Thursday, April 20, 2006

Go, put your records on, tell me your favourite song.

I spotted this here, here, and here. It's quite hard to think of all the albums that have influenced your life, and I'm sure I've missed loads out that haven't sprung to mind just yet. Feel free to have a go yourselves.

It's a kind of magic

Yesterday I was browsing through Youtube and came across several videos labeled along the lines of 'coke and mentos experiment' and decided to see what all the fuss was about. [click here for video link fixed now].

Absolutely amazing, and when I went to the pub last night to see the Arsenal vs Villarreal game and also to celebrate Dan and Andy's birthday I had to tell everyone about it. Some were a bit dubious and some were trying to figure out why it happened involving various theories to do with sugar content, acid/alkali reactions ,etc.

People had to see it for themselves so at the end of the match I popped over to the 24 hour Budgens and picked up a 2 litre bottle of Diet Coke and a roll of Mentos. A gang of us went out to the carpark and it was here that history would take place. If you've looked at the linked video you'll see what the reaction is, and there has to be some good timing to get all the mentos in the bottle without getting yourself covered in coke, so I fashioned a tube from a piece of paper and used a beermat as a release mechanism so that I could pull the beermat away, the methos would drop ,and the fun would commence.


Everything went to plan although the stream was only about 4 foot tall. Excellent fun and when I got home I had to find out why it happened, and found this page. It details how to do the experiment and the reasons behind it.

Have fun kids.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

What is game? Who got game ?

As mentioned here, it was the annual Rugby Sevens charity tournament at the Thanet Wanderers ground on Good Friday.

Quite a few of the teams wear fancy dress for the event and so I'd spent the Thursday finishing off the American football tops that the team were going to wear [T-shirts from Matalan and T-shirt transfers from Tesco], bought the beers and some snacks, and so on the Friday morning everything was ready......almost. I still needed some tight leggings to finish off the outfit. Ian and myself went up to TK Maxx and bought some fetching ladies leggings that were lovely and tight. Excellent.


[someone stuck some socks down the front of their pants...... ummm]

On the day we had quite a few drop out due to injuries or other commitments and so we were down to bare bones and lost our first game 42-0 but weren't too despondent as last year we'd won our first game 45-0 and our opponents this game were all very BIG players. It did hurt, although I was quite happy to get a few tackles in.

A couple of other players turned up for the second game and we lost that one 10-5. Dammit! We didn't really mind losing as the actual playing is only a small part of the day and there was lots of it left. The girls had arrived with a picnic, and we had plenty of beers, and so the future looked bright.



Sadly I'd started feeling a bit iffy early in the afternoon and had only had a few bottles of lager, and so stuck to the water and diet coke. At the end of the tournament [around 7pm] everyone decided to move on into Broadstairs town but I really wasn't feeling well and decided to go home. I was annoyed at not being able to go out but actually went to sleep from 8pm 'till 8am! I think I really must have needed it.

I think I'd caught some kind of stomach bug and have not touched alcohol since, and it's not been too bad. There was meant to be a real ale festival on the Saturday but it was cancelled after they an out of beer of Friday night, so there was no temptation there, and on the other nights I just stuck to the squash. I feel better now.

It's been nice to have the week off and I return to work tomorrow....argghhh!!!!

Cool for cats

There is one site I visit that always brings a smile to my face and that site is......[drum roll]

I'd recommend it to all cat lovers, so why not check it out.


Saturday, April 15, 2006

Boom Boom!

Funniest news headline of the evening goes to....

'Swollen Danube threatens Balkans'

Cue lots of Carry On style jokes.

Thank you and goodnight

swollen danube

note: the actual story isn't very funny.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Just one day out of life

I'm off work for Easter now, on both jobs! I thought that I might as well use a bit of my annual holiday and get some time off, as so I'm not back at work till Wednesday. Wahey!!

Now to get all that stuff done that I've been holding off on. The main one being the Angryseahorse.com website. One annoying thing with the hosting I currently have is that the package doesn't include SQL which means I'm limited on the database front unless I upgrade. I currently pay £4.99 a month and the next one up is £8.45 a month... mmm what to do?

I've also managed to start reading again and am halfway through The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. A good read indeed.

I also managed to watch a few DVDs that I borrowed from Tim and started off with BASEketball and then War of the Worlds [the new Tom Cruise One]. It was nice to actually watch a film without having adverts spoil it. I wasn't really impressed with War of the Worlds. nuff said.

It's 12:15am now and as I don't have to get up in the morning I'm going to see how much of The Bourne Identity I can watch [on ITV2].

Night Night.

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Wasps 26-10 Scarlets

Today I went to see the Rugby Union Powergen Cup final between London Wasps and Llanelli Scarlets. Although I don't follow club Rugby I was behind Wasps and they won 26-10 [Read the match report here].

I wasn't meant to be going but was a late replacement for Ian's girlfriend who had to drop out. I'd like to add that this was the only area that I filled in! So off we went on the 9:20am train to Twickenham [via Victoria and Clapham Junction] and we arrived there at midday. We'd had a few beers on the train, and so had a few beers in Codees Bar and went and got some lunch from Subway before heading to stadium at 2:30pm.



