Nintendo listens to Palace Fan

Well maybe not BUT they are replacing all straps now and all future ones will have a better strap.

Story on BBC here.

Wii

I have been lucky enough to have played on one of the new Nintendo Wii consoles, acually played it before it hit the shops last week.

Nice bit of kit:



I work for a large electrical company and we have one in our head office foyer to play with. It's in a sealed display with it's own TV so I have not had a chance to play it on a large screen BUT been very impressed with it. It's loaded with the sports pack and does actually make you sweat ! You run, swing, jump and allsorts. Its a really fun console although when I start thinking about it in the confines of our lounge I think it will be lethal.

I have been reading this website http://wiihaveaproblem.com and some the injuries to people let alone the TV's are quite a worry. Most seem to be from bowling so it makes me wonder that because the americans are so used to playing bowling they are releasing the controller out of their hands. I have not played that game yet.

IF I could get my hands on one it would be a hard choice of getting one or not (Not for me of course but for Max :-0) because I think I would wait for it to be established and for these little problems like the strap to be sorted. I would also be tempted to get an older TV, rather then our nice new LCD, to play it on!!

Check out this website http://wiihaveaproblem.com for the pictures and stories behind the picture.

All the best,

That was quick

Well just over a year ago I became a dad and blimey that was a fast year.

I have loved every minute of it and recommend it to all as it is the best feeling in the world and better then seeing Palace win something, not that we win too much :-), nothing will ever beat that feeling inside you get when you come home after a long shitty day and you get the cutest smile and a shout of dad dad.

It has been a year of growing up and change as in the last year Faye and I have become parents, moved home, got cars and started to look at what schools are best !

It has been a great year and the link below will take you to a rather large (CD quality 16-17 meg) movie that I have put together. I did use lower quality (web streaming 5meg) but it just never looked good because of the changes.

I hope you enjoy it........here

Free Sky TV....

All you need is a Ford Focus radio OR so some idiots seem to think.

This story has come from a Welsh paper.

I love this statement from Mr Rob Bull:

One victim Bob Bull, of Burwell Close, Pontprennau, Cardiff, woke to find the radio had been ripped out of his Ford Focus mobility car on Sunday morning.


Mr Bull, 60, who will now have to pay £75 excess on his insurance and will lose a £200 no-claims bonus, said: 'We were about to go Christmas shopping on Sunday morning when my wife Lynn came upstairs in a terrible state saying the radio had been stolen. I feel sick and fed up.


'Our house was burgled in June, the year before our donkey was stolen, and now this.

A Donkey !!

Story can be seen here

Threshers Wine Shop 40% Discount

There is a voucher doing the rounds that starting tomorrow and running through to 10th December will allow you 40% off wine and champagne.

At present they are knocking off around 33% using the 3 for the price of 2 offer. So all they are doing is giving an extra 7% BUT the free marketing they are getting from the offer is mind blowing. What a marketing genius whoever thought of the idea !!!

I have a copy of the voucher so if you want it drop me a line OR just do a google as it is out there. I can not host it because I can not FTP it to some space from work.

Personally I find Threshers prices slightly higher to accommodate the discounts it gives and usually use Majestic (If I'm bulk buying, as I am tonight :-)) or supermarkets.

Fayes labor started 1 year ago :-0

Been there

Was using my fave browsing application of the moment, Stumble, when I came across a site with the following fact: Cant tell you the site as it will help me blog when needed :-)

The longest place-name still in use is
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwenuakitanatahu, a New Zealand hill.

Been there:



Only just got SkyHD through a staff deal and they bring this deal out :-0

A TomTom 710 for £239.00 retails at £349.99. The question I therefore have to ask is.... Is it worth it? I will have to do some serious wingeing (thats what Faye calls my adult discussion on the benefits of it) to Faye and I'm still not hopeful of getting it.

Also need to find the money for my new season ticket at the Palace.
Oh yeah and something called Xmas is next month.

Where's Wally... I mean me !

Been in that cant be arsed to blog frame of mind for a while now. It's not that I have not had anything to blog about because since my last blog the following has happened:

Went to a wedding in Denmark.
Went for a midnight swim in the sea at Denmark.
Got asked to "swing" by a couple in Denmark.
Never went swinging with a couple in Denmark.
Missed a wedding in Oxford.
Went to a wedding in Hull.
Sold and bought a car.
Missed a couple of footy matches.
Been to a couple of footy matches.
Been drunk quite a few times.
Remained sober at a work meal with free drink.
Got Sky HD (with plus).
Been to Wales.
Been to Preston.
Finally had a night out with Faye in Berko.
Went to a couple of baby first birthdays.
Missed a baby first party, due to going to footy.
My sister and also her husband both have had birthdays.
My dad has moved house.
My mums husband has been in hospital (now out).

I guess though that pictures paint a thousand words so here is ALL the photos taken on our camera since my last blog. Now some are rubbish in fact most are and should be deleted and there is even some ebay photos in there. There is also a couple of photo booth ones.

I impoted them into iMovie on the mac with the settings: reverse ken burns and the time set as 0.03. It makes you go a little dizzy !!!!
Click here for video

James

Sky HD

Due to a rather good offer through my work I have today ordered Sky HD.

What was the deal, I got the box for £99, free install and also get 12 months free subscription to the HD package.

We have to wait until the 1st November for an install but I can not wait. Really looking forward to getting the most out of the TV. Looking forward to a better picture from SD (Standard Definition) as well.

Now I have not ordered the movies and sports and have just gone for very basic 2 mix thing and have NOT gone for Sky+ for an extra tenner. Now if you was me would you get the plus feature?

The problem with Sky is that it all starts to add up !

Max Art

Did this earlier but not sure if I did it before Joanna's Diary It's a pic of Max eating his jelly


I think it is really cool.

Are you Dave Gorman?

I found this blog post that I never posted and was sat in draft, I did email Dave Gorman if he minded me me using his photo / link to his page but he never got back........... originally created in Oct 06

Earlier on I was looking at my flickr page and thought I would look at Flickrblog and save the site etc. etc. anyway I scroll down and see the following post:

I recently visited the car wash tag and discovered that there is a car wash joint in Seattle Washington whose neon sign is so photogenic that a cluster has developed around it: see tags/carwash/clusters/elephant-seattle-neon/. Link here

Now show me a man that does not want to see a neon car wash sign with elephant in it ! So I clicked and looked... scrolled down and saw a photo that caught my eye on the first page.
Here it is...
URL Here



More interesting though was once I clicked on it I noticed the name of the photographer was Dave Gorman, thats funny I thought I wonder if Dave Gorman the TV guy knows there is a Dave Gorman on Flickr. Actually he looks a bit like him, well stone me it is him !

