What can I say about 2007? I went out saw, did and reviewed. All the important bits are below but the blog continued to grow with more shameless marketing. Although I think I will not join any more blog ring / communities for the foreseable future. I just built upon the solid foundations laid in 2006. More regular postings (but most of the time still not regular enough for Pav or The Admiral), more photos, more videos and more links. I failed in places but generally kept up some of the good work. Also switched to Haloscan for comments from August.
Sunday 30th December 2007
Went to see I
Am Legend with my cousin-in-law yesterday evening. I
booked two tickets for the Empire up the road, opting to
walk rather than trek over to Reading. While we could have
caught a later showing I preferred to go before the crowds
begin to gather, so chose the 6pm screening. (This was the
first time I had been to my local multiplex since watching
the final Star Wars movie, Revenge Of The Sith on Friday
20th May 2005. That is 953
days or two years, seven months and nine days. After the
screening I remembered why I always drive twenty odd miles
to Vue.) The film is good and at times very good but we cannot
expect too much with just a solitary, survivor on the screen
for so long. Nevertheless, well worth going to see. Will
Smith gives a great performance and it was good to have
the story told in flashback, rather than the story being
told right at the beginning as an explanation for the story.
While I am not a fan of the horror genre, this is more suspense
and jumpy than anything else. The ending and the third act
for the most part is quite poor in relation to the first
half of the movie but even so, it is a good movie and I
would recommend you go to the cinema to watch it.
The movie makers can have fun with the audience because unlike many other films (such as I, Robot) the story takes place in the not to distant future (2012). The highlight in the movie for me, is Will Smith driving through Broadway and all the posters around. One in particular has drawn a fair share of blogpostings. They may put it down, as complete fiction but reality is, there are a big fan of movie goers that would love to see The Man of Steel pitted against The Dark Knight.
I downloaded the iPlayer
in the early hours of Saturday morning. I had missed the
Friday visit to Albert Square so thought I would catch up.
Rather than stream the soap online, I opted to download
the iPlayer download manager and watch the episode offline.
It took only ten minutes or so for the 160mb to download.
Although on one page it was listed as 300mb download. After
watching the show, I realised I no longer need to watch
live television apart from football on Sky. I can download
episodes from BBC or Channel 4 (they use similar software)
and watch later. A little searching around the web, you
discover how bad the iPlayer (then called myBBCPlayer) was
during the beta
testing phase earlier in the year. In the summer, there
were generally positive reviews
as most of the bugs had been ironed out. I of course would
love to see the iPlayer integrated into the XBox Media Center,
the guys are working
on it. However, there are some major draw backs. There is
no news or weather, which I am not that bothered about.
I have a FreeView card, I can watch BBC News 24 and Sky
News whenever I like. Sport is the real loss. This is due
to some complicated rights issue, so no Match Of The Day
or Football Focus. While I have Sky Sports News, it is not
the same as listening to the Alan, Alan,Gary, Lawro and
Manish in the studio. However there are more sinister powers
at work here. The software is close to spy ware as it leaves
a process (KService.exe) running in the background (even
with you exit the download manager) so you are still uploading
any content in your download folder. You can eventually,
with some hacks stop this from happening (killing the process
once only works until you reboot). If you want to learn
more you can go and read the buzzing thread over at Digital
Spy. A more balanced and positive review is over at
Andy Hollyhead's blog.
I agree with his summary, a good catchup service in case
you miss any programmes you watch on a regular basis. For
me, this will be the visit to E20. I occasionally miss the
odd episode when there is football on the other side or
I am out at the cinema on a Friday night.
Final planning for my ski trip this week. Off to Portsmouth to get my final bits on either Thursday or Friday (undecided yet). Then party Friday night, no time for sleep, load the car and head over to Gatwick. However, I must end with a quote from the 6-0-6 message boards over at the Beeb. "The Gunners went through that Everton team like a spoon through soggy Weetabix". Classic!
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Thursday 27th December 2007
Hope you had a great Christmas. It is strange that with all the build up, it is in fact just another twenty four hours. A special twenty four, but a day nonetheless.
Even though I am surrounded by amazing pieces of technology.
I will be the first to admit that I do not make the most
of them. Yes, I am a gadget freak but I perhaps use only
five percent of the functionality of any given device. This
I intend to change. Let me firstly though, take you back.
To my time in Year Seven at primary school. I sat right
opposite my form teacher's desk and she would always ask
me the date (for some strange reason) and I had some photographic
memory to give the date within an instant. Since then (that
was 1993-4) I have always had a visual image of a calendar
in my head and always planned in this way. I have never
used diaries, personal calendars or any kind of PIM
(personal information manager). Paper or electronic. I have
never really had the need. All the import dates are in my
head and anything crucial is noted down somewhere.
I have started the change and it is radical. Everything
will be stored in Outlook 2003 and transferred to my N73.
I have been a list person as long as I can remember and
these will now move from the 3M Post It note to my smart
phone also. In fact, anything time related will be transferred
to my electronic calendar. I know to many this may seem
like a lot of effort for a little return but my ultimate
plan is to have my PC has the main information store and
have multiple (or hopefully in the near future) a single
device that syncs to have everything to carry around in
my pocket. Well that is the plan, I will let you know how
I get on.
How do I review 2007? Perhaps I should wait until next week? I have the time to reflect and although I gave a quick emotional outburst at the end of last month. Let me put it down to the fact that I was writing on a bad day. I will try and put together a review of some description to post on Sunday afternoon.
I miss KISS and only get to listen to the station when
I am in my Mum's car. (Thankfully that will change in the
middle of next month!) I heard what appeared to be a duet
between Chris Brown and Rihanna but it was not the Umbrella
remix. So when I got back home I did some Google searches
with little luck. I then headed over to the Total Kiss dot
com web site and play list page.
I did not find what I was looking for but stumbled upon
another gem. I have been quite a big fan of Cassie
(as usual not at the time she burst onto the music world
but many months later) but she disappeared some time ago
from the music scene, apart from an appearance in Kanye
West's Stronger
video. I knew she was working on a second album as I had
heard her song, Sometimes which was very good. A new song
was listed on the Kiss play list and instead of downloading
it straight away I headed over to YouTube to have a listen
first. After about thirty seconds, there was no doubt I
had to download the song and put it on my Zen. Like clockwork
the track drops to perfectly reflect how I feel at this
moment in time. Oh sorry, I nearly forgot to mention the
title. Is It You?
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Monday 24th December 2007
Men were never designed to wrap presents. I find it does not matter how much I spend trying I cannot do the job. Even a educational video from YouTube could no help. Thankfully this year I did not have anything to cumbersome to wrap, just all standard box shapes but it does not make the job any easier.
Nothing more left to say expect Merry Christmas to everyone. Hope you have a fantastic time! I will try and blog sometime again before the weekend.
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Saturday 22nd December 2007
What have I been doing for the past few days? Apart from being exceptionally lazy, I completed my Christmas shopping in Milton Keynes and also went out for a meal in Chelsea.
On the recommendation of my sister, Samantha, I have been listening to the Leona Lewis album, Spirit. I must say I am very impressed. During the course of last year's X-Factor, Simon Cowell compared Lewis to Mariah Carey and it shows in several tracks on this album. Having borrowed many of the diva's production team may explain this but overall the album is very very good. My favourite two tracks originally were Yesterday and Angel (Stargate production, the same people that brought you Irreplaceable by B and With You by Chris Brown). However I was listening to it on the drive back from Central London, late on Thursday evening and my favourite now is track eleven, "The Best You Never Had". If it is released as a single, an acoustic version would sound absolutely amazing.
I thought I would make use of my time off and clean up my mp3 collection, although wiping and reinstalling Windows XP a fresh would have been a better idea. I will save that for a quiet weekend in February. I downloaded Media Monkey, which is very good, although for some reason I cannot get it to connect to the freecdb. If anyone can recommend any alternative music management software, all suggestions would be greatly received. When I used the peer-to-peer network Blubster for a short period, a few years ago. There was a discussion on the forum about how to name / label mp3 files. Since then I have kept to a pretty standard format for file names and ID3 Tags but even my great organisation needs to be cleared up from time to time.
