Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Fingers Crossed

Well another rollover and most talk in the office involves what we are going to spend all our winnings on :-)

I have done a syndicate so gives us more chances to win. I dont mind sharing that sort of money.

Now what I did think though was that the odds are 74 million to 1 so if I could borrow 74 million and also had enough time to fill out all the numbers would I be on to a winner?

We did it last week and had 63 lines but only won £38 and so have reinvested that in more tickets this week.

Not sure how many lines this weeks syndicate will be put I am closing it early so that I can get to the lottery man before every man and his dog starts buying them. Let you know tomorrow.

I have now bought iLife and bought it from the new apple store in Brent Cross, the store is quite good but a bit narrow. I had a quick go on the new intel iMac but never really had a "proper" play and do anything that would test it. I will look to go again in a couple of weeks during the week so that I can spend a bit more time and talk to the Apple staff.

To be honest I have not really looked at iLife but I do love the iPhoto full screen editing and it does seem alot quicker. Will test out Garageband podcasting at some point and also iWeb as I want to see just how easy it is to use. Not happy about not being able to comment on the blog page but hope they sort that out. Bet it will only be available using .mac account though.

Max had some injections today for various things in both legs so a bit grizzly for once tonight but he has gone off to sleep now.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Baby Parade

Today was the gathering of babies from our NCT Anti Natal classes. Almost a full showing just 2 no shows.

Was really good, went to a a couples house (Rubys' mum and dads) and I ate cakes for the whole time. Max was good; as was all the babies actually.

Here is a photo of the babies in age order. Max is the youngest. You shouldnt have too much trouble spotting him. Unless your new to this blog !

Baby parade.jpg

I think Ruby, the oldest, is about 6 weeks older then Max but I will double check. Ruby just threw up all the time. I never seen anything like it. Really strange and apparently she is just a "throwing up" baby. Where some babies smile she flows puke with the odd smile every now and then. fascinated me for ages, she had a couple of changes and so did her parents.

Thats about it really. ALTHOUGH.....

Max is going to spend his first night alone in the nursery. I think I am waking him up with my snoring but then he wakes me up with his "snorting" so fair play I say. Why is it babies sound like little pigs?

He normally sleeps in his nursery for his naps and sleeps during the day and we only ever move him in to our room at 11pm for the night but we also think this is not a good idea because he is waking when being moved etc.

Our boy is growing so fast, going to be strange not having him right next to us.

Not done this for a while, only a taster though as not doing Joke or Footy today:

Fact of the day:
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

Here is almost some proof. I can only get 16 precision places on the mac calc.

Picture 1.png


On this day:
22/1/1979: Public sector strike paralyses country
Tens of thousands of public sector workers have taken part in a day of action - the biggest mass stoppage since 1926 - in support of a claim for more pay.

The four major public service unions angry at the government's attempt to impose a 5% pay ceiling called out their 1.5 million members.

They included hospital workers, rubbish collectors, school caretakers, grave diggers and airport staff.
More from BBC Site

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Bum Chutney

Nope not posted that to draw all the wierdos to this blog, unlike the ones finding Charlottes baby site, BUT we were all driving yesterday and just on the North circular we realised that the car in from was not a ghia but was in fact a bum chutney.

bum car.jpg

Not too sure I want to know the full story but you see some strange things on these London roads, just handy we had the camera in the car and YES I will get round to cleaning the front windscreen !!!

Went to see some houses we saw on rightmove in Berkhamstead but never saw anything we liked, only drove past rather then actually going inside them. Our house is having a few people round at the mment so thats good.

We then went over to Brent Cross and the Apple store will not be long now. It looked to me as though it was having the final bits done. I'm guessing next week. Wanted iLife so went into John Lewis but they never had it so I am going to order it online.

Tomorrow we have a get together in the afternoon of all the anti natel babies all 10 of them and parents so I will post the picture tomorrow of them all lined up.

Here is one we took yesterday of all of us using Photo Booth thermal setting. I really like it and it is now my desktop wallpaper. Tad scary on a 20" widescreen.

thermal family.jpg

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

iLife '06 - Will be getting soon

I have been reading on the Apple sites about iLife06 and whilst I was very excited to start with about the new application iWeb now I am starting to think it is not as good as I first thought.

For starters you can not have comments on your blog page, not that I get that many but you have to be able to have them. I looked at Haloscan.com and thought great I can use that BUT it turns out you can not put your own HTML into the iWeb created pages SO that also screws up all my links and sitestats. You have to have a .Mac account to use the built in web counter function.

I have seen some of the web pages that have been created and they do look really good and all the users are saying that it is really easy and quick to use but does have a bit too many limitations.

I will get it though just for the boosted speed of iPhoto and also Garageband is updated and 1 thing I want to at least try this year is get more time on the guitar and try to record something.

I will also have a crack at some point at a video podcast and will also create an iWeb site that people can look at. Be good for movies and photos anyway. While I think of it the other thing will be that I can not blog from anywhere as I would have to use my computer and not just any internet connection.

Food question, What can I do with Capers. Seen a couple of receipes but lets have your suggestions as well. Need to cook for Nascot Dan at some point. Check out his site as he has some good news. He promised me that he will start to keep up to date with his blog.

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Hull 1 Palace 2

Nick Barmby, Mike Dobson, John Prescott, Amy Johnson, The Beautiful South, Frankie Baldwin, Maureen Lipman. Your boys took one hell of a beating.

That was hard trying to get famous people from Hull !

From the biased commentary, I listened to BBC Hull over the internet, yeah we time wasted a bit at the end but Myhill in the Hull goal was the most mentioned player and the man also said we deserved the win. Thats good enough for me.

Come on the Palace, Shame Watford won but Sheff Utd drawing and Leeds losing to Brighton (Our biggest rivals) were good results.