We saw Dave while we was in Melbourne during our year out in 2004 at the Comedy festival doing his googlewhack tour and a very funny guy he is too. I have also read his book Are you Dave Gorman? that he wrote with a guy called Danny Wallace and I have recently finished reading Danny's book Yes Man.

Well it freaked me out a bit anyway :-)

Anyway Dave Gorman's shots are very good and can be viewed HERE

Anyone else "know" any celebs on Flickr?

Haircut

OK I need another cut and I feel as though I should let a pro cut it rather then me again. For the last week at work I wanted to get it cut at lunchtime but have not had time. Anyway it got me thinking about this:


Why on earth do they have these poles so another google got me the answers that I knew I must have before I venture to the barbers;
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
barber pole is associated with the service of bloodletting. During medieval times, barbers also performed surgery on customers. The original pole had a brass basin at the top (representing the vessel in which leeches were kept) and bottom (representing the basin which received the blood). The pole itself represents the staff which the patient held onto during the procedure.

The red and white stripes symbolize the bandages used during the procedure: red for the blood-stained and white for the clean bandages. Originally, these bandages were hung out on the pole to dry after washing. As the bandages blew in the wind, they would twist together to form the spiral pattern similar to the stripes in the modern day barber pole. The barber pole became emblematic of the barber/surgeon's profession. Later the cloths were replaced by a painted wooden pole of red and white stripes.

After the formation of the United Barber Surgeon's Company in England, a statute required the barber to use a blue and white pole and the surgeon to use a red pole. In France, surgeons used a red pole with a basin attached to identify their offices. Blue often appears on poles in the United States, possibly as an homage to its national colors. Another interpretation of these barber pole colors is that red represents arterial blood, blue is symbolic of venous blood, and white depicts the bandage.

MMMMmmmm maybe I will cut it myself..

PS Max is lots better and if you buy a thermometer I highly rate the ear one by Braun, saves loads of time and I wish our other one broke sooner so we could of got one sooner. Max broke the other one by moving his arm ! Strong boy I tell you.

SUBDERMATOGLYPHIC means

of or pertaining to the layer of skin beneath the fingertips' - Of course it is !!!

Why on earth would I know this or even "google" it is quite simple in a strange sort of way, We bought Max some foam letters that stick to the bath, 26 in total no letter the same. Yep now it's coming together, Subdermatoglyphic is the longest such word. I have also discovered that the term for such a word is called a isogram.

This seventeen-letter isogram is actually attested in a dermatologists' journal, but it was placed there at the suggestion of a word-buff, who asked the doctor to use it in print in order to claim it as the longest isogram.

Where would we be without the internet hey.

Max is actually quite poorly at the moment and has a high temperature, quite sure it is down to his teeth and the doctor has said not to worry and to just call if the fever does not go by tomorrow or goes above 40.

Try This

Saw this rather strange gif here while browsing using an extension of Firefox called StubmbleUpon. StumbleUpon is very good and you can get it here

School Boy humour

On the BBC sports pages - Murray V Henman in the tennis
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/5383914.stm

Scroll down to 08.20

School Boy humour

On the BBC sports pages - Murray V Henman in the tennis
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/5383914.stm

Scroll down to 08.20

Well we now have a dog called Jasper, he is 9 weeks old and is a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel. Faye picked him up last week when I off in Portugal on a stag doo.

Here he is:


Portugal was very good but don't think I am going to go on another weekend stag doo, a bit too long but at least I have a tan :-)

Max has started getting his first tooth now and is coping really well with it i.e. still sleeping through the night and not being wingey. He has started to pull himself up all the time now and quite often when we go in his bedroom he is standing up in his cot !

My mum came round the other day and we showed her a load of photos we sent over to snapfish to get printed and out of all the photos she wanted this one:



Yep a bog standard shot of big ben that I took when we took our niece out not one of her son or grandson !

Looking at for a new car as the 206 is just too small so have started to look at a MG ZT-T they look good, bit of speed (about the same as the 206 anyway) and a big boot the only thing worrying me is that there no dealers left as they are no longer in business. Other choices at the moment are A4 or 6 Avant, Volvo V70 or Saab Estate.

new template

Have a problem that you can not see page james1972.blogspot.com from certain computers / browsers.

going to try a new template, will try and work out what OS and browsers see what, ok when going to a RSS feed and you have the full page.

test blog

seems to be problems with my "home" page.

Testing

Always double check !

Today we received our new bedroom furniture consisting of a solid oak double bed and bedside cabinet for each side.

I took down the horrible metal framed bed that we have had for the last 4 years and chucked it in the garage ready to offer on a email list I have joined (freecyclers on yahoo groups) keeping the mattress though to use for the new bed frame because we have not had time to sort out, when I say sort out I mean bounce and lie on, a nice new mattress.

Putting it up was easy because the cabinets are assembled apart from putting the handles on correctly and the bed was easy enough but it was hot.

So after sweating buckets due to the heat we grab the mattress and chuck it on.... Oh dear, it does not fit after a few huffs, puffs, lots of tape measuring and a lot of nervous laughter we confirm to each other that somehow we have managed to think that we have had a double when we actually have a kingsize, or I should say HAD a kingsize. So as I type this I sit in our bedroom, that looks a lot bigger now with the futon mattress on our new double until we sort out a new mattress. A school boy error if we have ever made one, can not believe that we never measured or double checked (do you notice that I am using the royal WE) the bed sizes. We thought about getting a kingsize but thought it was not worth it because our "double" was big enough and we didnt want to spend a small fortune on new sheets etc. At least the duvet now covers all the crap from under the bed plus I guess the new mattress will be cheaper. Faye turned round at the end and goes "I wondered why the fitted sheets never fitted" MMMMmmmmmm, Why didnt we double check?

Back to work

Well tomorrow is my first day back in the office for a couple of weeks, seems strange because I would usually be coming back with a tan or at least some stories on how good or bad some country is BUT this time I go back and have nothing really to chat about.

Managed to get a few things done on the house but nothing that great, cleaned the garage out ready for the builder to smack a great big hole in it, moved a TV point. Also noticed that the TV cables to each room are quite poor quality so need to get CT100 cable and hopefully my picture will improve (at least thats the plan but want to test with a small amount of cable before buying lots). Sorted out a big hole in the floor where a load of woodlice were coming in to shelter, did our bedroom (well Faye did most of it) and ordered new furniture that comes end of the week and did a few other bits and bobs. Was hard really doing anything other then play with Max BUT hey thats what dads are meant to do.

Will have to take another week off now though to actually decorate the downstairs but going to wait until the door to the garage and new fireplace have been done.

