Eigenharp

Looks awesome! Check it out on youtube or google. I bet it's nigh on impossible to play but looks good fun :)

PS big congrats to Jensen Button - an awesome drive to show he's a real champion. Well done! Also he's British - so is that 2 in 2 for british motorsport? Can it be an olympic sport? :)

PPS I realise the PS is longer than the post but it's my blog and I'll do what I like :P

updates....

I have logged in to blogspot every day this week - opened up a new post and sat there saying/typing/posting nothing. Today I am rectifying this!

Just a few updates...
- Jenn and I are playing Badminton together - which is good cos Jenn's better than me and so I can be uber-competitive without making it not fun.
- I'm still playing 5-a-side. Which is good when we win - but as soon as we start losing it appears that we lose all focus and start whining, like puppies who've had their toys taken away.
- It's my brothers birthday soon, so part-ay on Friday! W00t!

That's all for now...

Fully booked weekends

Jenn and I went to visit a friend of hers from Uni this weekend. The first such visit, involving an overnight stay, that we have gone on since we got married. It was good fun, really good to meet with Jenn's uni friends and have a chance to chat over a meal. The food was amazing; Salmon Terrine, Steak and Guiness Pie, Chocolate Fondue, and Port and cheese to finish. Mmmmm.
I also got to meet Joseph the Dog - very friendly chappie - but Jenn's not great with dogs so she didn't really enjoy his playful side.
We got home Sunday lunchtime - and my parents came over with my Granddad - who hasn't seen our flat yet. Which meant we got to use our new tea set :)

All in all a busy weekend! However it occurred to me last night that we don't have any weekend left in October in which we are not already booked to do something! And we still need to organise trips to Southport (for photographer, and Jenns folks), Exeter, Portsmouth, and many more...
And it'll be Christmas soon!

So here's my plan - campaign to have an extra 3 day weekend added at the end of all months that have 31 days and just an extra 2 day weekend to months with 30 days (Feb can stay the same) Thus all months would have 28 days (4 working weeks) and everyone would be a little more relaxed cos they could use the extra weekend to do all the things you don't have time for. Gardening, for example, or having a lie-in, or even visiting friends (assuming they haven't gone to visit someone else the same weekend...)

maybe I'll set-up a facebook group.....

Alllll byyyyy myyyyseeeelf...don't wanna be....

My boss and my colleague are off at the Northgate conference today and tomorrow - and as such I'm "holding the fort" HESA-wise. I set out this morning anticipating a dull but fairly mind easing day correcting data errors for 7hrs straight.
But of course nothing is as simple - I've already had three verbal requests for reports, and a phone call regarding training - and it's only 10.30am!
Do people wait till there's only me? Is it some kind of conspiracy? Probably not.

In other news - John Lewis delivered all our cool shiny things on Friday and last night Jenn, myself and my folks went to Ikea. and we now have shiny leather dining chairs :) - we might even have enough chairs to invite people round now.... oooh

watch this space: ____________
(I dont know why - it won't change)

writers block...

Sept was officially the worst month so far bloggage-wise - only 3!
(edit: I've just noticed that June had 0 posts but hey)

I've promised myself I will blog a little more this month - however this entry counts, so winner!

Look to see some more coming soon.

variousness

This post is probably going to be quite fragmented - thus reflecting my current mental state quite effectively....

- Go to youtube and search for "the power of nightmares" - really interesting documentary about politicians and terrorism. (esp check out part 5 - where the politicians start using the church for their own gains - yet another reason that the church should be wary of gaining political power)

- Who makes the bikes for british TT champions Bradley Wiggins and David Millar? They keep breaking. Sort it out!

- What do people do in an evening? I'm usually on the computer - but it occurs to me there are probably other things to do...

- John Lewis are still yet to contact us regarding delivery of our wedding gifts... we'll have been married for a month on Monday.

