Hard Drive Blues

Woke up this morning.......I was in a good mood.......got a call from the shop......my hard drive's no good.......etc.

Yep, the hard drive in my laptop has gone to silcon heaven, I need a new one fitted and in total it will cost me £135. Then there's the lost documents, photo's etc and the hassle of re-installing all the software and programs, oh well! The Buddhist in me is saying everything is cool and to keep a smile on my face, and you know what, it don't matter and I still feel chilled. It's a good job I bought an external hard drive and transfered most of my stuff onto it, so it's not hit me too bad. And I should have my computer back tomorrow.

I have been in a good mood since the memory card arrived for my phone yesterday, I can't believe how small it is, but it means my phone can now hold music, so it's a phone, my blogging camera, a radio, and an MP3 player, I love it!

Speaking of photo's the above ones are of the Humber bridge, taken last week whilst off work.

My laptop is broken

My laptop has decided to breakdown on me and so I have limited access to the internet until it's fixed, but I have managed to sneak onto my sisters computer to post these photo's.

Wimp Fight - The Final $80 purse

Here's a 'clem' video which features me as the shows opening presenter 'Jammima' which I think shows off my acting skills to the highest degree, I am very proud of this....my acting debut.

More pictures taken in Hull city centre

More puppy pics

Girl Power!

As promised, here are the new arrivals! We are currently standing at 7 girls and 2 boys, but we think there will be more. Mia is proving to be a natural mother, doing all her duties without a single cry of pain/discomfort. It all started at 6:40pm and here she is at am at 11:00pm, possibly still going. We are so proud of her, I think Duke knows what is happening, he is positioned at the baby gate we have borrowed and errected looking very pleased and exited. In the end she opted for bare floor boards then the nice quilted dog bed, but there you go!!!

Off yer trolley

Here's some pictures of abandoned shopping trolly's which I found whilst on walkabout yesterday.

Victoria Square (Hull)

I think the Pidgeon on the bench is a nice little touch in this photo. The other image shows the waste of money big TV screen in the same square.

On the dog pregnancy front, Mia appears to have chosen underneath my bed to have her pups, i'll have to come up with a plan to get her out and into the nice dog basket/bed which was bought for her. I'll not be the one kept up all night with a commotion and a stink.

Down the river

Todays picture is a view down the river Humber, you can see one of the Humber bridge towers in the distance.

Comedian @ Work

Just saw this and thought it was hilarious and so true!

Characters At Work

Sid
When skinny Sidney arrives at work, the first thing he does is put his knackered Cub-90 into the bike sheds, and then enters the factory hoping that he can get away with doing as little as possible for the rest of the day, and so is the daily cycle of this geezer, also known for such classic phrases as "tough sh!t fella" and shouting f##k off to people.

Slipper-1
So named because some of the men in the factory really want to "slip her one", this girl loves to bend over a pallet of stacked boxes and present her rear to any willing passer-by. She works on the packing line and is good friends with her colleages Dolph Chingrun and It's Raining Men Man.

It's Raining Men Man
This guy is so gay it hurts, and the thing is, he does not realise it. Seen wearing an array of brightly coloured tank tops and assorted frilly trousers, opting for side-burns and a hairy chest this is one camp dude. He works on the packing line with Slipper-1, but is prone to dissapearing for weeks at a time, we wonder were he goes.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nobby No Neck
I think Nobby is the chief of fitters, damn straight, with his rubbery mask like face and the fact that he has litterally no neck, this guy is a legend, I give him a score of 10 out of 10 on these merits alone. Often seen darting through the corridors near our lab at fast speeds due to his low center of gravity, this neckless wonder should run for prime minister, he'd get my vote.

Arsεholε Mouth
This guy's wrinkled pucker actually looks like a genuine άrsεholε. He's getting on a bit in years and I don't actually know what his job is, he might fix machines or something. There's not much else I can say without potentially upsetting people, but his name says it all.

Dolph Chingrun
Poor dozy Dolph, it seems he has lost his way in life. His main priority is to try and keep awake long enough to be useful, he is often seen asleep high atop the factory machinery, were not sure how he gets into these hard to reach places but we think it may be due to his sleep walking.