Back in 2003, there was a breakthrough in technology. Networking
using the power network in the conventional home. One of
the lawyers at the law firm I was working for at the time
was well impressed and thought it would be something he
could have in his home. He was a little disappointed when
I explained that you would have to buy some expensive kit
to make it possible. The internet would not just work through
the electric socket by magic! Fast forward four years, this
morning I went over to PC World and picked up a kit for
myself. It has been something that I have been looking at
for a while. The Netgear router, now living under my desk
means that the wireless reception in the lounge is rather
week (ideal for web surfing but not major data intense activities).
Plus, ever since taking the router from the back of my television,
my XBox has been offline. To get around this in the past,
I would use my old Netgear router, plug in my laptop and
transfer any videos and carry out any maintenance. (Remember,
I only got it back from brick status just under two months
ago.) This is great but
the whole beauty of XBMC is having it online, being able
to see the BBC News headlines scroll on the main screen
and download movie trailers direct from Apple. I also wanted
to try out some new YouTube scripts and be able to transfer
across content without having to setup an ad hoc network
each and every time.
I confess, I do not know much about
the technology.
All I can say is that it works and works well, even with
twenty-five year old circuitry in my house. The product
remains true to plug and play philosophy. I just plugged
in network cable from xbox to power socket and did the same
on my router in my room. Instantly the two boxes on the
wall started talking to each other. I then logged onto the
XBox via FTP and wireless transferring across music videos
at a blistering rate!
I have been rinsing my monthly bandwidth allocation via uTorrent and doubt I have any left. I watched the final two episodes of Journeyman, which were very good but I was expecting more. Do not get me wrong, I do not feel left down, I just expected the show to end on a bang, not a wimper! Hopefully there will be a second series. I suppose for a change, I can burn the DVD and ship it over to Pav. To make up for all the care packages he has sent me so far this lifetime.
I cannot finish without mentioning football. Three matches in seven days and three wins, and more importantly six points on the board. Two London derbies sandwiched between a thriller Carling cup-tie against Blackburn at Ewood Park and thanks to Sky, all televised! You can read match reports, for Chelsea, Rovers and arch-rivals Spurs.
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Tuesday 18th December 2007
I have been a fan of blogs at the Beeb for a while (look
back to late March last
year). However, I am totally addicted to the BBC Internet
blog as it celebrates ten years of the corporation web services,
giving an insight into the development hurdles faced to
bring the Beeb online. The most interesting article
(so far) was posted today by the man
that registered the BBC dot co dot uk domain name. Funny
how you do not think that the site which I use as my homepage
(as I am sure millions of other people do across the planet)
actually did start somewhere. Only occasionally do I go
back and look at old pages that I linked to from 2002 in
my blog but the Beeb web presence, started long before then.
The BBC Internet Blog is a fantastic read and I must say
for the true techie, it is reverting. The added weight of
having contributions from all the big hitters from the Future
Media team.
Typical, just as you get into a television series (okay, a few months late) and spend a whole week playing catch up, you discover that the show has been cancelled and the thirteen episode stint maybe the last. I watched episode twelve tonight (after the football) and it was fantastic. Such a shame there will not be a second series, most likely because it is not macho enough and the body count is low!
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Saturday 15th December 2007
You would think that having spent nearly five years writing this blog that it would become easier. Anything but. It actually becomes harder with every passing year and at times I find myself struggling for topics even worth discussing. The other day, a colleague went around asking everyone on our floor if they had had a good or bad year. Last night it got me thinking, how has my year been? To re-use an overused cliché, it has very much been a game of two halves. It started off so well, with the right intentions, my heart in the right place, but seven or eight months in, almost everything fell apart at the wayside. It is difficult to pinpoint a particular moment or series of events which caused this change but all I do know is that I have not been able to recover. Will I ever be able to?
While of course, I would have preferred the FA to appoint
an Englishman, I fully understand their predicament. Although
I do wonder what happened to the root
and branch review we were promised. That I suppose is
for the future, let us concentrate on the present. I do
not know much about Fabio Capello but my dear friend Daniel
believes he is the right man. He has put together a list
of interestingarticles
following the appointment. Is he Mr. Right? I am not too
sure. In fact, I will reserve my judgment until after the
two games against Switzerland and more importantly France.
I am not going to any more matches until I see a major improvement,
actually I mean complete change in performances. He is Mr.
Right Now, the management we need who can deal with egos,
has experience with the difficult Italian and Spanish media.
The language issue does bother me but then how many English
people go abroad to work without learning the language of
their host country. We shall see, all I can say is the press
conference on Monday lunchtime at 1pm, will be entertaining!
Before then, we have the ultra hyped, "Grand Slam Sunday"
to look forward to. Nearly six hours sat in front of the
television watching the "top four"!
This afternoon, after Football Focus I watched episode eleven of Journeyman to complete my marathon which had started last week. Excellent series with some fantastic twists. I will go as far to say the series is better than Bionic Woman (which premieres on ITV2 this Winter, or so the trails tell me!) but perhaps some distance away from the magic of Heroes. My favourite episode was called "Keepers" as it opened with Take On Me by A-ha. There is a double episode final next week and I have done well to catch up with the Sky One pace so quickly. The magic of the internet, is great!
Pav has been bugging me on MSN over the past few days, with updates after (or during) each IM conversation. Oh and by the way we have x amount of time left before we go skiing. So I thought I would put a count down timer ont he site. The 5th January feels a million miles away but it will be creep up on me sooner than I think!
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Sunday 9th December 2007
After a tiring week, in and out of the office I had nothing major planned for
this weekend. The 'Lost' Weekend if you will. On Saturday,
I got up around 9.30am and after breakfast headed over to
Reading in the heavy rain for a pre-arranged appointment.
Then after a productive discussion, I headed over back to
Wycombe. It was 11.50am as I was on the by-pass, just before
the Marlow exit. I was tempted to head home and catch Football
Focus but opted to go into town and get some jobs done.
I parked, as I always do over in George Street and walked
the short distance into the town centre, in the heavy rain.
The walk way around Tesco was cut off and we had to walk
underneath the ramp into the car park. Around the corner,
the old bus station was under barriers, but they had been
moved closer to the entrance of Tesco, so we had to make
our way through a large puddle to make it into the Octagon.
Here too, all change. The doors had been removed and the
flooring covered. I went to Clinton Cards (as I do every
year) to get my Christmas Cards. I then headed over to Zavvi.co.uk
(formerly VShop, formerly Our Price) but could not find
what I was looking for, so headed onto the High Street and
into Woolworths. It was about 12.30pm, I headed home. In
no real mood to stick around town, particularly with the
dreadful weather and queues.
The rest of the weekend, I was lazy. Extremely lazy but
I did spent a little time sorting out all my paperwork and
doing some work for a client. Back in the mid 1990s, a friend
of mine lent me a PC game. It was called the Journeyman
Project and it was fantastic! You can read the full
details about the game over on Wikipedia but a quick summary
is as follows. The premise is time travel. You have to go
back and stop ripples in time which could have a major effect
on mankind. Like Back To The Future but rather than focus
on the McFly family, the focus is the whole universe. It was
not an easy game, and I needed a walkthrough to get through
to much of the first part before I eventually gave up (and
my friend wanted the CD back). Remember kids, these were
the days before broadband internet access and CD-writers
as standard. Something inside, is telling me I should get
myself the game again and give it another crack.
I had seen the trailers for a television series with the
same name
(minus the 'Project') and it was only on Friday I thought
I would download the first episode and give it ago. To begin
with I was rather lost. Quite a lot going on but not much
explanation, however I was persistent and towards the end
really enjoyed the show. It is very clever, although not
entirely original. It is a mixture of US sci-fi series Quantum Leap and UK Saturday night drama series Crime Traveller. I have
the second episode on my machine now and will watch it after
the Sports Personality Of The Year show on BBC One. Not
sure if it is even worth putting on MOTD2 tonight!
