Ticket to ride, white line highway, tell all your friends, they can go my way.

Ian dropped by a CD containing photos and video from the stag weekend in Bournemouth. Apparently after a few drinks I think I can breakdance and will show off my 'style' if I've had enough drinks in me and my so called mates coax me on.

This picture is not of me, but luckily you can check out an mpeg by

clicking here.

It's pretty shocking stuff, and I hope I don't end up like that kid in the email attachments pretending to be Darth Maul (Starwarskid.mpg).

With the briefcase empty and the holes in my shoes. I try to stay friendly for the sugary abuse.

I've just pooped popped up to Westwood Cross and had a look around. It opened on Thursday but at 2:20pm on a Monday it wasn't that busy. Saturday was a different matter when it clogged up the whole area. Anyway there seem to be 3 shops up there that I may actually like! They are...

1. Burtons (I like simple cheap clothes and some of the stuff they do fits the bill, or Adem in this case).

2. Waterstones (wow, a place you can buy books! It's not the biggest one I've been to so they've had to chop out a few categories. But I picked up Angels and Demons by Dan Brown for £3.49, I'd read his others ones already but that one had eluded me.)

3. HMV (I went to a friends brothers gig at the Brittania pub in Margate, Ollie Hodder, and I must say the boy's got talent. His opening song was a cover of Underdog (Save Me) by Turin Brakes from 'the Optimist Lp' of which I used to have a copy of (now long lost) so I bought that album plus Psyence Fiction by Unkle, which I only have on cassette, in a 2 for £10 double whammy... fantastic!)

ba ding ding ding ding di di ding ding bah bahbeday

Have you ever gone out, not think you've drunk that much, and then woken up in the morning not remembering much of the previous evening? I couldn't remember the places I'd been too and sometimes who I was with!
Now either someone's been dropping the old rohypnol into my pints (I did wake up with a funny taste in my mouth...) or I was just drinking a bit quicker than normal.
hmmm I'll have to wait till next weekend to see if the results can be replicated.

On another note last week I decided I wanted to go fishing but no one else could be bothered apart from Big Gay Tom, so we set off to Deal Pier at 11:30am on Sunday (would've been earlier but Tom had to clean out the rabbits hutch). The weather was a bit cloudy and windy but it was still a good day and we carried on till 6pm as I had to get back home for a session of Dodgeball at Pfizer where Jonny had booked the sports hall. I've realised that I'm not very good at Dodgeball (although it was my first time) but made my own enjoyment by being juvenile and putting my fishy fingers under people noses and saying "your mum!".....ah school days......and MILFS......

Tom casting out his big rod

The ugliest fish ever....(looks a bit like blinky from the Simpsons)

Memories of the day....1. me constantly singing Ordinary People by John Legend (it started to annoy me after Tom had committed suicide) 2. Me constantly going on about "how shallow the water was" (I said it about 50 times).

Maybe we'll live and learn, Maybe we'll crash and burn

A strange thing happened the other day. I was listening to the radio and I heard a great song from an artist I had never heard of before, and then on Top of the Pops (I honestly never watch it but it was on the TV before I went out) I saw him again. The artist in question is John Legend (not too sure if that's his real surname) and the song was 'Ordinary People'. A great song and great lyrics too.
I've just had a look at his website johnlegend.com (obviously) and his biography reveals that his real name is John Stephens (I knew Legend wasn't his real name) and that Lauryn Hill and Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, Al Green and The O'Jays are among his primary influences, a fact that is evident from hearing his music.

Legend demonstrates a rare ability to fuse the "feel" and vibe of classic old school soul music with the edgy flavor of 21st century hip-hop. While the romantic themes of traditional R&B permeate John's Get Lifted, there's also a street-worthy hipness and confidence: the sensuality of Marvin Gaye and the sincerity of Stevie Wonder merging with the directness of Snoop Dogg and the wit of Kanye West. Yet, John Legend is very much his own artist, gifted with singular talents and a unique sensibility.

