have to go to work during these times, we miss out on a lot. Ah well, the videotape is better than nothing I suppose.

I've seen a couple of good friends over the weekend, so that was great. I saw a few bands play at a gig on Saturday night and that was excellent. Also I had a few hours to myself on Sunday, which was great. On Saturday I managed to do a bit of Christmas shopping too. I'm feeling a bit more organised this year than I usually do. Christmas is less than 2 weeks away now, that's a scary thought! I haven't been even slightly tempted to buy a Nintendo Wii, not that I'd be able to buy one in any case - I think the stock situation is pretty bad here in the UK. It's great if all you want is a box, there are plenty of those...

Make a snowflake

Try Make-a-Flake and design your own snowflake, take a larger look at mine here.

Lonely Snowman

Tara's holiday for today is called Make A Snowman Day. Well, there has been rain here but no snow, so my snowman is a virtual one. I feel sorry for the snowman who gives us so much pleasure during the day and is so alone at night. Here's my picture in support of the lonely snowman.

Thoughts on Christmas

I can't believe it's been almost a week since I last posted something here. I've been pretty busy at work and my wife has been on the PC doing a lot of stuff for her job. The podcasting has been occupying a lot of my time too, it's fun but is time consuming.
I was starting to get a bit depressed about Christmas a week ago or so but then I realised something that had just gone over my head before. Here it is: Christmas is the climax of the year, it's the time to have fun, see friends and family, look back at the year's achievements and relax. I usually spend a lot of time worrying about presents (who to buy for, when to organise my shopping, what to get for whom, who got me a gift last year etc.) and the emphasis on shopping takes the fun out of Christmas I feel. It's much better to treat it as a big party. I love the film It's A Wonderful Life, realising how much you are loved by those around you is what Christmas should be about.
I'm starting to think about Christmas and New Year. I'd like to do something different next year, maybe take a course in something or do an evening class activity. I haven't figured out what yet but I'd like to get out one evening a week to experience something new.

6 Weird Things About Me

I got tagged by Tara today, so here are my answers.

1. I rub the sock fluff off the soles of my feet before hopping into bed
2. I am a podcaster
3. I squeal like a girl when frightened
4. I can't sing in tune (but pretend I can to my family, who ask me to stop singing all the time)
5. I like to keep stuff pristine, like I'll spend 15 minutes carefully, slowly peeling a difficult label off of a CD case so it doesn't leave marks
6. I like fruit sandwiches

Don't run away! Come back!

What kind of rocker are you?

You Are an Emo Rocker!

Expressive and deep, lyrics are really your thing. That doesn't mean you don't rock out... You just rock out with meaning. For you, rock is more about connecting than grandstanding.

What Kind of Rocker Are You?

Christmas Present

I saw this today and fell in love with it! I want one for Christmas and if you have cats it would be even better I think!



Check out some other videos here.

Friday (hurrah!)

I'm glad it's the weekend again. Tomorrow is going to be a windy day, our windchime is going bananas outside already.
Not many days ago I mentioned how good I thought The Gossip were, well low and behold the NME this week has published a Cool List and Beth Ditto (singer) is the no.1 coolest person. I think I can rightfully claim some coolness of off that since I mentioned them before the list was published!
Staying on the music front, I saw Jools Holland's Later again this evening and saw an awesome young band from Bournemouth called Air Traffic. The two songs they played are on their My Space page: Just Abuse Me and Charlotte. Very good indeed!

Mutant X

I rented Mutant X this week. You can read my review of the first two episodes here.

Introspection

Well I haven't really done a lot since my last post except work a lot and look after my family. It's been a busy weekend but without me really doing anything, if that makes any sense. I have the first few episodes of season one of Mutant X to watch, never seen that before so I'm looking forward to it. I bought Kasabian's CD Empire at the weekend after really enjoying their performance of Shoot The Runner on a music show called Jools Holland's Later a couple of weeks ago. I picked up a copy of Final Fantasy IX for Playstation for one quid on Saturday from a charity shop. I did some more work on organising my music collection but that's a big job and one I'm only chiselling at.
We bought our kids a digital camera each with the intention that each week we'll give them a project to help them with photo composition. This week we started on lights, photographing all sorts of lights. I'll have to create a photo collage of the shots, there were some really good ones. We got two 3MP cameras, two 256MB SD cards (that's about 300 pics each camera) and they came with pouches and batteries. The kids love them, we got a silver and blue one. It was a bit of an impulse buy but already we have some great photos and they'll hopefully last a while too. We don't have a small pocket camera since our died a few months back, so this way we get to use the kids cameras when we need one! I love that idea I heard of once, when someone was getting married they bought disposable cameras and put them out on the reception tables for guests to use as they partied. The couple got some really great informal shots of their wedding when they had them developed. At my own wedding the best photos were from a friend who just took snaps from interesting angles and close-ups of happy faces.

