Open the door, get on the floor

.... still tired, but have stuck to using the bike, when it would've been oh so lovely to use the car, and I've agreed to play footy at 4pm, and then I've got work at the pub at 7pm. I think I'm going to get into one of those silly periods where I try and do everything.... and then get tired and ill.

That's all for now as I've nothing interesting to say.

I was right about the whales and the dolphins

Yesterday was a BUSY day. I got up at 9am, and got ready for football at 10:30am. I was quite tired at I been out on the Saturday night and didn't get to bed till 3am, but I was up and ready as we had a great day planned ahead. We were having an interclub friendly between ourselves with the teams divided into 'over 26s' against 'under 26s' ,and the end result was 4-2 to the 'over 26s', but us young 'uns put in a good show.

The rest of the day was a family affair with all the players bringing their partners and children, with everyone playing mini-football, rounders, and cricket.

We stayed out till around 3pm, which resulted in me getting quite sun-burnt. because I've got a shaved head I normally put sun-block on but because I haven't had to yet this year I completely forgot, but plenty of after-sun came out later on I assure you.

After this we went back to Roy and Sheila's [who run the club] for a BBQ, which was very nice, and as I wasn't drinking I agreed to go night fishing with Ben later on in the evening.

We left home at 10pm for the walk down to the harbour and got there around 20 minutes later and set ourselves up. It was lovely weather and a pleasant eveing and even though I was tired I was glad I came.

Ben caught a pouting on his first cast, and then I caught a dogfish on my second cast, which was cool as I'd never caught one before. If you didn't know the dogfish is from the shark family, and you could tell by the look and feel of it, as it had very rough sandpaper like skin and EVIL eyes! Here's a picture of it [only taken with my phone so apologies for picture quality.]


And so it looked like being a very good evening...... I didn't catch anything else.

I left at 2am and got home at 2:30am and went to bed .....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Even in the summer, even in the spring, you can never get too much of a wonderful thing

Well it's 4:50pm and what have I done?? Bugger all really, and that's virtually the whole day gone. I've been to Roy's to sort out his internet connection which was playing up [faulty router, so I've replaced it with a single modem for the moment], I've been to Tesco's to do the weekly shop [full of Saturday shopping morons who piss me off], and that's about it really.

My plans for the rest of the day are to chill out, listen to some music albums [which I haven't done for a long time], check out peoples blogs and go commenting, play a bit of Football Manager [currently Brighton] and this evening watch Doctor Who and also try and catch some of the Soccer Aid football match, and then go out and get drunk.

Tomorrow I've got a game of footy [just a friendly] and then a BBQ to go to, so hopefully it'll stop raining soon.

At the moment I'm listening to PJ Harvey - Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea and so here's the video of Good Fortune to keep you happy.

Just don't let me down

I was meant to be going down to Brighton today for a bit of Bank Holiday fun.... but now I am not. The plan was to get there for midday and catch up with my friends band ,watch them for a bit, then pop to the pier and go on the rides, get some grub [fish and chips!], maybe a 99, and then head off around 5ish, but there are several reasons why we are not doing this. The weather is predicted to be rainy [the band were supposed to be playing an outside gig] and my car isn't fixed yet.

On other news I went over to ticketmaster try and complete one of the items on my list Go to a 'proper' band gig, so I scoured around and saw 'The Kooks' were going to be playing at Leas Cliff Hall in August, brilliant I thought, but sadly the tickets were all sold out. doh! The Leas Cliff Hall is in Folkestone which is just down the road from me so would be ideal so I scoured who else was playing there, and all I can say is CRAP.

So yet another weekend music video is called for, and so I present The Kooks - Naive....

Express yourself, create the space

You can check out my new football site here, which I talked about in my previous post. It's very cool, and only took a few days to get sorted.

Of course there isn't a HUGE amount on it at the moment but once the season starts and I move the new site to official domain then I think it'll work really well.

I am happy.

Pull the tapeworm out of your ass, Hey

Something almost interesting to post today. I've probably told you in the past that I used to do a bit of webdesign, nothing professional, just sites for friends and acquaintances. I haven't done anything for a while now, except just do small updates to the sites, and one of the reasons is that it often rests on me soley to do these updates and to attract visitors to the sites.