Hull: Myhill, France, Cort, Collins, Lynch (Green 26), Price (Duffy 59), Andrews, Delaney, Barmby (Elliott 74), Fagan, Parkin.
Subs Not Used: Leite, Paynter.

Booked: Price, Barmby.

Goals: Parkin 25.

Crystal Palace: Kiraly, Boyce, Ward, Hudson, Borrowdale, Andrews (Freedman 77), Watson, Hughes (Riihilahti 86), McAnuff, Johnson, Macken (Morrison 84).
Subs Not Used: Black, Speroni.

Booked: Boyce.

Goals: Ward 9, Cort 24 og.

Att: 18,886

Ref: C Webster (Tyne & Wear)

Friday, January 13, 2006

Hull V Palace

Gutted I am in Hull and tomorrow Palace are playing them but I cant stay up here and see them. Wish the meetings I had yesterday were today and I could of stayed for the game but oh well would rather see Chosen One.

Will see Palace next week against Reading and also looking forward to coming back to this area and seeing us play Sheff Wednesday early February

Come on Palace lets beat those Tigers. Need to beat them so I can call my mates in Hull straight after. Dobbo is the main one I am looking to call, I have his number at the ready !

We are on a good run at the moment and I am sure we can win tomorrow but I have probably cursed them

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Whats an intel chip doing in a Mac?

A whole lot more then it's ever done in a PC.

Apple marketing is brilliant.

As a few of you know I just got the iSight iMac G5 in October after sending the non iSight model back because they released the iSight model within 14 days of me getting it. Am I now bitter that they have released the new Intel models with claims of a speed boost of X2 on the iMac and X4 on the Powerbook, NAH. To be honest while I can not wait to get down the Apple shop (When is the bloody one in Brent Cross going to open?) and play with it to see the speed improvements, I learnt a long time ago though DO NOT TOUCH REV A products. I personally would wait for thr rev B models but if you can not hold off buying then read the support forum and see what people are saying. If you can wait then get the iBook or Mac mini for a taste of mac but I'm happy and sticking with my "Power Mac G5" They are still selling this model by the way and the Intel one is about £30 dearer.

I will be weighing up getting the new iLife package over the weekend, only £55, though because iWeb looks good for blogging. It looks as though iLife has been aimed a bit at blogging. Who knows what will happen if I get it but I feel a Video blog or podcast coming online soon.

The Macs are here to drawl over

I'm off up there North again to Hull and Manchester for a couple of days so going to spend my first night away from Max. Going to miss him but be glad of the sleep :-0

Here is a picture of Max, he is smilling all the time now and I'm going to miss his smile, these where taken at 22.40 yesterday just before his feed.

He is 6 weeks old today.

max smile.jpg

PS Anyone see whats NEW, will sort out a logo one day

Thursday, January 05, 2006

New name

Yes I know and I will rename the blog soon so stop going on everyone, well the Howards recently :-)

Although hopefully I will be a Dad again so could just leave it for ages and ages but I will change it.

I want to try and do something in Paintshop that kind of crosses through the title and has the new one i.e. Palace Fan that IS NOW a Dad but struggling to get the time but hopefully will get something done soon.

Hang on in there !

London

Well we made it to Kings X and then to Camden Town Hall to get Max registered. The underground is not for pushchairs. It was not too bad but then there was two of us. We kept the name Max James and didnt change it for our own amusement. The best bit is it means we can now get our family allowance money :-)

Afterwards we went for a bus rather then try getting Max down the escalator. As it turns out it was quite a good plan because we went off down Oxford Street for a look at some shops I bought a little tripod for my camera for only £6.50 so result there (From Jessops), Looked in the Apple store and saw some good speakers for our iPods and the idea is to put them in the nursery so that we can play music to Max off the iPod in there. They did not have the one I liked in stock so when we got home I did some searching on the web and nearly everywhere is out of stock of them BUT the company I work for had them in stock so even managed to get a discount. Was quite shocked that we had them and never even looked at our website :-0 saw it when I was using pricerunner.co.uk, hopefully getting them on Tuesday.

This is a picture I stole off the internet of them:



Also saw this bloke chatting away very loud on his phone: For those that dont know him he is a presenter on T4 and sometimes a stand up comedian. He makes me laugh on a Sunday when he interviews bands anyway.



Now I'm starting to get sucked in to watching celebrityy (Now I am not sure that celebrityy is a word that you would associate with most of them) Big Brother. The 4th is just going in now. Some washed up actress from Baywatch. Lots of boos for all of them ! Chantle the non celebrityy will not find it too difficult because no one seems to know anyone anyway. More tomorrow......

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Happy New Year

Not too much fun for us on new years eve. Bed at 8pm up at 10pm to feed Max, woken at 12 by loud fireworks followed by a quick kiss and a happy new year to each other. Actually not even sure we had a kiss but anyway we went back to sleep and was up again at 3am for another feed and again at 7am for his morning feed. Last year we got very drunk on a pub crawl round London followed by dancing at Tiger Tiger. Quite a bit different !!!

Seems like everyone came back to work today so from last week where it was really quiet and I could not do much due to nobody being around today was manic but at least the day went fast.

We are finally getting Max's birth registered on Thursday. We called them straight after he was born and Thursday is the first available day to get him registered !! Can not believe that we had to wait over 5 weeks for the first appointment. Look forward to my report on how we manage the tube stations for the first time.

The mighty Palace had a good run during Xmas and managed to get 4 wins out of 4 so very happy about that.

This is a picture of Max chilling in his cot, he is yet to spend a night in there but he seems to love playing in there looking at the mobile (thats a baby thing that goes round not a phone for those non parents out there)

P1000788.jpg