Just been reading back over the past couple of weeks and I find that I have been remiss.

There are no pictures from the Whole Lotta Led concert. There are pictures from the Lloyds TSB Pub Crawl, but I haven't resized and uploaded them yet. Fear not, they will appear though.

I was off work on Wednesday due to sickness and yesterday, time was spent with the CAFCASS officer. The officer saw Bimbo the day before and met with me and later with Marcus and Jonete. It went well, and I am hopeful that things will progress in a good way. The subject matter was quite extensive, even covering such things as my parents and even this blog. The officer was not au-fait with blogging, its intent or the extent of it. For more information on blogging, read here, here, here and here. I think that sums it all up pretty well :)

Tomorrow night we hope to go and see Mendip Road, the band we were meant to see a few weeks ago but didn't - you know, the one where I said Shell had a thing for the singer :)

Plus, as its Shell's weekend off, we shall be visiting the ducks again. Its becoming a really regular thing and I find it terribly relaxing. Although, I wouldn't say that I had made friends with any of them yet - apart from maybe the baby swans who now come over every time we are there.

A couple of links for today:
Play catch?
Ask Jesus - this is pretty hilarious

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[link]   Posted @ 12:10

Thursday night gig by Whole Lotta Led was truly outstanding. They even played Kashmir (my favourite track) near the end, so I was ecstatic. Their lead guitarist (Nick Ferris) is something else - he is a truly, truly gifted man and really seemed to be enjoying himself. Su (it was her birthday present from Shell) had a great time - as did we all. Especially refinding my joy of a couple of bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale in the dingy surrounding of the Bierkeller :)

Friday was spent at work with an engineer from Cable & Wireless, setting up a new proxy appliance for here at work. Not everything went well, but we persevered and managed to get everything working (although not all upgraded like we wanted). More work for this week then...

Saturday, Shell went to work for the day but due to problems with her staff, she managed to finish at 2pm and come home. Which meant we were able to attend the BBQ at my mate Andy's house in Bristol. We arrived around 3.45pm and Shell started tucking into her Archers and Diet Lemonade. (Shell is pre-diabetic, meaning she has to avoid sugar, fructose and the like, as they make her go to sleep so her body can deal with it. This has made drinking - her favourite used to be Smirnoff Black Ice - nigh on impossible, as 3 drinks later she is falling asleep on her stool. So we now take Diet Lemonade with us so she can still get tipsy without falling asleep). Andy had a decent collection of various Rums to drink, including Sailor Jerry - which is dark rum, premixed with vanilla, spices and lime. It is gorgeous. Unfortunately, I was driving so had to abstain. Everyone else didnt though and by the we left (7.30ish) is was almost all gone. Thanks to Andy (and his hard working wife Marilyn who did most of the prep and cooking) for a great afternoon.

Sunday morning and Shell was back at work, leaving me to encode some films onto DVD and muck about generally. For some reason, I tried to go and collect Shell from work an 1hr early. I got 2/3rds of the way there when I noticed the time in the car, checked my watch and phone before returning home...

And last night I cooked. Even cooked Roast Potatoes. And even if I say so myself, my god they were good. I think I shall do them more often - although they do take friggin' ages compared to just boiling them or cooking wedges, etc. And before anyone suggests it, I refuse to buy Aunt Bessies ones 'cos I think they are awful.

I'm currently trying to find a way to make a huge sum of money - and I am thinking about starting up a T-shirt company. So if you have any ideas for some good (and rude) slogans to go onto T-shirts, let me know.

Some links and bits of interest...

If you have a USB key - go and visit TinyApps and put loads of useful bits of small software on there. Dead handy

Having problems with junkmail? Do this!

I have 2 comics I need to add to the sidebar that I have been reading (well - getting up up date on anyway). They are Penny Arcade - which is aimed at gamers and Bob And George - which is erm, no idea :)

And check out Magical Trevor. A great little ditty that I cant seem to get out of my head!

There is a new animation out from Angry Alien. Check out Alien!

If you have ever applied for a job and received a rejection letter, how about this. Next time I'm in need of a new job and get knocked back, I'm sending these...

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[link]   Posted @ 09:49

Made a little change to the sidebar as my mate Jon has decided to start blogging for real.

Tonight, Shell, her mum, her mums friend and I are off to see Whole Lotta Led in Bristol. Should be good. A show report and maybe pictures will be posted over the weekend.

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[link]   Posted @ 09:59

Had an excellent weekend. I got home on Friday evening (after major problems with the trains) and found that Shell was home already as she had been sent home from work. She was all dressed for me and had cooked... I walked in, all hot and bothered but damn pleased to see her.

