music and blasters and old Jedi masters

I want this

crazy insane, got no brain!

I've finally got around to setting up a few things for the AngrySeaHorse site and one of these things is a blog for it. You may ask why we'd need a blog but I believe it is something that will make the site more trustworthy and honest. In this age we are constantly being denied the truths by governments, businesses, etc and so I wanted to add transparency to our potentila business so that people would know what was really going on.

Haveing these qualities can really help and will also inspire loyalty. You only need to look at companies like google and mozilla who have that image, and also 'open-source' software companies who I am more likely to deal with than companies that hide behind a corporate mask.

I have chosen not to use blogger for this as I wanted something that I could have more control over and that could be easily integrated into the actual site when it's up and running. I also wanted something that was opensource and free, and Greymatter fitted the bill.


It did involve downloading the relevant files [mostly *.cgi], uploading them to my server, chmoding some of the files, and then sorting out the configuration of the blog, but it was all pretty simple, and Greymatter seems to work well and have quite a bit of flexibility to it.

You can check out the blog here: angryseahorse.com/blog

I'll be fiddling a bit more with it and getting more of the main site done over the weekend [hopefully].

Night Night

Free love on the free love freeway

For those of you who listen to Radio 1 you may be familiar with Scott Mills and his show. He started a segment on his show a few months back called "Laura's Diary" about his assistant whos teenage diary was sent in by her younger sister and read aloud on air. Amongst the usual teenage ramblings were stories of failed teenage love and so Scott has set up a UK tour [One Night With Laura], taking his show around the UK [Southampton, Cardiff, Nottingham, Newcastle, Glasgow] and holding auditions to find her a possible suiter.

It's quite amusing and I heard a little of the show yesterday and today decided to check out his page on the BBC website. On Monday they were in Southampton and so I checked out the photos from there and I know someone who auditioned!!

It's James who I went to Uni with and still see when I pop down to Chichester! I was a little amazed but not actually too much as James would sell his own grandmother to become famous! There is a streaming video of the auditions here which is quite funny due to the lame entrants but James has won that heat so will be appearing later in the series. Well done mate.

They are in Nottingham today so maybe we'll see an audition from these men?

And pass your door, But you don't live there anymore

A few blogs of late have commented on something weird happening in blogland [I can't exactly remember who's..sorry]. No one has much new to comment on, blogs are not getting updated as regularly as normal, etc, etc. It doesn't look good.

A while back we lost Tom of Badwolf, and now I can't find Alecya and just get a blogger message saying:

Not Found The requested URL was not found on this server. Please visit the Blogger homepage or the Blogger Knowledge Base for further assistance.

I hope it's just blogger mucking up and that we haven't lost another blogger. What is going on?!

------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE: Found her!! See comments.

Me, I'd like to think, life is like a drink

Yesterday I went off to Canterbury with Chris, Tim, Emma, and Pippa with the aim of getting something for Mother's Day. We went to Wetherspoons for lunch and sent the girls off and we decided that maybe the day would be better spent having a few drinks instead and seeing how many we could have before meeting up with the girls again.

Around 6 pints later, and with no prezzies for Mother's Day we headed back to Ramsgate for the start of Saturday night. We went to Churchills, the Royal Oak, and then finished off at the casino. I did slow up on the drinking as the evening went on as I didn't really fancy a hangover, and even treated myself to a cooked breakfast at the casino [around midnight!]. I may have told you that last time I was there I lost £50, which Iwasa not happy with. This time I was more restrained and only placed one bet on the roulette. £10 on 'evens'. It came up and I was happy that I'd actually come away with a profit. There was temptation to bet more but I left it at that.

It wasn't till 1am that I found out that the clocks here were going forward 1 hour, and realised I would have to, in theory, get up an hour earlier for Sunday league footy. doh!!

I got up today quite tired, went off to footy, lost 5-0 in a cup game, and then picked up some Mother's Day stuff. In the end I settled for a card, bunch of flowers, and a freeview box so that Mum could watch TV in bed. I normally spend less that that on Mother's Day but I thought it was the least I could do. Mum's eh? Brilliant.

So now I'm sitting down, aching a bit after getting a 'deadleg' at footy, and just chilling.

I hope you all had a good weekend too. Laters

[me on the train back from Canterbury]

I used to worry, thought I was goin' mad in a hurry

Hi all!!

As I've not been blogging much recently I thought I share with you what's been going on in the world of Adem. Nothing too exciting really, just been as busy as ever although this week has started to calm down and I've got some holiday booked over Easter which will be nice.

I have been really busy for the past few weeks in all areas of my life with the Uni job, the Pub job, the logo/banner design job, and any other things that are going on in my life, and it was no surprise that when I had my blood pressure checked on Tuesday morning it was through the roof. I didn't specifically go out to have it tested but we had a 'Health Promotion Bus' at Uni, and I thought it'd be worth squeezing it in. They took my reading and came out with the figures 150/115. I never really know what these figures mean [find out here] but apparently those are very high.

