Sunday Morning Walk

I have not taken any photo's in ages, so this morning I decided to take the dog for an alternative walk with a little detour through Hull's older part of the city center, and bring my camera along for thrills and spills! Nothing much caught my eye, but I took these shots and I fiddled with them in Photoshop, and I think they look OK! Enlarge them for a better view!

I spent yesterday working until 1 o'clock then I went home and got ready for the football match. The football match was pretty dull itself, but I didn't get to see most of it anyway, because a large contingent of the Millwall supporters were only at the game for trouble and trouble they caused! I spent most of the game looking to my right, keeping an eye out for flying objects (I sit very close to the away supporters) as they ripped out over 50 seats and the metal brackets which the seats are bolted onto, and launched them into our supporters and at the police officers who had been called in to stop them charging into our crowd. Having said that, it was a good day at the office for me personally as I didn't actually get hit by any of the seats, brackets and coins they were throwing at us, but had a £1 coin and a 50 pence piece land at my feet, and as the game was quite dull they did at least provide me with entertainment as they battled with the police, who were in full riot gear with batons at the ready!

I have also treated myself recently to some DVD's of programme's I used to watch when I was young. I already have Transformers and Thundercats on DVD but I have also just added Voltron: Defender of the Universe and Terrahawks (Zelda and her clan used to scare me as a 5 year old kid!) I am also waiting for a decent DVD release of Fraggle Rock.

Last piece of the jigsaw

Yesterday I ordered this small mixing desk, the last piece of equipment I need, so I can start recording the fourth 'Legend of Sid' album 'Fat People Are Harder To Kidnap' so far I have only recorded one track for the album 'Buxom Wench' which I recorded last year before the old folks started moving rooms and furniture around!
Basically, I was using my hi-fi connected to my PC, to playback my music during recording sessions, but I can't do that anymore because, I did have a large room on the ground floor, but now i'm in a small room on the top floor and cannot fit both my hi-fi and PC desk into my current bedroom, so I used it as an opportunity to get a more professional set up, for a more professional quality of sound, meaning the mixing desk and some monitor speakers...just need speaker cables now!
I am currently working on the following songs for the album;

Fish Finger Devastation>>>>>>>>>>> a brand new one!
Posh Coffee & Shitty Stains
Fat People Are Harder To Kidnap!
Pat's Medical Mumbo Gumbo
Listen & Jerk Off
I will get you off in seconds!
Unzip & Unload
Cheap recordings

and a number of others, that I can't remember the name of at this very minute! Those last four songs titles were actual telephone-sex advert titles in the back of the FHM/ Nuts/ Zoo magazines which a colleague keeps bringing in to the canteen at work. I thought they were too funny not to be used as song titles, so they will form part of a seedy musical suite called 'The Soundz of Sex Suite' marvelous!

Fish Finger Devastation

I now know the feeling of devastation! I look in the cupboards, fridge and freezer, trying to decide what I will have for lunch. I decide upon having a fish finger sandwich, after spotting a box of fish fingers with exactly four fish fingers in it....perfect for a sandwich I thought, and subsequently put the fish fingers in the oven for 10-15 minutes, and sit and wait patient and hungry. I prepare my bread and then take the fish fingers out of the oven. I get the gribber-grabbers out of the drawer and start to place them on the bread using the gribber-grabbers until I reach the forth and final one, where I then proceed to pick it up and place it onto the bread with it's three other friends, but something happened....due to an unforeseen and unexplainable cosmic incident, the fish finger slides out of the gribber-grabbers and onto the floor, leaving me with an unbalanced and uneven fish finger sandwich and in an unconsolable state!!! Devastating! I think I will turn this experience into a new 'Legend of Sid' song!