Over the weekend we saw a band in the Back Bar, of which we were expecting great things, but they weren't that ace. I think doing a couple of Abba covers on the trot finished us off, and we went home.

We also attended a house warming party - where both of us only knew 3 people - each other and the couple having the party. We had a great laugh though and had a pretty good evening. As I am the best man for when they this couple get married next year, I was questioned about my plans for the stag night/weekend. Needless to say, some serious plans must now be made :)

Yesterday evening, I recieved a call from Shells mum asking if I could go and visit Shells grandad and try and sort out his computer problems he had been having since last week (he rand me during the week last week and I tried to sort out a couple of issues). So we got there for about 6.30 and didnt get home until 10.30. For some bizarre reason, it would appear that the "Theme" service under XP was hogging the system and preventing anything from running, crashing explorer.exe and generally wreaking havoc on his main PC. We got the machine back to a state where he could boot up and get access to his file - so it means his business wont go bust today. We also took a backup onto CD of his data - I really cant recommend this enough. I of course, last took a backup *cough*...

Shell is working late again tonight, so when I get back I have a few chores - washing up, laundry duty and cleaning out the mice. Haven't done the mice by myself before, so that could be interesting. Mind you, they are pretty good. Someone in the house (not me) accidentally left the cage door open for about 20hours and when I found it - they were still merrily in their cage. They had either wandered out and gone back in or just hadnt ventured out. Thank god the cats dont come into the house properly :o

You're Sally, the rag doll! Did you know that you
can see the future? Oh yes, it's true,
Sometimes you pick up a flower and it turns
into a christmas tree and burns away. Try it
sometime! You long for someone who doesn't
notice you... and you are very kind, and a
talented seamstress. Keep your chin up, your
love interest will come around soon enough!


Which Nightmare Before Christmas character are you? *Pictures!*
brought to you by Quizilla

Erm. I think I must have made some bad choices in that test :)

You're a Garbage Pail Kid!! You're dirty, foul,
disgusting, and wrong. But you're still funny
as hell.


What childhood toy from the 80s are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

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[link]   Posted @ 14:40

Origami is cool but the 2 links below are much better:

Make your own paper arcade machines

I've made the Defender one so far, and will do the other ones next week - when work is slack of course :)

Make your own motorbikes. Now thats impressive, and maybe a bit too complex for me...

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[link]   Posted @ 11:20

Godammit! That damned Pork Tornado has sold out. Well not really, but he is being paid to blog.

Paid? Crikey... That makes me think that maybe I should be adding Google Adwords/Adsense to this here site. Definately should be recommending it to some mates who get huge number of hits...

Last night, Shell and I babysat for a while then went home to eat an Asda Chocolate Chip Muffin Chaos and play cards. We were going to play pool (at least, I was going to teach Shell how to play properly and seeing her bending over a table with her cute little ass would have been fantastic...) but a major headache prevented that. It'll be American 9ball we will be playing. UK pool is waaay too boring - the table, the balls, the pockets, etc are too big - yet 9ball has some stunningly clever shots and rules. I love it.

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[link]   Posted @ 09:54

Do you ever get that complete feeling of ennui, whereby absolutely nothing gets you motivated?

I am currently going through this, along with Shell. She is working and sleeping and thats about it (along with some eating, etc). We have both got into a rut of working, etc and are hardly ever going out anymore. It sucks for both of us! Added to this are my issues with the kids, the IR debt situation and I'm just completely disillusioned with most things. Trying to talk about it is very difficult, but I often find writing my feelings down is both theraputic and helps me get everything sorted out logically.

Work is "kinda" interesting at the moment and I am doing things that are not normally in my job role. But I seem to have lost interest in the whole environment. I'm tempted to just jack it all in and go and be a green-grocer or something. Well, maybe something less stressful. Recommendations?

My job is secure (guaranteed job for 2 years and 3 yrs income) but I seem to have lost interest in the whole "computing" scene. I'm spending time getting to grips with DVD Authoring, etc and that seems pretty fun - but limited. I don't know what I want to do - where to go with my career, etc.

Home life with Shell is still good - but with her working and being so tired and stressed (not to mention me), we seem to be missing out on "us" time. We haven't seen any live music for while (which is something we both love), although I do have tickets for something special later this month.

I've pretty much got a small break sorted out for us (yay for Expedia) and I think that should be enough to recharge and enjoy ourselves. We also have this weekend off and I'm tempted to turn my phone off, turn the computers off and dedicate myself to me and mine for a couple of days. Pick Shell up from work on Friday and have a rip-roaring weekend doing the stuff that we want to do (which will of course include visiting the ducks at Backwell Nature Reserve).