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Tuesday 4th December 2007
Would not normally be having a race with Pav on a Tuesday morning. I would
normally be pestering him to put the latest episode of Heroes
onto his FTP site ready for me to download. This morning
however, I decided to leave him alone and downloaded the
avi file myself. Although it took me a while to find a genuine
copy available. We used the same torrent, and even though
he started forty-five minutes after me, his download finished
over thirty minutes before. I had an average transfer rate
of 60kbit/s, where has he has 300k. Bubble alerts in XP
can be very annoying, but this bubble from uTorrent confirms
the torrent file download is complete. Just a shame I had
to wait some forty minutes later for my bubble!
When I got home from work that evening, around 6.30pm, I had an e-mail in my
Hotmail (correction, MSN Live Mail). This was strange, an e-mail from Pav, with the
subject "One for da blog". There was an attachment, two
in fact. The body of the e-mail was short. Three simple
words. These arrived today. If I ever thought I was not
going on holiday next month, that illusion was shattered
with the delivery of these tickets. In fact in exactly one
month's time, I will be at a birthday party at Island Bar
in Caversham, before then at the end of the night, getting
ready to drive down to Gatwick for the flight to Innsbruck Airport, while of course I wish we were landing at Salzburg
Airport which is named after the city's number one son,
Mozart.
That links us to the topic of music. On my drive back from
Guildford this afternoon, I was pondering what to listen
to. As I pulled out of York Road car park, the traffic was
quite heavy, so I had time, while sitting there to choose
my album for the stereo. For some reason I decided I was
in the mood for some garage. I had last really spoken about
garage music on the phone to Dave. It was making a come
back of sorts but under the re-branding of UKG (please,
who thought that one up?). I bought the Pure
Garage Platinum album back in April
2003 from HMV in Slough if my memory serves me correctly.
I converted the three disc album into a single MP3 CD and
gave the box set to my sister, Samantha. Listening to the
songs and aided by a scrap of paper (which lists my favourite
track from each directory (effectively disc) it brought
back some fond memories of 2000. My first year at University.
My favourite song is Imagine by Shola Ama, but I also found
a new song Something by Amar featuring MC Rankin. Also it
was a great opportunity to test out the power of the new
sound system. Amar performed at the BBC Electronic Proms
two months ago and is featured on Timbaland's album Shockvalue.
My route home, was relatively cross country up to Bracknell. Here I joined
the A329(M) before heading onto the M4 towards London (westbound).
As I took the exit to get onto the M4, I noticed the heavy
traffic at a standstill underneath me, but it was too late
to change lane. I had to bite the bullet. It was not too
bad. We were stationary for a few minutes, then made steady
progress for a mile before stopping again. Then a few minutes
later we started moving again. There was no evidence of
an accident, so I just assume it was 'sheer' wait of traffic
as we constantly hear on the radio. (Apart from Teg because
he cannot get any reception on any band!) While on the motorway,
I switched to one of my drive time CDs. I have been burning
music albums for myself for the past eight years, but to
date, I have only ever created one complete album. This
album I call, "Drivetime" and spans two disc. The idea behind
this album was two fold, firstly predominately music to
listen to in the car, secondly (and here is the clever bit)
to have a song from three decades. I stuck with 80s, 90s
and 00s. This worked perfectly and enables for a track listing
that just works and does not conflict. One of the tracks
on this album, was Walking Away by Craig David. The perfect
song for the way I felt and memories of the music video,
as David walks out of his 4x4 and walks through the traffic
on a busy road in London. (Readers Stateside might be a
bit lost as they had a completely different version!) However, the song was right for the moment, not for right now. So this time around my posting ends with lyrics from another song, which I listened to at least four times this evening.
Imagine If I Told You That I Want You
Imagine If It All Came True
Tell Me What You Would Do With Me
Would You Tell Me That You Feel The Same
Imagine If I Told You That I Need You
Would You Say Baby I Need You Too
No Matter What You Do
I Know You Should Be In Love With Me
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Sunday 2nd December 2007
If I gave my blog entries titles and I do very occasionally (when there is
a need) this one would be entitled "Change of Plan". We
always have a Christmas get together with my friends in
early December. We had a dinner party on this weekend, last
year. The original plan was to head over to Kev's house
and have some food (or more likely snacks) there before
heading on into town. To be honest, by Saturday lunchtime
I was not really in the mood to go but some persuading from
Charlie on the phone and Pav on MSN made me get ready and
rush out around 8pm. (Pav in fact quoted a line from my
previous blog entry from Friday
night). Plans changed quite quickly, so we went from
meeting at 7.30pm at Kev's to an hour later in town.
Pav asked that I get to his around 8.30pm, as they were catching a taxi to Oakford Social Club then. I was a little late and also running out of fuel but then nothing new there. Charlie called to check I was actually still coming out as I drive up through Caversham Heights. I spoke to Annie, who had trekked in from Canterbury. I had to be out, as she had made a special journey to be in Reading tonight. We caught a taxi into town and just as we pulled up outside the pub, Annie, Charlie and Nige were in the queue. Phil, Sarah, Kev, Andy and Eddie were already inside. We waited for ten minutes in the cold before being allowed in. It was around 9.10pm, twenty minutes before we would have been charged an entry fee.
After an hour or so in Oakford, we headed around the corner to Revolutions, where we were for most of the night. Then around 2am, we headed over to Bar Mango. It was a great night and we had some good laugh, particularly as there was such a big group of us out (in comparison to my birthday weekend, with only four of us!) Waiting for everyone to upload their photographs, a selection of the best from my N73 have been uploaded over at FlickR.
My Dad got me a Doctor Who advent calendar this year. I did not want Simpsons again after having one in 2005. Unlike my sisters, I usually forget to open the door and eat the chocolate each day, so tend build them up and end up eating five or more in a row. (Perhaps that is worse for my health!)
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Friday 30th November 2007
As we gently roll into December, I come to the point in my blog where I begin
to reflect. Reflect on the year almost out and the new year
about to spark to life. 2007 began with great optimism,
more than usual. In fact I will go as far to say that more
so than ever, my hopes and dreams and rested on this year.
Quite a burden I agree, but it started so well. We even
turned bad news into good, before the foggy end to 2006.
Within the first month, I was liberated and to a certain
extent given the opportunity to be myself. I tried hard,
for a few months things went well. There were so many highlights,
trips to North London for memorable nights, learning the
piano, the curtain raised at Wembley, my first trip clubbing
in Central London. Like the advert on television goes, LG
- Life's Good and it was for a while.
So where did it all go wrong? It is difficult to pinpoint the precise moment or chain of events. A colleague had predicted much of the domino effect in January but little did I know how much it would affect me directly. I know I should not plan things, only God knows what the future will bring but at times I feel I have not helped matters. Friends move on, no matter how hard I find it to come to grips with. Some friends are gone forever. Another MSN contact is moved from the Work group into Friends. Rather symbolic don't you think? I find it difficult, extremely difficult to express how I feel in my own words. I have use song lyrics (as I have done throughout the five year history of this blog!). A case in point once again, I would use "The Living Daylights" from the same title James Bond movie. The lyrics are perfect.
We are where we are. There is little I can do to change the past, as much as
I wish I could travel through time. I have to realise that
I must focus my energies on the present and forget about
what has been. (Quite hard when you can quite easily look
back through rather rose tinted spectacles at the last five
years years of your life under almost daily microscope!)
So with 2008, very much like the England football, I start
with a fresh piece of paper. I must concentrate on work
and prove myself. No targets, no big objectives. Try as
much to go with the flow?
Now back to our schedule programming. Back in August Sky
(broadband arm, not the television leg) informed all users
that their mail service was porting over to Google. No problem
there, I had my own personal Google mail account and thought
nothing more of it. When the move took place over early
November, we were sent a PDF with full instructions on how
to update our e-mail clients. The servers had changed as
had the web mail login (with a complete revamp of the entire
sky.com web site). While this was not a problem and I was
able to change my settings across and eventually pick up
my e-mail. (Apparently quite a few people had a problem)
I had a major issue. The old SMTP server was fine but the
new Google powered server added the following to any e-mails
sent out not originating from the Google mail account mail
@ t-e-g dot co dot uk on behalf of teg family @ sky dot
com address. It just is not practice to send out e-mail
with two addresses on the top, particularly as someone could
respond to the sky address. An account I do not check regularly.