One of the reasons it is left to me is because I am the only person who knows how to do it, knows how to use Dreamweaver, knows some html, and generally understands how the whole thing works. But now I feel like a slight fraud because I don't know as much as I should or could. Now for a bit of history.

Before I went to University in 1999, I had never used the internet, which must seem strange for those of you teenagers out there who have been suckled on a modem, but when I got there the world was my oyster, with computers I could use at all hours, all manner of software, and amazing connection speeds.

I signed up to yahoo mail and with this got access to geocities, their online website creator. I made quite a few sites which I liked, generally personal ones, which looking back at may seem quite simple and messy, but it got me started. Over the next two years I got to grips with the internet and how it all worked, mucked around with websites, and generally surfed around checking out other people's sites, and having fun.

It was at the end of my 2nd year that I was elected to the position of 'Communications Officer' of the Student's Union for the following academic year, and from then on nothing could stop me. The SU didn't have a website, and so I taught Dreamweaver and Photoshop, and was able to make a website and also design posters for events and promotional materials.

At this stage I was very happy to be the only person who knew how to do this, and was regarded as a bit of a technical wizard. It was at this time that I also started doing other websites, and they compared very well with anything else that was around, technically and also aesthetically [I hope I don't come across as big-headed.]

I devoted a lot of my free time and was contantly learning new things to keep ahead, and was a bit like Jonny 5 from Short Circuit "Need more input!!". Now I do not have as much free time, and I haven't kept on top of new advances. I really wanted to learn Macromedia Flash, but that has been a pipedream and now it is too late for me, and I dread to think of other things that I've missed out on too.

I am not very happy with the sites now and they new a major overhaul. They are okay for personal pages but not for professional pages, and I'm sure that professional webdesigners would look at them with pity.

I want to learn more, but it will be hard as I've fallen very far behind and have a lot of catching up to do.

One of the ways I can help myself is to make the sites I currently have manage themselves, and I can also learn a bit whilst I'm at it.

I've installed e107.org which is "a content management system written in php and using the popular open source mySQL database system for content storage", and I'm in the process of setting it up to run my football club's website. One of the main benefits is that it will be web-based and can be edited and updated from any PC, and I can also assign various priviledges to users so that they can keep it updated with news, results, fixtures, etc. I will of course keep my admin controls so that it can't be f**ked up, but in essence I won't have to do anything if the others are doing what they can.

It was fun last night working on it because I was learning at the same time too, which is something I've missed, as I haven't had to push myself much lately.

I'm going to try and learn more and make my websites more functional to other users. I'll have to lookaround for other content management systems as they seem tobe a good way to go, although I'll have to see how e107 goes.

Apologies to those who thought this might be an interesting post. ;)

ooh raining on prom night...

I've been riding my bike to work for a week, and I've been pretty lucky with the weather, apart from a few days when it was very windy and I had to cycle twice as hard. Well today it poured down on my way home and I was soaked to the bone, but I wasn't too annoyed.

What a great story. I bet you're glad Itold you that story.

I'm like a bird, I'll only fly away

We have sparrows that nest on our roof, and you can sometimes hear them chirping when you're upstairs, but today I could hear one very loudly from downstairs.... how odd. I went upstairs to investigate and the sound was coming from the bathroom...hmmmm. I went in and somehow a bird had got in and was in a bit of a state trying to find a way out, and just flying into the windows and net curtains, and then, to my despair it flew into the toilet, and into the water!!!

I put my hand into the water [it had been flushed previously!], scooped out the little bird, and slowly walked downstairs, smuggling her past the cat, and then into the garden. It had started to dry off a bit now and so I went down to the shed, and put her next to it so that she had shelter and some time to recuperate from the ordeal.

I'm glad that I heard it, as I don't normally go to the upstairs toilet, and I wouldn't have liked to have found it dead. So I am a hero today, and a little sparrow lives to save the day. [Incidently sparrow numbers are on the decline, hopefully not due to too many toilet related incidents.]

