Is it that long since I blogged..?

Hi all,

What do you think of the snow? It only works at the moment if you're using an IE based browser or Netscape. (Ah, whatever happened to Netscape, the Betamax of the web) :)

This was just a quick tester, to see the effect. The next incarnation will be better. This one didn't involve uploading a *.gif first.

Anyway, what have I been doing.. well, I have another darts trophy. Runner up in the Ted Brown Memorial darts competition held at work. And on the same subject.. Tuesday saw me through the first three rounds of the Bracknell and Binfield Darts; singles competion. Enough of that.. :)

We lost at pool on Thurday, so we're back to our normal level of success.. it was close at only 1-8, but I still see a little room for improvement in certain areas.. ie. hitting the ball.

Last night was the big night at the club. We aranged for a musical duo and a comedian to do their stuff, and it went down a treat.. once they turned up. To be fair, they got snagged in traffic on the M4, but once there they were absolutey brilliant. If both the readers of this blog need to find an entertainer for their function, then I can recommend both the Ricky Anderson duo (no web mention that I can find), and George Saunders, the comedian. My upper cheeks are still aching from the permanent grin during George's act. And yes, I will put up a few of his jokes when the effects of the second sweet sherry are alleviated.

The huge amount of hard work that went into the night was done almost entirely by Mrs. Liam, and as such.. well done. I'm not knocking the fact that, as she's my other half, it may look as though I had played a significant role in this as well. I can't help what people think now, can I. :)

That'll do for this one. Comments are welcome, if only to show that somebody reads this.. :)

Cheers

Liam

More computery stuff..

Hi,

It has been six days since my last confess.. err.. blog. My how time flies. I'll blog up an abridged (you wish) :) version of events that have been going on around me later, but for now I thought I'd offer my tuppence worth of advice on a subject I actually know something about.. keeping your machine free of viruses, spyware and the like. I did all the main work to this blog first (why on earth did keyboard manufacturers put the < > brackets in "upper case"???), and I'm meant to be going out in a minute, so this bit's rushed. If you have got problems follow the advice below before doing anything else.. (out of time, so I'll tidy up this intro later on) :)


Download AdAware SE from here.

First, in the main window, look in the bottom right corner and click on Check for updates now and download the latest reference files.

Next, we need to configure Ad-aware for a full scan.

Click on the Gear icon (second from the left) to access the preferences/settings window

1. In the General window make sure the following are selected:
· Automatically save log-file
· Automatically quarantine objects prior to removal
· Safe Mode (always request confirmation)

2. Click on the Scanning button on the left and select :
· Scan Within Archives
· Scan Active Processes
· Scan Registry
· Deep Scan Registry
· Scan my IE favorites for banned URL’s
· Scan my Hosts file

· Under Click here to select drives + folders, choose:
· All of your hard drives | Proceed

3. Click on the Advanced button on the left and select:
· Include additional process information
· Include additional file information
· Include environment information

4. Click the Tweak button and select:
· Under the Scanning Engine:
· Unload recognized processes & modules during scan
· Include additional Ad-aware settings in logfile
· Under the Cleaning Engine:
· Let Windows remove files in use at next reboot

5. Click on Proceed to save the settings.

6. Click Start and on the next screen choose:
· Use Custom Scanning Options

7. Click Next and Ad-aware will scan your hard drive(s) with the options you have selected.

When finished, mark everything for removal and get rid of it. (Right-click the window and choose Select All from the drop down menu and click Next).

Next, please reboot again and download Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.3 from here: if you haven't already got the program.

Click on Updates | Download Updates, and follow the prompts.

Next, close all Internet Explorer windows, and click Check for Problems. Once the scan is complete, have SpyBot remove all it finds marked in RED.


Other useful programs to include in your Security Kit.

SpywareBlaster

SpywareGuard

IE-SpyAd

You should also make sure that you have both a Firewall, and an up-to-date Anti-Virus program installed. Here are a few links to some free Firewall programs...

Zone Alarm

Sygate

Kerio

..and Anti-Virus programs...

AVG

Avast

AntiVir

Of course having the latest Windows Updates is vital. Go here, click Scan for updates in the main frame, and download and install all CRITICAL updates recommended, being careful to follow any recommendations for individual installation, where appropriate.

