I chose not to choose life: I chose something else

I emailed Phil about stuff and then he rang me whilst he was on the train on the way home from work, and we had a chat. I find it quite hard to talk about ideas on the phone as it's very impersonal and I often forget important stuff, and so I said that I could pop down to Bognor one weekend and we can have a good chat about ideas for setting up a business, and then taking over the world. In response to my previous post I suggested that I could come down this weekend, and without any hesitation Phil said that I should. Life should always be this easy and we should be able to make on the spot decisions without having to look in our diaries for a free date, but that is not often the case.

Sometimes I think that we psychologically make other committments so that we don't have time to try new things or take take risks. It's a lot easier to think that you can't do something because you don't have the time, instead of realising you don't try things because you could fail.

A while back when I was more motivated I actually did a bit of research into companies that specialised in design of graphics and logos but yet again nothing came of it. I did see quite a few sites that I respected and also quite a lot that were crap and a waste of money, and what I will do befre friday is review these and see if there is somewhere in the market that can accomodate me. If I can't bring anything new to the equation then it's not worth doing but if I can actaully bring something meaningful to fruition, then I will once again be a happy man.

I believe the best course of action will be to go down on Friday, have a few drinks, get some brainstorming going, and have a very frank discussion of what this poposed business venture will entail, and then on the Saturday actually delve a bit deeper into whatever came up.

Does it sound like a good idea?? I hope so, and even if nothing happens [me being negative again] at least I'll be able to check out Freespurge Mansions.

Watch this space.

Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning

I am unmotivated.


I am probably in a bit of a rut and am a little depressed at the moment. I am usually very upbeat but today I feel a little down, although I never plunge to certain depths of despair that other do. After all I don't have anything too great to worry about, I have a job, a roof over my head, in fairly good health, and good friends around me, but I am in one of those 'what am I doing with my life?' moods. Can we be truly happy all the time? Is nothing good enough?

I am 25 now and for the past few years I haven't really accomplished anything. When I look back there was a scheme to life carefully guided by education and authority. I went to school, then did my A-levels, then went to University, then worked at the University for a few years, and then....then what?

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family, Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life.

But who would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?

Ok I didn't choose Heroin, maybe a bit too far, but I am just as guilty of wallowing, having 'big ideas' and finding it easier to do nothing, and then moan about it. I have dreams of working for myself, running my own business, being the boss, and doing what I enjoy. I enjoy webdesign and graphic design, and a few years back I would say that I was pretty good and was always keeping ahead of the times, and educating myself in new things coming out. Over the years I've slipped and not pushed myself as far as I should. As I am still involved in this type of thing then it won't take much for me to get back into it, but it will take time and effort on my behalf, and there is obviously some element of risk involved in giving everything up and going for it, but I suppose you have to fight for your dreams.

I have blogged about this before, gone on about really doing it, and I have not. I have done nothing and I think that is rubbish. Something has got to give and I need to decide on my priorities.

Phil recently blogged about wanting to do something different, and questioned why he should carry on applying for jobs, just because he has experience. He too wants to choose something different and so I left a comment on his blog saying we should meet up soon to discuss things. He just text and emailed me, and we'll have a chat tonight. Watch this space.

Got no place that I can be, since I found Serenity

If you visit Freespurge regularly then 3 words appear with great frequency alot.....they are....drum roll.........."Shiny", "Firefly" and "Serenity". Am I right?? Now i think I'm allowed to rip him a little bit, but he acknowledges that he does go on about it all quite a fair bit, but bless him, he loves it all and who am I to say it's wrong. Still not with me?? Well I think I'm correct in saying that Phil loves 'Firefly' the now defuncy sci-fi series from Joss Whedon [of Buffy and Angel fame].

I love sci-fi too but have to admit that if it ain't on BBC2 or Channel 4 then I'm probably not going to see it, and so it happened that I missed out on the 'Firefly' series. I've heard Phil harping on about it and when I went and visited him last summer we even went and saw 'Serenity' the feature film follow up to the series. It was good, although I didn't really have any info on the background of the film, and maybe would've appreciated it more if I'd seen the series.