My wireless has gone bang, Had an Apple Airport Express but it is dead now and after reading around on the web it seems as though it is very common for them to die. I am not sure that I will bother with another apple one. I loved the fact that I could stream my music downstairs to the amp from my iMac but I never really used it that much so need to work out the money and see if I am just better off buying a cheaper one for the laptop.

Oh and this cat that kept creeping and craping around our house is back. We thought we had finally solved the problem with Coffee granules but then we remembered that the owners had gone on holiday so the cat was probably in a cattery. Turns out it was so will see if the coffee granules work. We used some "proper" stuff and apart from costing lots never worked that well. My mum said about orange peel today so will give that a go as well. Any other suggestions?

It's all good

Well what can I say apart from I'm good and I'm not at work.

Got the new TV and the Toshiba 32WLT66 is bloody brilliant, Love it.

I have now changed the hair and have a short back and sides again rather then the long style that I used to have. It was time to change after seeing how old I looked !! I had a mate over from OZ who came round after the V festival Chelmsford and I looked so old from the last time we saw him while we traveled that I thought I had to sort out the mop, Mark looked better and he had not washed for 3 days !!!!.

I always used to worry, and used it as an excuse, that the Maxster would not reconise me but I had no need to worry about that. I even managed to cut my hair all on my own apart from Faye having to cut my bum fluff away from my neck, now am I going to get more hits because I said bum fluff, I hope not but I bet I do !!!

Hopefully it looks OK and means I saved a few quid towards the apple mac media centre :-)

I am meant to be doing lots of decorating BUT being with Max just shows how much Faye does each day because we have had no time to do anything !! I cant believe how little time we have had because of Max, It's mad with all his little classes that he does.

Today was cool and we went to a music class that he loved and apart from the baby that picked his nose all the time we had a great time and I wish I was there for all the lessons.

Here are some pictures:
First one is a great family shot of us all:


Here are 2 of the music class: Max and Jake try to esacpe


Think I was on the wrong side:

Bloggers come and go

Went for a walk the other day using the new baby rucksac we got and it is great, it makes moving around really easy



Have had a family round for the last few days and have had a great time showing people the new house and drinking a bit too much.

My Bro in law came round last week followed by my in laws and then my sister, her husband and my niece. everyone had their jobs :-) but I have to thank my father in law the most because he moved my electrical points around to make way for our new fireplace that should be coming at the end of September (on his Birthday !!!).

Here he is with Max on his day off



A blog I read was in the Sunday Express today :-0, Charlotte Howard is a great blog and can be seen Here but check out the article here

On a sad note though a blogger that I "started" with and was the first person to ever comment on this site looks as though he has had enough and stopped. I hope not as it was a good read. Wyndham

New family member

Well Faye went to see the puppy and has put a deposit down on him. We have waited for a while for the right one to come up and he is from a family rather then a breeder and is used to kids. He is also the right colour i.e. Black and Tan, seems to be a hard colour to get hold of although he looks like he has a touch of white on him.

We get him mid September, He is a King Charles Spaniel and this is a picture of him.

Baby and a puppy. Now lets see those page hits increase :-)



Also got a chilli plant today and it has lots of fruit on it. Sampled it today and it tasted very good.

Lets see yer puppies

My brothers dog gave birth yesterday and here is 2 pics.

The litter was 5 girls and 2 boys. All the staffies are doing well.

Wouldn't mind a Staffordshire Bull Terrier to be honest but we wont be getting one because we may have news tomorrow on if we are getting a puppy. I say we but it's more Fayes dog then mine although I am sure I will get some walking duties. Faye is seeing a King Charles Spaniel tomorrow.

Dont think I can change her mind.

Staff Pup

Staff Pups

Max is crawling, well almost.

I'm happy but also sad because I think we have just bought the TV at the wrong time i.e. as Max is about to crawl.... I hope it does not get messy !

Faye managed to get some footage of Max today while I was at work. Does not look too long before he will be off on all 4's

The file size is about 3.5 meg and I used iMovie to export it so best have quicktime installed. You can see it Here

All the best,

Top of the league

Eagles.... We are top of the league and I know it's only 2 games so I am going to be calm. We played pretty bad against Southend in the first half but had a great second half and deserved to win. I can not believe how well Kennedy got the crosses in and for once it was great to watch set pieces. The crowd was still tough though and I heard a few boos at half time. Makes me laugh to be honest. Give them a chance and get behind the team.

It was good and looking forward to a tough game against dirty Leeds on Sunday.

We have bought a new TV today and it comes a week Monday when I am off work. Will post some pics of it in the flesh but here is a starter for 10 thanks to Comet.co.uk


I am starting to count the days down. Toshiba 32" LCD MMMmmmmmm

All the best,

Eagles are flying and the bugs are a buzzing

Good weekend all round, 3 points for Crystal Palace V Ipswich and we had a street BBQ.

I never went to the footy buy my Dad said that we played well. First time I have missed the first game of the season for 14 years :-0 (not including 1 when I was traveling)

BBQ - What a great idea, after only 2 weeks of living in Berkhamsted we got an invite through to join the other 8 households in a street BBQ, We live in a kind of close off the main road (will post pics soon). All came bar 2 houses that couldnt make it and we have now settled in and feel like we have known everyone for ages now.

We all took our BBQ's out and got some tables and chairs and you cooked your food and drank lots. I got the daddy of BBQ's out again (Photo from last year on Flickr, never thought of taking some of the BBQ :-0) and had a few jibes about it being gas but then I was able to drink lots while they all waited and waited for the coals to get to a good temp :-)

Stumbled in the house at about 3am after becoming best mates with everyone, Have not felt too good all day and will be off to bed soon !!!

May of found a couple of babysitters !

The flys are doing my head in at the moment, there is loads of them and we have discovered that our main bin is only collected every 2 weeks because they take an organic wheelie bin the other week. How much organic waste can you produce. I wish they collected my main rubbish every week during the summer in this heat. Have bought some fly spray to "attack" the bins with and industrial strength freshener to spay in there.

New home now with ADSL

Welcome back to the real world, we have broadband and have unpacked most of the boxes. We moved in just over a week ago and while 1 neighbour was kind enough to have an open wireless connection he turns off his ADSL when not using it so we only had sporadic internet.

Gone for Pipex again and hope to get about 6.5 meg :-0 it's at 2meg at the moment and I have to try and remember to turn the router off and on every now and then so it re-syncs or something. Very pleased at having to wait just a week for it.

The house is great and it feels good to be out of London and living in Berkhamsted. Do a flickr search for some photos until I get round to taking some Berko search. It seems a great place where people say hello and dont want anything other then a hello back. The neighbours seem good and we are having a street BBQ this Saturday. Where we live is in a sort of close where there is only 8 other houses so we can "close" our bit off with out affecting the main road.