But we will probably end up too tired and spend most of the weekend trying to wind down before it all starts again on Monday...

I think I might cook a nice meal for Shell over the weekend - flowers, candles, a little pressie (all wrapped up). That will chill me out - and it will certainly brighten up her current fug that she's in.

Still, it's only Wednesday, so maybe the rest of the week will improve and everything will come up smelling of roses.

I saw my sister and nephew yesterday morning when I dropped round a DVD for him. I gotta spend more time with them, but life is so hectic. My BIL and I chatted about kit cars for a while and he pointed me to Marlin Cars. He is running the club now (or something) and the coolest thing they do is the 5exi. Oh for some money...

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[link]   Posted @ 13:33

Its Sunday morning and I am the man. No reason in particular, I just am the man :)

Thursday night was the Lloyds TSB Pub Crawl, where 1500 people played a treasure-hunt-ish game around pubs in Bristol City Centre before ending up at the final venue, all in fancy dress. I'll get the picture of our team up soon. We did pretty well, it has to be said and we will find out where we came in the ranking next week. Last year, around �20000 was raised for charity and this year was larger again. The lengths people will go to to raise money for charity when there is fun and alcohol involved...

Friday evening, Shell and I had some pasta for dinner and then sat in bed. Next thing we know - its Saturday morning and we have to get up. We had forgotten the other courses to our dinner and have just zonked out! By 8pm!

We must be getting old :)

Yesterday I cleaned the kitchen, did some vacuuming, and bought Shell some flowers. She is working a hell of a lot of hours at the moment and I miss her being around. When she is around, she is tired and/or stressed - it's slowly taking its toll.

To that end - I am currently looking at maybe a few days away in Paris (midweek). I can heartily recommend Expedia for this, as they offer extra bits - like cruises, meal tickets, etc, etc to add on to your break. Damn good ideas :) Don't know when it will be though - we have quite a lot on til the end of August - court stuff, moving house, etc, so I think September (after some of it is over) will be best. If you know of any other sites that do what Expedia do, let me know so I can compare prices.

Oh yeah, and if anyone knows of somewhere to get cheap travel insurance (yearly) for couples, let me know. I refuse to pay the prices the travel companies charge for the days of the holiday, when I can get yearly for around twice the price!

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[link]   Posted @ 11:42

Erm. How exactly does this help the environment? What would make them think it could help? I mean, its not exactly recycling or anything is it? I'm not against people doing this sort of thing (provided I can walk away, as I'm not into watching others "perform"), but their reasoning seems flawed...

You are Brad Majors. Good for you, you wuss.


Which Rocky Horror character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I'm getting quite excited about a few upcoming films (some of which might be years away). Alone In The Dark and BloodRayne could be good. Unfortunately, they are both from Uwe Boll - who made last years House Of The Dead. While I loved the film - I think I loved it for the wrong reasons. I laughed throughout at the bad dialogue, stupid plot holes, dire acting, etc but enjoyed it. But I dont think they were aiming it as a comedy though... Then there is Blade Trinity. Oh man! This will be good.

Check out Upcoming Horror Movies for more films...

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[link]   Posted @ 14:34

Getting bad isn't it? Almost another week without an update. I'll slap myself - or better yet, get Shell to do it...

So I was off work last week, and on Friday night I ventured out and went to one of Shells work friends birthday bash at Purn Holiday Park. Entertainment for the night was provided by The Dreamers. Suprise of the night was seeing my Aunty Ann in the crowd, and much enjoyment was had by all as I drank myself relaxed (partly due to the cheap drinks).

That was followed by a relaxing weekend and finally work on Monday. It went well, but I was off work again yesterday due to my shoulder again. I'm sat here typing this in and I can feel everything tightening up and I know when I move it'll be agony again :(

Saw Dave (Shell's step-dad) last night, as he had an operation on Monday and has another today on his remaining knee. He was in good spirits though, but clearly in pain. He's going through several operations to get his knee sorted out before he gets a knee replacement later this year. Cripes!

Also - hello to my sister, who should hopefully start reading this website today. I promise I will try to keep in touch more - if not, we'll do it here :)

There was a comment left on my last entry by an old work colleague - Pete. Frankly, dude - you brought tears to my eyes. Thanks for your kind word, and I'm not embarrassed by a gay man telling me he loves me. Hell - I have straight men telling me they love me! I know you've met up with WendyMoose this week and I would love to see you again to. Stay in touch!

In extra news - I'm gonna be a best man again next year! Woohoo! I'd better start on the speech now...

And extra news - Men In Hats is back.

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[link]   Posted @ 11:50