I wrote a huge eloquent post about religion and my beliefs as an Apathist. Then my PC crashed!

I was going to re-write it, but then realised that I don't care about explaining my beliefs. And that isn't a joke.

Easy life...

I found out today (while filling in my overtime/callout sheet for this month) that due to working this bank holiday (along with the week last month), my April pay packet will equal 1 months normal pay, plus 3 weeks worth of extra pay. None of which I need to put towards my debt plan, as it is not windfall.

So suggestions please of what I should do in May. It should involve fun, possibly travel and companionship. And do it soon, so I can book any holiday if I need to. Some of it will be put to my FrightFest fund (August Bank Holiday w/end), some to my Gran Canaria fund (September) but the rest is to be enjoyed and I'd rather do something with it that just fritter it away by getting continually pissed.

EDIT: Dont worry about suggestions of what to do - I'm off to Berlin for a couple of days with Jam. Awesome!

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[link]   Posted @ 14:30

Imagine if you will, opening a window and 2 things occurring

• you feel a chill
• something glitters in the distance

The chill is something that wakes you up. That little bit of horripilating muscle is enough to make you wake up, open your eyes fully and make you realise that you are alive.

Now that you are a little more aware, you see something glittering. Its currently out of reach but not out of sight. You have some idea about how it works but you are not exactly sure about the details. You know what it looks like but you also know it can change. You've seen it before but not the way it is at the moment. You are sure its not threatening. You don't know why but you know that it will make you happier!

A song thats doing it for me a the moment - its a remix of a Mamas & Papas/Mama Cass Elliot song - not many words but full of meaning.

"You can make you own kind of music, you can sing your own special song. You can make your own kind of music, even if nobody else sings along"

Make Your Own Kind of Music

xkcd posted an awesome panel today - Enjoy!

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[link]   Posted @ 10:43

So its been a few hectic weeks. The wedding was, quite frankly, awesome. I played 2 sets and one of them was ace - having c.100 people dancing to your choice of cheese is quite amazing - especially when you get a few doing synchronised dance moves as well.

Caught up with Adie and Lynn and generally had a brilliant time. Got to bed at around 3am but was up at 8 for breakfast, had the van packed and was picking the kids up at 10am.

Then on Monday, I got a Zoosk flirt (a Facebook application). The message? i know u - didn't u used to be a jw? and whammo I am now friends with 2 people I knew as a kid (a brother and sister combo). I wont say who she is as she likes her internet anonymity, so I shall call her Jam and her brother Spoon. Spent Good Friday afternoon with Jam (went to Uphill for a walk, sat around chatting about the old days) then Spoon turned up... so we drank more and eventually went into town for the night before staggering back to Jams at some silly hour this morning.

Now let me tell you about Jam. We knew each other back in the day (our respective parents were good friends) and we had been to each others houses, etc but weren't ever friends. I left the religion, she got dissed... And thats where you think it would end. But no.

We started chatting on MSN, told each other about our shit (she has had shit that makes my shit pale into insignificance) and Friday we were chatting again and we decided to go for a walk. Bear in mind, this is someone I havent seen (apart from wandering around Asda sometimes but not being able to put a name to the face) for about 16 years or so and was never really a friend with. And we have only been in touch for 5 days...

And she is ace. Pretty, sharp as a sharp pointy thing, comfortable with herself, supremely confident and quite amazing.

So there I am, sat in Jams lounge feeling as if I am in the presence of someone I have known for years as I am so relaxed and every now and again checking to make sure I'm awake and this isnt some sort of weird dream (which would be odd as I never remember my dreams, so why would it bother me?)! And when we are out (unfortunately in Senoritas), she does some amazing things with random strangers, including getting 2 people who would never have spoken to each other together. Its like being out with David Blaine (but a smaller, sexy, white female version) - watching this little whirlwind affecting people and being caught up with it. Watching from the outside but being on the inside at the same time. Incredible.

I'm slightly annoyed that I havent known her for the past 16 years. However, had we, then the dynamic would be different as we arent who we are now, who we were then, so I'm not hung up about that. They say the best things come in small packages (there is a joke in there, desperately trying to get out) and I think I may have met one of the best small packages ever. Anyone that can make me laugh for nearly 23 hours straight and actually make me feel better about myself is positively welcomed into my life. Lets hope its not another 16 years before we do this again :)

She also took some photos of me...

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[link]   Posted @ 16:21

So far I have cheated only twice - once yesterday when I had a snack size Twirl and today when I had 3 Oat biscuits. Not bad really, considering what I normally eat like. Doing the below seems to be working already - my normally tight waisted trousers are already feeling a little looser.

Breakfast
Cornflakes in warm skimmed milk

Lunch
Chicken & bacon in a granary bap
2x cups of home made soup (from the canteen)

Dinner
Cornflakes in warm skimmed milk

Obviously it works by keeping my calorie intake very very low but at least I'm not doing my usual "not eating for 2 days and then stuffing a 12" pizza down my face on the third day". Its also got me cutting out a chocolate bar during the day and I've cut down from 2 sugars to 1. Every little helps (as they say!)

I also haven't been drinking, but that will stop tomorrow evening of course. Saturday sees me at Ians for a huge meal and Sunday I have the kids and they will be helping me make my soup for the week. Which reminds me that I need to find my flask...