- is setting up a document entitled "blog ideas" conducive to more regular bloggage?

thank you for reading. LP

Cheating

It seems that every sport I turn to has some news story of cheating. I am a fan of many sports but it's starting to become difficult to have the passion when you realise that so many people are attempting to cheat.
In no particular order:
a) Football - Diving is a major issue at the moment, but also match fixing (in the past), Chelsea's transfer ban, the occasional drugs issue
b) Cycling - EPO, and other blood doping reports STILL going on despite all the time/money/effort that has gone into fighting it.
c) Formula 1 - Renault's current scandal, McLaren spy-gate last year
d) Rugby - "Blood-gate" scandal - although I'm pretty sure this was the lamest attempt at cheating I've seen for a while
e) American Football - Patriots "Spy-gate" scandal although that was a couple of years ago. Actually Amercian Football seem pretty good at reacting to cheating.
and many others...
But the cheating that annoys me the most.... Wii Mario Kart online. WHY?!!? who sits down at a wii and thinks "I'll go online and cheat so that I can win every race by a mile, get a rating of 9999 and make all the other users games frustrating and ultimately wasted"? What is it they hope to achieve? at least with all the above sports you can say - there's a financial benefit to cheating or to gain noteriety or a win. But all the wii-cheaters are achieving: making me less likely to play online mario-kart. Thus eventually all that will be left are the cheaters and the eternal optimists.

I guess that at the end of the day my current 6900 rating doesn't reflect my ability and I'm OK with that :)

Update

I am back from honeymoon - it was good (that's all I'm saying here!)

Everything went well from our perspective and we both had a really good day!

Jenn is now all moved in to the flat - I've emptied some draws to accomodate her ever increasing clothing collection :)
It's still a little strange - I keep expceting to have to take Jenn to the station and see her go off to Bangor/Southport/up north somewhere but I don't have to anymore!

In other news - Arsenal are doing poorly, NY Giants doing well, Wiggo's still going in the Tour of Britain, and Button's form is back so all in all a mixed week for those I follow.
----------------------------------------
I signed up with Lijit a few weeks ago out of curiosity mostly - so far it tells me that no-one is reading this. Which makes me feel kinda relieved - at least i'm not annoying anyone!

So to all those who aren't reading this - Blog On!

Media Blackout

I'm off to get hitched....

internet access may be patchy and so this might be a last blog for a while.

See you on the otherside!

The centre of attention

I have come across a major flaw in this whole wedding malarkey.
I sincerely dislike being the centre of attention. I get very easily embarrassed by things and when that happens I can get a bit tongue-tied.
But why? What is it that I get embarrassed about?
It's probably something to do with the fact that I don't see why anyone would want to look at me. Unless I'm performing onstage/doing something worthy of attention then I'm like a duck in water.
It's probably some deep-seated inferiority complex - if only I knew a psychologist.....

The Sofa Saga

Jenn and I are due to be married in 8 days. As such we have set about attempting to create a home in which we both can live. As part of this endeavour we took a trip to Ikea, supplier of many furnishings, in order to buy a sofa-bed.
They don't have an amazing selection, most of the "bed" parts are pretty shoddy and looked like they'd fall apart if Zac jumped on them (he's 3!) but eventually we found a sofa we liked and bought it.
Sofa - so good*
When we ordered it - Ikea told us that we should check that the sofa would fit - gave us the measurements of the sofa. Now I don't know a lot about sofa's but I do know that they are not regular boxes - they have curvy bendy bits. So with my meagre knowledge of topography I guessed that, although the published figures were a little too big, that with some wiggling we'd be ok.
The sofa was attempted to be delivered on Tues (18th) and although the guys who delivered it gave it a really good try there was no way that the sofa was going to fit - my doorframe is approx 3 inches too narrow. So close and yet sofa **
What to do? The young men took the sofa away again telling me; "You will be contacted about to discuss how to procede". Very mafia.
And so it was. Ikea rang me on the Wednesday to offer me a refund of 60% - pretty generous considering it was a made-to-order job. However loathe to lose approx £300 and still have no sofa - I asked
"can I get it re-delivered?"
to which the nice lady scoffed
"well I suppose if you removed a window or something"
"No I mean - can I get it delivered to my parents?"
"Oh yes, you can do that. We'll charge you for re-delivery though."
"How much is that?"
"About £30 pounds"
So yeah for £30 I can have my sofa (and eat it too? no) even though it won't be in my flat it will at least be in my possesion for use at a later date!
All in all it's a bit of a faff and a mess but at the end of the day*** I'll look back and laugh! Although probably not for a while yet....

*Sorry
**Sorry again
***about 10ish

Stag-gering!

