Back in England!

Yeah, so Amsterdam was the bomb! 3 days of being damn near a vegetable but the relaxation was class and well needed! Only thing is, the way I feel now, a long weekend is not what was needed, more like a week! Going from coffee shops, outstanding food and traffic lights that show a countdown until the green light kicks in (I was like a cave man seeing fire for the 1st time) to back home in England and working (but thankfully not living) in Bradford, feels like a kick to the knackers. Not taking anything away from England cos if you go to the right places its a great place to be but being as I am a fan of the city delights (and I'm not talking about chics for sale), coupled with the fact that I just need a 'real break' right now, I think I would have been better off opting for the full week.

Anyways, I actually went to the Van Gogh museum this time round (wasn't actually my idea) but being as it was recommended by others as an apparent "life changing experience" I decided to go. Now I'm not totally lacking in culture and while I'll admit that it was kinda cool seeing the real life pic of the sunflower (my mom had a print when I was a kid), life changing experience? I don't f**king think so! Not putting it down (but I'm about to) and maybe the build up was way too much but either way, if you have not been and get dragged along, make a stop at a coffee shop before you go (trust me on this, its the equivelant of biting down on wood as someone chops your leg off. Barely makes a difference but it feels like it helps).

Anyways, off to wallow in self pity, farewell Holland, I will see you soon! *sniff* *sniff*

UFC 78 (part 2)

OK, so my prediction did not end up as expected, went to a judges decision and who wins it? Evans! Fucking gutted! Was a draw at best! Fucking judges! Shit shit shit shit!!

UFC 78 (part 1)

Well just seen Houston Alexander get beat in the first frigging round! Fair play to Thiago Silva, but I was expecting more of a war! Ahh well. Next fight, Bisping vs Evans, this better be worth staying up for cos so far pretty much all of these fights have been boring as shit! What the bloody hell is going on?

Feeling Guilty

So this is just a very very quick post and as the headline says, I'm feeling a touch guilty. Currently coding the intranet for the company I work for and thought it would be an idea to code in a "bad word filter". I've currently come up with 89 "bad words" and it's suddenly occured to me..."how the hell do I know all of these!!"

I also have the sinking sensation that if I had the consultation of a 14 year old I could easily hit the century mark!!

I was thinking of posting the word list here in XML format or something for other developers but having another think...I don't think I will.

UFC 78 : Validation

So being from England myself and knowing our history with falling at the proverbial "last hurdle" when it comes to sport I must say that I've been a little sceptical when it comes to Michael Bisping. Nothing to do with his skill level or even his attitude, I'm just convinced that most British athletes are cursed when it comes to representing this country, from the England football team (or "soccer" as the Americans call it) to the rugby team and of course not forgetting our Olympic athletes that for the most part are never quite up to par when it comes to collecting medals on behalf of Great Britain. And while I'll admit that I have been doubting if Bisping will walk out with the win due to this plague that has afflicted so many British athletes before him (albeit in different sports) I must say I suddenly feel very confident that Mikes following fight will be for a shot at the title! Why the sudden turnaround? Well I had a catch up on the UFC blogs written by both Bisping and Evans in the run up to the event and I gotta say on the basis of that, my coin is on Mike to win. Mike's final post referring to the fact that Evans has been talking total bollocks made me laugh my ass off! And it's true too. Mike made an extremely good point with regards to Evans talking about his intentions to 'bring the pain' as it were, only thing is, he did this with Ortiz and came out with a draw (on a side note I think it was very disrespectful of him to talk that shit about Tito!). The fact that Mike has not fought any 'popular' names in the UFC means nothing. This guy is pound for pound the best fighter in the UK if not Europe. Evans saying that Mikes belief in himself is what has gotten him this far is a joke at best (I'm quite sure skill drops in at some point you prat!)

So, here is my prediction. I think Bisping will win it with a stoppage in the 3rd round!

Call it blind hope, British pride or whatever else you wanna call it but as good as both fighters are, I think Mike is just that much better and either way, someone will be coming out with a loss on this one. I really don't think that it will go to a judges decision therefore having no possibility for a draw and Bisping will be the one with his hand raised at the end of the fight. I just hope the boo's from the American fans don't get to Bisping (seems some of the guys over there ain't got too much love for the dude)

Egyptian artifacts, getting arseholed and the last word on my new telly

So one of my team got back from his holiday to Egypt and bless his cotton socks he remembered to bring me back something cheesy! It's my new thing, collecting cheesy stuff from different countries (no idea why!) so I now have stuff from Jamaica (cheers Dawn), Egypt (thanks John), China (thanks Ngai), New York (thanks Abi) and of course Holland. Gotta do the popular cities and countries before I get to the obscure ones.