Have had a chat about the boundaries already with our neighbour because he came round on the day we moved in to mention that it needs replacing, well, my half did. Never ever heard of shared ownership i.e. he owns the good bit albeit short fence and own the crap bit that runs down so I got my solicitor to look into it and it turns out that I have to look after the boundary so I am going to try and get him to move "his" fence down to the crap bit and then I'm putting up a 6 foot one.

Here is a photo of Max his tent the other day:


Off to sunny Preston tomorrow for a meeting on Thursday. Taking my naff old powerbook so hope to get an internet connection.

Also going to drive the Agila because my ABS light is always on so it is going to the garage. beep beep

Flickr alternative for commercial use?

Bloggers of the world I need an image hosting service the same as flickr i.e. tag searching and grouping but for commericial use.

I have searched and joined some image hosting sites but none seem to have all the extras that you get with Flickr SO can anyone help?

On another note the Simmonds' will be reunited this week, we ended up living 180 miles away from each other for a week and a bit, we exchanged on the house last week and complete on Thursday. Hopefully the next post will be about the joys of being reunited.

Faye and I went to a wedding on Friday so we have met up but I have not seen the Maxstar now since last Sunday :-(

Dont forget about the image site though ! See sometimes I do work.

James

Hello all, how have you all been?

We are still without a home but hopefully in 2 weeks we should complete so fingers crossed. Will be happier when we exchange to be honest. Not enjoyed being away from Faye and Max but we have managed to spend some time together because my boss has been really good and allowed me to work from home (Fayes parents) a lot recently. I have actually been working quite hard and not just saying that because some people from work read the blog !

Back down south on Sunday though as I have to do some time in the office, makes it sound like prison !

Max was in complete shock when he saw me for the first time in 5 days and wish I had the video camera, I sneaked up and walked in when he was having his bath and his jaw dropped and he stood there for about minute just staring, trust me its a long time just staring when you are talking to him, but when I went to hold him he started crying. He was just in total shock and never knew what to do.

He said mum mum about 2 weeks ago and has never said it again but I filmed him on Sunday doing this....

3meg film here

Yes the boy says Dad and has not stopped saying it :-) very chuffed. He is also sitting up really really well and started to roll quite well. Did it sound like he says Happy Birthday Daddy?

If you click on the flickr link on the right I have loaded some photo's of Max having his first Jelly. A bit like this one:

I get the cubes and he gets all fresh organic fruits with sheets of gelatin. Yuk just looked at wikipedia to make sure gelatin was what I meant and not dynamite we gave him.

Gelatin is a protein product produced by partial hydrolysis of collagen extracted from skin, bones, cartilage, ligaments, etc. The natural molecular bonds between individual collagen strands are broken down into a form that rearranges more easily. Gelatin melts when heated and solidifies when cooled again. Together with water it forms a semi-solid colloidal gel.

Full blurb here

I sent an email today in reply to the "What I did on my summer holiday" By Theo Walcott Esq aged 8 1/2 email that is going round.

I though it was quite good and profound so will share it:
Taking Theo was like taking your swimming trunks on holiday and going in the pool with your trousers on. If you have trunks use them they might be Speedos and be a bit embarrassing and your not sure how they are going to cope BUT they are better then wearing nothing.

Foo Fighters Hyde Park - June 17th

Went to the Foo Fighters in Hyde Park yesterday and what a great day.

4 of us, Faye, her bro and his girlfriend went. We went in about 4 going past the HUGE crowds trying to get in at entrance X8 and walked round as we had the "golden ticket" for entrance X3. Strolling in through the gate as there was hardly anyone in the queue we went in and got a wristband.



Strolled round for a bit and grabbed some food and had a sit down watching Juliette Lewis and her band. I can not work out if she is attractive or not. One minute I think is is then I'm not sure. They were quite good but I start thinking that we are miles from the stage and that not everyone around us has a wristband on. After a couple more minutes of quietly thinking this over in my head I have a thought that we must have to go through another entrance and we are just on the outer ring. Well we was !!!!

We walked through to the inner circle past all the people trying their hardest to get in "honest my mate has my ticket", "The dog has eaten it" etc etc.

Result we are in the inner circle and about to listen to a band I have wanted to see for ages; Queens of The Stone Age. They did not disappoint and were brilliant. Looking forward to seeing them in a smaller venue sometime soon ! I never realised just how good a voice and playing guitar Joshua Homme had. The bass player also went on guitar and was awesome as well. Awesome, I never use that word BUT it describes them.



Have to mention that Angels and Airways was on before QOTSA but nothing to write about !

Motorhead came on and Lemmy was good, never been a Motorhead fan in the past apart from the Ace of Spades but they put a really good show although I used the time to do a toilet and beer run (quite well organised for such a big show, thats the toilet and beer not Lemmy)



Then the main event and the Foos rocked as they always do ! Great show and Dave really played to the crowd and after waiting 5 hours from the time we got there to 9pm when they came on it was worth it. He never got on the drums but a rather older chap called Roger Taylor did and his mate Brian May helped out on guitar while Taylor sang Tie your mother down. Very good and a fitting end to the show.



I prefer the smaller events but rocking with 85,000 was good. I did feel a bit sorry for the people on the outer circle as I am sure that it was not that they didnt want to pay more for inner tickets but that they could not get them.

Look at the people crammed in behind Faye.



Here is tip: Always sign up to mailing lists if you like bands, I do and thats why I get to hear about advance pre-sales.

Homeless

No internet other then at work and I have just got really busy at work SO wont be too many updates.

Well.......we left London with nearly all the stuff going to storage last week (7/6/06), some of the bits had to come with us as there was no room in the van that they came in and I was not hanging around for them to come back for a few bits, so we piled the cars up and headed off to Rickmansworth.

We are staying at a girls at works place as she has it on the market and is not living there. It has been on the market since before Xmas so should be OK, OR SO WE THOUGHT !!, She sold it on the day we moved in and the people buying are 1st time buyers and want to be in by end of June so we are now pushing like crazy trying to get our exchange and completion done.

Our house completed last Friday and even that was a pain because my solicitor did not get the money until 4.20 so we never got ours until Monday morning. Would of been really bad if we was in a chain !

As it is now though we are thinking of moving out next week. I have spoke to a mate and can store some bits at his house (Including me !) Faye is going to her parents next Thursday and I will go to my mates then I'm off anyway on a stag doo in Newcastle. Will then stay at my Mums and travel to work OR if possible go to Fayes parents and work from home. They live in Oswestry. I have just started a new project at work though and it is for engineers based in Preston so I might go up there for a few days as well.

Can not wait to be settled again. should not be too long.