Tattoo

No, I'm not thinking of getting a tatt - the permanence scares me and I'm just too changeable in my tastes. The fact is that some people are repulsed by tattoos, I'm not their biggest fan but I'm not repulsed by them, although I can be repulsed by anything truly shocking. I've heard a lot of comments on tattoos from the sceptics but I don't hear many positive things said by people who have them. From my experience, I think tattoos are much more common in young women now than 20 years ago. Of course, I might just be being fooled by better fake tattoos. There must be a reason for the increased popularity?

Ultraviolet

I watched this rental this week. If you'd like to read my review of the movie, you can head over to my Multiply site and read my opinions.

Conversations

I was reading through this list titled "Do you make these 10 mistakes in conversation?" this evening. I find conversation an eternally fascinating subject, mainly because I'm always seeking to improve my conversation skills. Here are a few things that happen to me during conversations:

I'll be listening and then I don't hear one word because of a noisy environment or a loud noise and it ruins the meaning of what the other person is saying BUT they're talking so fast I don't have the nerve to break their flow and ask them to repeat. So after they've finished I find my reply is a weak one because I wasn't sure whether they said they liked something or they disliked it. If only some people didn't talk so fast!

I hate being left in a room with people I don't know, I enter with someone I know and they drift off or leave. It's worse when everyone else knows each other and are being really loud, I feel like I stand out because I'm not talking to anyone. And then I get that "why am I here?" feeling, I hate that.

I hate it when someone has really bad smelling breath. I'm sorry, but they could be the most interesting person in the world but if their breath stinks I'm not going to want to hold a conversation with them and I move away, hopefully without them noticing my recoil.

I find it quite difficult to talk to strong, highly motivated, competitive people. I mean the kind who talking briskly, don't have time for anyone who's not powerful and only seeing the world their own way. Obsessively driven people. I prefer relaxed, creative people to business people: a stereotype I know.

Often I find it difficult to talk to people I think it would be "good to be friends with". I think one of the lessons for me here is that friendships evolve, you can't really force them but I think some people try to.

One thing I don't like is when introductions go round the table and you have to say who you are, what you do and why you're there or what you want to get out of the session. My mind goes seems to go blank!

I don't have a data bank of hilarious stories about stupid antics I've got up to that I can draw upon. Often I am telling someone a story about someone I've read about or something that happened to somebody else. Sometimes I feel there is a gap there.

I get nervous if I find the person I'm talking to very attractive. So I'm glad I'm not dating! In my past when I've arranged to see someone I found really attractive before the date I've not felt like eating and have felt a bit sick in my stomach. Feeling nervous and hungry aren't great starters for a relaxed and entertaining evening!

I dislike it when a date or meeting isn't going well but you have that feeling that you've got to go through the motions and be polite. Even though you know inside your never going to repeat the event or the relationship isn't going to be the one you hoped for.

I find it can be difficult if I unexpectedly bump into someone I haven't seen for a long time. It's awkward if I've forgotten their name and don't want to let them know I've forgotten.

In general I'd say I'm better at one to one conversations, in a quieter environment. I like to listen to what the other person is saying, so that I can understand them and respond accordingly.

I would say I'm guilty of not saying the right things to make keeping the conversation flow with ease. Sometimes its me not picking up on things they are saying but other times I'm sure its my fear of the conversation drying up that makes my thoughts dry up on what to say next.

Oh dear, quite a list of things to improve. That's the great part about conversation, it sounds like its a simple effortless thing but it's really not. Everyone has something to improve in their conversations. I hope the list in the link at the top of this helps in some way.