You don't have to put on the red light, those days are over

So here I found myself on the other side of town, the bad side of town, the place where I'd been told not to go. It wasn't so much a dangerous place, but an immoral place, somewhere where people went to get company from strangers, people they knew nothing about.

Why was I here, I kept asking myself, well aware of the truth. Was I really considering it? Yes, I'd come here before, but just to look, just to see for myself, like a voyeur I watched the goings on from afar, but had resisted the temptation. I say resisted, when in fact I was scared, scared of ruining something special I already had. So why was I here, especially after just celebrating our 2 year anniversary?

This time it was different ,it seemed that everyone else had done it, and continued to do it, so why shouldn't I? What would it hurt to try and experience something else? It wasn't really cheating, just an evening away, and when I returned I wouldn't talk about it, it would be my secret, my dirty little secret, my dirty little secret that would eat away, devouring me from the inside.

I can't keep it a secret from you anymore, as you deserve the know the truth, but I only tell you this because I love you, because I want you to understand, because I think we still have something special, something that no one else could replace.

I'm rambling now, I should just get it out and be willing to take the consequences.

On Friday night we were intimate but when I left you I went looking for more, and do you know where I went....? I went here. I'm sorry. I'll never do it again......

Just one note, could make me float

It's the weekend, traditionally a quiet time in blogland as everyone's away from the office, and doing other stuff instead of being stuck to the computer. Well I've not done too much today except for some plumbing to fix a broken toilet [broken ciphon diaphragm if you're interested]. So what better was to cheers those up who are surfing around cyberspace than to watch a Chili Peppers video, so here you go.

I'm the question and you're of course the answer

Here's a weekend present for you. You may wonder why?? Well last night I had a dream and this young lady was in it. Nothing x-rated happened you'll be happy to know except we were chatting together and she asked me why I hadn't asked her out. Well I thought why not, and asked her out. She said yes, of course, and we agreed to meet up later. And then I woke up....damn I didn't even see if I got to first base! I bet I did!

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike*

This week I have tryed my best to not use the car for 3 reasons:

1. The exhaust is playing up and needs to be fixed. The main exaust pipe leading from the engine has come loose from the muffler unit, and has resulted in a bit of rattling, and also a louder noise from the exhaust. I will be pushing it if I use it quite a lot before I get it fixed, and my mechanic friend is on holiday at the moment so I can't get it sorted yet.

2. Petrol is VERY expensive now at around 96.9 pence per litre. When I first started driving in 1999 petrol was around 69.9p, so in the 7 years since the price has increased by over 38%, which is a lot. The more I use the car, the more petrol I have to put in, thus the more money I spend.


3. There are other ways to get around. I have cycled to work all this week, which is a 4 mile round trip, which is good for my fitness, and also good for the environment, and even yesterday when I had a meeting in Canterbury I took the train which only cost me £3.60 [Return journey with Young Persons Railcard], and of course I walked the rest of the journey so you can add another couple of miles on top too.

I do think I could do without a car for most of the time, but in certain circumstances you can't beat having your own transport. So I won't be going down the 'Good Life' route yet but I will be trying my best. Lets see if I can keep this up.

*Title stolen from Flash.

Everything must go

I've just listed some stuff I don't want anymore on eBay. Fancy a look??

Click here to have a browse

Can you pay my telephone bills

Oh my word! How simple was that? I've just rang up Orange, my mobile phone providers, so that I could ask to change my bills from Pay Monthly contract over to Pay As You Go, and it was amazingly simple. I usually expect to be kept waiting on hold a long time, and then when I get though to an operator they'll try and persuade me to move over to other similarly priced plans, and I thought that was going to happen when he asked why I wanted to do that, but the call lasted around 2 minutes. He said that he'd send out a new SIM card, and once I registered this it would end my other contract, and it also means that I'll still keep the same mobile number I've had for the past 7 years, meaning I won't have to tell EVERYONE about a new number. If they'd made it hard for me I would've just cancelled the contract and gone to another provider.