The match wasn't that brilliant, and I suppose this has something to do with only having a slight affinity with one of the teams, as opposed to being an ardent supporter, but it was still a good day out.




I'm thinking that I should decide on a rugby team to support properly [probably a London based one], so maybe the next time I go to a match I'll be more into it.

I took photos so if you're interested then click here.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

The greatest gift they'll get this year is life

I always moan about, getting older, not having any money, life being crap, etc, but sometimes I should look at the bigger picture.

A UN Report out has detailed the life expectancies of peoples around the world and, no surprise, the top ten lowest life expectancies are all from countries in Africa. And the "winner" is Zimbabwe, a country which, 20 years ago, had a relatively high standard of living for Africa.


If you are a man you should not expect to live past 37, and if you are a woman, well, 35 is the best you can hope for.

The AIDS/HIV epidemic coursing through Africa has obviously had an effect, but the main reason behind Zimbabwe's downfall has been the dramatic fall in the standard of living due to an economy in crisis, and this lies at the feet on one man..... "President" Robert Mugabe.


Mugabe took charge in 1980, after fighting in the guerilla wars of the 1970s, fighting racist white minority rule for the freedom of his people, but it seems that he has done this at any cost, and now having removed the colonial oppressors, has now turned against his own people.

In 1989, Dennis Walker, a former minister, produced a paper on 'Land Reform in Zimbabwe'. In his last paragraph he stated "once the land has been redistributed, the commercial farms will be broken up, the remaining white farmers reduced by exile or imprisonment; Zimbabwe's government, already morally bankrupt, will decline towards economic collapse."

This has all come true and it seems that with Mugabe at the helm, Zimbabwe is doomed and so are its citizens.

Read more articles on Zimbabwe here.

Friday, April 07, 2006

Where are you going, with your fetlocks flowing in the ... wind?

Here are my outside bets for the Grand National. They are all quite long odds, and none of the clear favourites have been picked, but I've only put £1 [each way]on the ponies [£8 total], and so if any come in then I'll be happy. These are my horses:

It Takes Time @ 33/1
Garvivonnian @ 20/1
Jack High @ 14/1
Innox @ 14/1


We've also done a sweepstake at work [£20 kitty] but I've been given some absolute donkeys. My horses are:

Iznogoud @ 200-1
Nil Desperandum @ 40-1
Direct Access @ 25-1
Cornish Rebel @ 20/1

I don't really know much about horses, let alone horse racing, and find watching these races boring, and in some cases I feel sorry for the horses, but I will not go into all that as I'm sure there'll be quite a bit of ranting in the papers. I only really want to have a bit of fun and win some money!!

Good luck

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

I'm not a part of a redneck agenda.

You may remember from this post that there are one or two ignorant racists at the pub I work at. Have a read of the post to learn more. There is one in particular who really pisses me off, a guy called Frank, in his fifties.

I'm in a predicament though as I explained previously "I can understand some people's ignorance and where it stems from but when they won't accept there is another way, then it really gets my goat up". He is a man who will not change his views and I doubt there is anyway of this happening, so what am I meant to do.

This week it was the usual rant about Muslims, how they can't be trusted, etc, bombers, etc, terrorists, etc, and I wanted to step in and argue against him but I know it would be hopeless. I am staff and he is a customer, and what would result would be him getting into a rant trying to justify his views with a load of bollocks. I just can't get into arguments with customers, especially when it would be fruitless, with him dishing out the usual BNP/Daily Mail tripe.

In this case I had to walk away. What else could I do?

On another vein another customer, Kev, who knew that I'd been to University and got a degree in Study of Religions, asked me what religion I believed in. I replied that I was an agnostic but was still open to the idea of faith and found that the best way was to investigate all beliefs and understand where they were all coming from. He liked that view and explained that when he used to live up north [Newcastle] he was a racist, and it wasn't till he actually changed jobs and had to work with some people of other faiths and backgrounds, that his views changed. He learnt more about them and their religions, but also got to know them as people and ended up socialising with them. I told him about Frank and his reply was "What a cunt." My feelings exactly.

I guess there are some people who can change and some who cannot. It's a shame.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

I USED TO WORK IN CHICAGO AT AN OLD DEPARTMENT STORE

Only 10 days till the Rugby Sevens competition!!

The competiton is an annual tournament run by Thanet Wanderers RFC at their St. Peters Ground with the general aim of introducing more people to the game, and it always a good success, and definitely does a lot for their PR. The day revolves around playing games, drinking beer, and eating BBQ stuff. Brilliant.

This year we will be in fancy dress [as American Football players] and I'm working on the costumes this week. It should ensure that we have lots of fun and can have a wee muck about. I'm not too sure how many we've got actually playing for us but we could have around 15, although several have decided to purely be dedicated drinkers.

I first played Rugby Union when I was 11 and stopped playing when I was 16. I played for my School during this time, and it was really fun, but after 16 it started to get more serious and it wasn't something I really wanted. Sport should be fun.