Last night I was introduced to a fantastic comedy series by my friend Mark! He has been going on about a show called 'Flight Of The Conchords' for a number of weeks saying "it is a must see show" and "it's very funny and utterly brilliant" so with some sceptascism, I borrow his season 1 DVD. It is FANTASTIC! One of the funniest and best comedy shows I have seen in ages! If you get a chance to see it, then you absolutely must watch it!!!
Flight of the Conchords follows the trials and tribulations of a two man, digi-folk band from New Zealand as they try to make a name for themselves in their adopted home of New York City. The band is made up of Bret McKenzie on guitar and vocals, and Jemaine Clement on guitar and vocals.
Bret and Jemaine have moved to New York in the hope of forging a successful music career. So far they've managed to find a manager (whose "other" job is at the New Zealand Consulate), one fan (a married obsessive) and one friend (who owns the local pawn shop) -- but not much else.

I have also just started work on writing a story called 'The Curious and Forbidding World Of Dorman Runner' can't really say too much about it yet, but if my progress on it turns out OK, I will create a separate blog just for my story and place a link on here! But as my friend Johnny Jazz is always telling me, I take on too many projects and never end up finishing them, so we'll see how that goes!

Having a cold isn't so dynamite!

Two things really annoyed me in the last 24 hours, one last night and one this morning!

Firstly, when I had a look on Facebook last night before going to bed, I noticed some old looking, faded photo's on my page where an old school friend of mine had "tagged" me, it just so happens that when these pictures were taken when I was about 14 years old, I just happened to look similar to Napoleon Dynamite (pictured) which means I will now have all my current friends laughing and taking the piss out of me for a good few days, I really would have liked for my friends to not see these old photo's of me! So, that teaches me to say hello, when an old school friend adds me as a friend!

Second, I had a nasty cold all weekend meaning I sat on the sofa for two days with my eyes constantly watering, my nose constantly running, which is annoying as hell, a headache and bunged up ears. This all started to clear late yesterday afternoon, but I still felt quite shitty and generally lacking in energy and motivation, so I was trying to decide weather I should be ringing in sick at work on the Monday morning.
I decided that if I felt that I could realistically be of use, then I would go in as I hate taking 'sick days' and so when my alarm went off at 5am, I felt I could just about get through a day at work, given that a monday morning usually involves half an hour or so of heavy, manual labour. I really didn't want to leave this all to my work partner, that I had been paired up with for this week, so with the though **I can't let my work partner down**I trotted off to work, hoping I would be rewarded with an easy day for my efforts to come in.
When I arrived at work, a colleage informed me that my partner had rang in sick because he wasn't very well....just great I thought, and instantly knew that I was in for a very busy day because I had to do 2 peoples share of work and still have it done in the same amount of time, so it did not effect/impact on any other processes which were also ongoing, so I realised that I should have just rang in sick in the first place and not worried about leaving my colleages to do all the work, because when it's them, they won't give it a second thought!!!

Despite these two annoying events, I still arrived home this afternoon in a good mood.... a sense of achievement perhaps??? Or just glad to be back home.

I feel like listening to music this evening, so I will now go and listen to Katy Perry then some Motown and then some Simon & Garfunckle because that's what I feel like listening to and you ain't gonna stop me!

Steve Vai - Whispering A Prayer (Live at The Astoria)

As I sat around earlier listening to my Ipod during a brief respite from the bunged up ears which I now have, as a result of slipping deeper into that horrible state of having a nasty cold, (made worse by sitting in the freezing cold this evening, to watch Hull City get undeservedly beat by Arsenal) this beautiful guitar instrumental by Steve Vai came on and instantly cheered me up, so I had a quick look on You Tube to see if I could share it with you guys....so here it is! Not sure about his stage costume though, it looks like after he gets off stage, he is going to march on to Helms Deep!

Bob, avert your eyes and ears, this really isn't your cup of tea!!!!