Got caught smoking yesterday and felt like a child. Smoked at half time during the footy and was outside when Faye came down with my mobile as it was ringing :-0.
Hangs head down
she was very VERY disappointed with me.

I have been a bit stressed and I'm still not a proper smoker i.e. I only have them when stressed or out on the beers and never during the day, thats from 20 a day.

England Flag Day

THIS DEPT OF TRANSPORT INITIATIVE HAS BEEN RE-LAUNCHED, MAY & JUNE 2006.

Press Release
Due to the nature of the quality of driving in England the Department of Transport has now devised a new scheme in order to identify poor drivers and give good drivers the opportunity to recognise them whilst driving.

For this reason as from the middle of May 2006 those drivers who are found to be driving badly, which includes overtaking in dangerous places, hovering within one inch of the car in front, stopping sharply, speeding in residential areas, generally being a fool pulling out without indication, performing U turns in appropriately busy high streets, undertaking on motorways and taking up more than one lane in multi lane roads.

These drivers will be issued with flags, white with a red cross signifying their inability to drive properly.

These flags must be clipped to a door of the car and be visible to all other drivers and pedestrians. Those drivers who have shown particularly poor driving skills will have to display a flag on each side of the car to indicate their greater lack of skill and general lower intelligence mindset to the general public. Please circulate this to as many other motorists as you can so that drivers and pedestrians will be aware of the meaning of these flags.

Department of Transport

Here is an example I have found and you should look aout for:

Agent Dowie takes his seat

Agent Coppell moved from Palace to Brighton and took them down
Agent Tuttle played for Palace and took Millwall down
Agent Bruce went to Birmingham and it took a couple of seasons but finally did his job and took them back down, he also gave us Johnson and then gave us back Morrison so in total from that deal we made about 12 million and kept Morrison :-0. What an Agent.

AND NOW

Agent Dowie goes to Charlton or the Clowns as they are somtimes known, lets see what happens :-)

All change on the renting

Blimey will it ever be resolved !! After getting a place for 6 months we got a call from the estate agent that we are buying through, "the vendor has found a place and it is empty and they want to complete in about 5 weeks" MMmmm brilliant BUT Oh shit we have just taken on a 6 month rent. Well a call to the renting agent and they said no worries it happens and never took any money from us !! So if you ever rent / buy in Berkhamsted use an agent called Regency Estates.

We are now going to put all our stuff in storage and go to rent a place off a girl at work for 1 month or so. Quite a result as she is selling the house but not living there so we can move in and stay a few weeks or a bit longer, it's in Rickmansworth so where I work so quite happy.

Just trying to get the removal companies to get their costs down a bit at the moment. All looking good though for next Wednesday to move.

Why Dowie, why?

I'm glad that Jordan is serving Dowie a writ. BBC story here. At the end of the day he left Palace to be nearer his family so was mutually released from his contact at Palace and then he turns up at Charlton (Who for some reason think they are our rivals, your not). Not good and not right, on the Palace sites they are saying he is worse the Steve Bruce when he walked. At least Steve Bruce asked for permission to talk to Birmingham, not that he was allowed but thats another long story !

AJ has signed for Everton and I wish him all the best.

Never a dull moment being a Palace fan !!

Happy birthday Blog

Well this blog is 1 year old today. Does not seem that long ago that I set out to start a blog but I have enjoyed it. I did have to change the format/design a couple of times. In the end the simple view looked best ! I also have lost the baby news, footy news, fact of the day etc. and I do miss doing that BUT it really does take too much time.

I picked the following blog graph up from Slothblog (who's site's birthday is also coming up !) Jane has managed to get a lot more site vists but does write a great blog. As does another blogger that started just before me, Wyndham the triffid so happy blogday to you both



Have a look here for more information on what the dots mean.

Photos

Couple of photos from today:
Max with a buterfly !


Max and Faye


The very photogeneic Jake


Easy to park !

Renting and the zoo

Well we have got a place to rent in Berkhamsted now and hope to move in 7th June and we complete on this one 9th June so it gives us the 8th to clean. We have signed up for 6 months but hopefully if our new house moves quicker then we can get it rented out so we dont lose out. Gone for a house like our current one ! 2 bed cottage with garden and it means that we can store our BBQ etc. in it so bit better then a flat BUT not as easy to re-rent.

Went to London Zoo today and had a really good day with our friends and their son. Managed to get a voucher off the web for 2 for 1 (http://www.daysoutguide.co.uk/) think it ends soon and is linked to rail travel. We drove but I just showed them my oyster card and no worries. Talking of driving there, They charged £1.20 per hour outide the zoo BUT here is a tip, as it is a bank holiday a single yellow is OK to park on so if you drive just out of the park ring road you can park for free ! So I saved over £20 in total BUT managed to spend most of that on some snacks ! Price were really high i.e. Tuna roll was £3.50, a small pasta salad was almost 4 quid, Soup £4 etc. etc. best deal was my rollover hot dog and drink for £4.

Will post some photos later.

Bye bye Dowie bye bye AJ

Well I have to post about Mr Dowie going and to be honest SEE YER, I dont mind that he is off and if he is to be replaced by Souness then so be it I wont be upset. I think Souness will give a bit of back bone to the team and help displace Dowie's favs. Now why Bob Dowie is helping with the choice of new manager is another thing because he is going to be talking to Iain about the choice and that is a given. I really hope that Iain does not go to Charlton because after saying that he needs to be off because of the distance that he lives away from his family will be a joke if he joins one of our rivals.

AJ going will only help the team because in the games that he did not play we played better football because we was not looking at AJ using his pace each game. His wages might also cripple the team next year so I think Jordan has done a good deal to sell him at 8.5 million. cant complain when we got him for 0.5 million and his wages have not cost us more then that. good work as long as Sandor torgelle comes back.

We need to look to the future, so as long as it is sorted then the quicker the better.

Still hold out a hope that AJ might stay rather then go to Wigan or Bolton but I think Bolton will get him.

The Maxster now weighs in at 20lb 2 so he is still growing. he is 6 months old next week and I can not beleive that he so old already, it has gone so fast. He is starting to hold himself up now although not for long and he is so funny he is great.

We have exchanged now on our house and have to leave in about 2 weeks. We was going to live between our parents houses BUT I cant live without Faye and Max for more then a week so we have deceided to rent and take the hit on ending a 6 month contract early. I mean lets face it how could I even think that I wouldnt miss them and to be honest I dont care about losing money because I would rather see my family, I hope that the house we have bought in Berkhamsted does happen fast but I dont see it being fast enough for us to be apart for any amount of time. It must take at least 6 weeks and I dont want to be away from them for that long ! We would have to parted because of work and trying to find somewhere we could all stay.