Therefore I headed over to Sky
User forum to get some advice. There was quite a few
other people reporting the same problem. I had to bite the
bullet and purchase a outbound mail service to be able to
send my mail. It was just a case of which one? Plenty were
recommended. In the end I opted for the DynDNS service.
I found it by accident really while speaking to Pav about
setting up my own FTP at home. Their Mail
Hop Relay service costs $15 a year, which with a strong
pound is about £8. I get to send limit of 150 relays
per a day, which for me is too much. I rarely send more
than five or six e-mails in a good week. Nice to have this
issue solved. Now, start to write my action list for the
weekend.
Set My Hopes Up Way Too High
Living's In The Way We Die
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Sunday 25th November 2007
It was going to happen, but even a Hollywood producer would not have dreamt this up. A rematch (of sorts) for the World Cup Qualifying campaign after the summer hiatus. I watched the draw live on BBCi. (Actually recording it for my football archives). So you can imagine my surprise when England found themselves in Group 6 with Croatia. On the plus point, there is a visit to the homeland of television celebrity Borat Sagdiyev. Count your blessings, we have a relatively easy group missing most of the big power houses of Europe, perhaps Greece being the other weak team in pot one. However, before I get carried away, did not I say something similar similar after the Euro 2008 Qualifying draw in January 2006?
I have not really done much today. I watched Chuck & Larry this afternoon as I was bored. Pav had given it to me last week but I had never found the couple of hours spare in the evenings after work. What can I say? Funny but not very funny, a movie you watch once and then almost completely forget about. There are some good cameos and one liners but overall, it is not a movie I will watch again and I am glad I did not rush to the cinema to watch the movie in mid September. Not as good as the teen comedies that I still love (even though I'm getting a bit old for them now!). I will go as far to say that I would not even recommend the movie. It is not that good!
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Friday 23rd November 2007
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Thursday 22nd November 2007
It was 17:27, I had been in the car for twenty minutes and traveled less than
half a mile. I was stuck in traffic in the Cressex Industrial
Park, trying to get into town and to the train station.
I rang Dave, he was already on a train to Wembley but his
stopped at every station through North West London. I hope
the cars ahead would start moving so I could make it into
town and jump on a train.
It was 18:22, as I walked up the steps of Wembley Stadium train station. There
in front of me, Wembley and the silver arch was all aglow.
The setting was in place and I was really looking forward
to the match, which was less than two hours away. I took
out my N73, to take a photograph but it started buzzing,
Niko was calling me. He was on time! There is a first time
for everything. Even though it was early there was a big
group of people making their way to the stadium, the train
had been packed with standing room only. Thankfully it had
been semi-fast, stopping only at Beaconsfield and Gerrards
Cross. I waited for a few minutes for Niko outside turnstile
M. We went in but soon released that due to Uefa regulations
there was no alcohol for sale. We grabbed some food and
then chatted for a bit. We had plenty of time. This was
the first time I had seen Niko for a while and our last
real meeting had been at the same place
back in August.
I had spoken about the match with colleagues at work and the Liverpool fan
had said that Croatia would score early, England would constantly
attack and in the 89th minute, Croatia would hit a killer
blow on the break and win 2-0. I agreed that Croatia would
score first and early. However, I expected this would be
just the wake up call England would require to win the match
and qualify. I was right about one thing, an early goal
for the away side. I was lost for words when I discovered
both Beckham and Robinson had been dropped. David James
in goal would have been fine, he has the experience and
has played our last European Championship campaign. What
was Scott
Carson doing between the sticks for his second ever
international. I also did not agree with the formation,
4-5-1 is fine away from home and I could understand Steve's
thinking. Play for the draw, hit the long ball up to Crouch
in case we get lucky. This plan exploded in his face within
eight minutes.
There was a surreal atmosphere in the stadium as we took our seats. It was
quite empty and we used up the time to chat about most things
apart from football, just to take our names away from the
match. Slowly the grounded filled up, as the count down
went from hour to thirty minutes to kick off. It was raining,
but not hard and you could see the pitch was in a right
state. Then the players came out for their warm up and we
knew it was a matter of time before kick-off. I was looking
forward to the match, and had been all week but I sensed
that there was a great air of uncertainty in the air.
We looked like the away side, Croatia were passing and
controlling the match and we were chasing everything. Then
as predicted, Carson misjudged the ball and we were a goal
down. So far as I predicted, but it was to get worse. Much
worse. The state of the pitch was not helping but the Croatian
players, buoyed by their magnificent support making great
noise in the car corner, controlled the first half. Their
second goal was a class move, orchestrated by Arsenal striker,
Eduardo
de Silva and the English defence were all over the shop.
The crowd booed at half time, although I was tempted I reserved
judgment until full time. The all important goal back before
half time never materialised.
Beckham and Defoe came on at half time, to great cheers from the crowd, particularly
the man
wearing the unusual number 17. What a burden! Yet for his
time on the pitch, he played extremely well. Just a shame
only Crouch was the other player anywhere near his wavelength.
Switching to 4-4-2, England looked more threatening going
forward but there was more uncertainty at the back. However,
some how England fought back, got lucky with a penalty and
then Beckham delivered a pinpoint cross for Crouch to bring
down and score. The crowd went wild. We jumping up and down
as Crouch came over to salute the fans. It was a miracle.
We were down and out at half time but somehow, we had managed
to get back into the game and had a foot on the plane to
Austria & Switzerland. My friend, Niko looked over at
me and said, "Let's hope they hold onto it!". I thought
that Carson would have grown in confidence and he had made
a great save, which would have killed us off at 2-0. It
was not to be and to be honest England did not deserve to
be there. As if the script had been written by a movie producer,
Croatia scored their third and England were out. There was
no way back. They kept hoofing pointless long balls up to
Crouch but he was well marked. The last throw of the dice
from McClaren was to throw on Bent. He had an opportunity
to score but his short went over the bar and onto the top
of the net. That was it, I knew England could not pull it
back again. It was inevitable. Three minutes of stoppage
time came and went. At the final whistle, the boos could
be heard all around, while Billić
and his staff and player celebrated like they had won the
World Cup. My final image (which is clear in my mind like
a photograph) is a distraught David Beckham, clapping and
thanking the fans. Could he find himself stranded on 99
caps forever?
There was a long queue as I walked back to the train station. I got out my Zen and listened to the radio. Unfortunately without AM (or DAB) I had to settle for LBC. Just my luck to find a presenter with no interest in football, fielding calls from angry and annoyed England fans. As I got down to the platform, I spotted Dermot Gallagher in the queue ahead. He was waiting for a train to his home in Banbury. The next train to arrive was heading to Aylesbury and packed. I scrabbled into the carriage but there was standing room only again. I gave up on talk radio and switched to some music to get me through. The first song that came on, took me back to memories of the summer of 2006. The Time Of Our Lives felt like a song written for a different generation and not just 531 days ago. The ironic thing is the song was produced by Steve Mac. I bet he could have done a better job as England Head Coach.
I got home just before midnight and switched on the television
to Sky Sports News to hear what the man had to say for himself.
After everything, he did not have the dignity to resign.
Even Kevin Keegan for all his faults, was willing to expect
the job was beyond and tendered his resignation in the toilets
in the last game at the old Wembley in October 2000. To
add insult to injury, he wouldn't walk, he had to be pushed.
Just sums up the FA, the people that are supposed to be
running the game but instead just pile the money into their
own wallets. I must end however, with a strange observation
on this point. At what point did England start performance
so badly? The moment the Three Lions shield was moved from
the centre of the shirt to the top right. The emblem had
gone from the heart, soul, passion, up to the chest. Where
most people keep their wallets!
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Tuesday 20th November 2007
This week has kind of crept up on me, almost out of nowhere. I know I should write the standard affair, of really looking forward to Friday and Saturday evening but I have to be honest and I am quite apprehensive.