Normal is less than 120 over 80

Prehypertension is less than 120-139 over 80-89

High blood pressure Stage 1 is 140-159 over 90-99

High blood pressure Stage 2 is 160 or higher over 100 or higher.

I explained that I thought they'd be high as I'd been quite stressed and had been rushing around that morning and she handed me some leaflets and recommended that I go see my doctor and have it checked again as my readout was well over the 140/90 which indicates high blood pressure. [High blood pressure is dangerous because it makes the heart work too hard and contributes to hardening of the arteries, increases the risk of heart disease and stroke, and can also result in other conditions, such as congestive heart failure, kidney disease, and blindness.]

Luckily I had a finance meeting in Canterbury on the Wednesday and I found out they were doing health tests there too. It was a nice sunny day and I was quite chilled, so I had my blood pressure tested again and explained that I'd had it tested yesterday too, and my readout this time was 134/82. I was quite relieved. It's still not as low as it should be and I should see it as a warning as it falls into the Prehypertension range, which means that I don't have high blood pressure now but am likely to develop it in the future. If I can adopt a more healthy lifestyle then I can prevent this.

I think certain things like high blood pressure and high cholesterol are things that we put to the back of our mind as they are invisible qualities with little effect on us in the present. I'm glad that I've been able to quantify my blood pressure as it gives me a record of my health and has shown that if I don't change a few things then I could be in big trouble.

Watch this space for more news.

Give me the song and I'll sing it like I mean it

Phil has tagged me for a brief MeMe, which follows the lines of:

The rules:
List 7 songs you're into right now. No matter the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're any good, they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they're listening too.

and they are...

1. The Feeling - Sewn
2. Joey Negro - Make A Move On Me
3. Orson - No Tomorrow
4. Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
5. Mary J Blige & U2 - One
6. Source Ft Candi Staton - You Got The Love
7. Jack Johnson - Better Together

Nothing greatly surprising there as I've only had the chance lately to hear music played on Radio One, as I've spent quite a bit of time in the car travelling back and forth to Canterbury. A sad state of affairs.

Now I should tag people but I'm not going to. If you fancy it then do it, if not then cool.

It's been a while...

Hey guys. Apologies for the lack of posts lately but it would only be more of the same "I've been busy" crap.

I haven't even been able to check up on other blogs, so no comments from me. I'll try and get around to it but it may be a while, so check back here sometime in the future.

Big love to you all.

Adem

I was just guessing at numbers and figures

I had a few hours free today between jobs and so finally got around to submitting a design to Split The Atom. Split The Atom is a new site where users can submit T-shirt designs which get rated by other users, and then if selected will get made into limited edition t-shirts and you'll also get £250. I had nothing to lose and so submitted this design. Check it out, register, and then give me a big vote as I really need the money [and I'd like the kudos]!

What a difference a day makes, twenty-four little hours

24 hours in a day doesn't seem to be enough nowadays. And this seems to be the gist of my recent posts so I won't bore you with all that and instead tell you what I got up to last night [only a quick post as I've got work at the pub at 4pm...busy, busy, busy....Whoops I said I wouldn't go on.]

2 weeks ago it was Hodders, Tom's and Chris' birthdays within the space of a week and their ladies wanted to do something special, a James Bond evening. This event got delayed till last night, but it all went well and I had a good time. The plan for the evening was for everyone to dress up as a James Bond character and then we'd have a starter at one house, a main at another, and a desert at the last house, where we'd stay to party away.

The girls put a lot of effort into it and so did everyone that came. I myself was dressed as Oddjob [the bowler hat assassin], and I took many photos with Jonny's camera. Where are the photo's I hear you ask....well my suit got dirty in a chocolate fountain related incident and when I was washing down my jacket I must've got the camera wet!!! It was working fine, and then started playing up later on. At the moment I've taken the battery and memory card out in order to possibly dry off any moisture that may be in there, and if that doesn't work then I'll look towards insurance or just sorting Jonny out with some non-existent cash.

I will post the photos soon though!

We had footy today too against the team 2nd in the division, and we were 2-0 up after 10 minutes but lost 4-2 in the end. I was really proud with the way the team played as we are 2nd from bottom at the moment and involved in a relegation fight. I was on the bench and got 5 minutes at the end of the game in the central midfield, and I have to say I enjoyed it, getting in a few good tackles. I managed to sort out training on Thursdays on an astroturf pitch at my old school and hopefully I'll be able to regain some fitness which I've lost over the past year. The plan is to spend summer getting fit and then try and get into the team for some games.