Mario
This guy is the man to go to for factory gossip, always friendly and ever ready for a rant about the state of the company, he's often seen driving the forklift trucks about the warehouse. He loves to hear a joke and loves to tell em, but when it comes to break times he drops everything in a hurry to get to the smoke room.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rupert
We don't like this guy, he can usually be seen doing two things, either sitting in a meeting or kissing a superiors άrsε. He's a complete moron, so much so, he even dared to name his son Rupert (the poor little bugger). He is often seen walking around the factory with his clipboard delegating his minor tasks to people on the factory floor.

Shovel Paws
This guy has huge hands, no sh!t, his mitts are huge. Every "run of the mill" task is vertually impossible for this guy from typing, answering the phone and knocking on doors, to fixing a plug, cooking and buying a pair of gloves. What he wants most in this world is to hold someone, but the last three times he tried that he was convicted of manslaughter, tragic really. Nobody actually knows what his role is within the company, but he is occasional seen loading 1 Ton pallets onto the back of lorries with his bare hands.

Slug
This ones not hard to find, you just have to look for the remains of his slimy trail on the warehouse floor, follow it and sweet bejesus, there he is leaving his mark on the world. Half man, half machine, this cleaner drives around all day keeping standards of cleanliness at their very peak, what a guy.

Here are some characters based on actual people from work, I spent about an hour drawing these on paint for a website which me and some ex colleagues had, as a kind of piss take on our work place. Just for laughs really.

Harmonica

Again I have spent a few minutes messing around on photoshop, this time with pictures of my Harmonica. I can't actualy play the thing very well, I can play Camptown Races and that's about it, just a lacking of effort on my part really. Again they are simple manipulations and just a case of adding a filter and letting photoshop do the work for me, but I do like some of the images it churns out.

I spent about an hour playing my acoustic guitar last night, I really need to get back on top of my guitar practice as it really showed last night, after just a couple of minutes my finger tips were very sore! And if I want to start recording tracks to put on Myspace I'll need to apply a little effort. People must be really bored with the 2 tracks I do have on there.

Another bad result for The Tigers......

Bah!!! I don't want to bore evryone with sports but........four games into the season and Hull City have managed 3 losses and just 20 minutes ago they managed a goal-less draw against Ipswich Town, all in all a poor start to the season points wise, at least I can take some optimism from ther half decent performances on the pitch. However, we need to start converting these performances into wins if wer'e going to finish anywhere reasonable in the Championship this season, oh well, there's always the next game.
I didn't go to this away game, I listened to it on the radio, but my dad and my brother did travel the couple of hundred miles to see it, so they'll probably be miserable when they get home tonight.

I achieved the above picture by taking a photo of my Hull City beer glass and adding a filter to it on Photoshop. I really like the patters in the glass which are created when using these kinds of filters.

More Blogs for Dogs

Mia and Vince

Duke

Mia and Vince

And some more!

Blogs for Dogs

Pregnant Mia looking worse for wear

Duke

Duke

Mia (not pregnant)

Mia & Vince Go To The Park

Mia

Here are some images of our dogs as requested by Gincoleaves and Chana, puppy pictures will follow when she's had em! Vince apears in some of the pics however he passed away about 3 months ago and we got Duke so Mia didn't get lonely, it didn't take long for them to make friends, hence why Mia is pregnent.

Time to chill

Came across this old building which is about to be torn down, it was the old painted sign which caught my attention.

Thats it for 10 days, no more work, I don't actually have anything planned as usual, but not being at work is good enough for me, time to chill, watch movies, watch crappy day time TV, play computer games, get up late, go to bed late, listen to music etc. I'm sure i'll be busy looking after puppy Rottweilers soon, as one of our dogs is due to give birth in 5 days or so. I may go for a wander about the city while i'm off work and look for some interesting images to capture on camera.