On Friday, I watched Children In Need telethon on BBC1, all the way from 7pm until 2am. In a rare case of multitasking, I was reading a thread on the charity fundraising event over on Digital Spy and watching as people slated Terry Wogan's presentation style and the Spice Girls for not singing live from LA. My favourite moment from the evening was Terrance Wogan introducing the Sugababes. Post #833 describes events, just before 11pm. I responded with a comment in reply. Basically introducing the girl group playing the song, "Now About You". I thought for a split second that I had not come across the song on the album, Change. The usual highlight for me during these shows is the BBC News team but I felt rather left down this year, in comparison to some of the big numbers performed in the past.
Did not really do much this weekend, which will explain the lack of updates on the site. My site was also down from sometime on Friday evening, until Sunday morning due to a problem with DNS server over at my host, 123-Reg. In researching this problem on Saturday evening, I discovered the site Avoid 123-Reg. Long term readers of this blog, will know how much I struggled over two years to move from hopeless UK2.Net to my current provider. While I know 123-Reg are not perfect, they are a million times better than UK2. However, as I have now purchased so many domains through the site, there is little need for me to transfer unless there is a complete disaster. My experience of the service has been relatively good. Plus if I need to move across elsewhere in the future, I will do so.
There was a great debate on FiveLive last night regarding Michael Jackson. It felt a bit strange to be listening to something overall positive and focusing generally on the music. I would listen to FiveLive reguarly during the trial, two years ago, with weekly updates from Peter Bowes (he has a blog but it only started in July.) Here we were with a rather skeptical host asking the question, "Is Michael Jackson the greatest pop icon of all time?". Overall the debate was well run and many fans called in to give their views. I was extremely disappointed with Ash Atalla, producer of The Office and The IT Crowd for refering to MJ fans as "nut jobs". In the end, Richard was rather shocked for the positive light in which Michael is regarded, not just by fans but by the everyday public. His music is played at clubs every weekend, across the country. Plus, there is the fact that this debate is premature. We are talking as if the man had left this mortal coil. He has not. He has so much more to give. The new album may have been put back to an early 2008 release but there is nothing stopping the MJ publicity drive. He may not be appearing on The X Factor a week on Saturday (confirmed as false by his publicist Raymone Bain) but there appears to be a 25th anniversary edition of Thriller to be released featuring covers. One such song which has leaked onto the web is by Akon.
Off to my first proper England match tomorrow. Thankfully unlike my last two visits to Wembley (in June and August respectively) for friendlies, this time it really matters. Even though, it could have been very different depending on results from Saturday in the group. While a draw would be enough and fantastic (I remember watching the nil-nil draw in Turin back in 1997 on television) I think we need a convincing performance to prove that England are more than just a wannabe international side of millionnaire playboys.
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Friday 9th November 2007
It is with great sadness that I have to mention that Pav's Rover 216 SLi suffered a ghastly death on the westbound section of the M4 just past junction six on Tuesday night. I only got the news on MSN on Wednesday afternoon. I knew something was up, when Pav did not appear on MSN in the morning. When he eventually did materialize, he sent me three photographs taken by his N73.
The car was a legend! I had driven it as recently as mid May. It was an experience I will never forget. Thankfully, Pav was okay (just a few minor cuts and bruises). He had parked up on the hard shoulder as the car was playing up and then been hit from behind by a BMW. Luckily the crash barrier was there to stop him (along with the car) falling over the edge.Pav picked up his courtesy car yesterday morning and sent me an e-mail as soon as he got into work.
That brings me nicely onto my next topic. When I moved to Leicester in September 2000, I spent many days (and many more nights) in the city centre. Whenever I walked past the clock tower in the city centre, I would shout the immortal line from the Back To The Future movie, "Save The Clock Tower". In a strange twist of fate, looks like I had foreseen the future, just seven years early. I noticed a group on Facebook, which one of my uni mates had joined.
While the rest of the UK get their teeth into the first series of Heroes, I have been catching the second series. I think we have reached a major climax in season one, where as season two is just getting started. It has been excellent and this week's episode was great, revealing some wonderful intriguing twists to come. The amount of mystery in the show, keeps you hooked. It is like the writers have a tap running at a light drip, you are thirsty and just want to drink more! It is mixed blessing not to have all the episodes on DVD to just watch the next episode but sometimes I am impatient and cannot wait another week. I feel for the characters more and do not want anything to happen to them, particularly my favourites, Hiro and Mohinder.
After a rock and roll weekend (including week off before hand), this weekend is very much a time for rest. Nothing planned whatsoever really. I am out for a curry with some work colleagues in Maidenhead tonight but apart from that, the order of the day will be sleep. I think the next weekend to come will follow a similar pattern. There is a minor event to look forward to but it could be completely pointless.
Today's blog entry was brought to you by our one off sponsor, DJ Breezy.
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Sunday 4th November 2007
The David Jones Weekender
It is 2.38pm, as I begin writing this entry and I am going to find it difficult
to put into words the events of the past three days. I know
there are a stack of photos (okay, "stack" might be exaggerating
it a little, quite a few) on my N73, Nikon CoolPix and bits
of paper I need to capture to just start the process of
piecing together the weekend. It will be an uphill struggle,
but I am ready for challenge. Time to jump into our time
machine and roll back the clock. Destination Friday early
evening.
I thought Dave was going to arrive around 9pm but he actually
called in around 2pm to say he was in Wycombe and would
be over at 6.30pm. He arrived an hour earlier, calling me
to get directions to my house. His brother, Stewart had
turned right down Miersfield. I explained where to go and
within a minute he was outside my door (even though he had
forgotten the house number!). I am trying to remember the
last time he was at my house but it must have been more
than fourteen years ago. He had a big black Adidas hold
all and man bag! Was he sure he was just staying for two
nights? (Bear with me, as I referred to my extensive blog
notes, made at 3.30am this morning!) We spent the evening,
chilling in my room, catching up and watching Hollyoaks.
I think it me posing my usual Friday night on Dave, but
I am sure he did not mind. He spent most of the time on
the phone to Lisa and his parents. At 7.30pm, after the
E4 first look episode of Hollyoaks, we headed into the lounge
to catch up, fill in the half hour before Eastenders and
dinner. At 9pm, we headed over to TGIFriday's.
As expected, it was quite busy but unknown to me (as I had
not been in this American themed bar and restaurant since
my 18th birthday back in late November 1999!) it does not
have a late licence and closes at 11pm. While we were having
a few drinks and chatting an Asian gentleman, in his mid
thirties bumped into Dave. He overly apologised and then
suddenly became our best friend, shaking hands with both
of us. As he disappeared back to the bar, I commented to
Dave that he always picks up the weirdos. He thought he
was gonna start on him and was getting to smash his bottle
on the table to have a weapon! Wycombe is bad but not that
bad, is it? I would find out in less than twenty four hours.
We walked back to the house, as we were the restaurant started to cleared and closed. As we got home, my Dad arrived. The last time had seen Dave was when he took us to Slough (with Waheed) at the then Virgin Cinema to see The Shadow back in November 1994. Nearly thirteen years ago! It was nearly 1am. I went on my laptop and we did some checking up on FaceBook to see if there were any last minute takers to the reunion and searched for a few more people whom we thought we could invite. No joy on either front. We feel asleep around 1.30am, with texting Lisa for a while before nodding off.
Day Two, the first full day of the DJ weekender. My alarm went off at 8am,
but I ignored it, switching off the phone and got up at
9am, when my Mum woke up. Dave had been awake for a while,
texting of course! We got ready, cleared the lounge ready
for breakfast. After a quick shower, we got ready and headed
out of the house. First stop, Havenfield Road. This is where
Dave used to live, all those days ago. We drove across because
I was being lazy and if we had walked, it would have meant
having a bad seat for the football in the pub. Yes, but
these things are important. After taking a few photographs,
we drove back to the house, Dave picked up his mobile and
we walked up the road to the bus stop (town bound) on the
Cressex Link. The 100 was due at 10:52 and it was on time
(we saw the bus come from town up to the Park & Ride
area opposite the Empire Cinema (formerly The Filmworks,
formerly UCI, formerly Wycombe Six). I was going to get
two adult returns but it worked out cheaper to get a family
ticket for £2. The bus was busy as expected with many
OAPs making their weekend trip into the town centre. We
got off opposite the library and walked around down the
High Street. Dave wanted to reminisce and discover what
else had changed in the town. We walked around for a while,
going to Game
and then GameStation.