I did join up to the Uni team here in Broadstairs, but due to work commitments, haven't been able to play much, so Good Friday will be a lot of fun. My only concern is that I've still got a slight calf strain, and also a slightly dodgy hamstring, which means that I will have to be careful over the next week, as I will be really pissed off if I can't play Rugger. Which reminds me that last year Jonny got dumped on his first touch of the ball and broke his collarbone! He was moaning for 3 days after, before going to the doctor, but luckily we were all drunk over the Easter weekend which lessened the pain.


Great Fun!

Monday, April 03, 2006

Did I disappoint you or let you down? Should I be feeling guilty or let the judges frown?

James has just got knocked out from 'One Night With Laura' on the Radio 1 Scott Mills Show [covering for Chris Moyles]. Nevermind.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

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?

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

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.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

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]

Friday, March 24, 2006

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.

Monday, March 20, 2006

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.

Friday, March 17, 2006

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

Monday, March 13, 2006

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]!

Sunday, March 12, 2006

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.

Friday, March 10, 2006

Why Have Elephants Got Big Ears?

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


comment and discuss.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

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.]

flash-bling

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

Monday, March 06, 2006

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.]

Sunday, March 05, 2006

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???



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.

Friday, March 03, 2006

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....

Thursday, March 02, 2006

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.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

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.

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

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.

Monday, February 27, 2006

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.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

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.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

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

Friday, February 17, 2006

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.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

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.]

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

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


Monday, February 13, 2006

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

Saturday, February 11, 2006

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

Friday, February 10, 2006

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.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

our time is running out

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


Sunday, February 05, 2006

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

DSCF0162

Thursday, February 02, 2006

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.

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Talk of the way they saw him last, Local boy in the photograph

I really enjoy taking photos and I have been using Flickr to upload photos that I want to share on my blog. I have been using the free account but this does come with several limitations, mainly an upload limit of 20MB a month and limits on creating photosets. To counterset the upload limit I have been reducing the size and quality of the photos before I upload them, and so I get more for my 20MB.

Because of this I have just signed up for the Flickr Pro account which costs $24.95 (£14.45) per year which isn't really that much and it will mean I can back-up all my photos at high quality.

I've now got to go through the task of uploading ALL my photos......

---------------------------------------------
UPDATE:
After seeing the streaming fencing video over at the Ultimate Olympian's I signed up to YouTube.com but hadn't really used it.

Whilst scouring my desktop and giving it a bit of a clean up I have used Youtube.com to upload a few videos. Check 'em out.


[me breakdancing at Andy Q's stag weekend in Bournemouth June '05]


[Electric Six performing at Christ Church Summer Ball June '05]

I leave and heave a sigh and say goodbye. I'm glad to go, I cannot tell a lie.

So I saw V today and we kinda agreed to finish things as they were. As I've probably mentioned before we weren't girlfriend/boyfriend and were classified as 'seeing each other' which was kinda cool as it was hard to see each other regularly due to the distance and meant we could see how things went. It was pretty obvious that things were dying down as I didn't speak to her for a week and couldn't really be bothered which is probably true on her behalf too. All it took was 30 seconds for the 'relationship' to end and luckily it was very mutual, and even luckier it was instigated by her so no effort on my behalf! We were in the pub, the conversation lulled and she said that she still wanted to see me but not in the same way. Phew. I agreed of course and was quite happy as if she hadn't said it I would've had to, and I'm a bit of a coward on that front.

Most relationships I've had have ended mutually, although there have been a couple that I've had to end, and I must admit I've felt like a complete c**t, as they haven't felt the same way. Invariably the cliched "It's not you, it's me" speech arises and I feel really bad, although I've felt it was for the best. In the case with V it was all very simple.

So there we go, I am now officially back on the market, although I think this experience has clarified several things that I am looking for in future endeavors. I have previously said that I don't have a 'type', but I'm sure there are certain aspects and qualities that are in my control.

They must live near me
They must be around my age [24-27]
They must like my friends

Not too specific, but still obviously challenging. I suppose quite a bit of this stems from my friends. I will always value my friends and they will always come first as they are like family to me. I am busy during the week with work and other commitments and so when it comes to the weekend I need to see my friends, and this is where the long distance thing doesn't work. If I have to spend the weekend away then I will not see them and this is not what I want. The ideal solution would be to meet someone who will enjoy socialising with me and my friends.

Of course my friends are of a certain age and in the case of V [18] she may have been a bit young. I may be slightly set in my ways and I think at that age of late teens you need to get things out of your system, go out drinking and partying and clubbing. I've done that and am a fully fledged 'grown-up' and so would enjoy the company of someone with a history, who has done the things that I have, and so we have a common background, which is hard with someone born in mid 1986, and who I can't relate to fully.

So there we go. That's what I'm looking for...easy eh?? I did enjoy chatting with the girl on Saturday in London, and did get her number, but I will not be following it up at the moment, as it's the whole distance thing again... women eh?? geography eh??

Night Night. Tomorrow is another day.