I Love Insanity Sauce

The other day my bottle of 'Dave's Gourmet Special Reserve Insanity sauce' arrived in the post. This sauce is so hot and generally bad ass, that it comes in it's own coffin! It's expensive though, including the £2.00 postage, it cost me £27.99.
Each year those lovely people at Dave's Gourmet, formulate a special sauce with three times the heat of standard Insanity Sauce. It's hand signed by Dave, numbered, vintage dated and laid to rest in a wooden coffin wrapped in caution tape. 5 oz. Heat Insane +++ It also tastes superb, at least for the first few seconds, then you can't taste anything except the burn, and that caution on the front of the bottle is no exaggeration, you literally use it one drop at a time. I am trying to push my personal limit, and can currently handle 8 drops in a chilli or curry or whatever.
We collectively bought a bottle of last years private reserve at work for the canteen fridge, but I also wanted a bottle for home to add a kick to the occasional dish.....and also to play nasty evil tricks on friends and family! Hopefully I can capture a reaction and post it on Youtube Mwuhahahahaha!

In the arms of a Tiger

I took this image of our cat Millie last night because I had said to my mother, that the cat sleeps in the arms of the tiger, but she thought I was making it up because she had never seen her do it, even though cat hairs keep congregating around its paws, so now I have proof!!!

I have finally succumbed to this horrible virus that's been going around for the last couple of months.....you know the one, with the chesty, phlegmy lungs and sore throat etc. So I'm in for a few miserable weeks, BOOOOO!

In my performance development review at the end of last year, I said I wouldn't mind doing some form of qualification this year, meaning something like a HNC in Chemical Engineering, which I could carry on and turn into a degree, if I wasn't fed up with it at the end of the first 3 years. So what did my manager put me in for....an NVQ in Business Improvement Techniques! Well, not exactly what I had in mind, but if the company are paying for it, I suppose it will be something I can add to my CV. But I will still be asking to do that HNC! So today meant a late finish, because as well as training a colleage, I had to attend a boring 2 hour meeting with the NVQ people, to discuss what it's all about.

I'm no longer a Subways virgin!

This mark in the back stage area, proves that there is another band called the Strands, somewhere in the universe!

Dean's getting worried and frustrated at the lack of audience!

Setting up!

Two nights out in a row! On Friday I went along to the Lamp with my bro for a few too many beers and games of drunken Pool, and to listen to some live bands. I didn't really want to go out because I was going on a trip to Liverpool on the Saturday night to 'The Cavern Club' to watch 'The Strands' and begin work on filming a rockumentary about the highs and lows of being in a touring, unsigned band! But I promised my friend Jo that I would go to the Lamp with her as she didn't have anyone to go with and really wanted to see the bands.

I awoke the next morning with a fuzzy brain and a dry throat, and wondered how I was going to make it through another evening out. By around 1 o'clock however, I was feeling fine and looked forward to the arrival of the Strands "Mega Bus" which would take us on our journey to the "European city of culture" (at least until midnight that evening, when the title would be handed over to another city)

I had spoken previously to Dean (the singer) at work, about doing a rockumentary, purely for shits and giggles, and he seemed up for it! The trip to the Cavern was largely uneventful until we reached the city center, were John (the drummer) who was driving, decided to ignore the satnav on 3 occasions, meaning lots of wrong turns and confusion, with the air turning blue (mostly by John himself) until the satnav finally corrected Johns errors!

The band set up and did their soundcheck and then we had a few hours to kill, so we took a walk to find something to eat. We walked past a Subway, but the general feeling that a McDonalds or Burger King would be more suited, so I showed the way to the Burger King I usually go to when I visit the Cavern Club, but when we arrived there were about a hundred thousand people in the vicinity, probably to do with the last night of city of culture status, we tried both "eating joints" but the cues were horrendous and we were getting very hungry, so we headed back to Subways, were I had my first ever Subways sandwhich, breaking my Subways virgin status.