Meanwhile, why is it that when you go out for a quick drink for like an hour it never works out that way? My boy Ste came up from London to visit me for the weekend and the plan was, a few drinks, come back and have a catch up. That was at 8. What time did we get back? Sometime past 3 in the friggin' morning! And I ended up falling asleep in my contact lenses which is always agony! Felt like my eyes were bleeding not to mention the massive hangover! Spent the entire day absolutely no good to man nor beast!

Ooh, I've discovered an artist by the name of Fink! The dude is freaking genius! (check out www.finkworld.co.uk) been listening to 'Blueberry pancakes' all morning! Not very often you find an album you can listen to all the way through but 'Distance and time' is definitely one of those albums! Also turns out he's playing in the Dam the weekend I'm there but its all sold out! Gutted! Talking of artists playing in the Dam, Jill Scott has a gig there the same weekend (again, sold out! Double gutted!) her latest album is alright, better than the 2nd but not as good as the 1st. She set the bar way too high with 'Who is Jill Scott?'

Finally, my new TV is the biz, if you get one make sure you got something high def to appreciate the goodness as even DVDs ain't quite up to par compared to the HD content. But very impressed indeed, and runs at 1080i no problem. Although now I'm gonna have to fork out coin on a high def DVD player! Great : last thing I need in the run up to Christmas is another gadget to fork out coin on (and yes, I am fully aware that the acquisition of these toys is a "choice" but the advertising gets me frothing at the mouth not to mention the fact that I'm WEAK!)

More gadgets! This time...HDTV (Part 4)

So my plans last night were, go home, eat and then start rearranging all my electronic kit in preperation for my new TV! That way, I wouldn't have to do anything apart from accept the delivery, plug it in and marvel until it was time to go to work! Did I do any of that? No! Spent most of the evening lounged infront of the TV with my Vaio on my lap coding the new company intranet (which looks freakin dope by the way!)

Anyways, after that email from eBuyer last night I figured no point in moving all my shit around if it don't arrive, just to have to move it all back again when I cancel my order due to the fact that they couldn't get the delivery time right. And what do you know, this morning at 7am on the nose it's the delivery man with my TV! Woo hoo! (nicely done eBuyer, you've acquired a punter for life) So I damn near put my back out moving this monstrosity that's been making my living room look ugly for the past 18 months and got the new set sorted out quick smart (I'm a geek remember! New toys must be played as soon as humanly possible)

It was a little sad really, I'm there making these sounds like a monk doing a ritual, place that bad boy on the TV deck and remove the protective covering..."haaaaaaaar!" this TV is sexy as shit! So I plug in my sky digibox to my new baby and wow! The picture looks shat to say the least! So now I gotta hook it up using something other than scart (I know I know, a school boy error!) and being as I can't find the hdmi cable that I'm sure came with my 360 I'm gonna have to score one of those too.

Anyways, so far the TV looks sexy and when I get a sexier picture coming out of it I'll be a great deal happier. No idea what cables I need to score that would suit all the different connections on all the different devices to get the best result but lucky for me, I work with some of the geekiest people imaginable (an up side to working in an IT department) so the mere mention of "what do you reckon" will no doubt get me a barrage of background information along with facts and figures that I don't need but more importantly, the info I do! So when I plug everything in using new cables I'll be able to finish off this 5 part review and you'll probably not hear from me for a few weeks while I pay hommage to my new gadget!
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

More gadgets! This time...HDTV (Part 3)

So...just got a message from eBuyer tellin me that my goods have been dispatched - "WooHoo" I thought, however I log onto the website (all singing and dancing btw) and they got this cool little thing that lets you track your order (which is currently in sheffield apparently). However, it also says "Your order will be delivered between 0900 and 2000" - DERRR, WRONG ANSER!! I paid an extra 20 notes so they could get the shit here before 7.30 am!! I'm presuming this is an oversite cos I don't wanna have to kick off and kick up a fuss!! (which I most certainly will)

We'll see...

More gadgets! This time...HDTV (Part 2)

Well - eBuyer have done their thing in tremendous fashion...my blackberry's been kicking off for the past hour with email notifications on all the different phases they've gone through and it's currently in the picking phase. I've done my order for between 6am and 7.30am tomorrow morning (Yes...I am prepared to wake up 90 minutes earlier for a new gadget!) so next step...see if...

• it gets here on time
• it's in good nic
• if the TV is any good

More on this later.