There are many other programs advertised on the web, and to be honest, most of them are a waste of disc space,but all those above come highly recommended by the security community.

If you want to read about the growing pile of useless, fraudulent and downright rubbish programs available online and purporting to be anti-spyware utilities, then have a read here.

Hopefully there's some helpful info there. If you have any virus/spyware related problems, then there are some good online forums that will help you for free. Of course, if you know me from any of the other blogs or forums, drop me a line and I'll see what I can do. I can't offer this service to everybody, but I'll always help a mate out. :)

Cheers

Liam

All things computing.

Hi,

well I've sorted out the harddisk problems. I used Restorer2000 Data Recovery Software 2.0 to find the important stuff.. documents etc. The trial (free) version could recover up to 64Kb per file, which was plenty for what I needed.

Job done.

This morning Oi 'ave mostly bin playin' wi' Foirefoxx.

I haven't used IE for a long time now, prefering Avant for it's speed and reliability and security and well it's just better than IE is all. But as anyone who's been near the 'net in the last few days will have seen, Mozilla has released Firefox 1.0.

Not being your average luddite, I thought I'd get it and have a look at it. Well.. err, it's a browser. It's very basic so you can go on the net without all the added bloat of IE, but there are scores of people writing all the little extensions that you'll need for more advanced surfing.. ad-blockers, TBEs (Tabbed Browsing Extensions) and a whole host of other things. I did notice one for Blogspot a bit earlier. I'll have a look at it in a bit, and review that at a later date.

So far, I've imported my bookmarks to Firefox, but the most important plugin I needed was for Roboform. If you use Roboform to store passwords for your various forums, sites, blogs etc, then the ability to use it in another browser is going to be extremely important. Can you remember every password you've ever used? Nope, nor can I. You can get the plugin for Roboform to work with Firefox, and many other browsers from here. It all works.. although as soon as you use Roboform to fill in any passwords, Firefox's own password manager grabs a copy as well. Belt and braces is a good thing.. :)

One thing I am going to have to sort out is the skin. Dull and boring are decent adjectives, and wholly apt in this case. I'm used to Avant. It's pretty yet functional, and all the useful buttons are neat, tidy and accessible. Even IE looks nicer than Firefox. This will give me something to do this afternoon. I can't possibly make it any uglier than it already is.

Cheers

Liam

Long time no see..

Hi all,

Well, a quick rundown of the week..

Tuesday: Team lost at darts, I won my games.
Wednesday: Darts pairs comp. We lost, but played afirly well.
Thursday: Pool: Back to normal.. lost.
Friday: Work, Beer, Kebab.

Today, I've been trying to recover after a computer crash. This happened last weekend, but I still have a functioning C:\ drive, so didn't worry too much. Drives D: and E: though are mysteriously missing. Their tags appear in My Computer, but at 0 bytes. DOS can't identify their existence. D:\ only has (well to be more precise did have, as I've just formatted it) a few programs on it, so no great loss there. E: however has stuff that although not disastrous if lost, I'd prefer to see again. Old documents etc. I think I can just copy the system files onto the drive, but am waiting confirmation from one of the tech sites I hang out in.

Still, never mind eh! These things are sent to try us.

The other thing that I was wondering about was how I get recognised by Google (or any other search engine for that matter). Do I need to put a meta search string in the template somewhere, with various keywords? That could be fun depending on the keywords used. I could have a huge audience of lonely, frustrated people here inside half an hour, if I choose carefully.

I coulds I 'spose, even put up yon link directly to Trev's Niagra retail outlet in Dypwitch

A thought certainly.

Cheers

Liam

Darts Presentation night

My (rightly) proud darts team.

There's Nabeel now. 

Top row: Nabeel (fell off the end of the picture, hence the need for two) Steve, Paul, Tony, Ron, Your author, and Malcolm.

Bottom row: Derek, Kath and Karen.

Just a quick one here. On Saturday night our team was granted an extended day pass, to attend the presentation night of the darts summer league. As you can see, we went away with a fair amount of (strangely plasticky to the touch) silverware. There are also three major trophies on the table, that can go in the cabinet at some point. (I didn't realise at the time, but you can also just see the team board for the pool victory on Thursday, mentioned further down the blog.)

Well, we're in action again tonight, and let's hope that we can keep up the good work.