First of all may I say "chapeau" (it's a french term, used a lot in cycling, meaning "respect to/well done") to my Best Man Andy for organising a very good, action-packed day. I really did enjoy myself.
Secondly to all who came - even to only one or two events: Thank you - it was you who made it such a good day.

Football, Bowling, Gourmet Burgers, Paintballing and finally crawling home slightly more alive than dead; do days get any better? Well the 28th might but so far so good :)
Just as an update, I have, to date, discovered at least 8 bruises from paintballing - the real beauty is on my arm. A nice purpley-red target.

11 days to go....hopefully the bruises will have cleared.

Twitter update

decision: Twitter is not for me

End of discussion.

16 days to go!

To Do...

Get a haircut
Buy new shoes
Sort out CD os weddingy music
Sort out slide-show of piccys
Find a Bassist

Not necessarily in that order :)

Should I join twitter?

or (to quote David Cameron) do "too many twits make a tw*t"?

Also considering how sparsely I blog - will my twitter page be even less interesting?

Any recommendations?

Due South

It's all about luuuurvve!

No really! Got back from youth camp on Saturday (yes it's taken me two days to mention it - I've been sleeping!) It was awesome! I've always enjoyed pushing myself physically but camp is a way for me to push myself mentally and spiritually as well.
Jonny "Steve Mcqueen" Wilson was talking about love (the John 3:16 kind not the Hallmark kind) - which got me thinking again about the fact that God loves me. He really does! Even though I often ignore him, or forget about him or simply let him down. He still loves me despite the fact he knows me! (PS. This is true for you too)

It was really nice to spend some brief moments with Jenn too. We've been asked to take on more responsibilities for next year which is pretty exciting - means I'm looking forward to it even more!
Any hoo better go - bed beckons :)

40 is the new 20!

First Take that re-formed, then Brett Farve decided he wanted to un-retire, Lance Armstrong followed suit and now the german speed-meister Micheal Schumacher has decided to re-join the F1 ranks.

Now all the above had acheived certain amunts of success but is it worth it? I'm not so sure...

Waxing Lyrical

Rules: put your music on shuffle, write the first line from the first 30 songs that play, see how many people can guess the SONG and ARTIST.

Feel free to google - but have a go first! Some are really obscure!
_________________________________________________________________

1) The disease of my soul was spreading. Eating me up from the inside

2) Hey, girl, stop what you're doin' Hey, girl, you'll drive me to ruin

3) Just because I'm lazy, doesn't mean I'm lost

4) Oh no, I didn't mean to say what i did say, about lovers and how they should lay

5) D'you fancy a drink, just the one, to clear your head, we won't be long

6) You know I feel there's something 'bout to break now, you know I feel there's a city here to take now

7) People [are] talkin like it's the end of time, I look up to the heavens for a sign

8) Why do I listen to sad songs? Make me feel good when I've done wrong

9) (easy) Welcome to the Jungle, we got fun 'n' games!

10) Thought that I was all alone, broken and afraid, but you were there with me,

11) I'm a son of a good man, I'm the child of an angel, I'm the brother of a wild one,

12) Brain fried tonight through misuse Through misuse, through misuse

13) Step one, you say, We need to talk He walks, you say, Sit down, it's just a talk

14) Psychic spies from China Try to steal your mind's elation

15) High, higher than the sun You shoot me from a gun

16) I don't wanna watch the street or TV, I don't wanna hear about your day

17) It's raining again, I'm hearing its pitter patter down.

18) Wind me up, put me down, start me off and watch me go.

19) Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry You don't know how lovely you are

20) Pretty if the sun won’t shine I’ll be coming out to meet you I’ll be there to make you mine

Some easy, some hard - let me know what you think they are!

2 Blogs in 2 days...you lucky people!

1 Month to go! And with most things sorted it's starting to get exciting!

Next on the list is sorting out who sits where. Now this is a very complex procedure of trying to figure out who might get on and trying not to isolate individuals on a table where they don't know anyone. Easy you say? Nope.
Now add that some people definitely won't get on. Then limit the numbers to 10 per table, sprinkle in the idea of people mingling and not sitting in their natural groups and you get a great head-ache recipe!
So If you're coming to the wedding (and the meal) you might end up sitting next to a complete stranger. Don't worry though we're only inviting nice people :)

Apologies for the break in transmission

Ok yes I'm cr#p.
Having been chastised over the poker table recently I have come to the realisation that my blog has become somewhat under-used...