Well this week I felt I needed to buy something shiny and ventured onto Play.com and searched for the Firefly DVD just to check it out. Well up it popped, £13.99 for the whole series, a special edition no less, including 4 DVDs, on which there are all 14 episodes, along with special features such as audio commentries on all the episodes, 2 featurettes, deleted scenes, plus a load more stuff to mention. And so I bit the bullet ordered it, and so it arrived on my doorstep yesterday.

Five hundred years in the future there's a whole new frontier, and the crew of the Firefly-class spaceship Serenity is eager to stake a claim on the action. They'll take any job, legal or illegal, to keep fuel in the tanks and food on the table. But things get a bit more complicated after they take on a passenger wanted by the new totalitarian Alliance regime. Now they find themselves on the run, desperate to steer clear of Alliance ships and the flesh-eating Reavers who live on the fringes of space.

I've watched 2 discs so far, and the first thing I noticed was the use of the word 'shiny' denoting something good, and one of Phil's favourite words had some new meaning as inow know where it came from...I should have known.

It's a good series and I'll probably finish it over the weekend [not including all the special features]. The storylines are good, the special effects are of good quality, but not overused so the storylines do not depend on them, and I shall enjoy watching the rest of the series. It is a very realistic view of the future, no robots or aliens, just a world when the frontier has been extended to as far as man can travel [echoing the Western themes throughout].

The quality of the DVD production pleases me greatly as it annoys me when the possibilities of DVDs are wasted on just putting a chapter selection on the DVD.....Although....here it comes...I won't be able to enjoy all the special features as my TV has gone funny!!! Calm down Phil, I'm not dissing 'Firefly'! When I put the DVD in I switched the TV to Cinema mode, which on a widescreen TV effectivly removes the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. When I finished watching the first DVD I went to use the remote control to change the aspect ratio, and it wouldn't work....something's wrong with it!!! Damn you Firefly DVD!!!!

OK I know it's not really the DVD's fault, but something did it!!!!! I'd say go and buy it as it's terrific value for money and a good series to boot. It is shiny.

It's getting better all the time...

Well I'm feeling quite a lot better now, compared to what I was like before, and I would say it's much like a bog-standard cold now [slight headaches, dry throat, stuffy nose.]

I'm feeling quite good in myself though too as it's been like having a detox as I've not touched alcohol for a week ,haven't been eating bad [plenty of fruit], and have been getting my sleep. It's nice, even though I had to go through a stage of feeling shit [not literally], I come out the other side feeling a lot better. Of course not being at work has been nice.

So here I am on a saturday afternoon, watching Liverpool versus Manchester United in the FA Cup on the BBC, just having a little blog, thinking that I should really give my hovel a tidy up as it's strewn with clothing, tissues, and whatever I've thrown around during the week.

I hope you all have a nice weekend and I'll speak later.

Adem

But you see, it's not me, it's not my family.

If I was a cruel, insensitive parent who wanted to f*ck his child up good style, then this is what I'd do:


Very funny but also very wrong..I'm sure he'll have a laugh about it with his shrink.

On the sickness front I'm feeling quite a lot better except for feeling stiff [damned viagra, I thought they were aspirin], having a very runny nose and eyes, and a headache [I think it may implode]. I've got to work tonight at the pub and so will try and spread as many germs as possible and also try and stay alive too.

Speak soon.

Autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the deceptions

So I've been surfing around a came across a link on the Num Num's blog which featured a video of something amazing. Check it out below.

Normal blogging will resume shortly...

I'm ill. I started feeling slightly dodgy on Monday night, and gradually felt worse till yesterday when it really hit me. I went into work in the morning but had to come home and was told not to come back till I felt better, and at this rate I reckon that'll be Monday.

It's been a wierd one....hot sweats, cold sweats, body aches, headaches, lightheadedness, and even a bit of throwing up [an isolated case], but luckily no stomach upsets [just so that you know].

Well that's the depressing bit over. What is has meant is that I've had time to myself and have got round to watching a few DVDs, some good some bad, and the pick of the bunch has to be 'Shaun of the Dead', which really cheered me up when I ws feeling crap.

That's all for now, and I'll post something a little more interesting next time [I hope.]

When a lovely flame dies, Smoke gets in your eyes

Wahey!!!

Smoking is to be banned in all pubs and clubs in England.

Let me say that again... and emphasise the special word:

Smoking is to be banned in ALL pubs and clubs in England.