We should know more tomorrow but hopefully if we have to leave the rented place due to getting our "NEW" house quicker we will be able to "re-rent" the place and not lose money.

The house that we have bought is great BUT the people living there have not yet found anywhere. We was lucky finding it and have had to offer the full asking price so that it is taken off the market. i still think that we have got a great deal.

We wont have broadband for a bit, unless I find wireless, so the postings may get even shorter.

James
x

Never ending

This site is good mosaic

I found the link through digg.com

England Shirt is here

It arrived today :-)

Got it less then 24 hours after ordering it.

Ordered it just after posting and it was here by 10am !

We have also exchanged on our house today so we have 3 weeks to get somewhere to live. We also bought a house last week BUT it wont go through for a while so going to be a bit of a rush sorting things out.

England Home Shirt for £10

Just in time for the world cup, here is a deal:
I just ordered mine ;-)

goto HERE

The shirts are £25 for adult sizes but then you can enter in this £15 voucher code ZQ603 and so the shirt is then a tenner! and they do free 48hr delivery

Heres our Palace Hero AJ in his:


Looks like AJ will be off and I hope it is to Arsenal rather then the other clubs mentioned, Arsenal always steal our best players: Kenny Samson and Ian Wright. We got our own back though and flogged them Eddie McGoldrick and we also took Clive Allen off their hands as part of the Kenny Samson deal.

Food

Today I thought I would post on the subject of food and give you a great breakfast idea.

We have started every now and then buying Sarah Lee Croissants, What you get is a tin with fresh dough inside for 6 croissants. Half the fun is preparing them and you have to rip the labels off and tear the can so you can pop it open allowing for the dough to ouse out. You then separate the pieces and bake. Yummy. You will find them in the fresh fridge section of your local supermarket.

Made homemade burgers yesterday that were very good. Heres the receipe to make 6 big burgers:
800 grams of scottish beef minced
2 chilli's chopped up
3 garlic gloves chopped up
bit of ginger grated in
teaspoon of garam masala
1 egg (I used double yolk)
salt and pepper
1 onion (minced)
2 "glugs" of olive oil

Just mix it all together and make some patties out of it, I used an egg ring to shape them. Stick it on the BBQ and away you go.

Wouldn't hurt to add some herbs in there but I never had any.

Double yolk eggs I hear you say, well I bought these from Waitrose the other day:



Very tasty. My mate says that when he buys free range eggs from a "happy" farm, not a mental place but a real farm, he quite often gets double yolkers.

Eastenders look alike

While watching Eastenders, honest gov I just glanced over and it was on, I noticed that Ian Beales little nipper Peter.
Pictured here: Not the greatest photos coming up !


Only looks like Zammo from Grange Hill.



He looks more like Zammo in the program. I will get a more up to date shot from the TV program.

And whats with Ben a) no South African accent b) called Mitchell after she went when he was baby, no way would the name of stayed and c) Going for worse actor in a soap award.

England's Provisional squad

Shocking,

Walcott has been picked and has never played in the top flight.
This is his record:
The Championship - Southampton 13(8) 4
The League Cup - Southampton (1) 0
FA Cup - Southampton (1) 1

So he has played 13 games from the start for Southampton and 10 games from the bench scoring 5 goals. Oh dear !

He has picked 2 crocked player, a lanky bloke that can not score and a boy that has not played football since January (His move to Arsenal).

Im very Pleased for AJ and hope it is a boost for tomorrows game where we need a hat trick from him ! but leaving Bent out of the picture and Defoe for Walcott is a kick in the teeth to all players putside the top 4 teams !

No Shaun Wright-Phillips, not even on standby, well he can not say that if you have not been playing you dont get picked as Walcott is going. Hargreaves has picked again, another crap player. Maybe thay are staying at his house in Germany !

Thank F*ck Sven is off ! Nothing to do with Sweden I hope !

England's provisional squad:
Robinson (Tottenham), James (Manchester City), Green (Norwich), G Neville (Manchester United), R Ferdinand (Manchester United), Terry (Chelsea), A Cole (Arsenal), Campbell (Arsenal), Carragher (Liverpool), Bridge (Chelsea), Beckham (Real Madrid), Carrick (Tottenham), Lampard (Chelsea), Gerrard (Liverpool), Hargreaves (Bayern Munich), Jenas (Totenham), Downing (Middlesbrough), J Cole (Chelsea), Lennon (Tottenham), Rooney (Manchester United), Owen (Newcastle), Crouch (Liverpool), Walcott (Arsenal).

Standby: Scott Carson (Liverpool), Luke Young (Charlton), Nigel Reo-Coker (West Ham), Jermain Defoe (West Ham), Andy Johnson (Crystal Palace)

MacBook - new iBook

According to a couple of websites Tuesday will see the announcement of the intel powered iBook.

Time to start saving those pennies again. Although IO am thinking of trying to repair my powerbook so if anyone has 2 hinges and a battery for a PowerBook give me a shout.

The article of on Think Secret can be seen Here


I have copied the text below:

Briefly: MacBook's day this coming Tuesday [Updated]
May 5, 2006 - Following up on our report earlier this week concerning the MacBook's May availability, sources have nailed down next Tuesday, May 9, as the introduction day for the Intel-based laptop.
advertisement

Meanwhile, shipments of Apple's new 17-inch MacBook Pro, the initial units of which were to arrive in customer hands this week, have been temporarily delayed. After encountering a minor quality control issue with production of the laptops recently that has since been remedied, sources report Apple executives decided to postpone initial shipments and retail store availability by several days to ensure adequate launch inventory.

All indications now point to delivery of the 17-inch laptops sometime next week, meaning the new MacBook Pro and MacBooks may in fact arrive in be available in tandem as sources alluded to in early April, although two weeks will have separated their announcements.

On a side note, a coding glitch with Apple's Web site has all but confirmed the MacBook moniker for the new consumer laptop. The error began cropping up late Thursday evening and was still present intermittently Friday morning and resulted in Apple's iPod homepage being replaced by an empty page sporting a navigation hierarchy reading "Home > Hardware > MacBook".



While hardware release dates are often subject to last-minute change, sources' reports of an announcement Tuesday suggest that the long-awaited 13.3-inch widescreen MacBook is finally ready to ship. The release was first slated for January, then March, then April or May.

Update - May 6, 2006

Additional sources have confirmed the MacBook's announcement this Tuesday. Further, sources report that the MacBook will be thinner than current iBooks, will be available in both black and white configurations, and will likely cost slightly more than previous iBook models—not unlike the price increase Apple's Mac mini saw with its transition to Intel processors.