The main culprit of this failure is my own lack of interest in my life. Thus having nothing to say for long periods of time. I know that having nothing to say is no barrier to the die-hard, I've-got-to-say-something, bloggers. However, I can't even seem to find nothing to say - I have passed into the realm beyond nothing-to-say to some kind of negative-blog (anti-blog?). Which theoretically means that as I type someone else's blog-post is slowly being deleted.
If it's yours I apologise.

FYI - it's 1 month and 1 day to my wedding. Most things are sorted out now. Just tying up loose ends.
Due South Youth Camp starts on Saturday. Fun, fun,fun!

Weekends Away

I'm tired after going to Jenn's parents for the weekend. as such I'm struggling to find anything that doesn't sound kinda whiney.

So I'm not going to say anything at all. So there.

Birthdays

Woo. I made it another year.
I have successfully navigated my way to living whilst the earth revolved around the sun one more time. There was a doubt for a while but it pulled through.

OR

To put it another way: ITS MY BIRTHDAY!!!!! WOOOO!!! PARTY!!!! Doo do doo do do de doo de doo!!

Yes I am now 27. Happy Birthday to me. I'm sorry I just can't seem to get excited this year. Mind you I've only had one present so far.

Birthdays

It's nearly my birthday. Tomorrow I will be exactly 27 years old.

Which got me thinking of all the things that I have achieved over those years.

...

Ummm - well ok I have a degree (kinda), I've worked for about 5 years inYouth work, and just worked the rest....
So I thought I'd write a list of things to achieve before I'm 28 (suggestions welcome but may be ignored!):
1) Learn to Drive
2) Get Married (this ones easy as its pretty much organised already)
3) ???

Perhaps this is why I've never achieved anything - I have no plan, no ideas, no vision (as in like a plan for my life - I'm not talking about eye-sight here)

Anyone got a spare life-plan they're not using?....

Bowing to blog pressure

They say no news is good news.... but when it comes to blogging, I am increasingly driven by the little part of the Blogger Dashboard that tells me when I last posted.
Like a small irritating, possibly mythical, creature it seems to whisper, without actually uttering or even inferring, "you haven't posted in ages - no-one will care about you anymore!"
And so I click on the new post link and start typing. Then I realise that I don't have anything to say.
Then follows a trawl through the BBC news and sport website looking for inspiration - which it usually doesn't.

So here is nothing to say - but said eloquently and at length.

Football

It's a rollercoaster ride/a game of two halves/insert own cliche here....

First of all sadness :(
Arsenal got stuffed by an Man U team who are looking very good at the moment. Arsenal on the other hand seem to have lost the one thing that made them a great team. The ability to keep the ball. Makes their attacking flair look good against the smaller teams but unable to control a game against quality opposition.

Second of all hilarity :)
Chelsea got knocked out in the 93rd minute mwahahahahaha. The best part was being at Park Royal bowling alley, after hearing the cheer of the Chelsea fans when they scored first, compared to the overwhelming roar as Iniesta scored. I'm not the only Chelski-hater apparently...

The only thing left is for Barca to put 6 past Man U in the final.... and with Messi, Henry, Eto'o et al it might happen....

I really need to think of more deep things to say...

but as I can't..... snot.

115 days till I have to tick the 'Married' box on forms.

BTW Jenn is down for the long weekend. Yay! :-)

Will post something better soon I promise.

Loneliness...

It's very strange how loneliness can creep up on you and then jump you in an instant. I was at home on my own (obviously!) and I was suddenly overcome with a sense of loneliness. Really strange.
I'm not a lonely person by any measure, I have 190+ friends on Facebook, I only got back from Jenn's Monday night, my brother is coming over tonight, youth on Friday is always a good place to feel popular :)
However, last night I just couldn't shake that feeling. It was all started by the fact that the post box, where my post is sporadically placed, is broken. I've fixed it up with tape but just occasionally it falls open spilling all my post all over the floor. I don't understand why but this caused me to feel a bit of a failure. IT'S ONLY A POST BOX!!! I have the last few months, organised and paid for a flat, moved house, got engaged.... I could go on - I have acheived things succesfully. On the scale of failure to success, I definitely fall on the successful side. So why do I seem to allow little things to spoil my enjoyment of what is a nice flat?
Grrrrr stress

PS I woke up this morning feeling fine, it's sunny, I'm alive, and dry. Life could be a lot worse I guess.