Cheers

Liam

Handy stuff to customize your blogging template..

Hi all,

As you may have seen, I'm starting to redecorate my basic blog template. After getting some very much needed initial help from Jeremy, I'm off and stumbling with a few additional tricks. I realise that I may be trying to teach many a granny to suck eggs here, but if you find either of the following links useful, please comment.

One that can really help to jazz up your blog is to change the colour scheme of the various areas of text. To change the colour of any text, simply place these following tags around it (I've had to change the < > to [ ] to kill the html, so you'll need to replace accordingly)..

[span style="color:#xxxxxx;"]your text goes here[/span],

The xxxxxx is where you insert the six character color code. This link explains the html colour charts, and gives you the codes to insert in the above tag.

The other handy site I found is this one. It list the most commonly used tags, and what they do. For instance, this one will drive people potty, but is fun..

Cuddly toy.. err, toaster.. err, pot plant.. err, Cuddly toy, no, I've already said that... etc.

..okay, I've mixed in a few different ones there, but you get the idea.

{Disclaimer: If everyone's blog suddenly sprouts whole paragraphs of scrolling text, don't blame me, I didn't invent it.. I just told you about it.}

There are also all the tags for putting in music, video clips etc.

Hope that was helpful.. I certainly enjoyed writing it.. :)

Cheers

Liam

EDIT: I've just had a look at this post in Mozilla, as the scrolling text tags are meant to be primarily for use when viewing IE driven browsers. It does work, in a fashion, but would need some parameter settings added into the script. Apart from that, Mozilla users will see roughly what I can.. :)

My Sunday..

Hi all,

Well firstly we attempted to have lunch at Tescos cafe. This is Tescos at the Meadows in Camberley, Surrey. What an utterly pointless trip (foodwise anyway). A queue a mile long and hardly any staff at the counters. I don't mind waiting normally, but they have a system where you queue, get your food, queue, get your coffee, queue.. pay. And then you go and sit down to tuck into your cold meal. When it's busy and shortstaffed you can sometimes wait for up to 10 minutes between getting your food and eating it. In an air conditioned restaurant, you have absolutely no chance of still having a hot meal by the time you sit down to eat it.

However, although we turned around and headed straight back down into the shop proper, Mrs Liam wanted to look at some Norman Wisdom DVDs.. I found the books and went on a mini shopping trip all of my own and bought..

Dark Winter: Andy McNab
Toll for the Brave: Jack Higgins
The Teeth of the Tiger: Tom Clancy

.. all for change out of 12 quid. Not a bad bit of shopping on my part. If I can move away from this computer for a little while I may even get the chance to read them.

Well, as there is a branch of M$S attached to Tescos, Ros thought it would be a good idea to have a look in there while we were there. Oh goody thought I. I can never get enough of looking at old women dressed in leopard skin print, and pushing trolleys around as though they were the only people in the shop. It's scary to think that they will drop off their trolleys outside (I just had some horrible imagery spring to mind then, but I won't elaborate) and get into a car, driving it in exactly the same way.

It was pointed out to me how lovely their bags of pot-pourri refills looked. The suggestion that Camberley Council would quite likely collect garden waste if approached, and would save M&S clogging up their already full shelves was met with much hilarity.. on my part anyway. :) That was the red stuff. On another shelf they had some yellow stuff. Have you seen the feed trays in a chimp's enclosure at the zoo? That's the one, with all the half eaten fruit. I reckon Monkey World tops up it's funds by selling the leftovers to M&S as yellow pot-pourri. :)

Well that's two shops and still no food. It's a good job I carry reserves of energy. So off we go to Aldershot, home of the British Army. It's also home to one of the few Pizza Hut's that is staffed by friendly, helpful and efficient staff. I love Pizza Hut's food, but would rather make a return trip of over 30 miles to Aldershot than go to Bracknell's pathetic excuse for a restaurant. It seems to be staffed by people who failed the job interview for McDonalds. It is also stuffed full with as many tables and chairs as they can physically get in the building. And then they close half of it off to customers. I'm sorry, but if I wanted to eat within rubbing distance of a dozen or so other people, I'd eat my pizza on the tube at rush hour.. far less intimate. This is of course assuming that they even make the slightest effort to seat you. The staff all wander around completely oblivious to the fact that you and three families of screaming kids are queuing out of the door waited to be attended to. Then when they do stumble their way over, it's..

