Andy's Land of Adventure

I NEED you

So, I made it to the final 10 of the fuelmyblog and mybowlad competition to win a trip to Hollywood and the chance to star in a Superbowl advert, and now, it's out of my hands.

Plain and simple, I need votes. I need you. I need you to click on the link below, to register and vote for me.

I've pleaded and pleaded with everyone I know about this to get them to vote for me, and I'd really be grateful for the two minutes spent doing it if you could just take a few seconds out of your day for me.

Anyway, the link is http://www.fuelmyblog.com/index.jsp?t=mybowlad and you need to "fuel" my site (the top link)
I really hope you can help me with this... I can't do it without you!

Things that have amused me...

I thought I'd share a few images that I've taken over the years that have amused me...

Sound advice if you ask me

The enemy had no idea where to attack first

I wouldn't advise the chicken soup

Night ride of doom

It's been a weekend for two things, partying and riding bikes through the streets at night. Both Friday and Saturday ended with Roz standing drunkenly on the stunt pegs on the back of my bike as a pedalled us frantically through South London. Friday saw us rolling down from New Cross, through Peckham and onto Herne Hill, whilst Saturday was much easier coming from Streatham via Brixton. Good thing the numerous policeman that we passed didn't seem to care. I would have thought that they just didn't spot us if it wasn't for Roz's continual screaming, waving and shouting at passers-by. How inconspicuous! Check out the clip from Friday's journey (it's more for your ears that your eyes)

She wants to ride her bicycle

Last week was Roz's birthday, and wanting to get her something nice I got her a brand spanking new bike. Yeah, it's not very 'romantic', but she's never owned one before and never learnt to ride, so I figured that if I taught her it'd be something she'd always remember. Anyway, suffice to say she was very excited by it all, and she seemed like she really liked it, and as you'll see from the above video, was doing ok for a first go. Maybe she's a natural or maybe it was my technique, who knows. Over the weekend I'll be showing how it's really done though and what 'fast' really is when I take mine out tomorrow and Sunday... not that I'm a show off or anything *ahem*

It All Came Tumbling Down

Last night, a building around the corner from work 'imploded'. I thought it was pretty cool, but I guess the guy who was trapped in there until 1:30am this morning probably doesn't agree

At Long Long Last

I finally completed the paint job on the bike

The King Is Dead, Long Live The King

Word on the street is that blogging is joining MySpace in the land of 'things that are just not cool anymore' and will shortly be deader than the dodo, Doni, Di and Dando. "What's going to take it's place then" I hear you scream, but have no fear. The blog may be on the downfall, but the vlog is on the way up! For those of you who don't have their heads permanently attached to the Internet, where as 'blog' is short for 'web logging', 'vlog' is short for 'video logging' and is exactly that. Instead of typing loads and loads and loads and loads all day, people are now turning to the likes of YouTube and powering their blogs through video instead. I see the appeal, so I'm going to give it a go for a while and see how it works out. Sure, there'll still be some writing to accompany the video, but much less. The ever increasing RSI in my fingers thanks me for it.

So, to kick off this new vlog I'm going to show you what I've been working on all weekend; the new paint job on my bike. How do you like it compared to the old design (image below the video). Personally, I think it's much better. I just have to neaten the edges and I'm done.

Oh, and apologies for the quality but I was covered in paint at the time and didn't want to go inside to get my camera so I recorded this on my phone. It'll do for now though. Enjoy the future!

Scarred For Life

Did you know that the top tattoo parlours won't let you have a tattoo done if you've consumed alcohol in the previous 48 hours? I didn't! I bloody well do now though! I was a little miffed to say the least when I hot footed it down to Into You on Saturday, only to be told that I couldn't have it done and would have to re-book which means another four weeks of waiting. Oh well, it's not the end of the world I suppose, and at least now I know not to go for a couple of brewskis after work on that week. Apparently on occasion the thing that they use to sterilize the needle can react badly with the alcohol in your blood so they won't do it.