Palace 0 Watford 3

Well that was not meant to happen. I have got back from the game and it was hard to watch. Played OK in the 1st half and had nearly all the chances but I just dont know what happened after the break, we fell apart.

Personally I am blaming it on the stupid chant that was sang for the team to come out to. It spoilt what should of been a full on roar for the team.

Ward and Hall were poor and why Kiraly keeps getting games is madness, he can not command the area and has cost us too many games.

Why Dowie keeps on playing Hall at rightback when he is a centre half (and not a great one at that, hoofed pass to the left is his main move) by leaving Butterfield on the bench who is a right back is beyond belief. The biggest problem with Dowie is he has his favorites and keeps them in the team when there is a player better suited on the bench.

Oh well, to be brutally honest we are not good enough to go up anyway. I will be cheering Watford on in the final if they can hold on. If they cant then what a classic game it will be.

Not looking good for Tuesday but never write Palace off because we are Palace and do some strange things. At least I might be able to get a ticket to the game now, I bet a few will want to sell their ticket.

Dowie to Boro - I would be glad if that happened and we can try and get Peter Taylor. AJ will no doubt be gone when I come to take my seat for the first game of next season.

Boris Johnson Tackles German issues

Just seen this on YouTube and made me laugh.

This is Boris showing that if any of our tough tackling England players cany make the world cup he is ready.

Must be time to stop work....

Well posting at 1 in the morning and can not sleep because a)it's hot but the main oone is b) got a load of fucking workmen ouside my window banging away trying to clear the mess up that they have been creating since 20.30

They are filling in the bus stop lay by, yep where the bus used to pull in it is being filled in with what looks like gravel so that in the future the bus will just stop and in the process stop all the traffic. Now I am sure that the reason is so that buses do not get slowed down when they try and pull put again into the traffic but what a waste of time and money ! I hear though it is down to London transport rather then the council. I wont be moaning when my travel to the tube station is alot quicker on Saturday for the football :-)

I would take a picture but my camera battery has just died on me ! Oh well I will get one tomorrow. Hopefully they will be finished outside our house but tomorrow night I feel sorry for the people on the other side who are having their stop filled in.

Wont be shocked if we have no water or something in the morning.

Oh well, just managed to get a picure (Not a great one) BUT I have a silly charger that I have to take the battery out and the charge will not charge long enough for me to import into iPhoto.

Night all,

Want any food Max?

This is Max on Saturday 29/4/06. He is starting to like his food :-)

Click Here

Started using google video but it takes too long really for the upload to go live so going back to You Tube.

BT Tower

Had a good day today, I "HAD" to go to a conference that just happened to be held at the BT tower followed by lunch on the revolving floor 34 :-)

Just as a side note the conference was actually worth going to !

Lunch was very good. Food included oyster and other little fancy finger foods very good but the views are something else.

Got some good photos of Arsenals new ground Ashburton Grove

Normal View:


And ZOOMED:


There are also a couple of other photos on flickr.

So the tower then. Well we went up at full speed travelling at 7.5 meters a second to get me 158 meters up, The tower is 189 meters up. It closed it's doors to the public before I was born. On the 31/10/1971 a bomb went off on the 31st floor and it was closed. No one ever claimed responsability. The resturant was opened a few months later but that also closed in 1980. I was quite lucky today.

4/4/1961 building work started and and was opened for operation 8/10/1965 at a cost of £2.5 million ! To put that in perspective New Wembley is running at a cost £757 million.

Been a while again

Been a while again and I want to say congratulations to Dan and Lucy on the birth of their son Oliver.

Also congrats to Matt and Michelle on their new home, Congrats to us on selling our house, Congrats to all the people getting married that I know (Been invited to 5 this year), Congrats and good luck to Palace against Watford (Anyone got a spare ticket for the away leg? Sold out while I was trying to get through on the phone)

Hello to the Millwall fans that are stopping by. For some reason this blog comes up 8th when Millwall is searched and gawd knows where when Palace is. Palace Fan also does not get me anywhere.

Off to the BT Tower tomorrow so hopefully I will post a picture from the top for you.

Camden Crawl

Yesterday I went on the camden crawl and had a very good time BUT to be honest it was a nightmare getting in to the places to see bands.

Biggest shock of the night was Supergrass playing at the Dublin Castle, couldnt get into see them and we went there early. Did see them drinking in the Spread Eagle though.

We only went to 3 or 4 venues in the end and never lasted until 4am but hey I'm old !

Bye Bye Brighton, Bye Bye Millwall

See yer !!

That will teach him..... or will it

When I was younger and my sister was born I was around 9 years older then her and when ever she bashed herself or fell over the imortal words of support and advice from my mum would be "She'll learn from that" OR "She wont do that again in a hurry"

Max bashed his foot on the end of the changing table so I turned round to Faye and said "He wont do that in a hurry" turned back just in time to catch him doing it again.

I guess you must be a bit older before you start "learning"



Off soon to meet a mate for a pint before the football game. Crystal Palace V Crewe and hopefully we can get the point to make sure we are in the play offs.

My mate that I am meeting is a Brighton fan and lives at the bottom of the road from the ground :-0, for those that do not know, Brighton are our biggest rivels.

The only good thing that if we dont go up this year is my top 3 teams that I cant stand shouldnt be in the league. Brighton, Millwall and Sheff Utd

Google Calendar

Been looking at Google Calendar and looks quite good that I can use it with the Apple software iCal.

I did a search of Crystal Palace on the public calendars and my calendar of fixtures was on there ! Forgot to be honest that I uploaded it to icalx. I still try and update it when I can and it still updates, wonder how many people link to it. To use my personal calendar though I'm going to have to get a bit more clever because I do not want them as a public calendar so therefore can not just upload and link through iCalx as it requires a password. My thought at the moment is to export the information from iCal and import into google calendar. Now that sounds like a lot of work but the plan is to try and script it so I just click on a button OR schedule the script OR I could continue to use my iPod !!

Wembley

I know Wembley are having all sorts of problems BUT everytime I go past it I find it an amazing sight.

It's a shame Palace wont be there this year BUT I have my fingers crossed for my first Cardiff visit, I missed the play off final 2 years ago because I was on our year out. I have made it to Cardiff City's ground and the fans were quite scary to be honest. The most hostle ground I have been to yet ! including the time I got slapped at Birmingham.

Regarding the video service from YouTube it has not worked for 24 hours but seems OK now, it might of been scheduled maintenance that I never got a message about because I have only just joined.

We went to the Welsh Harp on Saturday in an attempt to fly the kite again but had more problems i.e. no wind, Anyway I took a photo of Wembley and also took a "zoomed" up one and here they are.

Click to view larger sizes:

Rockpool

Hi all this is a test of a video service that I might use. 