"Good afternoon Sir, I'm afraid there will be a 45 minute wait for food. Would you like to take a seat and wait anyway, Sir?"

You have to be polite, because that's not their fault. That's down to a prat of a duty manager, who couldn't find his arse with both hands, a compass and a good OS map. So you gently decline his offer, while inwardly thinking lots of naughty words to yourself.

..err, oh yes. We had a very nice meal and left. Ros wanted a scale model of a Christmas tree for her dolls house, so we went to a garden centre. No point in mentioning which one as at this time of year they are indistinguishable from each other covering, as they do, at least half the shop with Christmas decor, trees etc. I have to take a bucket into shops with me at this time of year. I absolutely detest christmas.. absolutely and utterly, utterly and absolutely and completely hate it. That's my trouble, ambiguity. There was a life sized Santa thing, dancing away and singing jolly Christmas songs. I'm not a violent person.. but.. I'm thinking big fat red punchbag here. Ros heard me thinking (outloud) about this.. still, the anti-imflamatories have just kicked in, so that's taken the edge off the pain for now. :)

Still, there is still over six weeks to Christmas, plenty of time to vent my spleen about it as we creep ever nearer.

Cheers

Liam

Accountability..

Hi,

You may have noticed a couple of subtle changes to the site this afternoon. The most noticable being a hit counter. It stands at one, as I write. I came in off Alan's site, just to see if it worked. And it does. Let's try and get into double figures by christmas.. :)

Cheers

Liam

One for the petrol heads..

Triumphant beastie

I saw a review on some program or another about this bike. It's the new Triumph Rocket III. Engine size.. 2.3 litre. On a two wheeler?? That's mad.

I drive a Ford Scorpio. The engine's a touch smaller, but my car weighs around 3250lb. The Rocket on the other hand weighs in at a relatively lightweight 660lb. It's got 140 horses to push it along as well. This is, at the moment, the largest engine ever fitted to a production motorbike.

I'll try and get a picture scanned in and posted, of me sitting on an even bigger machine, although not a mass produced one; the engine is a 3.5 litre V8. :)

If I ever get around to building my Trike, I think that just to give it street cred, it's going to need the Audi A8's six litre motor, if it wants to spend any quality time in the company of the above behemoths.

Cheers

Liam

Labour's European dream gone for a burton..

You may have read in the news yesterday that Labour got a bit of a slap in the face in their charge toward their European dream. The people of the North were given the choice of whether to accept yet another tier of government. They said NO, in a big, bold upper case sort of way. Good on you; the people of the North.

Why does this have anything to do with that stinking political cess-pool we lovingly know as the European Union, I hear you ask? Well, if you didn't already know, England is to be divided up into nine regions, each able to send four representatives to the "European Committee of the Regions". These regions will then be at the mercy of any decisions that are made there, whether that is in the interests of the people of these regions or not. Labour agreed to this. They are selling us out to Europe by the backdoor. Anyone read much about the greater involvement in Europe that the forming of these separate devolved regions would lead to? Nah, didn't think so. It's been kept quite quiet hasn't it.

Did anyone think it strange that Uriah Heep (sorry, Charles Kennedy) should be there supporting Prescott's efforts to secure a YES vote? Ole' Chucky makes Jaques Chirac look like a euroskeptic. It must be seriously in Kennedy's interest to support the regionalisation, considering that to back it, he must sit side by side with polititions that took Britain to the war in Iraq; something he disagreed with wholeheartedly.

I doubt for one minute that Blair, Prescott et al, will have given up on this. They want us in Europe any way they can fix it. I would think that they've pretty much given up on the referendum for the EU constitution for a while. They know that if they held it tomorrow, then they would lose by a country mile. They definitely thought they were in with a shout by holding referenda for regionalisation, but that has now left Prescott with egg on his face (again). The people of this country don't want to ruled by an unelected, undemocratic bureaucracy. They want to be run by a err.. undemocratic.. bureaucracy err.. that was elected. At the moment we can vote in or out, whoever we as a country choose to. We should also be able to vote in a new administration that is able to overturn any decisions made by their predeccesors. The moment we throw ourselves into the idiocy that is the European Union, we can kiss all our democratic freedoms goodbye. Never again will we as a country be able to decide for ourselves what is in our best interests.