In other news...been getting text messages from my best mate (he arrived in Amsterdam this morning) - THE SWINE! (although he deserves it). So quite literally this time in 2 weeks I'll be on an Easy jet flight to Amsterdam - YAY!!!

More gadgets! This time...HDTV (Part 1)

So I've been meaning to score myself one of these babies for a while but figured I'd wait a while until the price had come down a reasonable amount. This time around 5 years ago I managed to get a pretty dope 32" CRT (that's the big box type television for the less tech aware of you out there) for £300. I figured when HDTV's come down to around the same price that'll be a fair price to pay. So a work colleague recommended eBuyer and I gotta say, I'm well impressed with their prices and I've scored me one of these bad boys. If you read the reviews, they're all superb and with the constant mentions of eBuyers alleged "amazing service" plotted around all of these comments I decided to just take the plunge and place the order. This of course was not without a little more research, mainly due to the fact that all this talk of 720p, 1080i etc confused the shit out of me. Anyways - thanks to the oh so wondrous tool that I refer to as the "t'internet", I've managed to enlighten myself as to the wondrous joys in all the differences and if you (like I once was) are someone who has not been enlightened, allow some of these links to show you the path.

Hi Def TV Explained on Wikipedia
Quite in depth, the graphics made me realise what the numbers meant (it's actually referring to screen resolution) and all in all - a great source if you wanna know pretty much everything there is to know.

HDTV resolution explained
Found this on CNET. If you want the quick overview - this is the best place for it. the following quote even helped in purchasing my TV and saved me about £200 in the process!

"...Today, however, the premium for 1080p is still pretty steep, and unless you're
getting a very large set, say 50 inches or more, we don't recommend basing a
buying decision on whether or not the television has 1080p native resolution."
- David Katzmaier

1080i vs. 1080p HDTV: should you care?
Not for a while apparently - a slightly older article but from the looks of it and the way things are going...this still holds quite a bit of water.

All in all, unless your intention is to pay a fat wedge now so you won't have to later...then go for 1080p - but if for the next couple of years you're content to have a TV that looks pretty dope compared to that giant box you stare at that takes up space in your living room - 720p should be alright for you.

Does this happen in any other country?

So I'll be on the bus after a tough day at work and generally all I wanna do is read an interesting book, listen to my ipod or just look out of the window at the world going by. Now here is the bit that makes me wanna kick a kitten! Someone (more often than not school kids) will get on the bus and start playing music. Now I ain't talkin' about like the old days when it was a personal stereo that was a little too loud, no no no, I'm referring to those little bastards with mp3 capability on their mobile phones who insist on playing the shit full blast. Oh and does it end there? Of course not, these phones have speakers (the mother fucker who had that idea needs a severe beating!) so you can hear whatever music it is that these mobile DJ's choose to play from 500 yards away! Now if you're a teenager and have ever done this and had someone tell you "Do me a favour and turn that shit off!!" with a look that would damn near kill you on the spot - allow me to enlighten you as to why this request is phrased in such a way. Like me, these people would have been in this scenario many times before and started off by asking quite politely "Excuse me, would you mind turning that down" only to be met with evil looks and/or attitude. If this happens enough times it gets to the point where you use a boulder to kill an ant and quite frankly, like me, these people have had enough!

And do said teenagers confine this music playing to the many modes of public transport available? The hell they do! They've now taken to the streets, bumbling around town centres all over the country wearing the obligatory pair of Rockport shoes, Reebok classics or Nike Air Max with their white socks and track suit bottoms, not to mention the giant ear rings and scousers face lift (a method of pulling the hair back in a bun so tight as to give the recipient a face lift). I try my utmost best not to profile people based on appearance but you know what? That's how society made me! And to think that these 13/14 year olds will be running the country one day! These people who think it's cool to have kids at the tender old age of 14 will be taking care of you when your kids put you in a home to be forgotten until those hourly visits at Christmas and if you're lucky, New Year. They're the parents of your grandchildren who will say things highly inappropriate like "why does grandad smell like the cellar?" These kids that for some reason think it cool to "hang out" in and around McDonald's will eventually make decisions that will directly impact your life in many political, social and economical arena's.

Can someone please tell me, give me some reasoning or assurance that it is not just me who worries about this, that these bumbling fools who are meant to be "the future" and have no awareness of the traumatising effect caused merely by the fact that they are not thoughtful enough to invest in a pair of headphones are not the best this great country has to offer! If so at the very least give me the peace of mind to say that this behaviour is not confined to the shores of England and that there are others out there that share my pain!