Weekend away

What a crazy world we live in - spent the weekend in North Wales and had beautiful sunshine and warm weather - while London was drowning in seasonal precipitation. What fun.

Decided last week to have a long weekend - an extra day to chill with my fiance. Was definitely a good decision. Spent a lot of time looking at honeymoon destinations, only to find that the place we wanted to go to required a 9 hour stop over in Nairobi - No, just no.
So after spending a few hours online we now dont have a clue where to go! any suggestions? We currently looking at St. Lucia or Mauritius...

I'm sure there was a lot of interesting things I wanted to say but i cant think of any of them at the moment...

Busy, busy, busy

Why do I always seem to try to do too much in a week?
I have had only 1 night in this week (Tues - cos I wasn't selected for the game)
And tonight before I go and catch my train at 7pm; I need to sort out a load of cardboard boxes to get picked up for youth, wash up and clean the kitchen, pack.
All before 5.45!!! Oh I have to work too :)

Still at least I'm not bored....

Ideas?

I've been asked to lead one evening at Excite (Friday evening club).

Basically I've got to come up with a pictionary style activity (possibly in teams) with some kind of theme. Then do a short talk at the end of the night on said theme.

So any ideas on what I could do? All ideas will be considered but I can't use them all :-)

Old Technology

I have been attempting to buy a DVD player in the last few days. Not a DVD-RW recorder with built in Hard Drive, not a fancy-pants Blu-ray player with HD, not a VCR/DVD combi. Just a DVD player - that plays DVDs.
And shops "sell" them - well at least the display them on their shelves and in their catalogues. However I have come up against a problem. You'd think buying said DVD players would be easy. You go into a shop, select your choice, head to the till, purchase. But NO. at this point they tell you - "I'm sorry we are out of stock". This has so far happened in two shops with 4 different DVD players. Who is buying all the DVD players? or is it just that shops have rubbish stock control?

James Bond maintains the once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.

I assume then that 4 times is some kind of terrorist plot....

Neophilia

Why is it that buying new things does actually make you feel happier?

I now have a 26" widescreen digital TV, yay! Most importantly its HD ready (at this point I could start quoting Micheal McIntyre : Go here instead http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LEu-LL8NUA )

But anyway I have also been spending money on CDs and realised how much difference it makes to me to buy a new worship CD. Admittedly it was a Third day album from about 8 years ago but it was new to me, and thats what made the difference.

I guess it brings a new slant on Ps 96:1
It occurs to me that some people in some churches hold on to their traditional hymns and songs like a comfort blanket. And snarl with menace if anyone were to make changes. Surely here is a clear indication that God wishes us to be refreshed and challenged in worship as well as comforted and familiar. On the other hand I don't agree with churches where only the worship leader seems to know any of the songs (sometimes not even they do!), where new songs are the only thing worth singing. There are some amazing old hymns that have slipped out of general conciousness, which is a great shame.

Perhaps the psalmist should have said "Sing a new song (or sing an old song, in a new way) to the Lord"

May the Force be with you...

http://tinyurl.com/dzgorj

made me chuckle.

Creative Block

Why is it that when I first log-in in the mornings I can never think of anything to blog about?

New news: I have a wii fit now. Apparently it thinks i'm some kind of athlete - but then again, it can't see me collapsed on the floor gasping for breath and vowing "never again". Not a great start but it'll get better i guess.
Although I still think an actual jog, outdoors, in the sunshine (for vitamin D) is better for you; I think I could get to like the wii fit.

Speaking of which - I have some odd neighbours. Wednesday this week, those of you who are local to me will remember was the hottest day this year. Beautiful sunshine, warm breeze - the perfect day to get out and about for a jog or something. However my upstairs neighbour decided to jog on her running machine, indoors, possibly with the curtains closed! Why? What benefit does running on a machine have over running on grass or pavement? Also it means that I'm subjected to an hour of thumping noise from above, so I guess I'm biased.