Previously MPs were going to ban smoking in all enclosed public places in England, except pubs which do not serve food, and private members' clubs. But this has now been overturned by a complete ban, and I am very happy about this, as it will help even more people. I work in a pub, so get my share of passive smoke, and I also socialise in pubs so I'm getting a lot of it. Now there are some who say that passive smoking has no effect but I know in myself that it is doing something, even if it's just a sore throat and stinky clothes. I also have a few friends who are 'social smokers', meaning that they only smoke when they are out and drinking. Hopefully they will cut down too.


I am also happy that MPs were given a 'free vote', which means that they did not have to follow party line and could vote with their conscience. When we vote for our MPs, we are voting for the party, but also for the individual, and if they are just going to vote for what their leader says then what's the point?? True democracy.

This should come into effect in Summer 2007.

Read the BBC article here

Read the Q&A here

Flashing blue lights, camera, action. Watching my life, main attraction.

I was working last night at the pub [5pm-11pm] and had just finished serving some customers when a voice to the left of me said "How's your blog?". Presently a few of my friends visit [they are non-bloggers] and of course you guys, but no one in the pub knew about my blog. I turned around and it was Courtney from the Pool Team, someone who I have never really spoken too except in the task of serving them drinks. *Hi Courtney* [if you are reading this]. This freaked me out quite a bit and brought home the reality of the World Wide Web.

It appears that he had just been surfing the web looking for photos of Ramsgate and stumbled upon my site, whereupon he saw a few photos, and recognised me as the person in them. It appears that he may know quite a bit more about me now. mmmm

Obviously I knew my blog would get read by good friends and complete strangers but didn't really think about the causal acquaintance. This is strange. I've put these writings on the web, and so can't be perplexed when someone reads them as they are there for all to see, but what if someone else was reading them, someone with alterior motives?? If you type in a few key phrases there are quite a few pages of info on me [not necessarily just from this blog] which means others can learn quite a bit about me. I guess that's the price of the digital age.

I may have to think a little more about what I say in future, but hopefully I can still be very honest. I have seen other blogs dissapear from existance when the risk of discovery had arisen, and I have seen many bloggers go to all lengths to keep their anonimity, but I think I will keep doing what I'm doing, although I may have to be careful in what I do say about people, as word does get around.

Laters

Let's talk, let's ta-a-alk

My friend Chris has been working in London for the past 6 months for a company called Reevoo, and I honestly didn't really know much about what he actually did for them until last week, and I thought I'd share it with you as you all could be involved in it.

You can find their site at reevoo.com and they are a review service for electrical goods, collecting reviews by email or from partner websites. But where they are changing is that they are getting involved in syndicating reviews from blogs. This is done by you visiting their site and dragging a bookmarklet to your browser's bookmark bar. When you want to write a review on an item simply click on the bookmark, a new window will pop up where you can fill in the review details, giving the product name, a score, the actual review and also your name and location. Once you've done this click on I'm ready, create my review and it will automatically create html which you should insert into your blog for your review post. After you've done this follow a link, tell them where you've published the review, and they'll come along and collect it.
It may sound a little complicated, but honestly it's not. This version of reviewing on blogs is simply in a beta version at the moment so there will be things that they will fix or update before it is completed.

I believe the main reason for them to want to get reviews from blogs is that people who blog have an opinion, that's why they blog, because they've got something to share. We are a consumer society so it makes sense that people will blog about what they buy. And finally bloggers are very honest [usually] if something is rubbish they will say that, if it is good then they will comment on that too, not feeling pressured into giving a more favourable review than say if they were actually giving a review to a site such as Amazon. I will speak the truth on my blog, but might be a bit more gentle and forgiving elsewhere.

I will be trying out Reevoo sometime soon as Chris asked if I could, and he also wanted me to spread the word too, as it's still in beta mode and he'd like to assess it better which can only be done with more bloggers. I did mention that it was for electrical items, but I believe they are trying to branch out too, so you should be able to review anything that someone may buy. Just visit Reevoo.com and publish a review on your blog ,and just be honest.

The obvious aim is to link in reviews to where you can buy the actual products from and then I suppose the company will make money from them, but I think it could be a useful place to visit, as if they can get independent reviews on anything then I would be more willing to believe the reviews from a blogger than from a manufacturers website.