M'eh. I was hoping to have it started before Roz comes back this week, but I'm sure she'll now be happy that she can come along and watch me wince for a couple of hours. I've never really thought about the process that goes into tattooing before and I had a look at it on some Internet sites. For some reason I always had it in my head that the needle was "cut-drawing" on your skin, but have since realised that you're being pierced with an inky needle over and over and over and over. Lovely. It could be worse though I suppose. I've seen some scarification videos recently. Why anyone would do that is beyond me.

For anyone not in the know, scarification is the process of removing skin to reveal the flesh underneath so that it leaves a permanent scar. It's the new 'mega hardcore' body art, but I can honestly say I'd never be tempted. It makes my toes curl just thinking about it. I got sent a video of an even more extreme version of scarification. It involves cutting off the skin, then pouring gunpowder over the wound and lighting it which apparently makes the wound blacker... this is not for the faint-hearted - http://modblog.bmezine.com/2007/05/27/gunpowder-scarification

Good Old eBay

I'm sure you'll remember that a couple of weeks ago I was given the chance to test and review the new LG Shine mobile phone that it turned out that I didn't really like. Well, my review was apparently the best (I knew all this writing would pay off eventually) and I actually won the phone.

The thing is though I wasn't really a fan of it, so there was only one thing to do really. eBay! Good old eBay. It's brilliant for getting rid of stuff that's lying around or for times like this when you've got quite an expensive piece of kit that you don't want. Three days of bidding after putting the phone on there it had sold for £121. Not bad for a 50 word review. That's almost £2.50 a word. If only all my writing could generate that I'd be writing substantially more I tell you.

On that front, I must apologise for not really writing a lot recently. I just don't have the time to write everything for two blogs (this one and my training one), and for the next ten weeks I need to update the other one on a daily basis which doesn't leave me a lot of time to write on here, and being as I said that there's no more "training talk" on here, well, that means that the bloggable content for here is less than it used to be, but I'll get back on track soon. At least I'll try to.

Looking Back

God I've neglected this blog recently. I've just spent too much time updating my training one (which is all going well if you wondered at all). Anyway, I said my dad was bound to send me more pictures of me as a kid. Sure enough, he did...

Seperating One From The Other

As you may have noticed, I haven't exactly been "captain blog" over the last few days and there's a very good reason for this, and that is because I've been playing away and setting up the 'new' blog. I'm not going to giving up doing this blog, but now you'll no read about any of my training because my 'new' blog is just about that and I don't see the point in writing it twice. Besides, I'm sure that most people who read this blog aren't at all interested in what I can bench or the circumference of my thighs.

For those who are interested in that kind of stuff and who want to keep up with the new twelve week intensive training program that I started this week, you can see all of that at http://liftingthebar.blogspot.com, but otherwise, like I said, you'll hear no more about training on here.

So, what's been going on you may ask? Well, yesterday was interesting as I had to dodge a motorbike as I crossed the road, only to have the guy shouting obscenities at me and then watch him get hit by a taxi and go sprawling over the road. Fortunately he was ok, but I had to hang around for ages to give a statement to the police, making me even later than I already was because of all the train fires. I tell you, people in South London should stop playing with matches!

Other than that, not a lot else has really happened over the last few days. Work is trundling along, I have my tattoo appointment book and Roz has jetted off to Cuba for a couple of weeks. All's good though, don't worry about that... all's good!