I guess i've written a lot now - maybe i should change the title.......

...naah can't be bothered

135 days to go......

Found a website that told me this - it's not interesting.....

....unless you like numbers.

From and including: Wednesday, 15 April 2009
To, but not including : Friday, 28 August 2009
It is 135 days from the start date to the end date, but not including the end date
Or 4 months, 13 days excluding the end date
Alternative time units
135 days can be converted to one of these units:
11,664,000 seconds
194,400 minutes
3240 hours
19 weeks (rounded down)

Wow only 11millions seconds and I wasted about 240 of them finding that out.....

The Father-Heart of God

Just started reading this book by Floyd McLung
The first chapter is all about how our parents affect the way we think about God - especially when God is described as a father. So many people in this world recoil at that thought. Their experience of father is not one of constant love, affirmation and care, and so when God is described as a father they seem Him in terms of the earthly, human fathers with all their hurts and failings.

Which makes me sad, and very angry of course. Those that know me well, know i have a bit of a "bee-in-my-bonnet" about the father-son relationship.

Anyway it got me all excited/passionate about the whole thing and reminded me why I am so terrified of becoming one myself - thankfully that'll be a while yet.

Russell Howard talks in his stand-up routine that "I'm not ready to be a dad! I'm still afraid of the dark!" - I know what he means.

Mmmm Weddings

We have finalised the design of the wedding invites!
So if you were wondering why you had'nt received one yet it's cos as of today they've only just come into existance.....

Now all I need to do is get addresses off people!

gtg - fried breakfast awaits!

trains, more trains and er... thats it

To summarise my journey I thought I'd post the limerick me and Jenn created whilst I waited for my connection

J: There was a young man left in Wigan
D: Whose frustration with trains was a big 'un
J: His hands were all cold
D: His plans all on hold
J: And was eaten by a very large pigeon

This took us about 20 mins - which was fine as the train was delayed by about 40mins.
Still, I made it eventually.

must go got stuff to do....

AAAAARGH!!!!!

Am majorly p*ss*d off with Government statistical agencies.... Grrrrrr!

Just spent the equivalent of two working days checking through a salary survey report at the request of UCEA. Approx 350 queries from about 1500 records - ie a fifth of the whole thing.
Their most common query: This persons salary has gone up - are they still doing the same job?
Yes they are you stupid bunch of red-tape using imbeciles - they're called pay awards. EVERYONE gets them as part of the universities agreement with the unions! That's what JNCHES is for! It's that same across the country! I wouldn't mind as much if the persons salary had moved above the rest of their peers but this was queried for people in the middle of the scale.....

.....grrrrr anyway rant over - I'm off to southport tonight. Will be nice to see Jenn for a few days rather than a few hours as seems the norm at the moment.

Have fun
LP

147 days to go....

......till I'm married.

doesn't seem that far away now.

PS have discovered KUBB - are they any good? Was quite liking their song "sun".

Q: Why don't sharks eat clowns? A: Because they taste funny.
That's all for now.

Spotify....

Just joined on the Daves recommendation...

...so far no songs I recognise - which is a good sign i guess, however also no songs I'd really say, "ooh I like this".
As I'm typing all this "REM - sidewinder sleeps tonight" comes on! Excuse me while i rock out for a bit....................................................................................................choon! :-)

Decisions, decisions .... need to buy a TV of a reasonable size. Have decided my parents old TV is too small. But do I get an HD TV? or a plasma? 32"? 64"? how many SCART inputs do i need? can I output sound into my stereo amp?

so many questions, so little patience....

Well waddya know!

England actually managed to make us sweat! That won't have pleased Capello. Although he is quoted as being "very, very happy" - What's Italian for relieved?

At least it was nice to see Gerrard and Rooney playing so well together, albeit intermittently (?) - however I do wonder what will happen when Mr left-footed-able-to-drop-in-behind-gerrard Barry is unavailable.... there is a potential for a large glaring hole which Cashley won't be able to fill.

Still, a 2-1 win and 3 points are definitely useful. England now sit fairly comfortably atop the group by 5 points. It's all looking rather easy at the moment. I'm half expecting to hear that FIFA are going to deduct 6 points or find out that Rooney isn't actually English or something - we can't qualify with a 100% record? Can we?