As I mentioned I've got work at the pub as they needed staff because the England-France Rugby is on and also the Liverpool-Arsenal match is on too. I'm only working till 8pm and will have to eek out what I can from the rest of the evening before work at Uni tomorrow at 8:30am.

Laters all.

Why Have Elephants Got Big Ears?

......Because Noddy wouldn't pay the ransom.


comment and discuss.

Working on a sex farm.

I haven't posted since monday and that's because I've been busy......"busy with what?" I hear you ask...well......

As you know Phil and I have been working on the new business and in the last post asked people if they wanted a free logo or baner design. Well we got 6 responses from Flash, Ginny, SwissToni, Tracy, Alecya, and Suburban Hen, and have started working on them. The main idea for doing this was to get the word out, practice our skills, and go through the process of designing and see what we will both exactly do when we get bona fide customers. So you guys are our guinea pigs this week.

It's been nice to get working on Photoshop and here's something I was fiddling with for Flash's blog [it's not in his final design though.]

One of the problems with setting up a new venture is that I'm still owrking in my other jobs and this week has been really busy for me with out of the house from 8am till 6pm and then working on things till around 12:30am/1am. This explains my lack of blogging and why the designs are taking a little longer than I would hope. Still this is what this grace-period if for.

We've also decided on a name ...................... [drum roll]........................ and we will now be known as AngrySeahorse.com and you can contact us at info@angryseahorse.com. We racked our brains and found that many of our preferred names were already registered, and so we now have a name.

The plan is to get these logos/jobs out of the way and then I'll be able to work on the website and hopefully get something sorted by the Easter Period [realistically]. From then we can start some serious promotion, will have ironed out faults, and will hopefully be making some money [fingers crossed].

I'm going to try and get an early night now and will have to be at work for 8:30am. Laters

p.s. The title lyric today if from Spinal Tap. I was thinking of a lyric for working hard and that one popped into my head. Very funny and here's the rest:

Working on a sex farm
Trying to raise some hard love
Getting out my pitch fork
Poking your hay

Scratching in your henhouse
Sniffing at your feedbag
Slipping out your back door
Leaving my spray

Sex farm woman, I'm gonna mow you down
Sex farm woman, I'll rake and hoe you down
Sex farm woman, don't you see my silo rising high?

Working on a sex farm
Hosing down your barn door
Bothering you livestock
They know what I need

Working up a hot sweat
Crouching in your pea patch
Plowing through your beanfield
Planting my seed

Sex farm woman, I'll be your hired hand
Sex farm woman, I'll let my offer stand
Sex farm woman, don't you hear my tractor rumbling by?

Working on a sex farm
Trying to raise some hard love
Getting out my pitch fork
Poking your hay

Pressure pushing down on me

So Phil and myself have had some requests for designs from Ginny, Flash, SwissToni, and Tracy, and so now we get onto the hard bit of actually doing some work!

My input will have to wait till tomorrow evening as I've been out from 8am till 5:15pm doing a course and have work at the pub from 7pm till 11:30pm. I have got 5-aside footy tomorrow and squash after but I should be free from 10pm so I can get going then.

yawn......

And we're still struggling on a choice of name for the business. Several are on the shortlist but nothing has yet had that *WOW* feeling [although quite a few that we've fancied have already been taken by other businesses.]

Libraries gave us power, then work came and made us free

So I visited Phil in lovely Bognor at this weekend [arrived Friday 6pm, left Sat 4pm] and we chatted about future business plans. I've mentioned previously about how I'd like to try something new and would like to start my own business, and so Phil and myself are going to try and set something up. We are looking into forming a logo designing company and ran through certain possible aspects of this and how it could become a success. Sadly due to money needs we will not be able to commit 100% to this at the moment as necessity dictates that we will need to spend money before can make money, and will obviously have to survive before this business is possibly successful, so we will still be in other employment for the moment, and will have to commit the rest of our free time to this.

I am up for starting straight away but, dammit, I'm actually really busy at work this week, and am attending an IOSH course in Supervising Safely. Yes it is as interesting as it sounds, and is a 3 day course from 9am-4:30pm, starting tomorrow. The man is trying to keep me down.

The plan is to decide on a company name [very important], get a portfolio together, get a website, and then promote the ass off of it.

We want to get a collection of logos together and would like to offer this service to our fellow bloggers, so that we can have some examples to show to potential future customers. If you do have a business or alike and would like us to design you a logo for free then please email me at adem@ademweb.co.uk and we'll see what we can do.

This will obviously give us a chance to try out our skills, test the waters, and also see how the eventual process will actually work. You won't even have to actually use the designs if you don't want to, as you are doing us a favour in giving us something to work with.

Watch this space for more info.

Everyone i know, goes away in the end.

Is this one of the most moving videos ever???