I for one, do not want yet more meaningless legislation forced upon me by some autonomous authority, that I have no voice in. At least with our own government, however much I disagree with them, I can have a say in who runs the country every four years or so.. This is not the case with Europe. They will run our country as they see fit, and if we don't like it.. we can jolly well lump it. Why on earth should I have to live my life according to how Polish, German, French or even Turkish polititions think I should?

Oh well, rant over.. :)

Read this and this for more info on the splitting up of Britain's regions to facilitate us becomming part of the grand United States of Europe.

Cheers

Liam

The pool team stands victorious..

Hi all,

Well, all that pessimism about our pool team now seems a bit ill-founded. We won 6-3. The first time we've won since February 2003. We went 2-0 up, and unlike previous matches, just kept adding to the score. Could this be a new beginning??

Watch this space.

Fame at last..

Hi,

Two entries in one night.. you lucky people you. (It could've been four, so think yourselves very lucky indeed) :)

On Monday at work, myself and my two colleagues will be having a driving assessment. I should explain to those who don't know, that I'm a courier with Bracknell Council. We deliver mail and all sorts of other oddities to the various buildings in the Borough. The Borough is pretty vast being mostly rural, and so needs three people, each with a white van, to cover the area. We will be driving the van with an outside assessor in the passenger seat. He will evaluate our driving skills and report back to the boss. As I have a few money-off tokens for McDonalds, and have my assessment at 12:30, I do have the added advantage of culinery bribery at my disposal.. :)

The fame bit in the title is because, as we are the first of many to be involved in this scheme, we will be getting our piccies taken for, I assume the staff magazine. Being that we see, at some point or another, most employees of the Council, I suppose we are already fairly well known. To be photographed for all to see, resplendant in our uniforms, standing proudly by our trusty steeds is another matter entirely. I say steeds, although it will almost certainly not be my van. It's old now, (W reg Suzuki) and though I polish it lovingly day after day, and hoover it on the hour every hour (just in case my boss should ever read this) :) the two newer vans will no doubt be called upon to represent the mechanical element of this great vocation of ours.

I think the picture of me further down is a lucky fluke, but if not, I shall post this one up when I get it.. for posterity.

Well, I must quickly check out the rest of the WWW, and then lead my astoundingly successful pool team to victorious defeat once more. :) This will be against the team who stuffed us silly in the first round of the League Cup, last week.

My bit of fun is in the fact that I use black cue chalk, and it makes a right mess of the cue ball.. :D

See, as Garvan et al mention incessantly, I am truly evil.. Nyahahaha.. :)

Cheers

Liam

Darts and stuff..

Hi,

Well, as I mentioned in yesterday's entry, I played darts last night.. again. I won my games, and the team won 6-3. Not a bad result. We played against the Old Comrades Club in Sunninghill. I mention this because it was a good night and they're a good bunch of lads. And I won £12 on the card.. :D

The Card, for those that don't play in pub team games, such as darts, pool or crib is a scratch card with usually around 40 little boxes on it. These may be football teams, or whatever. Everyone has a go or more for 50p, and the sandwiches are paid for, and usually £10 or so goes to the winner once the card is err.. scratched. Wigan were the unlikely winners for me last night.

Tonight however is a different kettle of vegetarian fish shapes. Tonight is Pool night. The Hanworth Social Club pool team are famed in this little square of the world. We haven't won a match this season, although we are only 3 weeks into it. Last season we didn't win a single match; the season before, I think we won one match.. etc. You get the idea.

I'm captain of this team, and as far as results go.. I couldn't care less. We go out every Thursday throughout the winter months, enjoying every match. We all of course, try to play our very best while at the table, and we really aren't as useless as the results sheet would have everyone believe.. but it just doesn't happen. Still, the beer, food and company more than make up for any shortfall in our actual combined skill levels. And frankly, as none of us will ever earn a red cent at the game, why ruin a night out by worrying about the empty shelves in the trophy cabinet.

(That sounds like I'm trying to wipe away tear with a smile, doesn't it.. sniffle) :)

I'll post up the (inevitable) result later on. I just know that all my loyal readers will want to rush back here to find out.. please..?? :)

Cheers

Liam

Political correctness gone mad..