That's all for now, as I need to get showered, changed, and then try and squeeze in some fun this afternoon, before work this evening at 7pm. Laters

It's been one week....

I'm back in the office now, and need to catch up on some work, but I may as well but a post out before I immerse myself into the world of Students' Unions.

So what have I been up to?? Well not much. As you know I was away for the weekend in Chichester, and I forgot to visit Phil!!! A bit silly of me but it just gives me an excuse to pop down pretty soon again. I did see TTP whilst I was there and got some good photos which I've now uploaded onto their site and this gave me a fresh impetus to spruce the site up a bit. Here's what I've done.

-Uploaded video using Youtube and placed on entry page.
-Upgraded forum from YaBB SP Gold 1.4 to YaBB 2.1
-Added photos from 4-2-06 gig
-Created new graphics for the 'links' page and added new links
-Ordered new business cards for the band

It's like having a spring clean. I've also created a blog for the site but am still trying to get the band into the blogging mindset, so that will remain on the back burner for the moment until I know that they will actually use it [we all hate it when blogs are left to rot and not updated.]

On Sunday I went to football, and we actually won a game!! The team is playing really well now and is very motivational now. I am happy about this as a few months back we were very negative and it wasn't fun anymore.

On Monday and Tuesday I had meetings in Canterbury

On Wednesday I was in the office for a few hours [left early as I had put in more hours over the previous week, and so I though I deserved it.]

Yesterday I was at a funeral for my next-door neighbour Ivor, who died last week aged 85. You may say that 85 is quite an old age but you wouldn't have thought he was that age as he seemed to act like a spritely 65 old, and the death was quite a shock as we have lived next door to him for the past 18 years. I will talk about this a bit more indepth in a future post.

I also went out in the evening as it way Ian's 23rd birthday. It was only a trip to the local as we will be going for a meal, drinks, casino affair tonight. [should be around 20 of us which is cool]. I got quite drunk on Rumpus [Ridley’s Rumpus, a 4.5% cask ale with roasted crystal malt creating a rich, ruby coloured ale, giving a sweet, nutty flavour perfectly complemented by a light bitter aftertaste], a very nice tipple.

Today....well I'm in the office, all alone, and sorting through things for next week when I know I'll be in my office all week and not driving around. More about the job in a later post too.

So I'll be out tonight but I will have to make the most of it as I'll be working at the pub on Saturday and Sunday night [I'm doing this as favours to work mates and it will also mean more money in my pocket and less spent on nights out...well that's the idea.]

That's all for now. But I'm sure I'll be blogging regularly pretty soon.

our time is running out

too busy to blog....will return soon with some very interesting posts...honestly........I'll try.

Get your motor running, head out on the highway

I am tired. But I have had a good weekend.

My weekend started on Friday when I finished work at 2pm and headed off to Chichester, my old stomping ground. 135 miles later and I had arrived at the city [it does have a University and a Cathedral!] where I had previously lived for 5 years. Those times are long gone now but I still have friends who live there and who I like to catch up with.

I was originally going to only head down for the Saturday but decided that I might as well spend the night there and have a good drink on the Friday. Which I did. I caught up with some old friends who had been in the same year of Uni as me, I got drunk, and then I staggered back to my 'home' [Dave's] at sometime in the early hours.

The Saturday was the real reason I was there as my friends band 'Ticklin the Pickle' were playing at the Uni, and I needed some live funk action. I also maintain their website [ticklinthepickle.co.uk] and was looking forward to getting some new photos to put on the site.

They played a brilliant set and I got quite a few good photos that I was happy with, and should be uploading to their site sometime over the week. I had football this morning and so had to travel back last night and left at 11:30pm and arrived back at 1:45am....hence the reason that I started this post with "I am tired."

I didn't get to see Phil as other things got in the way [England versus Wales...wahey!! + hangover recovery] but I'm sure he was too busy anyway with his big move.

By the way we won at footy 4:3 [still in the relegation zone though, but form is picking up]

Click here to see the photos

Just can't wait to get on the road again, The life I love is makin' music with my friends

I'm off to Bognor Regis and Chichester this weekend, leaving after work on Friday and returning late Saturday night, so don't expect any posts till Sunday at the latest.

I should be catching up with a few friends and hopefully, if he's not to busy moving in, I could maybe catch up with this fellow.

See you all later.