Stealing Time

I am knackered.

Went into London last night to snatch a glimpse of my fiancee, which was nice although i was so tired that we ended up watching a DVD at Debs while she packed to go away. Woo! Go socialites! Despite all that I didn't get home till 1am. Straight to bed.

I really need an early night. I think I'm living on time stolen from tomorrow at the moment - still an England match should allow me to catch up on lost sleep.

Can't remember the last time an England qualifier seemed so dull. But that's probably a good thing. Fabio Capello has turned England into a dull yet effective team - rather than the exciting but ultimately unsuccessful teams of his predecessors. No more will we have the edge-of-you-seat, will-we-qualify, last-minute desperate games where all seemed to be OK till Englands talent for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory rises again. Now we can look forward to actually meaningless games where we have already qualified and can play the youngsters and give them experience without worrying that we'll lose badly.

My tip of the day: Expect a 0-0 or a 1-0 score - neither team have strikers on form.

Peace to y'all.
LP

What a wonderful world....

Jenson Button wins a race?! What has happened to the universe as we know it? :)
However I think the story of the race really should go to Lewis Hamilton who finished a dubious 4th (how was Trulli in front?) despite having the 15th fastest car in the race.

Part of me thinks that, although a born winner, Lewis will probably have enjoyed his chance to carve through the field - apparently over-taking at will. I can imagine him going "Wheeeeee!" as he hit the KERS and slipped past on the outside of a corner.

On another note - I have a phone-line! BT connected it but didn't feel it necessary to tell me.... odd. Now all I need is SKY broadband and I can blog on weekends!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Am falling asleep at my desk......

....and I have to go to youth group tonight.

Woo.

(Must find caffeine)

Grrrrr.....

Just heard back from the Post Office regarding my post - and basically their response is

"we're going to continue doing what we are already and you should sort it out."

Thanks, thats really not helpful Post Office people.

Still hopefully the electrical tape will hold and I'll have dry post for the first time this week tonight.

On another note - Jenn's off to Ireland for Trampolining Comp. Some people have all the fun!

Sports news

World Track Championships: GB got two silvers, and two bronzes.

Although that sounds dissappointing, compared to the usual headlines of TEAM GB TAKES ALL GOLD MEDALS!!!!!!, I think it was good work from the team.

F1 - Australia this weekend - could be interesting to see who places where? Can Brawn GP win their first race on their F1 debut? Will the stewards ruin the entire season by meddling with the results? Who knows? (well apart from Max Moseley and Bernie Ecclestone)

Football - England play this weekend, can't seem to get any enthusiasm for this.

On second thoughts maybe this post isn't as interesting as I'd hoped....

Apologies

I realise that I have been very remiss in not updating everyone what has been happening.

Grovel grovel grovel

My sincerest apologies - moving flats has changed me into someone with no internet - so I'm having to blog from work instead.

Anyway - loads of stuff happened recently including: moving house, seeing Jenn, working hard, travelling to Southport to taste food, introducing my parents to Jenns parents, having my bike stolen (not intentionally), getting annoyed at the post office, getting a new mattress, buying a Henry, getting a TV and rescuing my Wii, eating more veggie food, failing to eat veggie food....

and probably a lot more that would have made interesting reading, of which you may never hear

Anyway I'll try to post something interesting later.
Chow for now....

Day 2

Another challenging day. The search for veggie food is getting a little difficult.
Having decided that the egg and cress was a no-no, I set about searching for an alternative. Fortunately after rooting around at the back of thechiller cabinet I unearthed a Bombay Potato Naan Wrap. Mmmm yummy. Actually it was nice! Might see if I can find something similar for friday.

As for the evening, it was HUG bowling (I scored 106 and 99) which is cool. Only problem was that the only real choice of food was McDs. Now I know that as a vegetarian the whole idea of Maccys is stupid but I held out hope and went in search of a veggie option.
No luck. Filet-o-fish? yuk, pass. Salad? its got chicken and bacon in it. Hmmm.
Ended up having 2 large portions of chips and a McFlurry. Oooh healthy!

Other than that it was a good day. Roll on the weekend.

Day 1

1 day done and I managed to avoid eating meat!
Wasn't as hard as I thought but it's still early.