Hi,

I was listening to Mike Dicken on Talk sport yesterday morning, and he highlighted a startling peice of nonsense.. I've taken this quote from the Campaign against Political Correctness website..

"A police authority was quoted in the Independent on Sunday [31st October] as saying that it did not use Rover cars because buying "anything British, including British cars, was an overtly nationalist statement and could be considered offensive by vulnerable, deprived and ethnic minority groups in our society". "

Now, who's meant to be offended by the purchase of a British make of car for use by the police? The Midlands is (or was, at any rate) the home of the British car industry. The Midlands is also home to some of the largest groups of Asian and ethnic minority communities in this country, many of whom work in the car manufacturing industry, or the subsequent service and support companies. The whole economic well being of some of these communities is built around the car industry. Does anyone in their right mind think that by buying a Japanese (or other imported make) car fleet will enamour these people to the police, when they get laid off because of the lack of sales?

Nope, I don't think so either. If you want to piss someone off big time, take away the means for someone to go out and do an honest day's work to support their families.

I know that racism exists in this country, and there should obviously be strict laws to protect everyone against the threat of and violence and discrimination, whoever they may be. But frankly the above example is stupid in the extreme.

When international football games are televised, and you feel a sudden need to purchase a George Cross replica or a Union flag, you are heavily discouraged from doing so in case you "upset the sensitivities of others".

So, I'm standing in Bracknell's town centre wondering where I can get hold of a flag. One to identify me as being racist scum in the eyes of "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells". Well of course, I go to the only shop that I know sells them.. the massive Indian shop there, affectionately known as Harrods to us locals. Surely they can't be that offensive if the only place you can buy the bloody things is in a shop staffed entirely by Indian Sikhs.

An associate on a tech site I frequent has, as a phrase in his post signature..

"Any person that calls a man hole, a person hole is an a**ehole."

I can't disagree with that sentiment.

Oops, I get picked up in15 minutes, so will have to leave it there for now.

Cheers

Liam

Liam on Darts.

Hi,

We [we being the Hanworth Social Club 'B' team] won our darts match last night, and a fair and hearty time was had by all. I won my game fairly easily, but overall it was a tight match, coming back from 2-0 down to win 7-5.

Tonight I play again, for the Bracknell Town Football Club team, but in a different league; the Ascot league, . Yep, the Ascot without a famous race course. It's a higher level of darts, and I don't always have the same confidence levels of winning my matches, so it's a bit more challenging mentally. I'm still in credit with wins over losses though, in the three years I've played Wednesday darts, and hope to keep that up tonight.

I think I'll split these into topics tonight, as I have a couple of different things to mention..

Bracknell Council are wonderful.

Hi all,

You may remember from my entry yesterday, that I'd contacted the council concerning a leak on my Granny's hot water cylinder. I also said that I'd try to post up a picture of the stalagmites it had grown. Well I can't. A plumber turned up this morning and replaced it. Although the next day, it worked out around 22 hours after I put the report in on their web site. That's what I call service. So in the highly unlikely chance that anyone from Bracknell Forest Borough Council (apart from me of course, as I also work for them) :) ever reads this..

WELL DONE. :)

I'm now off to play darts. My Sunday night entry was posted after 3 pints. I may have more tonight, and definitely more interesting stuff to mention, so all insomniacs are welcome to join me to join me later.

Cheers

Liam

Hi,

as promised on the comments part of the piccy post, please submit your most/least favourite books, writers, films, records (or CDs, but you'll have to exuse me because I'm old) :)

You can also list, in your opinion, the prettiest actresses/ most handsome actors.. etc.

..in fact anything that you can list, and that stays vaguely within the realms of decency.. (my mum may read this).. :) is acceptable.

I've just deleted the start of my own list.. I really do need to sleep. :) Go for it. Let's see how many comments I can get before I check in at 6:30 ish in the morning.

Cheers

Liam

A taxing time of it..

Hi readers,

Well today being the beginning of a new month, it was the one in 12 where my car tax came up for renewal. Yes, I know I can make it easy on myself and send off a cheque a fortnight or so before hand, when the reminder comes in. A week or so later, and I'll have a brand new disc in my hand.

But I'm a bloke..