There's nothing like a label bigging up (how hip am I?) an artist, but in this case I think they may be onto something. I think the best thing for you to do is check out the website and click on 'media' to see what it's all about. Hopefully we'll hear a lot more from him, and as he has made it into the 'popular' media I'm sure he will. Even if he falls out of the limelight I think he'll still be successful as a songwriter and musician as he has done session work with Alicia Keys, Janet Jackson, Talib Kweli, Jay-Z, Britney Spears, Eve, Common, the Black Eyed Peas and Kanye West (whom co-wrote his current album). By the way....whatever happened to Jamie Cullum?

A blog a day helps you work,rest, and play

Wow, two posts in the same week! I've got to let people know I'm still around. I do like looking at certain people's blogs, I only comment on a few but I'd like them to know that I'm thinking of them s oI think I'm going to put a blogrolling links list on the Big Blog. I've got a paltry list of 4 blogs on the sidebar that I apparently 'Like' but I do read more, although not religiously, but there were a few I used to read that ended and were never updated again.....a shame.

This week has been fairly chilled, and I think it's helped that the weather has been nice. I've even managed to get a few bits and bobs done at home. I mowed the lawn on monday (looks nice, and becoming a habit), and even did a bit of carpentry on tuesday and yesterday. In the hallway there's a coat cupboard, which had some fairly flimsy doors on that kept popping open, so I got some timber out of the shed, some hardboard (from homebase), and got out my workbench, jigsaw (the tool, not the puzzle), drill, and a variety of screwdrivers, and built a set of new doors. They look good and only need to be painted but the only annoying thing is that the house isn't straight! My doors are perfect but the actual frame is not, which means there's a bit of a wonky gap between the doors, but don't worry (ha! like you were) as a bit of beading will sort this out! I know it's cheating but it's certainly easier than putting in a new frame.

Well that's then end of this DIY post.

Still no updates on the holiday (remember to comment and tell me good places to go in reference to a few posts ago)

If we took a holiday. Took some time to celebrate

I'm thinking of going on holiday this summer but to make a change I want to do nothing. Whenever I go away, I like to actually get something from the different culture, try new things and experience something completely different from my life in Britain.
This time I want to make a change, I want to go on a crappy sun-drenched holiday where I don't have to do anything except order cocktails from the beach. It goes against everything I usually do but I'd actually like to be a brit abroad, speak none of the lingo, just laze on the beach, and maybe, just maybe, relax, and return with a tan. I don't want too many ravers there, maybe something in a Magaluf stylee, where the flights are cheap, and maybe I could stay in a hotel (I'm sick of busy hostels), and I don't want to go sightseeing!

So I put this challenge to you! Tell me where I should go! Just post a comment, and maybe, just maybe, you could change my life! What an incentive!

London Sevens

It was that time of year again, The London Sevens. I went last year to twickenham to watch the Rugby and had a great time, so this year I decided to go again. I can't really be bothered to write too much about this but just have to say that I got the train to twickenham at 8:20am and got back to Ramsgate at 11pm, another long day, and another busy weekend. Anyway here are some of the pictures I took....









The seats were quite good so I'm quite happy with the photos although as I was using the 6x optical zoom most of the time to good effect it seems a shame that I've only got 2 megapixels. I've see some cracking digital cameras lately that resemble the old SLR type, great for actual photography but not too practical for going out with...and they're well expensive too! Maybe next year.

But I would walk 500 miles, And I would walk 500 more

It had been a tiring weekend and I knew that the following weekend would be tiring as it was the weeding on the saturday and I was going to Twickenham on the Sunday, so what did I do? I went to Scotland on Thursday, ON A DAY TRIP!
A few months ago I mentioned that I'd booked a trip to Edinburgh as EUJet were doing cheap flights. I got the day off work but it was a every exhausting day. The flights were at 6:15am so I got up at 4:55am! Luckily the airport is only 5mins drive away. I went with my Mum and Sister on a bit of a family outing and we saw the sights, and a nice dinner, bought a few knick knacks and by the time we got home (around 8pm) I was knackered.