I looked at the PAYG tariff and it's not too bad. If I top-up by at least £10 a month I'll get 1000 free texts [not bad], and calls are 20p a min to Orange phones and landlines, and 40p a min to other mobiles. Because the calls are quite expensive I'll just use the texts more, and also use my landline more [I currently only have it so I can use my broadband].

I've been meaning to sort my phone contract out for months and am really happy that I have because it'll halve my phone bills, and probably save me around £250 a year. Jurassic Park!

If I find it's not for me then it'll be really easy to go back to contract although I think that most providers are only offering 18 month contracts which is a LONG time.

I work all night, I work all day, to pay the bills I have to pay

I need money!!! I'm only halfway through the month but I've spent the amount of money that I usually spend in a whole month, which leaves me on a showstring for the next two weeks. I've been wondering what I've spent it on but a quick look at my bank statement reveals it all. I treated myself to some new jeans and a couple of new t-shirts, bought some plants for the garden, bought some tools for DIY jobs at home, and also got a lot a cash out which was presumably spent on socialising.

So now I'm thinking of how to get more money. I could do some more shifts at the pub, but frankly I can't be bothered and would rather try and sell some stuff for a quick buck. Over at eBay tomorrow is 5p listings day [15p saving on normal listings] so I think I'll try and shift some DVDs and CDs. That will only raise a few quid though after eBay and paypal take their further cuts [theives!], and I'm trying to think if I have anything more substantial to sell. A visit into the loft may be called for to dig out any treasures I've hidden in there.

On another note I've also been considering changing over my phone from contract and over to pay as you go. My bills are around £40 a month, and I don't actually know why? The bulk of it is line-rental [£25 + VAT] leaving me with actual call and text costs of around £10, so why shouldn't I get a tariff where I only pay for what I use? One of the things stopping me is the actual calling of customer services at Orange to cancel my contract, because I know they will make it hard for me. I will also have to change my mobile number, and go through the hassle of texting and calling everyone to say it's changed. grhhhhh. I will do this sometime this week so that I can give proper notice as I'm sure they'll say I'll have to give a months notice. That will hopefully save me some money.

At least I've got my health.... *cough

Whiskey, gin and brandy. With a glass I’m pretty handy.

So Tim picked me up yesterday morning and after a bit of mucking around we were on the road. I asked him what the plan was for the evening, for Tom's birthday, and whereabouts in Birmingham we were going, and the reply I got was"Well, it's not actually Birmingham, it's a little village near there", ah, a slight difference in what I was expecting. Here I was thinking we were going to Birmingham centre, when in fact we were going to a 2 pub village. Still I was up for it. And we ended up here.

We arrived around 2:30pm and went to a pub 'The Blue Boar' to watch the FA Cup final, and the drinking started there. What a great match, although I felt West Ham were unlucky to lose, but what a cracker of a goal from Stevie Gerrard to take it to extra-time. By the end of the penalty shootout I'd had about 5 or 6 pints of Ruddles, and then headed of to the other pub in the village where the eveing would unfold and where we'd be staying the night.


For the rest of the evening I drank cider, which I don't actually know the name of although it was around 5%...... yummy, and I think [?] that by the end of the day I'd had around 11 or 12 pints, which in my world is a fair bit, but I was still standing by around 12:30am.

I was a good evening, and although there may be a few blanks, I enjoyed myself, although a worrying by-product of the drinking would be the beer-goggles, which I am glad to say I didn't act upon.

Today I was greeted by a lovely hangover, but this was helped by a visit to Somerfield and some sarnies, and then it was back on the road at around 11am, and the 200 mile trip back to Ramsgate. And since I got back I've done nothing except watch TV and recuperate in preparation for the working week.

I did see this sign in Somerfield too, and was a little worried. We've all been warned about safe sex and dirty needles, but apparently there's a new way to catch HIV.........

We're on the road to nowhere

I'm off to Birmingham tomorrow, so no posts till Sunday from me. One of the things on my list to the right is "Visit places I've never been", and as such when Tim said he was going up for a friends birthday, I jumped at the chance to go along. I've been to Aston before on a training weekend, but that's really my experience of the midlands, and so we're heading off at 11am, arriving in time to catch the FA Cup [come on the Hammers], then drinking, and apparently we'll be sleeping in a pub [I've got mental images of 'Shaun of the Dead'].

good fun eh?