(Why is it that the DVLA can't print the tax disc on a circular bit of paper? It perhaps wouldn't be quite as bad if the perforations were actually designed to do the job for which they were originally intended, but they don't. I bought the disc this evening on the way home from work. I had it in my car. Could I affix it to the windscreen there and then? I had, what most people would think are all the equipment needed for such a complex job.. a windscreen, a brand new tax disc, and a suitable holder to put it in. But no, the tax disc isn't in the windscreen yet, as I had to take it away from it's natural environment into the living room. I then had to hunt around for a pair scissors, and carefully cut out the disc, throwing about a third of the supplied paper in the bin. There, even found an environmental reason for this to be a bad idea. As I say, because of all that mucking about, and the fact that it was dark by the time I'd finished cutting the damn thing out, my car is sitting outside the house in a state of illegality.)

I don't know about other people reading this, but I for one cannot find the slightest inclination to administrate my life. When my insurance renewal comes up later this month, I'll also leave that to the last minute and run around furiously getting quotes, and transferring money between accounts to pay for it. Yes, I could pop into the bank tomorrow and move an approximate amount of money across to my current account in readiness.. but I won't. :)

It's not that I'm awful at organisation, in fact I'd go so far as to say that I have a very logical approach to planning, foreseeing problems and dealing with them in order to make someone elses life a little easier. It's just when it's my life, that I seem to prefer to make everything as hard a task as I can reasonably do so, in the always very short space of time available.

Buying a beer for myself seems to be a remarkable pinnacle of achievment most of the time. Naturally, I have to stand at the bar at all times, in order to make subsequent contracts as painless as ever.

Well, what else have I done today. I reported my Grandmother's hot water cylinder to the council.. online no less. It leaks from at least one of the connectors, although it's difficult to tell exactly. It may have been doing this for some time, considering the limescale that has built up on the outside, bears a not too disimilar resemblance to the inner caves of Cheddar Gorge. It even comes complete with two real life stalagmites hanging off the main body of the build up. If I can get a picture taken before it's fixed, I'll post it up.

That'll do for the moment. I'm just going to try and add a picture of me to the top of the page. This should be fun.. :)

Cheers

Liam

Well I got me a picture, but I'm still not sure if it'll post.

Me on a train, somewhere in Northern Austria.

I'll cross my fingers anyway, but it does look as though I've posted a picture of me. Those aren't my natural forearms, by the way. I had spinach implants.. :)

The thrill of Sunday night Bingo.

As promised, I'm here to.. hold that thought a moment.

The clock on this thing. Is it really just a random number generator? I did play with and set it correctly earlier, but it's now 3:07 pm, on the 31st of October according to the clock here!!! My previous post above, on checking was made at 2.55 this afternoon. Some 4 hours before I set up the blog, no less. Is it worth experimenting with time travel at this point?

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the bingo. It was fun. Neither I nor Ros (elsewhere referred to as Mrs Liam) won a thing, and I couldn't even satisfy myself by watching one particular player there winning a game and returning, not only the 5p and 10p peices that were among their entry money, but all the small change that had been accrued from everyone else present this evening.

Yes it may seem somewhat childish, churlish even, but I find it fun to pay out a £5 prize with 73 assorted coins of the realm. :)

Will the smilie come out as a DOG, or just assorted punctuation. By the time you read this it'll be self evident, but I really have no idea at this moment in time. The vaguaries of blogging, to the uninitiated newcomer, hold many such surprises, I don't doubt. :) (Just for good measure)

We also play on a Sunday evening, although I don't help out on this, Play Your Cards Right. It's not quite up there with Brucie and his dolly dealers, but we are so easily pleased at the **Club. Tonight was exceptional in that only four people got a go before the event was finished with two people winning their £20 pound prizes for correctly going higher or lower on 7 cards. The jackpot round for a whopping £75 (one go only, with non members only able to claim a prize of £20 if they win) wasn't won this week, and so we have an increased jackpot round to look forward to next week.

I say this was exceptional, as sometimes we have to go straight to work from the club the following morning, it takes so long to play. I can't recall the amount of times a Queen has been the penultimate card, only for the guess to be lower and up pops an Ace, King or Queen. Nothing in this game for two in a bed, and more saucy phrases than that, I can tell you. I think that at times the exitement can only be rivalled by those fair and hearty cider conisor.. conniseur.. connniz.. drinkers of cider, at the Poor Wimmins 'ead in Dipwytch.