As it is Dave's birthday on Monday, I got him FIFA08
for the XBOX360. Well worth shopping around for such items,
even on the high street. After this, we walked through the
Chilterns Shopping centre (to walk past HM Samuel) and onto
the Litten
Tree. It was relatively quiet, (before the storm?).
We took a seat on the sofa opposite one of the screens and
then ordered some food. It was perfecting timing, there
was a mad rush soon afterwards. We watched all the build
up from noon, with Dave an honorary Gooner for the afternoon.
(Why support Palace in the first place, God knows!). However,
I have to confess, the signs were not good. Every time I
had seen a football match with Dave present, Arsenal had
lost. This record begins back in October 1999, when Arsenal
lost to Florentina, thanks to a goal from Batistuta.
It was in fact, Wednesday 27th October 1999 (do you just
not love Wikipedia!). I met up with Dave in the evening
and we went to the Posthouse (as it was then) to watch the
game. The next time was in April 2003. Saturday 26th April
2003 (mentioned briefly the following day in the archives!).
We had lunch in the pub opposite Dave's flat and they happened
to be showing the match. However, I had to rush back home
to get to Milton Keynes in the evening, so only caught the
first half. The 2 all draw with Bolton at the Reebok effectively
let us surrender the title back to Old Trafford. So here
we were, over four years later for a vital clash of the
titans. Would it be a case of third time lucky? For a change,
I did not take in all the pre-match build up to the day.
Normally I am reading every little article online and constantly
watching Sky Sports News. This year, I was too busy with
all those other things to concentrate on during the week.
So I watched every second of the pre-match build up to kick
off. Sky as usual were pulling out all the stops. Then,
our lunch arrived, perfect timing.
My prediction was 2-1 to the Gooners but DJ was over optimistic with 3-1, even naming scorers - Adebayor, Fabregas and Walcott. The match began, we were at the edge of our seats. The pub and filled up now. Not quite as full as it had been back on that sunday night in late June for the final World Cup Group Match against Sweden. For Dave this was a new experience, the atmosphere was electric compared to back home in Wrexham. There, I was told, you would just get five guys crowded around the one rather small television in a pub. Here there was a big mixture of Arsenal and Manchester United fans. (Slightly weighed in favour of the Northerners, if you ask me!). It was a great match, as we had hoped for, at times end to end stuff. The result was great and I was very happy for Gallas. I have not been his biggest fan since he came over (although was glad to get rid of Cole). For a chance he let his football do the talking and it reminded me of the goal he scored for Chelsea against arch rivals Tottenham when he too went and embraced the manager. You can read a full match report over on the Beeb, ArseBlog or The Cannon. After the match, we headed back into town, over to the bus station and waited for the next bus home. It was quarter past three, the reunion was closer than ever.
The Reunion
It had not been the plan, but with no one around to give us a lift and the
bus service, not a viable option, I drove into town. We
were late, as I was still getting my things together at
ten to eight. I had a feeling we were going to be a little
late but it did not matter. We parked the car over in George
Street Car Park, when perhaps Dovecot would have been a
better option. However, with all the construction work going
on in that area, I opted to avoid rather than risk it, in
place of a five minute walk. As we walked back, Lisa called,
she was driving and on her way. As we walked to the town
centre, I have to admit I felt a bit strange. Excited yes
but nervous as well. Someone in the upper floors of the
student halls of residence was blasting Sean Kingston's
Me Love.
I am shocked for having to include the following but I cannot lie. As we approached
the Litten Tree, I passed the doorman and was asked for
ID! I could not believe it! I even actually said to the
bouncer, "You ARE kidding me? How young do I look? I'm 26
in three weeks time!" Begrudgingly I got out my driving
licence. "Take it as a compliment said his younger male
colleague." I was told I looked between 20-21, perhaps I
should have opted not to have a shave. When I eventually
got inside, Lisa was already there. Dave was wondering where
I had gone. A few minutes later, Liz walked through the
door. The event was minutes old and we already had someone
who had not confirmed their attendance. We went to sit down
by the front of the pub by the window (so we could see other
potential old school mates walk past). It was a bit surreal
to begin with, as Dave kept repeating (throughout the night).
I had not seen any of these people since 1994. So much can
change in a year, how much do you think will change in thirteen?
About ten minutes later, Robin arrived. Then I got a text from Juliet, she was on her way from the Roundtable Bonfire Night in Terriers. She arrived before 9pm. We thought that was it, even though Stephen Mockett, had said he was definitely gonna make an appearance with his girlfriend. He did arrive, but fashionably late. In fact, I saw his M-Reg dark blue Ford Fiesta (Mark III) pull up and park opposite the pub. It was a from a photo on Facebook, that I knew he had dreads, so trying to recognise him was easy. He then strode into the joint, with Sam. Dave and me waited by the door to surprise him!
They played Glamourous by Fergie in the Litten Tree. Nothing unusual there, I hear you cry. Sure but listening to the song took me back to a sunny January afternoon. How much I wish I could go back to that near perfect moment. It is only now I realise the importance of the song last night. The video (which I just watched the intro again) begins in 1994. The same year that I left Lansdowne County Middle School. Freaky? Don't you think?
We are all obviously getting old, because we decided to
leave the Tree to go to the Falcon on the High Street as
they do not play music. I felt a bit out of place in any
case, because the crowd generally appeared to be people
in their early twenties and I am sure I heard an announcement
for a girl called Lisa turning 21. Maybe kids are just growing
up too fast and keep their youthful looks. As we headed
out, Dave was keen to grab a group photo outside the entrance
to the Chiltern's Shopping Centre. Poor light meant it did
not come out very well. We trekked across town, it was quiet
for a Saturday night. Perhaps the excesses of the Rugby
World Cup had been catching up with people. Although I was
hardly in a position to comment. This was the first time
I had been out in Wycombe for over four years. (The last
time was April 2003, when
I pumped into several old school friends, in Time (Here
& Now) as it was called then. Heading over to The
Falcon, you could tell it was a quiet night. There were
no bouncers outside the main entrance by the Guildhall.
As we walked in, I was surprised to find it quite full and
the bar packed with queues. I hunted for a table while the
others went to the bar. I found a table free in the middle
of the pub and got some free chairs around. Then the drinks
arrived. This gave me a chance to speak to Robin. The most
bizarre thing is I have been going to his house on a regular
basis. He lives across from where I have my piano lessons.
How strange is that? It was great when he asked me if I
knew the Leapark Estate in Thame! As he works in genetics,
we had to talk about Heroes and human evolution. Even considering
that the DNA database was a bad thing and much better to
sign everyone up to Facebook at birth. Stephen and Sam left
just after 11.30pm. They had to get back and check on their
kids. This was a revelation to Robin, who shouted across
the bar, "You've got kids?!" Before shaking Mr. Mockett
firmly by the hand! As the bell rang for final orders, we
thought we had plenty of time. We were wrong. The pub closed
at midnight and we were quickly told to finish our drinks
and leave. The bar staff had disappeared cleaning the other
side of the pub, while rude bouncers tried to get us to
finish our drinks. They should not have sold them to us,
if they were going to throw us out, ten minutes later. Robin
tried to make small talk with the head bouncer, with the
old story that he used to work here but he wasn't having
any of it and told him to finish his Guinness. Eventually
we left and I think for the record were the last people
to leave as they began closing up. We waited outside the
pub as Liz and Juliet went to the RBS cash point. There
was a tramp in the doorway of the bank, playing his harmonica.
Robin, after disappearing for a call of nature returned
to start speaking to him and inspected his vocal instrument.
Eventually we left but not after Dave took several photos
(and I joined in, as you can see below). Then, Mr. G made
a comment that would stay with me for the rest of the weekend.
"I cannot believe I am out with Andrew Tegala!" Well, I
know I am not a superstar (no where near the standards of
David Jones!) It was a touching moment, almost surreal in
the fact that the last time I had seen him, we were running
around chasing other friends on the playground. I had thought
the night would end here. It did not. We headed over to
Pure.