It is hosted on YouTube.com, I want to see if it embeds it better then the one I did i.e. I dont want it to play unless you hit start / play

The video itself was filmed while we were on holiday.



Looks like I am going to have to play with the size.
Sorted I had to reduce by a 1/3. If you want you can click on the video for a slightly larger video.

Bouncing

Personally I'm not sure about having the video embeded as I dont like it when I go to websites and they have sound going. At night i.e. now, I browse about with 1 headphone in my ear because I dont want to wake my wife OR Max up.

I guess I best practice what I preach SO I have posted another video here, this was also taken a couple of days ago and is Max using his door boucer.

Soon I will do a "real" blog and think about something to write about but at the moment I am enjoying playing with the iMac and iMovie.

Laters everyone,

Giggle movie

You must have quicktime installed to view the giggle movie.

This is the Link

Giggle

Nothing is quite like making your baby giggle !!

This movie has been saved down to web quality so not great. In advance I am sorry about the James Blunt in the background but Max seems to like it.

Mark - As you can see the chops are back !!!

And yes I know I make all sorts of strange voices and sounds !
Here you go it is 1.8 meg and is Quicktime format.

Removed embedded video The link is in the post above

Hope you enjoyed. I hope that the sound kicking in straight away is not too much of a problem but let me know and I will go back to just linking to the page rather then embedding it.

Lazy Frogs

Nope, I have not witnessed a frog getting a cab rather then hopping home BUT I saw this on the BBC website and it made me laugh. Quite a fair point if you ask meLazy Frogs

A furious airline boss has blasted the French as "lazy frogs" after protests disrupted services to the UK.

Philip Meeson, the chairman and chief executive of Yorkshire-based budget carrier Jet2.com, launched his attack in an article on the company website.

The article's headline said: "Jet2.com condemns French strike action and calls for lazy frogs to get back to work!"

The French air traffic controllers' union, CGT, reacted angrily, saying Mr Meeson's language was "not acceptable".

A CGT spokesman said: "It is easy for them to ask some people to go back to work but if people in France do not agree with the government it is a very good reason [to strike]."

In the past week, the airline has twice been hit by protests in France over new employment rules for young workers.

Services from France to Leeds-Bradford Airport were disrupted on Monday when French students protesting against the laws staged a runway demonstration at Chambery airport in the Alps.

More than 250 passengers were prevented from travelling and eventually arrived in West Yorkshire several hours late.

Last Tuesday, Jet2 flights were grounded when air traffic controllers joined a general strike in France.

Another low-cost airline, Ryanair, was forced to cancel about 80 flights on Tuesday because of the industrial action.

Mr Meeson, addressing his comments to the air traffic controllers, said: "After a token stoppage why can't you just sort the matter out amicably without bringing thousands of people around the world, who give your country huge economic wealth, into the argument?


It seems to me that either the air traffic controllers or the students run France at the moment
Jet2 boss Philip Meeson

"Whilst France is undeniably a beautiful country... we are appalled and quite frankly tired of the air traffic controllers' old-fashioned attitude to dealing with any issues they may have.

"In short, we urge the French air traffic controllers to get back to work or get another job."

British Euro MPs said the Jet2 boss was damaging Anglo-French relations.

Labour MEP Robert Evans said: "These cheap and derogatory remarks are beneath even a budget airline. We really have got to be more mature in our relationships."

Chris Davies, the leader of Britain's Liberal Democrat MEPs, said: "This is a stupid and crass remark, given that we want the French to visit Britain as much as Brits want to travel to France.

"But there is no doubt that the French are cutting their own throats by striking at every opportunity."

Mr Meeson said: "The 'lazy frogs' comment was meant to be a bit of fun. It was tongue-in-cheek. After all, the French call us 'les rosbifs'.

"It seems to me that either the air traffic controllers or the students run France at the moment."

Max eats solids

Here is a movie of max
It's 3.7 meg

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to me !

On this Day James Simmonds was born into the world.

Here is a picture of me at 4 months, check out the big feet !!!!



And here is me on my birthday very hung over after a great night out last night.



Yep last night Mrs Palace Fan and I hit the pubs of Hampstead and had a good Thai. It was the first time since Max came along and we had a great time drinking our way round ! We could of kept going but on a Monday night all the pubs closed at "normal" time. Will go to Camden next time because you can keep on drinking there !!

We have now dropped the price of our house to 250K to get it below the stamp duty hike. Anyone want a house in North London? Here are the details. House to buy ! email me rather then calling the agent !!

Max is getting louder and louder at the moment and is "chatting" away all the time. For those just browsing through, Max is my baby boy and not some bloke who cant talk !

He is starting to turn all over the place and yesterday he tried his first bit of baby rice. Dont think he enjoyed it that much. I will try and get a movie up of him tasting it.

I'm off to call the fire brigade and let them know I am going to be lighting the candles tonight !

Been away

Hello All,

Back from our week away in North Devon, we stayed in a place called Ilfracombe and had a nice chilled out week driving around the place. We also went to a town called Combe Martin and for a little more about the place vist this blog, Combe Martin A good read and some cool photos. It's in my RSS feed update list.

I took the laptop down BUT could not get on any wireless links so no updates. I had a go on iWeb and must say that it was good. Biggest problem though is the size of the photo files. I only did some quick testing and the size of the site was huge. One thing I have noticed to do next time though is export the photos as "web size" 640x480 and then re-import them to iPhoto and stick them in a iWeb folder and when you drag your photos drag the smaller web versions into the iWeb application. I have had a look at it uploaded and it is slow but take a look and check out the blog etc., As mentioned it was very easy to do and next time I will load smaller photo files up to help speed things up. iWeb Site

I now have another week off from work and going to use it to visit my Mum, meet some friends, look for a new house and spend more time with Faye and Max. Think they will be sick of the sight of me by Friday !

While away though some Bastard has reversed into my car and it now has a shape of a tow bar in the bonnet ! I'm quite sure that it is 1 of 3 4x4's that always park near me so i am going to be measuring the height and with a bit of luck get a match. I will also if possible drive right up to the tow bar and check the shape. What got me as well was that the dent has been "cleaned" i.e. someone has actually rubbed the dent to see how deep it is (I have a dirty car !) Will be out tomorrow with tape measure in hand. This is on top of getting smacked up the rear last week by an old fool in a car without ABS and I still need to see a body shop about getting that sorted. It's only a few scratches or at least that is what I hope because years ago a friend of mine thought that and when she had her MOT it turned out the car was a write off because it had put the sub frame out of shape.

Take care,

Dont work too hard !!!

My boss sent this out and has asked us to give each other a small nudge as we go past !



I have had to make it smaller so it fits, click on it, view a diff size and go large. Sure there is a joke there !