| 24.06.08: Chocolate, Oversleeping, Yerba
Mate and Wimbledon So, today is another day for outdoor blogging. It has been so hot today that I woke up this afternoon sweating. I also managed to somehow leave my pack of Cadbury's Caramel bars in the conservatory with my Nokia Internet Tablet on top of them. The entire package was liquid, and methinks they will have the imprint of the nokia embedded into them. Not a lot has actually happened today, mostly because of the hot weather which I hate, and partly because my body decided that I needed more sleep than I wanted and made me sleep for 7 hours rather than the 5 hours I like to sleep for. Which is somewhat annoying because I sleep for 5 hours a day so that I can fit everything I want to do into the mere 24 hours in a day. My girlfriend will testify that I am a very busy person and I am always trying to do more than one thing at a time. Who says men can't multitask? One good thing about waking up after a lot of sleep is that I woke up sleepy. Now, this might not seem like a good thing to most people, but to me it's a great thing, especially today because something I ordered at the weekend arrived today. 100 Yerba Mate teabags. And they have to be the most unique Yerba Mate teabags I have ever purchased. So far I've tried the Tea Pigs ones which are nice, but a little too expensive for my tastes (£3.25 for 15) and I tried some others from a place I can't find now, which were great but the packaging left a lot to be desired. They arrived in a cellophane bag. But the ones I bought at the weekend come from Aura Vita, a company I have ordered things from before and despite the fact that they are lousy at delivery (3-5 days, no upgrade options) they sell good quality stuff. And these teabags made me laugh when I opened them. They are like hotel teabags. Each one comes in a little paper envelope of it's own! The best thing is that they cost £11.65 delivered. Which makes them way cheaper than the teapigs one, and these are authentic Argentinian Yerba Mate teabags. Considering that Yebra Mate is their national drink, I think the Argentinians probably know what they are doing. And actually, I have to admit that this stuff has the biggest kick I've experienced yet from a Yerba Mate teabag. The brew tastes a little stronger too, and I can actually taste the bitterness that people talk about. First time that's happened. One downside of working nights is that I can't watch Wimbledon, although I may wander over the BBC's site and see what options their iPlayer has for games. Hopefully I can watch a few games. The best thing of course is that I can pick and choose what games I want to watch. I also have to try out what Steve Power was talking about this morning, about watching Wimbledon and then playing Wii Tennis and pretending you're there. I think that might have to be a night time activity, as it's going to be way too hot to play in the day. I might also have to wander down to Peacocks and get some shorts and a t-shirt so that I don't get too hot playing it. See, this is why I love the Wii, you have to dress appropriately for the game you are playing. It's that interactive. Even in the winter I have to wear a t-shirt and shorts when playing Wii Tennis because it's just too hot to play it wearing winter clothes. Also thinking of buying a 2nd Wii controller so me and my friend can play Tennis (which he loves) without having to be roasted alive on the Tennis courts (which I hate). Permalink | 23.06.08: Launch Parties, WWE Bucks, Hussle Boxset, Guitar Lessons, War and Big Brother So, I am once again sitting in the garden listening to Radiohead. Sorry for not blogging for a few days, we had a launch party for the blog and in my wisdom I hid the iPod I store all the files for the blog on. And recreating them from the host is a royal pain in the butt. This said, good things did come out of the launch party. Mike and I will be launching a weekly podcast based on stuff we find on the web which we think is either funny, interesting or shocking. Right now I'm not entirely sure how long this podcast is going to be, but what I can guarantee you is that it should be packed full of laughs. I also have a few little ideas knocking around from a resource I found this morning. Mostly behind the scenes stuff, but still, really interesting things. Today I signed up for a new service which I think is great. Ok, to be honest, it's only a great service if you are a regular web user and a WWE fan. Fortunately I fall into both catagories. The site is called MyWWESearch.com and it's stunning. It combines search results from Ask.com and Google.com to give you a decent mix of results. Works for me. Google is my primary search engine and I have always had a soft spot for Ask, even though they did get rid of Jeeves (damn you!) But here is the upshot. Every search you make is a new chance to win WWE Bucks. You can then swap WWE Bucks for real, physical merchendise. Now, being a huge WWE fan, and