As we got around the corner of the Octagon Parade, Liz thought
there was a big queue, but I quickly deduced it was just
the smoking area outside. There was no queue! :) We walked
straight through, although Dave had to explain to the female
bouncer why he was Welsh and English at the same time. In
the end he narrowed it down to, I'm here from Wales, visiting!
It was £6 to get in and then £1.50 for the cloakroom.
I left my camera in my jacket, opting to use my N73 for
the rest of the night. Once everyone had given in their
jacket / coat / outdoor clothing, we headed upstairs to
Pure. (Or is that Obsession? I have forgotten already!)
Anyhow, it was busy, but Liz got the drinks in. Dave was
ready to boogie and already busting some moves on the dance
floor. We then headed downstairs and got a table by the
window (again). There was a bloke opposite, completely spark
out on the sofa. Here we chatted for a while before we lost
Liz, only to find her talking to a friend at the bar. We
had almost sent out a search party, dogs and helicopter.
We then headed back upstairs to dance. Although we did not
make it to the dance floor. They played a dance remix of
Rihanna's Umbrella but the girls had got out for a smoke,
so we waited. Robin through his bottle of Beck's
onto the floor, right behind a bouncer. He was given a stern
warning, even though he did try and talk himself out of
it. The bottle was picked up and placed on the side table.
To prove how wrecked Robin was, I took a photo while we
had been downstairs.
Juliet decided we should go downstairs as it was music
aimed more towards our age group. We arrived to the sound
of PJ & Duncan - "Let's Get Ready
To Rumble". You would think it could not get any worse but
it did. The next song they played was the Hen Night classic,
"(I've
Had) The Time of My Life from ultimate chick flick Dirty
Dancing. The small dance floor was packed, even with
a few guys. I reluctantly chose to stop myself jumping on
the dance floor as well. However, when Billie Jean came
on, I was on my feet, although not on the dance floor itself
(very close though). The night was winding down, as we said
good bye to Robin and Lisa. About ten to fifteen minutes
later the last four people standing (Dave, Juliet, Liz and
Teg) were leaving too. We went to Dennis's next door as
Dave needed to get a kebab, before walking Liz back to her
car in Dovecot and then walking back to my car in George
Street. We got back home at exactly 3am.
Before going to bed, I scribbled down some notes, which I have been using to put together this entry. Before finally falling asleep at nearly 4am. However, the weekend did not end there, more punishment planned for Sunday. I should though, look back at the reunion. It was an outstanding success. Everyone had a good time and it was great to see everyone. It was strange to think nearly fourteen years had flown by but most of us were still around in the area (or in one special case still at school!). I look forward to helping organise the next reunion, which will be bigger and better. My photos have been uploaded to FlickR, plus there is a gallery from Pure online also (no pictures of any us I am afraid!)
On The Track
I parked my car for a maximum of three minutes outside Dave's brother house. Blocking the drive way of his neighbour, sure but not for a long period of time. It was just to get the luggage out and then moved the car onto Stewart's drive. I noticed a note had been left on my windscreen. Fantastic. A lovely way to start the day. At least my neighbours are not that bad, I would have killed several by now if that was the case.
We headed over to Rogue
Racing on the Stokelake Industrial Park in Aylesbury.
It was my fourth time go-karting but birthday boy, Dave
was a virgin. We had a thirty minute wait but eventually
got onto the circuit. It was great fun, even though the
track itself is quite simple, with a few turns and a bridge.
Woodley (which I went to last year
with work) is far more challenging and wider! However, it
was a good laugh, Dave enjoyed himself and Stewart had a
good time breaking two go-karts in the process.
I could not improve on my lap time that much as there was a young boy on the
track in our second session, so we had to watch out for
him. Plus, the race was stop start. Or rather there is no
racing, as the stewards tend to remind us. Stewart's kart
packed in after about six laps and he went on again after
us. There was no chance of him overtaking the amateur in
the Honda jump suit. In end, he turned the tables on Stewart
and lapped him before the end of the session. Time to head
back home. My best time was thirty three seconds, I wanted
to break the the thirty second barrier but could not due
to the reasons given above.
It was around 12.30pm, that I said goodbye to Dave. It had been a fantastic forty two hours of fun. There was football, party and racing. What more could you ask for in a weekend? I just think I need to go and rest now.
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Wednesday 31st October 2007
Was back at Xscape this afternoon for an hour long Level Two lesson. My instructor was John once again but I had some company in the form of Dips. He had completed level one, just the hour before. The sixty minutes were well, I made much better progress than on Monday morning. However, when John tried to bring down the slope and get me to follow his turns, I panicked and twice went straight down the slope but luckily only once ended up crashing close to the poma lift. I think it was a case of trying to turn from too high up the slope. John advised me to go up to the midway point and try from there and the run was much better. However, I needed to improve further by actually making better use of the width of the slope. I tried this but crashed once again. Second time was much better and I was able to stop in time at the bottom. A few more runs and I was gaining in confidence and eventually passed Level Two. Would I be ready to face Fast Track session on Thursday morning? Level Three and Four looked much more intense, particularly from all the aspects that needed to be completed from the record of achievement card.
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Monday 29th October 2007
I brought the XBox back to life on Saturday afternoon. It had not been working
since June, perhaps a little earlier when I screwed up the
upgrade of the Xbox Media Centre. It has taken me so long
to get around to fixing it, as my attempts in mid September
failed miserably. For a time, I had an Evox Boot CD (created
by MightyMouse back in August
2004, when we modded the XBox) but have lost it now.
I took the ISO into the office and had it sitting on my
desktop machine before my colleague deleted the file with
my permission, dear I say! I searched the net and created
one but it failed to work. I tried to search again and found
a great bit of software built by a member of the community.
XBINS-TIRC.
It fully automates the process of connecting to IRC (Internet
Relay Chat), connecting to the right channel, getting the
password for the Xbins distribution FTP site and then opening
built in FTP client (FileZilla) to connect you onto the
site. Magic. Everything done right on your screen with no
user interaction required. I downloaded the Evox Dash and
burnt the Xbox ISO to CD-Rw. However as expected it did
not work. I set up my laptop and downloaded the latest T3CH
release to put on, along with all the videos I had downloaded
over the past few months. I had to get the Xbox Media Center
loading again, so by chance still had an old version from
April 2006 on the drive. This used an old XML configuration
file, which thankfully I had kept in the root of the drive.
Copying to the two files off the Xbox, renaming them and
placing them back onto the root of the device. Then the
moment of truth. Reboot. It worked! Fantastic. I cannot
explain the full technicalities, but if the Xbox Media Centre
does not load as the main dashboard, the XBox goes into
a recovery state. You can still login via FTP but not all
the drives are available. F: changes to Q: but you cannot
see anything about from the main files in the root. So the
only alternative is to use the Evox Boot CD or get some
form of dashboard running off the device. I copied over
about over a gig worth of music videos. Then I upgraded
to the latest version of the XBox Media Centre, carefully
following the instructions on the wiki.
We were back in business! Now, just to get that YouTube
script downloaded and working!
Both the Admiral and Pav have been pushing hard for me to mention the events of Saturday night. It was a good night, we went to Cafe du Sport first, then headed over to Mango. The VIP lounge upstairs had been pre-booked for the birthday party. It was relatively quiet to begin with around 10.30pm, when we got there but slowly filled up. It was a Halloween themed night with a handful of people dressed up. Pav arrived around 11pm. Foxy soon followed with some friends. Then the party really started. Had a good time, but it was a shame that not more of the usual crowd were out. Then again, perhaps it was a good thing that they were not!
Went to the Snowdome at Xscape today for my first ski lesson. I had booked two sessions at the beginning of October and taken the week off to fit them both in. The fast track lessons seemed ideal, as it was three hours on the slope to get used a hang of the sport. However, I think I should have opted to take single hour long lessons per a session and build up my progress slowly. I took my sister along and we got into MK quite early, a few minutes after 8pm. Having left Wycombe in the dark at 6.45am. My session was not until 9am but I thought getting there early would give me a chance to suss out the place. I got changed and grabbed my ski equipment and then waited for the instructor to arrive. He was a few minutes late but no matter. There was four of us on the course, Claire, Martin and Mark, all beginners. Our instructor was John, in his early twenties and seemed to be quite knowledgeable. We headed onto the slope, walking under a bright blue sign which says, "This Is It..."