Roll on the weekend!

Who ya gonna call?

Last weekend (28th/29th may), It was my friend Andys Stag Do, and for this a dozen of us took a trip down to Bournemouth. Over the week myself, Dan (the best man, and twin of said Andy), and Ian, had bee working on Ghostbusters costumes for us all as dressing up has become a tradition for Stag-Do's and occasions such as New Year.
As is always evident the anonimity that a uniform/disguise provides is amazing when it comes to slf confidence, stupidity, and the attention of the opposite sex. Even the most usually shy member of the group will gain new confidence bouyed on by the praise of members of the public and the attention received from 'laydees'. Amazing.

It was a good time, but geting up at 8am and going to bed at 2am took its toll over the weekend, and was yet another reason for me to be tired.

I don't like mondays, tell me why?

It's been over a week since my last post. I know it's a bad thing to do but I just couldn't gear myself up do doing anything as I have been too knackered. I seem to go from extremes of thinking my life is wasting away to doing everything I possibly can and then being knackered. I can't seem to find a mid section between it, a compromise of too little and too much. I like to think that no day is wasted and that if I died tommorrow I'd be happy that I had lived a full life and tried to get as much out of it as possible, but the reality is (I hope) that I'm more than likely to be alive tommorrow.
This morning I got the photos from my camera and uploaded them to my site. In the next few posts you shall see what I've been upto in the past week. My usual week consists of:
Monday: Work 10am-2pm + 7pm-11.30pm
Tuesday: Work 10am-2pm + Squash 8pm-9:45pm
Wednesday: Work 10am-2pm + 4pm-10pm
Thursday: Work 8am-10am + 10:30am-2pm + 5-aside football (varied times in evening)
Friday: Work 10am-2pm + 7pm-2am (Night Out)

Saturdays and Sundays are a mix of leisure sports (golf, football, etc) and drinking, going out, or trips arranged by me.

If you add up the working hours then it only equals 32 hours ( a few less than the typical working week, but the thing that makes it seem much longer is that my time is divided between two jobs, one daytime, one evening, which makes it seem like I'm workin the whole day as there isn't that time to 'switch-off' and relax. I'm always thinking that I can't stop as I've got more things to do. It's the same with the evening sports that I'm committed to doing, which are fun but can at sometimes seem like a chore when maybe I've had a hard day.

I know I've been moaning but as my weeks are crammed full, then I seem to think it'd be great to do something at the weekend and maybe getaway for the day.
My next posts will detail these, but usually the weekend will finish, I'll be even more tired and then the week cycle begins as it's monday.

Cricket Pictures

As promised here are a few pictures from the Cricket last weekend. I left my camera in someone's car and only picked it up today.

I'm off on a Stag-Do this weekend in Bournemouth so expect no new posts for a bit.
Chao

I got a sandstorm blowin' in my head.

Check out these sandstorm pictures from Iraq. I think I'd cack my pants....not only would I be in Iraq but there'd be a sandstorm to rub it in.

There goes the weekend.

It's monday, and I'm back at work. I had a fairly low-key weekend but did get to play a spot of cricket on Saturday. It was a 6-aside tournament comprising of 6 teams and our team came 2nd and I got a silver medal! It was a fun day and keeping in spirit with that theme we decided to start drinking at midday in order to bring some fluidity to our game....obviously it worked.
I did take some pictures but I left my Camera in a friends car, so I'll whack the photos up a bit later in the week.

You are the Sun-shine of my life...

I've always admired the Sun's moral stance and it's forthright attitude to put the worthy news before sensationalism. It's always 'news first', 'selling papers second'.

In todays paper we have another example of the hardhitting journalism that we've been accustomed to, with the paper's managing editor, Graham Dudman, saying

"We thought long and hard about publishing, and took the decision that they're such incredible pictures of the world's most brutal dictator... they were a compelling image that any newspaper or broadcaster would publish."