have been ever since I was about 14 or 15, the thing that caught my eye was the replica WWE Tag Team Belt. Ok, so, it's expensive (2500 WWE Bucks) and I am fairly short of that target at the moment (2497 WWE Bucks short) but I am in at the beginning, as the site I found the site from only announced it 3 days ago. But it's now my default homepage on Firefox and Seamonkey, so it's going to get a lot of usage, so hopefully it won't take me too long to save up for the belt, and then hang it with pride in my room. And possibly take photos of me wearing it... I also bought something which I think is just awesome. Hussle Seasons 1-4 on DVD. Now, I am a huge fan of boxsets, and I am a huge fan of Hussle, so to get it for £30 delivered really suits me down to the ground. Steve Power from Wave 105 told me about it on his breakfast show, as his deal of the day. Most of the things he talks about don't really interest me, but this one really did. Especially considering I was thinking of buying it a few months ago when I saw it for sale at £40 not including delivery. I've also been learning guitar. Properly this time. You see, I have a very nice black electric guitar, a perfect replica of a Stratocaster, except that it has a few geek tweaks. Like a USB port. Seriously, this thing has a USB port at the bottom so if I so desire I can record my own music direct to the computer via the port. Not bad huh? PLus it only cost me £80 delivered. I bought it about a year ago and I've played it probably a couple of dozen times and always got frustrated by it. But now I am learning how to play properly. Right from the beginning, and I am learning so much about the instrument. I have a £7.50 per month subscription set up with GuitarTricks.com and I have to say their tutors are amazing. Just today I have learnt all about why the Stratocaster is a great shape, and what the little switch does on the body. Seriously, I had no idea. It's now set up for my prefered sound (grungey) and I even learnt what a fret was. Yes, ok, I know it's sad that a guy of 29 didn't know what a fret was, but hey, this is why I am learning from some of the best in the business. Apparently I should be able to pass the absolute beginner course in a few weeks, and then move onto playing some of the beginner songs. The only downside is that I have quite big fingers and trying to fit my fingers between the strings without hitting the other strings is proving problematic, but hey, I will persevere and get there. Not a lot else to tell you about today, apart from that fact that in the morning I might have to do war with the HR manager over needing her to change a day off for me. I have a funeral to attend and she put the wrong dates on the rota, despite the fact that I asked her for them two weeks ago, she cannot seem to ge them right. Seriously, this is the third time of asking. But I do have a backup plan, I have the original rota she wrote out with the correct dates on it. Well, I guess it's better than nothing. OK, now off to go make this little text file into a blog post, and then watch Big Brother. By the way, I hate Silvia. Rex is growing on me, if for no other reason than because he got Alex out, Mikey annoys the hell out of me, because of his voice, his mannerisms and because he is just so whiney and pathetic. I love Kat, and I like Rachel too, but one of my favourites is Dennis. Loving him because he is slowly evolving into the all out b*tch that he said he would be in his audition tape. Go Dennis, go be the next Brian Dowling! Permalink | 19.06.08: Festivals Now, those who know me really well (or were readers of the old blog) know that I am a music junkie. When I am blogging I listen to music (The Best Of Radiohead, at the moment) and I even back up the files which make up this blog are stored on an old iPod Shuffle which has long since stopped working as an iPod. I even had plans to visit many festivals in a camper van loaded with alcohol and a driver with a friend last year, which didn't happen purely because the festivals I wanted to attend were all sold out. Which is a shame because I love live music. So, recently I was referred to a site by a friend of mine who is also hugely into live music. The same friend who was going to be part of the camper van/alcohol/festivals scheme! The site is called Viagogo.com and they sell tickets to festivals, sporting events and theatre happenings. Even if they are sold out like some of the events I will be discussing in this post, they can still get you tickets. In fact, it was that one fact which made me prick up my ears. I mean, who doesn't love the concept of being able to go to something that is sold out? The first festival we looked at together was the Reading Festival Tickets. It's happening at Reading (obviously) between 22nd August and 24th August. It will feature Rage Against The Machine who I consider to be just awesome, Metallica who I am not so keen on, but our driver and my friend both love, The