I collected the CD decks yesterday thanks to Fluff taking me to the depot and then home with them, so I setup part of rig yesterday evening (decks, mixer, laptop and all the wires) and did some testing. The drives are quite picky - they had issues with a couple of disks, which upon closer inspection needed a good clean, so its not a bad thing, I just need to keep an eye on my CDs from now on.

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[link]   Posted @ 16:09

So I'm DJ'ing again on Friday, so I need to put yet another set list together. Then I'm playing again on the 15th to 250+ people for the wedding reception...

Tomorrow I shall be picking up my new decks and rehearsing with them until next weekend. All the sound is sorted, sources are organised, DJs are set (Kate's brother Chris is doing a punk/indie set), lights and transport are arranged. All I need to do now is put a set list together for it. I feel some emails to various members of the wedding party coming on :)

Still need to get my bike sorted so I can start riding again - might do a bit this evening (pedals and saddle). I've also started a bit of a diet - this week is The Cornflake Diet - each day you have 2 meals consisting of cornflakes and another meal of something more substantial (a sandwich and some soup for me). Next week I'm gonna do a modified version of the Cabbage Soup Diet and give my expanding middle a right kick in the face.

The reason for this - I bought some new jeans on Saturday and they are slightly too tight. So a little loss here and there (combined with cycling again and kicking alcohol throughout the week) should see me sorted in 2 weeks. I might even do a bit of running for that extra push!

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[link]   Posted @ 15:02

Well last Saturday night was Brendans Stag Night. Pt2. I ended up leaving DK for a fag and not being let back in! Then Brendan cut his head open in Rileys! I got home at 5ish. Bren has the best stag do's EVAR!

In other news, I have my house cleaner back once her bike has been fixed. Gotta remember that I'm not allowed to sleep with her again and then it shall be fine :)

I just bought myself some new CD decks to replace my CDMIX1 unit (which I will now sell on ebay). Got myself a:

Numark MP300

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[link]   Posted @ 13:31

I'm ill. Have a sore throat, bad cough, runny nose and a headache. I'm coughing up luminous phlegm - which is both interesting and worrisome at the same time.

Lets put this into perspective - I had to cancel my DJ gig last night, cos I felt so terrible. Add to that - I fell asleep around 9.30 last night and was woken up at 11.30 by Shell calling from Australia. Then slept until 8.30 this morning. Thats how ill I am. And I'm not happy :(

Anyhoo, picked the kids up this morning and also collected some parcels - my inner tubes, seat and pedals have turned up. Along with some DS games I bought from America for Rhiannon (2 games for about �20 delivered). Also had notification that my T-shirts (mentioned below) have been despatched from the US and should arrive in about 2 weeks.

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[link]   Posted @ 10:45

Today is my nephews 13th birthday - Happy Birthday Jofish :)

13 years! I was there when he was born (in the hospital, not the room). I walked in a few minutes later, looked at my sister (who normally looks stunning) and said something along the lines of "Blimey - you look a mess!". As an encore, the next day I bought them a giant multi-layer cookie (it was like 12" across) which was incredibly sickly and packed with more calories that you could escape from. It was awesome. You can't buy them anymore :(

Anyway, I have now purchased everything I need for my bike and when it has all turned up, I shall be spending an evening in the kitchen rebuilding my bike. I even splashed out on some new inner tubes (as I have to fit one to Steves MTB before I give it back to him). I just need an oily cloth, some 3-in-1 oil and some spanners to get it all sorted. Then I shall unleash my modified beast upon the un-suspecting public - Mwuhahahaha!

I also ordered a couple of dodgy/rude T-shirts and they are on their the way from the US

Disclaimer: I don't do bum sex with men
and nor do I snort cocaine off a hookers ass

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[link]   Posted @ 13:14

So this weekend I am gonna get my Amiga A4kT out of the garage, get it all checked out and clean, securely wipe the hard disks and then advertise it on eBay. Considering that a Cyberstorm PPC card went a couple of weeks ago for �400 and there is currently a A4k with a Picasso IV going for nearly the same, what would I expect to get for:

• A4kT
• 16mb onboard RAM
• CyberStormPPC PowerPC 604e@200MHz, 68060@50MHz, w/ 128mb RAM
• Picasso IV
• X-Surf II
• DSC MultiFace III
• 1Gb SCSI
• 2Gb SCSI
• Pioneer SCSI CDROM

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[link]   Posted @ 14:12

So last night I attended the Charity Pub Quiz at The Alexandra, raising money for Hungarian Orphans. There was a massive turnout and �300 was raised by beer swilling quizzers.

I was in a team with Steve, Brian and KJ and astoundingly , we won with a score of 41.5/50. We did learn that we know very little about Disney and the film characters but we knew virtually everything else between us.

We won a bottle of Champagne (put into the raffle as none of us likes it), a box of All Gold and a �25 M&S voucher! Steve took the chocolates home and the voucher went to KJ for his birthday next week.

In other news, I have finally worked out how to unzip all the files in a directory under Linux. I've written various little cmd line scripts to do it over the years and then today found that using the command "unzip \*.zip" (escaping the *) makes it process all the zip files in that directory. FFS! How come I didn't know that? Bloody computers...

My worry from yesterday was when my US TV shows would start airing again. Today Digg came to my rescue when someone posted this article - YAY!

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[link]   Posted @ 09:51