A US military source apparently handed over the pictures showing Saddam as "an ageing and humble old man" in the hope of dealing a blow to the resistance in Iraq, and destroying the myth of the all-powerful Saddam Hussein.

The Sun has never been afraid to tell it like it is and you've got to respect a paper that has shed light on the areas where other newspapers were to scared to go such as "Freddie Starr Ate My Hampster".


-----------
I hope you realise that I am being sarcastic in this post. The scary thing is that the Sun has a readership of 3 million, and often appeals to the lowest common denominator. With the reading age of the average British adult being seven, the Sun appeals to these folk with stories of 300 words max, and the omission of any words too sesquipedalian . My paper of choice is The Independant for those of you interested. Sadly there's no page3 girls in it.

Galloway Versus the US of A

I've just been watching the Senate hearing on Sky News....great TV.
Basically this Senate Committee put together a dossier and accused George Galloway MP (Respect Party) of receiving allocations of Oil (millions of dollars) from the Saddam Hussein dictatorship. But they haven't actually questioned Galloway or got him to put his side across.
A lot of the 'evidence' was found wanting, and much like the war on Iraq was built on some flimsy assumptions and hear say. Could it be that all this is a smokescreen? Something to try and divert from the already damning view of the illegal War?
This is the view that Galloway has put across and he has come out quite well at the moment after his appearance.

"l have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one sold one and neither has anybody on my behalf."

I am happy that Galloway has stood up and has the chance to talk to the Senate. It's a great platform for him to put across the anti-war argument and it may actually work in favour to have been accused as he has been put on a platform and can make a stance against the true criminal, the USA.
He denied that he had met Saddam 'many times' and said that he had only met him on 2 occasions.....exactly the same amount of times as US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and maps - the better to target those guns. I met him to try to bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war."

Company Crap

Don't you hate it when people you deal with make things really hard for you and in the end you just go along with stuff because it's easier? I get this sometimes and because I'm an easy going person I'll prefer to avoid the confrontation and find a work-around solution.
I manage a website for a friends band Ticklin the Pickle which I originally hosted a co.uk with the company BargainHost on a cheap hosting plan. 2 years past and I found a cheaper and better hosting agreement with the company 1&1 (very good). I tried to transfer ticklinthepickle.co.uk to them but bargainhosts servers were making it hard for me and I was unable to register the .co.uk and instead got a .org.uk whilst I was sorting out the transfer of the .co.uk.
In the end I had to renew the .co.uk with bargainhost for the sum of £16! And got them instead to forward the domain to my .org.uk one.
All this was going well until suddenly the .co.uk is not working anymore and now I've been told they won't forward anymore and I'll have to pay £12 to transfer the domain over to 1&1! I'll probably have to do this, which is very annoying.
So the rant of this email is companies that muck you around. If you are looking for a good company to host and register domain names with then look no further than 1&1

Single Transferable Vote

As promised after the elections (not part of my campaign) I would explain the Single Transferable Vote (STV) and it's benefits when compared to the First Past the Post system.
Here is the Outline from Wikipedia

Outline
The Single Transferable Vote, or STV, is a preference voting system designed to minimise wasted votes in multi-candidate elections while ensuring that votes are explicitly for candidates rather than party lists. In its most basic form, it works by allocating an elector's vote to their highest ranked candidate who has not already been removed from contention through either election or elimination.

Here's my Outline.
On the Ballot Slip instead of just putting a cross next to the candidate you want to win, you put a '1' next to your first choice candidate, and then you can put a '2' next to your second choice, etc. You do not have to vote for every candidate, although you can be tactical and put the most hated candidate right at thee bottom of your list.