There are so many things like this that piss me off, from the chics in the call centre that do nothing but moan about their colleagues (I understand the irony in that statement) to the kids that think Happy Slapping is something to be proud of. And while I'd love to write about those things right now I can't. Why I hear you ask?? Because there are not that many hours in the day!

Mother Earth, She's your mom too!

So while rambling on last week about the state of our dear old planet that has been a haven for us for oh so many years, given us some excellent sites and hosted our short and parasitic little lives for us to pay her back by pretty much pimp slapping, desecrating and down right treating her like a 2 dollar whore I decided to not be one of those people that moans about things and does nothing myself to stop it. To take the initiative and help the old girl out! In doing so I stumbled upon The Big Green Switch. This is a cracking idea for a site which gives you hints and tips on how to slow down the inevitable destruction of this fine lady who we refer to as Planet Earth. Trust me when I say some of these things are so simple even a child could do it.

So instead of being the flat mate that always leaves the place in a mess expecting someone else to clean it up or 'That guy' who says to himself "I'm only one person - what difference can I make", visit the site and try a few of these things out. Remember - she's your mom too!

Farewell TV Links

Yup - "The man!" intervenes once again. TV Links has been shut down. While they were linking to copy written material...it's no worst than Google who both host and link to the same types of material (no offence to Google) - but of course...spineless as they are...they hit the little man and ignore the big man! Pathetic!

So yeah...no more Heroes catch ups for me - like the rest of the UK...I'll have to wait til next year until I am able to watch season 2 :( SHAT!

Mother Earth ain't happy!

OK - So I live in Yorkshire...as you can see from this post the date is November 2nd 2007 and I'm currently wearing a Hoody with a T-Shirt underneath and I am damn near burning to death!! I hate the cold with a passion as it is anyway and anyone who knows me knows that I prefer it HOT HOT HOT as opposed to cool/cold but even I...with a heightened sensitivity to the cold could have got away with wearing just a T-Shirt today.

I must say that this freak weather worries me and it's happening more and more all over the planet. This year in the UK we've had the wettest Summer on record in lord knows how long and right now its 15 Degrees C outside and the sun it out! My opinion?? Mother Earth is pissed...we've raped her, disrespected her and down right treated her like a 3 dollar call girl and she ain't happy about it. I think Ursula Rucker said it best in the 4 Hero song Loveless...

"But I'll continue to spin,
until my curious home sapien
offspring pay the price for their sins
against my tainted tears, my breathless breath and once-fertile skins
My sons are million-murderers.
They kill - I kill one million plus.
I never wanted to hurt my children but our creator makes me take
revenge.
It's the circle of life -or at least,it was.

But now it's the end.

No, no it's too late for repentance,
accept your death sentence.
I've given you all I can.
Such beauty and life
you'll never have again.

Now it's the end."

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Gordon Ramsey - I salute you!

I gotta say, Gordon Ramsey is most definitely one of my heroes. He'd kick the ever living f**k out of Simon Cowell in a fight in 3 seconds flat!! I was having kind of a down day today...got home...decided to watch some Hells Kitchen on You Tube and sat here laughing my ass off!! They've been playing Hells Kitchen USA on ITV2 quite a bit so I been watching it when I remember...shame I only caught the last few episodes though...cos he seems to go absolutely APE SHIT at the group while he's getting rid of the chaff.

Anyways - decided to dedicate a little blog entry to the big man and even add a little You Tube video for your viewing pleasure.

Here's to you Gordon!

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Snap Shots, Amsterdam and the dope fiend!

Added a little update called "Snap Shots". This is a cool little feature that shows the preview of any external sites before you actually navigate away from my lovely blog. If you have a site of your own, it's ridiculously easy to install and all you have to do is answer a few questions, they generate some javascript for you which you put in your site and DING - All good to go.

Meanwhile, the countdown continues! Exactly 3 weeks before I'm off to my home from home...Amsterdam. I can't wait as it's going to be a much needed break...3 days of chill chill chill in one of the most relaxed places on the planet (WOOHOO!!!)

On the subject of the Dam, I was doing a little bit of "research" and stumbled upon this awsome website called dope fiend! It's basically THC induced pod casts and this geezer brings on the Herbal Verbal on a weekly basis...makes an interesting listen if you're a smoker or not. He's on Episode 100 so I certainly got some catching up to do but I had a listen to 1 of the casts while I was coding away last night and it was a pleasure to listen to, information on great places to go...experiments...lock stock the entire lot. Definatley a site I would recommend (so much so that I've chucked it into my fav links!)

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