Patterns from the head of a torch

I'm feeling much better today after realising yesterday I had a bit of a virus and that was why I felt so crook over the last week. Unfortunatly I passed my germs onto my French colleague and she got sent home from work today, just tomorrow morning to go and then ten days of freedom from work for me.
The above picture was acheived when I was messing around the other night, I pointed a torch directly at my phone and captured an image, with a little cropping, duplicating, rotating and stitching I found the above image, which is pretty cool.

Cactus on Patio Table

This is the only plant I now own, I used to have a few nice house plants.....I can't actually remember what happened to those but one was a rather nice Palm. This is an art installation....honest!

Depressing Sight #39

I have shown a complete dis-regard for my blog over this last week and for two reasons;

(1) I have been feeling wiped out, I don't seem to have any energy this week or last, it's probably because next week I have a week off work and i'm already there in heart and spirit.

And

(2) I have been spending my evenings playing tactical games over the internet against a friend and against other people.

I don't really have anything else to say, but at least it's not as long as my last posting abandonement which lasted a couple of months!!
The above image shows the depressing sight which awaited me when I arrived at work each morning before I moved to a new department/area. That's no camera trickery, it really does seem to go on forever, I'm glad I got out!

Hooligans

Over the years I have seen some bizarre scenes unfold from our living room window. The image above I took around three years ago when Leeds United (our local rivals) came to play my football team Hull City (that's soccer for any Americans out there) for a supposed friendly game.
Unfortunately there is a slight problem in the UK and to some extent Europe, of hooliganism, and it appears these so-called fans from both teams had arranged to have a mass running battle with each other, the meeting place being that pub across the road from my house.
Prior to me actually locating my camera and taking this picture there had been around 70 people fighting on the road, pavements and grass verges, with cars and motorbikes weaving between groups of yobs. Needless to say we were on the phone to the police who arrived within minutes, cornering the away supporters inside the pub. Around half an hour later they were all escorted away. I did have other photo's of the event but they were corrupted a year or two ago. Please don't be conjuring up violent images of life in the UK, it's not that bad really!!!

Salsa

Here's some pics taken by a friend last year whilst at salsa one evening. The top one is me dancing with a girl, the other shows the room in full swing, apologies for the quality of the photo's but they were taken using his phone and technology has moved on since then.
As soon as I get my scooter back on the road I'll be going back, it's a good social evening....rock on!

Coast to Coast(Lyrics)

I was tired, never felt so alone
Doesn't help these people hanging around
Got to break this cycle one for the road
Don't you know I'm heading coast to coast

All this time I spent, I drank for my soul
I don't ever want to go there alone
Gotta plan, this heist is worth more then gold
Come along were heading coast to coast

All the dangers on this heist
Don't go
And if I told you once I told you twice
Don't go
Their gonna read out your number
Don't go
You claim it's not your mantra
Don't go, too close

In the car the people passing us by
The stations where we end our ride
It didn't go like we thought it would go
Atleast we've seen it coast to coast

WORDS BY Dave Craik & Kevin Brown

Infatuations and Hard Decisions

Life is not always rosey, sometimes your are forced to make hard decisions. The following is a portion of a letter I wrote to a work colleage last year, he had become infatuated with my younger sister who also worked in the same department, but she left to persue a career in nursing.

After careful consideration and an increasing concern that your actions may start to upset my sister even more so then at presant, and if worst comes to worst, make her paranoid, depressed and concerned for her own safety, I am writing this letter to ask you to cease your efforts to contact my sister. This is her wish as well as mine, as she cannot now trust your intentions.
Although she appreciates all the efforts you made with regards to references for university and also in providing a shoulder to cry on during her troubled times at this company, she has now moved on in her life and her time at this company is a period in her life she would rather forget. Despite her break up with her boyfriend she is happy with her life at the moment.
You should also consider that it is easy for a man in his 40's to say he sees that age is not a problem or a barrier between two people when the aim of his effections/infatuation is a 22 year old girl, but with the roles reversed, it's not so easy for the young attractive girl to fancy a portly, unatractive, middle-aged man.
Imagine if your wife and children found out about your actions (which could be arranged, I have your signed, handwritten love letter for proof) would you not feel ashamed and would they not feel hurt and betrayed. .......................etc, etc.

Luckily he got the message and stopped.