A quota now has to be reached and the most common is the Droop Quota which is simplified as

Now the votes have to be counted
Process A: Top-preference votes are tallied. If one or more candidates receive at least as many votes as the quota, they are declared elected. After a candidate is elected, she may not receive any more votes.
The excess votes for the winning candidate are reallocated to the next-highest ranked candidates on the ballots for the elected candidate. There are different methods for determining how to reallocate excess votes.
Process A is repeated until there are no more candidates who have reached the quota.
Process B: The candidate with the least support is eliminated, and his votes are reallocated to the next-highest ranked candidates on the eliminated ballots. After a candidate is eliminated, he may not receive any more votes.
After each iteration of Process B is completed, Process A starts again, until all candidates have been elected or eliminated.

I hope this gives you a gist of how it works.

The Scottish Parliament passed a bill which means the first-past-the-post voting system for local elections will be replaced with the single transferable vote (STV) and this could be in place by 2007. Charles Kenndy (leader of the Lib Dems) has also pushed for this and would like to see it implemented here as the proportion of Lib-Dem voters is not proportional to the seats they gain in parliament.

I suppose at the end of the day there will never be a party with 100% backing but I suppose it's better than one with only 35% of the votes cast (not even 35% of the population. I suppose it would be fairer if everyone had to vote, but you can't force anyone to do anything.

Well that's the end of that very interesting post. I promise a more fun one later.

I'm back

Sorry for the delay but I've been busy doing nothing.
I spent the weekend boozing and staying out late.

I think I've almost got it out of my system again and will be contrained in my activities now by a lack of funds.

BLIAR

When I got up today I whacked on BBC News 24 to check out the election results. There was still a glimmer of hope but Labour have won again, although by a smaller majority. (I had to laugh because there was a woman standing behind Blair who was wearing a hat with 'BLIAR' on it...the truth will always come out.)
I voted Lib Dem yesterday for both the General election and also my local Council elections. It didn't do much but there's still hope for the future with the gaps between parties getting smaller.
The constituancy I'm in is Thanet South and here are the results.

Stephen Ladyman Labour 16,660
Mark MacGregor Conservative 15,996
Guy Voizey Liberal Democrat 5,431
Nigel Farage UK Independence Party 2,079
Howard Green Green 888
Maude Kinsella Independent 188

Labour won by a mere 664 votes beating the Conservatives by 1.6%! Only 40.4 percent of the voters wanted Labour in and there's where the fault in the 'First Past the Post' system lies. Utter rubbish.

When I've got time I'll talk about the 'Single Transferable Vote' system which is a much fairer way of deciding who'll rule.

Cake or Death?

It's election day, the final reckoning, doomsday, etc, etc, after reading the main parties manifestos and checking out what they've got to say for themselves I think I going to vote for the Lib Dems. My ideal first choice would be Green because I'm a little worried about the fact that there won't be a world left if we keep going at this rate, and it'll be left for the monkeys to rule. The thing is that you can't expect big changes like that (Labour------>Green), the has to be some kind of middle ground, and this is where I think the Lib Dems come into it. Another point is that I don't usually favour one-policy parties (UKIP) but the Green party has started to take things a bit more seriously and has taken other factors into consideration.
One party that hasn't got much coverage is the 'Monstor Raving Loony Party' I think when Screaming Lord Sutch died they lost some momentum, but I've looked at their manifesto and here are a few of the gems.

Economy
We will issue a 99p coin to save on change.

Education
We pledge to reduce class sizes by making the pupils sit closer to one another and issuing them with smaller desks. Any MP whose constituency sells off a school playing field for development will be required to relinquish their own back garden as a replacement sports facility for the school. All future Deputy Prime Ministers will be required to be fluent in at least one language to encourage the education system.

Health
All foreign G.Ps in England and Wales will be taught the local dialect so they know when their patients feel Jiggered (Tired), Manky (Rough), Gipping (Vomiting) or have got somit rang with their Fizog (Face).

I think the 99p coin really swings it for me as so many things I buy end in this total e.g £9.99. It would mean I could pay with the exact money. Genius