(When I work out what the hell I do about posting links, yours Trevor, along with Alans will be the first up. Then my band of growing (well there are more now than at 7 this evening, so I can only pray (leaning heavily toward atheism, this may be more difficult than for many of course) that it is a trend in the making)(I'm going for the world record in consecutive parentheses here (ignore me (no don't) err.. umm..)..(I think)(Bugger, I've lost count now) (where was I?) readers will be able to find out what I'm on about.))

Phew!!

For those not entirely convinced about my self-confessed rambling style of writing, I hope that puts a lid on any misconceptions you may have previously had. :)

Well, work tomorrow.. err.. today even, and if I don't stop typing soon.. yesterday. :) This could be an horrendous hazard to my much needed beauty sleep. If I ever work out [see, the optimism just spills out [and I'm bored with round brackets now]] how to post a photo of myself for all those that haven't seen me before, you'll see what I mean. If Jennifer Aniston is the face of L'Oreal {because she's worth it}, then in comparison I should earn a fortune advertising for Massey Ferguson. On the other hand, if I have a bad hair day, perhaps I could be one of those people off the advert, that availed themselves of the loan services provided by Ocean Finance plc.

{Remember, your home is at risk if you keep borrowing money on it's equity, to buy chips} :)

I really need to sleep now. I wrote this and came to that conclusion, so I genuinely feel for you, if you've craved the urge to sleep from the moment you started reading it.

No, stop it Liam. Switch the computer off and leave these people alone. If they wanted to read lengthy tomes, they'd buy War and Peace, not read your blog. Okay Liam.

Goodnight.

Cheers

Liam

The good thing though, is that as I can set the time and date to what ever I want.. Happy Easter 2001. :) Goodnight.. I think.

EDIT: I'm changing the date back now. I've had my fun, but it puts it on the wrong part of the page. :)

**The club in question, hereinafter to be refererred to as "THE CLUB", being the Hanworth Community Centre and Social Club, of which I'm a long standing member of the management committee. I also try to fill the tills up on my own by selecting from the vast choice of ales, a sultry little number called John Smith's Smooth.

If the website ever becomes updated to within a year of current activities, I'll post a link. But for now I'll save you the torment.

Random post times.

Hi,

Well I've sort of sorted out the posts. They're not in quite the right order, and the times bear no real relation to this reality, but it's looking a bit neater now.. ish.

Well, I think I've earned a beer, so I'm going to force myself to have one whether I like it or not. More ramblings will assuredly come soon.

Cheers

Liam

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

I'm online.. be afraid, be very afraid.

Hello, er.. to me

I realise that as I'm the only person at the moment who even knows of the existence of this blog, this is somewhat akin to the first signs of madness. Further proof of this will no doubt show itself in the future.

I'm pretty sure that most people who will ever see this will be ones that I invite, so they will probably already know something about me. I have a habit of rambling from the moment I first sit in front of a keyboard, so don't be too surprised if some entries here take a while to trawl through. There will generally be some point in me writing these, but not necessarily in you reading them.

I threatened to create a blog after a bit of olympic standard rambling on the BBC's science message board earlier this evening, and.. well this is it. I've just moved in. Pretty isn't it. I decorated it myself. Just a shame there isn't enough room for a coffee machine.

As this blog evolves, you'll hopefully get to know more about me. My interests, a little bit about the people I work and socialise with.. and as I tend (as stated above) to run off at the keyboard once I get going.. probably every printable facet of my life.

As soon as I get to grips with the software here, I'll happily post up links to other people's blogs and homepages if asked. I will also link to anything else that I find interesting.

I'm off out to play Bingo in a few minutes (I help organise it at the local community centre.. no really), so that may be the subject of my second entry to myself. If I can coerce a small audience before that, and I have about half an hour to do so, then so much the better.

Off I go to round up a couple of people to talk to. If you come in and I'm not here, then please pull up a chair and make yourself comfortable. Just watch out for the wet paint, and if you could water the pot plant in my absence, I'd appreciate it enormously.

In (sort of) the words of Mr. W Churchill, Madam, I am sober, but in a few hours I shall be drunk. That should make for some witty entries at around 11pm. I do hope you'll be here to read them.

And to sign off in my customary manner..

Cheers

Liam