Johnny Cash - Hurt
[Real Player] [Windows Media Low] [Windows Media High]

Cash recorded this in 2002, and the song on it's own is good, but when it's accompanied by the video it is simply breathtaking. It is a cover of the Nine Inch Nails song and was recommended to Cash by Rick Rubin who was a close friend of Trent Reznor [the man who is NIN], and it is the Mark Romanek video that brings so much poignancy to the song. In it we see a frail Johnny Cash cut in between film clips of his life, his family, and his past. 2 months after it's filming his wife, June Carter Cash died, and then 4 months later Cash died too, with this being his last song. Very sad and one wonders if he knew his life was coming to an end, and this was him reciting his own obituary.

Reznor admitted that when Rubin first asked if Cash could cover his song, he was "flattered" but worried that "the idea sounded a bit gimmicky." The power of Cash's song didn't fully hit Reznor until he saw the video.

Reznor often refers to "Hurt" as "a song that isn't mine anymore." It belongs to Cash now.

Watch the video, feel for Cash, and I defy you not to feel tears and sadness.

Suck my kiss

I just visited the Suburban Hen House and found out she was 48% Pure. I though I'd take the test and guess what......

Uncorrupted

You are 82% pure!

Link: The 100 Point Sexual Purity Test written by ocicat on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Damn it for not committing bestiality, incest, and necrophilia...it would've got me a few more points....

Moving, just keep moving

I've been a bit worn down lately and it's weird because it's correlated with me not doing as much exercise as I used to, but I guess that being inactive can be more exhausting than being active. This time last year I was playing squash on Tuesdays, football training on Wednesdays, 5-aside on Thursdays, and Sunday league football on Sundays, and to be honest it was tiring me out. I still play squash, and play a bit of Sunday league football ,but that's been all I've been up to for quite a while now.

Well the good news is that I've managed to organise football training on an artificial pitch with floodlighting so that we can start training again during the week, and I also went to Rugby training for the for the time in a while yesterday. I haven't been able to do Rugby with the Uni team for a while because of either injury/sickness/or work commitments but was back in full swing yesterday and it did hurt. We concentrated on fitness and ball handling and boy did I ache after. But I feel better for it today. The aim is to get some fitness back between now and summer and feel good all the time.

Tomorrow I'm off to Bognor, so I'll catch you later.

When I was younger, so much younger than today

Last weekend I was in an active mood to have a bit of a springclean and get rid of some of the crap around the house, with the main object being the loft/attic. It's amazing the amount of stuff that is up there, and that it hasn't resulted in the house collapsing, as I seem to be always dumping stuff up there. There's a lot of stuff that is genuinely up there for storage reasons, such as furniture, and boxes of things already sorted and kept up there for the the future, but there is also a lot of stuff put there with the mindset of "out of sight, out of mind".

I wanted to be ruthless and found an old rucksack, full of bits'n'bobs, which had obviously been rammed full of crap and put into the loft a long time ago. I got it down and thought I'd have a rummage through it before throwing it away. Of course a lot of it was rubbish but I did also find a few mementos which brought back some memories, and I thought I'd share them with you.

I started going out and drinking when I had just turned 16 [I think!], and there were several favourite haunts that we used to go to. First of all it was the Railway Tavern in Broadstairs [now called Cramptons] where they used to serve Toby Bitter for £1 a pint, and then over the next year I started going to the Louisa Bay ["Don't look for it, it's not there anymore"], where my maintippless used to be Stella and Southern Comfort [slightly richer tastes at that time]. These were of course just pubs and being young and full of life I wanted to go out for longer and this is where the next image comes in, scanned from the contents in my rucksack.

The club I used to go to was called Buzz [now called Escape], and I used to frequent there until I was 18 [when I was obviously too mature]. These vouchers were given out, and once you'd filled them in, you could get in cheaper, and here is one that I obviously filled in but never gave to them. It all looks very innocent until you see the date of birth. Yes, I was born on 3rd December, but in 1980, and not '78 as the voucher suggests!!! Shock horror!! I was committing fraud and lying about my D.O.B. This voucher must be from the early days then.

But how did I afford all of these shenanigans whilst I was still in full-time education?? Well that's where mySaturdayy job came in handy working for JC Rook & Sons, a butchers [also with a delicatessen and hot food counter]. I would workSaturdayss from 9am till 5pm, and for 8 hours of my life I would get......£20...which works out at £2.50 an hour!!! Don't believe me?? See the other scan below [this one is from when I was 18].

I don't quite know how I made £20 stretch for a whole evening, but I guess I usually managed to by skipping fares on trains, using vouchers to get into places for free, and drinking pints of bitter for £1....ah those were the days..... *starts babbling about kids nowadays*

Well, that's all from my archives for the moment, but if anything else of interest pops up then I'll be sure to share it.