Breakfast - Cereal Bar, Apple (I have this everyday anyway so I won't mention them again)

Lunch - Egg and Cress sandwiches, coca-cola (the only change was no bacon in my usual Bacon and egg sarny) - egg and cress is rank. Big no-no for tomorrow. Not sure what to have. might just have crisps instead

Dinner - went out for Rob's birthday. So ordered from the veggie menu! Although in the end went with Fish and chips (fish is allowed!) and garlic bread and an ice-cream.

So all in all a good day (except for lunch) and not too hard. I think the major challenge for the next 39 days will be getting some variety in meals.

Still, I will press on and keep you posted.

New News

Ok lots to say....

Flat - We have one lined up. Only need to jump through the necessary hoops and it'll all be sorted!

Wedding - no new developments this week other than now we have a flat I can start concentrating on honeymoons!

Lent - I have decided to fast from meat for the 40 days of Lent. Not cos I think killing animals is wrong but because I think it will be a personal challenge and will be a good reminder to pray!

I will keep you posted on what develops.

PS

oh and we have a photographer and a Jazz band lined up for the wedding.
Woop woop!

New Flat

Anyone know where to get a decent-sized cheap flat?

Am having a stressy week this week. So bad I even bought chocolate brownies.
I only just realised I have a month in which to find and move into a new flat - so far things have not gone well.

Still I can't give up. I just want to.

An NFL Joke...

Two guys are drinking in a bar.
One says, "Did you know that Lions have sex 10 to 15 times a night?"
His mate says, "Maybe that’s why they’re 0-16"

HAHAHAHAHahahahahahah....ha ......ha......oh

Thanks folks, I'm here all year!

Maturity

They say that you're only young once - but you can be immature forever....

...but can you? Is there a point in your life where you have to grow up? Can you actually manage to live, love, work and even play, without gaining a little maturity along the way.

But then does maturity require the inability to be silly? I sincerely hope not. I may be able to rent a flat, get married and have a pension but I can also tickle Jenn till she can't breathe, get excited over Kinder Surprise toys and make stupid faces on photos.

I guess what worries me is that the people I know who are 'mature' also tend to be serious and un-fun. They talk about pension plans and insurance policies. They worry about the state of the economy and the cost of housing. Then again so do I....just in the privacy of my own room :-)

Am I growing up? I certainly didn't plan to.

I have a new hero....

"To have gone to Manchester City could have been a great project but in the past few days I have prayed a lot to understand what the right team would be and in the end I have decided to remain here." - Kaka (from BBC website)

...apparently God's more influencial than money.

Monopoly money

At what point does the football transfer market become obscene? Was it when Alan Shearer was 'bought' by Newcastle for £15m? Or when Roman Abramovitch started the trend for real life fantasy football?
I'm talking, of course, about the (reported) £107m offer by Man City to AC Milan for Kaka.

Just to put this into perspective here is a list of things you can buy for £107m:

107,000,000 lottery tickets
8,200,000 Pizzas
71,300 60" plasma TVs
114 Bugatti Veyrons
82 x 6-bedroom houses in Uxbridge

Also the island of Anguilla in the Leeward Islands has a GDP of £109m. So AC Milan will recieve the equivalent of the output of approx. 13,000 people.

The thing is, once you get into the millions of pounds any figure is beyond any real sense - it just becomes numbers. Nonsensical figures on a piece of paper. Monopoly money.

When Liverpool won the Champions League they earned £28.6m in prize money
So in order for Man city to get that money back the would need to win the next 3 Champions leagues back-to-back. Tough job for a team in 15th place at the moment.
So no pressure then Kaka.....

So much to do....

....only 226 days to do them in.

I'm getting married on 28th August.

That is all.

Mmmm blogging

Yes, I've finally succumbed to the pressure. I have a blog. I might use it a lot. I might not.
But then again no-one actually reads these do they?
Anyway - expect to see the following things in this blog: random questions that probably don't make sense, thoughts that occured to me whilst I was doing this, rants about stuff that annoys me (like people who don't know how to use London Underground ticket barriers) and silly jokes that I find funny.
Also I'm getting married this summer so I might be blogging about that a bit too.
Not that you care - but you might.

So to get the ball rolling: Velcro - what a rip off.