Sunday, the day before Monday

It was Remembrance Sunday today. At 11am everything stopped for two minutes of silence, prayer and respect. My wife and daughter were in the supermarket when the silence period was announced. But a few people continued to shop, a lady reached for a really noisy, crinkly bag of crisps. I just don't believe how insensitive some people can be, they can't spare two minutes of their time?
This afternoon my kids asked if we could play a game they like. We've played it a million zillion times and it was OK for the first 100 times but now I'm a bit bored with it. They could carry on playing it and not get bored. But instead of getting it I suggested making our own game. So my kids and I came up with this game where up to four players go on a journey through jungle to catch a train that passes through a mountain to arrive at one of two destinations: either the beach or a birthday party. Along the way, there is a chance to pick up one or more special cards that are used at the end of the game to help decide who has won - it's not merely a case of first past the post wins. It takes less than 10 minutes to play and we had some fun. We don't have a name for it yet, does anyone have any suggestions?
Work starts again tomorrow (Boo!). Hope you have a good Monday, folks.

Classic Rock Of The Month

I thought I'd introduce a new regular monthly feature where I link to a video of a classic track. I enjoy rock classics as much as the next man, so why not share some of my personal favourites with you? This month's featured artists is Jethro Tull. When I was but a boy I came across Jethro Tull's album Stand Up in my father's record collection, it was a gatefold sleeve and the members of the band actually did stand up as you opened it. I thought that Ian Anderson was Jethro Tull, being vaguely aware that there was actually someone called Jethro Tull from history at school. I later learned the truth but apparently the label of their first single read "Jethro Toe"! Through five decades now, the Tull have been rocking the world and that deserves a lot of credit. So, Tull I salute you and to celebrate you are my first classic rock of the month.

The Week So Far

Yes indeed, I've been pretty busy and on the go for much of this week. Several long journeys have worn me out a little bit. I hope to recover now and over the weekend though. Life has thrown a couple of things at us this week, nothing too major, so we've managed to get along and I should be sorting my car, which was one of the things, out tomorrow hopefully.
I've been fairly occupied this week with podcasting. Both in terms of listening and doing. There's a lot of stuff to learn and I've sort of steamed into it without any background knowledge - which is great in one way and not so great in another. But I like the music I've chosen and at the end of the day, that's what's important. I've been busy tonight preparing my notes for next week's show, which I think will include some great artists and songs. (Yes, the shambles that is my podcast actually does take preparation believe it or not!).
On other fronts I hear that George Bush took a battering in the US polls and Donald Rumsfeld has resigned. To be honest, I haven't really been following the news that much and this news hardly seems surprising. But the lesson for any politician is that the people will ultimately have their say.
I quite fancy seeing the new James Bond film - a thought I haven't had in a long while. I think Daniel Craig is probably going to do well, despite the criticism meted out to him when he was first announced. I've heard he's the best Bond since Sean Connery and I hope he is. The Bond franchise needs it I fear.
Music-wise, outside of podcast world, I've been quite liking the sounds of The Gossip from Portland Oregon. They are over in the UK at moment but unfortunately, I won't be able to see them. They sound bloody good though.

Goliath on the rampage

I have been playing around with a few images and came up with this composite tonight. It's funny what you can create when you're just playing around with different effects.

Serenity

I watched this film this week, it came out last year and was just one of those films that I never managed to catch up with until this week. I've written my review of it here, check it out to see if I liked or disliked this film.

Cold

I was knocked sideways with a right hook last Saturday by a cold and I have only just shakily got my balance back. I'm usually affected more during the evenings but the first part of this week, I seemed to have a constant headache and on Monday I also had muscle aches in my back. Today though, I have a bit more energy and although I'm sneezing and blowing my nose I am feeling a bit better. So now, I feel I can continue to fight and start punching back.
Today, for lunch I had a New York Deli sandwich which consisted of pastrami with mustard dressing, gherkins, sauerkraut, gruyere and emmental cheese on rye and caraway seed bread. It was a complex combination of flavours that sort of overwhelmed my tastebuds at first. It left my mouth trying to decipher the code of what I was eating, undecided whether I actually liked it or not. I'm still in that particular quandary actually.
Jack Frost has been about this week, leaving his sheet of white on the blades of grass and windscreens of cars in the mornings. The mornings have been nice and sunny and bright though - which I like. A nice sunny morning encourages me to find a sense of hope, I don't know why it just does.
I'm off now to check if we won any money on the Euro Lottery, the kackpot is apparently 88 million pounds - now that would come in handy!

***

It begs the question, what would do with 88 million?

I'd give up work
See that my parents do whatever they want to, in comfort and luxury
Buy my children a wonderful education
Start my own business (which would probably operate at a loss, as I'm no business head)
Buy a mansion
Buy expensive clothes, gadgets and luxuries
Go on holiday for the rest of my life
Give to my favourite charities

Clearly, it needs serious thought - what would you do?

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Surprise surprise, I didn't win :-(