It was soon quite clear that progress was going to be slow for this three hour fast track session. To begin with I struggled to climb up the slope, sliding down several times and having to have John come down, take my hands and help me get up. I got the idea of balancing and the right stance, but it was the snowplough that I failed with. After a few short runs down the lesson slope, we were put onto the ski lift and told to ski down but in the snowplough position to come to a steady stop at the beginning. This took me some time to get used to. My positioning was wrong, too much weight was at the back of the skis, causing me to fall on my backside a few times. Other times, I would just not be able to stop and would end of up heading towards (and into) the red barrier. Progress was slow, I was getting frustrated and tired. By now, it was clear that two members of the group (Mark and Martin) were picking everything up quite quickly, were as myself and Claire was struggling. We had a quick ten minute break, I grabbed a drink before we headed out back onto the slope. This time we went up higher and after a few bad runs, John handed us over to a different instructor. He had given up, so this elder gentleman (who was already teaching two other women) decided to help Claire and I. He took us up half way and then came down with us, coaching on us step by step as we come down the slope. This helped, not just a little but a great deal! I got the snowplough and actually started working on my turns. I was growing in confidence and even with a few more crashes, some quite dramatic. However time, was not on my side and just as I was getting comfortable, it was time to exit the slope.
I had failed the Level 2 stage and would need to re-take this so I could progress onto the Fast Track Levels 3 & 4. The Snowdome people called and left a message on the voicemail during the afternoon. I will call them back tomorrow. So, how do I sum up my first ever skiing experience? Scary, inscillerating and tiring. So tiring, that I went for an afternoon nap when we got back home. Due to the strange shape of my right foot, I had scraped it against the inside of my ski boot and sliced a couple of layers of skin off. It sounds more painful than it feels or looks but I bandaged it up quite well. It will take a while to heal. Looks like I will be back at the Snowdome sooner than I expected.
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Sunday 28th October 2007
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Saturday 27th October 2007
It is 1.28am, as I begin writing this post. I have just got back from Maidenhead.
Fantastic night at Phatz Bar with Buzzloft Trance Classics.
I only decided to go around 5pm, this evening, after heavy
persuasion from both Pav and Charlie. They actually both
used the line from Back To The Future Part II. "So, McFly,
are you in or out?". At first I said out but over the course
of the afternoon, I was slowly persuaded by both of them
to come out. The reality was I was just going to spend the
evening on the computer, perhaps watch Bionic Woman, catch
a movie and of course update this blog. In the end, I was
glad I decided to go out. However, before we get to the
night out, let me take you through some highlights from
the week.
Following my quick update on Monday evening, I have some further news. After
my video of Hope performing Umbrella on X Factor was removed
for copyright violation. There has been a major cull across
the video sharing web site. However there are still a handful
of videos of this performance on YouTube (if you search
hard enough!) (Embedded link below updated) The people behind
the singing contest have created an official X
Factor channel but footage tends to be very selective,
focusing mainly on behind the scenes material.
On my drive home on Wednesday afternoon, I caught a glimpse of what looked
like a R8. I only saw the rear brake lights come on, as
the car took the slip road onto the M40 northbound. A road
which Pav and Charlie described as "good circuit track".
However, by the time I got close enough to be in a position
to actually identify it, it had gone. I am looking forward
to seeing the car on the road, it looks very impressive
and will no doubt sound awesome. Talking of cars, I spotted
the new shape Honda Civic Type-R, not once but twice on
Thursday. Both in black, 57 plate on the M25. One on the
journey east, the other on the journey west back home. It
does not have the same presence as the previous model.
Friday night was great although I forgot to pick up my official mix CD off Pav! My Dad dropped me off at Maidenhead train station just before 9pm. I waited a few minutes for everyone to arrive but only Charlie appeared about ten past nine. Pav, Kev & Em had missed the train. We wanted to go the Roof for a drink before heading over to Phatz Bar but it was £7 to get in. They had some drum and bass DJs in from London. The Asian female bouncer, tried to convince us to go in but we opted to go to Phatz and wait to meet the others. We spotted Mel outside the Phatz and went in, while waiting for the rest of the gang to arrive. After a few drinks downstairs we went up stairs for the main event. The last time I had been here was a year and a week ago. There has been quite a refurbishment since then! There is a new bar upstairs and the projected television screen from the main room has gone. The floor has been reinforced and there was the strong smell of varnish as we walked in. It was quiet to begin with but slowly filled up. I had my Sony CyberShotU camera with me and took a few photos but with the smoky dark atmosphere, the photos are not great. I doubt I will upload them to FlickR. Very good night, with Paul Stevens and Pav sharing the set. Had a great time and really glad I came out!
I left around 1am. The party weekend however does not end there, out in Reading tonight. Birthday party at Mango tonight. Then a piano lesson tomorrow morning, big match in the afternoon. Not a bad weekend. Plus plenty adventures for next week, more on that later.
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Sunday 21st October 2007
It is 13:30 as I begin writing this entry. The sun is shining through my window,
on a pleasant autumn afternoon. On Friday evening, I was
searching for topics to write about, but right now I am
bursting with things to mention and to report. I got up
just after 9am and started work almost straight away on
some bits and pieces that I should have got done on Friday
in the office. However, let me take you back to Friday evening
first and roundup my weekend (so far) chronologically.
On Friday evening, I finally got around to watching Grosse
Point Blank, a movie that had eluded me for several years.
I think it was even on terrestrial television in the past
few years but I only watched the opening few minutes. The
main reason I wanted to watch the movie was that it features
a-ha's Take On Me. I wanted to watch the particular scene,
even if the music was only featured as background music
to the dialogue. I went over and updated the trivia on the
section of the wikipedia dedicated to the classic 1980s
single. It was while here I discovered a few more artists
had covered the song, included hip hop group Little Brother.
A little Googling and I discovered that although the song
is not featured on their upcoming album, Get Back it has
been recorded.
It is not so much a cover but more a reworking with additional
vocals and rapping. Sure it is hip-hop but very
well produced. There is a respect shown for the original and
I love the electronic beat in place of the keyboard instrumental. I suppose I should really talk
about the movie but I wasn't really paying much attention,
particularly at the end. Sure the whole premise of a professional
assassin heading back to after ten years to his high school
reunion was very clever but it was just too far fetched for even me to follow. Perhaps my brain was just lacking concentration after a heavy week in the office.
Saturday, I was lazy, extremely lazy in fact. The most strenuous of my tasks
was to vacuum my car, then jump onto the sofa and remain
there for the rest of the day. I listened to FiveLive coverage
of Arsenal against Bolton but was sent to my room when my
parents got back from shopping, so continued to listen there.
As soon as I put on my stereo, Toure scored a free kick.
Result! I then lay in bed while listening to coverage of
Villa versus Man U. It was around 7pm, I finally got up
and went into the lounge to watch the final few performances
from The X Factor. I am afraid, even I cannot escape from
this reality television show as my sisters are big fans.
I mention the show every year and the last major entry was
back on 20th August last
year. Although I did mention it on 26th
August this year. I must mention Hope. Their cover of
Umbrella
was absolutely appalling but the judges loved it! The song
was never designed to be performed as a ballad. While their
performance vocally was very good, the song choice was pathetic.
If anything the song was too big for them. I did not watch
the results show as I was out collecting my sister, so am
watching the re-run on ITV1, as I write this.
[Video removed, however another version remains but I am unable to embed!]
I got home and onto my computer just after 11pm, to watch Toure's goal on Match Of The Day. I would have to watch the repeat this morning to be able to record the highlights in full. England had lost the World Cup final but it had hardly been a fantastic match to watch. I was disappointed that there were not any tries. Oh well, never mind, while defeat is never easy to take, there is some comfort in coming second best to the best team on the planet. After Saturday, I planned a productive Sunday, which so far has been so so. I have got a few things done but not nearly enough. Time to watch the Grand Prix!