Back in the club the first band went on stage to a reasonable audience (they were local lads) they were then were followed by an Italian rock band who were horrendous and managed to clear out most of the people who had hung around, this and the fact that there was a local slimeball promoter running the evening (I say running in the loosest possible sense, because all he did all night was stand at the door to the live music room, like a guard dog, trying to charge £3.50 entry fee, meaning most people turned back and stayed in the front part of the club) so when The Strands came on, they played a blinding set to about 10 people, which is a hard job to do, to capture the presence and spirit of things when your playing to an empty room, but as I was filming the gig they managed to do a respectable job! Luckily, due to my filming duties I had to remain professional and drink very little, but after the gig, I started to feel very tired and looked forward to returning home. The band were extremely disappointed as they had basically paid £70 to the venue, just to play to an empty room. Whilst it was a low for the band and prompted a quiet and reserved ride home, it was good for my film, because as I had said to them, the aim of the film is to get the highs AND lows of touring! The "mega bus" as it turned out, wasn't that mega, because it didn't have a radio and no heating, which meant for a cold ride home, and to add insult to injury, our boiler has broken down meaning a cold bed when I got home! I was home for 2:30am and straight into that cold bed!

Oh yeah and this week, I have mostly been amusing myself by leaving random lines from movies on my friends Facebook pages!

Tough Titty!

Only 3 days into the new working year and it seems some of my colleages have spent an intensive Christmas period preparing for a good irate moan upon their return!
It has been common knowledge for at least 6 months, that when we returned to work this year, at some point we would start working split shifts (6am-2pm and 12pm-8pm) and working regular Saturdays.
So for the last three days, 2 of my colleages have sat in the tea room, moaning and shouting to anyone who will listen and anyone who won't, because management have decided to implement the changes that we knew were coming, and nobody tried to fight.
It states in our contract that they can call upon us anytime between 6am and 12am during weekdays and Saturdays, so as far as I can see, the company is quite within it's right to ask us to do this.
For the last 2 years I have worked on the "shop floor" as one of the grunts, I have worked more then my share of Saturdays as have others in the department, (last year I worked 10 Saturdays whilst most of the others, barr 2 or 3 worked none) but these were always on a voluntary basis! (My feelings were that if I put my hand up and volunteered when it suited me (i.e when I am not going to watch Hull City on a saturday afternoon) then I would be in a good position to say "no ask someone else" when they needed people on days when I was going to the football.
The problem with all this, is that when we all applied for jobs working in this department, we all asked about the working hours and wether we work saturdays, to which the management replied "we only work one shift (6am-2pm) and we never work Saturdays and there are no plans for this to change in the future" so people took the jobs on that basis, as some people have young children and do most activities with them on a Saturday. Other then getting to the football matches I don't have any worries or commitments such as kids.
As it stands, my only veiw on this is "tough titty" to us, but nevertheless, people are looking at bringing in a union rep/solicitor to see where we stand!
On a personal level I'm not entirely bothered about the changes, they won't effect me that much, although my attitude would change if I couldn't get to the football as a result, but feel they would be willing to accomodate me in that respect, but I also feel that we shouldn't let the company walk all over us, with out us putting up any kind of resistance, so if the people want to fight it, then I'm in! Who knows, maybe this could lead me onto fighting my own revolution in the future, just like the great Ernesto 'Che' Guevara! Oh hang on a minute, I've rambled off into Walter Mitty territory, I'll stop now.

Grant's Birthday

The birthday boy, pulling his trademark photo face!

Group hug, from left : Mark, random guy, Grant and Me

It's a thumbs up from Rob!

I ams what I am Olive!

Me looking bemused at Rob's decision to have a glass of Rose in a pub on a Saturday night!

The tale end of a political debate between Rob and Mark, which lasted for hours!

Another thumbs up from Rob!

A pair of metrosexuals?

Mark and Grant, eyeing each other up for a licking!

Went out last night for my friend Grant's birthday, drank loads and have a queezy stomach today as a result! I just had to watch 'Jeff Dunham's very special Christmas show' to make my self laugh and take my mind off my hungover state - 'Acmed The Dead Terrorist' was a good cure, I now feel much better!
My usual cure for a hangover is a big fry-up, but not today! The only thing I could manage to eat was a Pot Noodle!

I have been off work on holiday now for a month, tomorrow I go back to work........I am NOT looking forward to that!