So now I'm off to the local for a couple of shandies, and then an early[ish] night, well before midnight hopefully.

Have a good weekend everyone!

The boys watch the girls while the girls watch the boys who watch the girls go by

I finished work at the pub at 8:30pm last night and then headed over to Canterbury with Jonny and Matt L. I know it was a school night but I had a meeting in Canterbury at 10am the next morning and if I stayed at Jonny's then I wouldn't have to drive in the morning. Plus it was an excuse to go out and .....spend money I haven't got. Doh!

When I was younger [hey I'm only 25 now], I used to go out virtually every night, but now my excursions are usually limited to the weekends, and so it was nice to be out on a week night. Canterbury is the nearest City to me, and has a huge student population of around 40,000 [my guess], but it was actually a very quiet night, and we only went into 3 bars. I did drink a fair bit and was quite tipsey when we left Wetherpoons at midnight.

I must admit that the highlight of the night was checking out girls with VERY short skirts, and this continued the next morning [today]. We all got up at around 8am and Matt and I went to the University canteen for a cooked breakfast, and then sat on the benches outside the Students' Union for around 30 minutes.....checking out girls with VERY short skirts! And then I had to go to work but it put me in a very good mood.

This is one reason why I love summer..... [n.b. I am not a pervert!!... honest!]

Hello

Chris and myself from Saturday night. I was at Paul and Amanda's wedding reception and they asked guests to put a polaroid picture and a comment in the guestbook. Obviously this picture didn't make the grade.

They're so sure, that England's gonna throw it away

Hi all, and how is everyone today??

So what’s been happening then? We’ll my last post finished with me getting ready for the weekend and I have to say I’ve had a very drunken time, but still very enjoyable. I won’t bore you with all the details…due to me not remembering them all!

Yesterday the England Manager, Sven Goran Eriksson, announced his provisional 23 man squad for this summers FIFA World Cup in Germany, and although he’s usually a very predictable man, I was still surprised by some of his selections, and ommisions. The squad is as follows :

Goalkeepers

Paul Robinson / David James / Robert Green

Defenders

Gary Neville / Rio Ferdinand / John Terry / Ashley Cole / Sol Campbell / Jamie Carragher / Wayne Bridge

Midfielders

David Beckham / Michael Carrick / Frank Lampard /Steven Gerrard / Owen Hargreaves / Jermaine Jenas / Stuart Downing / Joe Cole / Aaron Lennon

Forwards

Wayne Rooney / Michael Owen / Peter Crouch / Theo Walcott

Stand-by

Scott Carson / Luke Young / Nigel Reo-Coker / Jermaine Defoe / Andrew Johnson

Doesn't that look nice? I ripped off all the pictures from theFA.com. A bit of me is worried that we're taking along 2 strikers who are currently injured, and also taking along several players unproven at international level, but there is also part of me that is very excited to see the raw talent of Lennon and Walcott, who could well be the surprise packages of the tournament, and could do very well.

I don't think that if Eriksson was staying on as manager that he would've gone with the same selection, as he has been pretty reserved previously. I guess he has nothing to lose, which is maybe the best way of playing in a knock-out tournament. I also think that Steve McClaren had a part in picking the squad, as he will be taking over as England Manager after the World Cup. I guess we'll have to wait till next month to see what happens.