Killers who are one of my favourite bands of recent times, The Manic Street Preachers who I like, but some of their stuff has been getting a little wierder of late, and Bloc Party who I am really getting into, despite avoiding them for quite some time. Of course, having looked at the Reading Festival we also took a sneaky little look at the Leeds Festival Tickets. For those not in the know, The Reading And Leeds Festival has a fairly unique concept. Two sites with one list of artist. One day one set of artists play at one festival, the next day the artists who didn't play at one site play at the other site. It's a fantastic idea because it effectively lets twice as many people see the bands, and the venues are more or less central, one for North and one for South. It's been a concept that I have been a fan of ever since I heard of it, but I've only ever been able to go to Reading once because I had a friend who had a spare ticket and I pounced on them for it. Great fesival, and who knows, maybe due to Viagogo.com I will be able to go again! But the last festival we looked at was by far the festival that I really wanted to go and see. The only problem is that it's really close to the date of the festival, but then again that doesn't matter because with Viagogo I might still be able to get a ticket. The festival in question is The O2 Wireless Festival and The O2 Wireless Tickets. Now, if for no other reason, I love this festival because it embraces a fusion of technology and music, which is something I have been championing for over 10 years. The date I am interested in is 5th July because the set list is a far dancier affair than any of the other dates. Fatboy Slim, Underworld, Bootsy Collins (I really hope they do a live collaboration with Fatboy Slim), Robyn, who is just stunning, Does It Offend You Yeah who I believe have the best band name in the world (second to Haduken) and Dan Le Sac vs Scroobious Pip who made that stunning record last year "Thou Shalt Always Kill". It's almost as if they raided my hard disk where all my music is stored and created a festival day just for my taste in music. I play a lot of Fatboy Slim, Underworld and generally a lot of electronica. Especially for our "Office parties" which are hopefully going to be a regular Friday happening! But apart from the fact that I can buy tickets to sold out events, the thing that I love hugely about Viagogo is that every trasaction I make with them is guaranteed to be 100% safe and secure. Pretty good considering that I am one of these people that despite 15 years experience of using the Internet is still worried that transactions are safe and that someone isn't stealing all my money from my bank account. However, it doesn't end there. Viagogo also offer a stunning service where you can track the status of your tickets online. Now, the only places I have dealt with that let you do that are huge companies like Amazon, Royal Mail and the occassional eBayer who send you e-mails. Other than that, despite my experience with online shopping (I do almost all my shopping online) you just don't find tracking as a standard feature. The other great thing is that they have real people on the end of the phone who deal with customer service enquiries. Or if you don't like talking to people, you can e-mail them. Either way it's all good. There are people you can contact if you're worried about your transaction. Or just curious. So, I'd love to blog some more about the tickets for the festival crawl we're planning, but right now I need to go find prices for these tickets on this awesome site, and then go find out how much camper vans cost these days... Permalink 19.06.08: A New Start So, this is a new beginning for my blog. The thing is that I have been made offers on this blog that to be fair, are far too good to turn down, and being a businessman at my core, I simply couldn't turn them down. You may be wondering what kind of blog this is going to be, as those who followed the old blog know that this used to be somewhat of an expose on my workplace and the people therein. Well, I'm not going back there. Instead this blog will detail all kinds of things that go in my personal life and my other life as a blogger who is trying to gain a little exposure for himself on a couple of different blogs. One recurring theme will be that I am an avid Linux user, and I currently use three laptops (A web design laptop, an eee PC which is for taking to LUG meetings and generally out and about, and lastly my mother's laptop which is perfect for Skype). More than that though, I am currently in the process of remastering an existing Linux distribution to create my own hybrid of my thoughts on where technology should be going and where the Linux platform should be headed. It's not going to be conventional, it is going to be controversial, and I am going to be blogging all about it here frequently! Permalink |
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