On other news I seem to have been spending a little too much money lately, which stemmed from me treating myself on payday to a few bits and bobs, and also going out a bit too much. I've got to put the breaks on for this month as I'll be out quite a bit when the World Cup is on, so maybe I'll have to be a slight recluse. One of the problems is that I've been using the debit card quite a bit....and not 'real money'. When using the card all I have to do is type in my PIN and it's all paid for, where as cash seems to have more value attached to it.. therefore I'm less likely to hand it over. Sometimes I'll pay with the card even though I have cash in my wallet because I think I may need the cash for something else, so in effect I've giving myself access to more fund than I would like too. I think cash will have to be the way from now on.....can I limit myself to £5 a day.... it should be easy(ish). Today I have spent £1.65 on lunch from Sainsbury's:

Tuna Salad £0.85 [reduced from £1.69]

Tomato and herb bread roll £0.30

Red seedless grapes £0.50

And it was very nice... and about half the price than if I'd got lunch in the work canteen. What more can a man talk about than Football, Food, and Money?? ummm... Well apparently [click here]

Oh, I've been working all week I'm tired,

I finished V for Vendetta today, but can't be bothered writing much about it as it's FRIDAY!!!!!

It was a good read, and I know loads of you guys out there drool over it, and although I enjoyed it, and it was thought provoking, I did have a few problems with it.... I thought it echoed of 1984 in some of it's pretext but I suppose this is more to do with Orwell's accurate vision of the future, rather than Moore's borrowing.

Not being a regular reader of graphic novels, I sometimes got confused over the different types of of text bubbles, especially at times when the TV was overlapping what was going on in another subplot. I suppose this can be solved by me reading V again, and due to me not being used to this type of literature.

I don't mean to put a dampner on what is a very good book, so don't be nasty to me in the comments!!

Now to get the weekend started!!

Making a list, checking it twice

To be honest nothing of great note has happened since my last post although today I've:

- Popped into the archery centre and found out what I do in order to cross something else off my list. I explained that I just wanted to try out archery and the owner said that I could do 4 x 1 hour sessions for £24. Not bad, although the only times he is available is on weekdays between 9am and 1:30pm, which will mean being flexible in my job, although I'm sure I can fit in an hour here and there. I'll pop in again when I know some firm dates I'm available.

- Made a lovely flowerbed in the front garden, with a wooden border.

- Received V for Vendetta in the post today from ebay. It's in virtually new condition so I'm happy, and will start consuming it a bit later.

- got more stickers [4 packs] for my Panini World Cup sticker album. But they included 4 I'd already got, so up for swapsies are: Steve Cherundolo [USA], Tomas Galasek [CZE], Craig Moore [AUS], and Haykel Guemamdia [TUN].

That's all for now. Have a very sunny day.

You thought I was cheap, you were the sale of the century

A few weeks ago upon the release of the film version, plenty of people were talking about 'V for Vendetta', and giving it the big thumbs up. Well as of this morning I was the winner of an ebay auction for the graphic novel, and so it should hopefully be here in a few days. I got it for £8.50 in total [incl. P&P!] so was very happy as it's selling for £12 in my local Waterstones bookshop.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

Yesterday I went fishing from 10:30am 'til 4:30pm, 6 hours of fishing, and do you know how many fish I caught??? Zero, nada, zilch, absolutely bugger all.

But you know what?? I didn't actually mind. Last week I decided I wanted to get a few things off my 'to-do list' and I'm happy that I've marked one off. It was a bank holiday here and as such a free day to do what you want, and what better way to do this than spend it at the seaside.

The day started off gloomy and wet, but in the afternoon the sun came out and I was happy. Normally we get quite a lot of fish from the Deal Pier [all of which are returned to the sea btw] and yesterday was very busy with around 30 people on the pier, but in total I think I only saw about 5 or so fish caught, what a strange day of fishing.

In the comments of the last post Ginny asked me what I fished for. Well obviously I go seafishing, and as such there is usually more variety than if you went to a lake or river. There are different types of tackle that you can use to attract different fish but in reality I don't really know much about it and so fish for anything, some of which I don't eve nknow the name of, although yesterday several Dogfish were caught along with a Plaice and some Whiting I think if I took it too seriously and still didn't catch anything then I'd be REALLY annoyed.

I'm definitely going to go some more times in the summer, although I might try and go elsewhere for a change and then be able to tick of my 'visit places I've never been' off my list at the same time. I live on the coast and it is something I take for granted. I should make more use of it.

----------------

You may notice that I've put a line through the fishing on my list, but I've also put the number of times I've been in brackets too. Hopefully this number will go up too.