Hey Hey Hey It's Magic, Sort of

Being as I went to see 'Magicians' this weekend I thought I'd share with you the one magic trick I can actually do. And no slowing down the video to see how it's done (though I do make a major blunder at one point and give it away)

As for the film, well I don't want to say I was disappointed, as I wasn't, but a the same time it wasn't as funny as I expected. Being as I'm a massive fan of Peep Show, and that 'Magicans' has not only most of the same cast (as well as the ever brilliant Jessica Stephenson) plus the same writing team, I expected a lot more from it. Sure, there's some laugh out loud moments, like when Harry (David Mitchell) is asked how his wife died and he comes out with "You know, the usual. Decapitation. By Magic" and there's some very funny characters and moments, but they're just not as good as I think they could have been. Maybe it's because I'm so used to seeing Mitchell and Webb together on the small screen creating laugh after laugh after laugh that their transition to the cinema didn't really work for me.

I'm not saying that 'Magicians' is a bad film, not at all, it's funny and well written but I think that it had the potential to do a lot more which it just didn't achieve. My verdict would be go and see it, but only if you have an Unlimited Card, otherwise, wait for the DVD.

Needed: New Slogan

Since starting this blog back in September the slogan has been "You put your left foot in, your left foot out", just because that was the first thing to spring to mind when I was setting up and I had no real idea in the direction that this would go. Now, four days short of my eight month blogging anniversary I fancy a change and I'm after some suggestions.

So, the slogan fate is now in your hands... what do you reckon I should go with.

Oh, and try to be serious

The Life Of A Child

Courtesy of my dad (and for some stupid reason, requested by myself) I've just recieved some pictures of me when I was a wee nipper. It seems like I was always set up for a life of continous talking and a love of music by these childhood images. The things to notice outside of the main frame of the photographs though are:

a) The carpet - could it be any more 80s?
b) Those green shorts - ouch!
c) The Mickey Mouse t-shirt - I remember that (I think it's burned into my mind forever)
d) That hat - what the hell is that???

I'm sure there will be more to come...

Third Time Lucky

After more and more thinking about this tattoo design, i decided that I wanted one no-one else has, and do do this I was going to have to design one myself. I really like the tribal style, and I also really like dragons, so I decided to create a design that merges the two together, and in doing so I came up with the following design. The main principle about the design is that it's a battle of good and bad in the shape of two inter-weaved dragons, one with smooth curves (good) and one with sharp edges (bad). One thing I tried to achieve (and think that I have) is the fact that at first glance it doesn't look like two dragons, it just looks like a tribal tattoo, but once you look closer it becomes more obvious what it is. Also, I managed to incorporate a curve around the shoulder using the wings of both dragons that I'm really proud of and think makes all the difference to the design.

Also, in the side on view, you can't really see the heads as they'll wrap around to the front and back of my shoulders so you'll have to use your imagination a bit. But what about design three. What do you think of that? I'm really pleased with it, and unless I can think of any reason not to, I'm going to go for it

Or...

Or there's option number two, a tribal dragon. I've always had a love for dragons for some unbeknown reason. I have pictures in my flat as well as a multitude of models and figurines, as well as an amazing painting that an Jenni did for me a few years ago.

Throwing this design into the ring, what do you think?

Try Before You Buy

Getting a tattoo is no small thing, especially when it's going to be covering half of one of your arms, and with this in mind I decided to Photoshop a "try before I buy" of what it will look like. I'm really pleased with it and think it'll look really good when it's done. Apparently it's going to take close to eight hours over two sessions, the first being a two hour session to do the outlines, and the second being a six hour session to do the filling in.

I've also decided that if I go in there with the mindset that it's going to be agonising (especially when they go over my collar bone) then it will probably not feel as painful as I expect. But hey, if a 15 year old girl can do it, I'm bloody sure I can!

So, what do you think?

HindSight Tip Of The Day

After my experience of doing this last night I can give you a really good tip. If, like me, you enjoy taking guitars apart, cleaning and generally tightening them up before putting them back together, be careful when soldering the jack wires back onto the base of the plug. Burning hot solder and a finger don't mix - no sirey!

Innovation's What You Need

Every now and again, I have a really good idea, and last night was one of those times. I was giving the flat a good once over after clearing the gym room of paint and doing my workout and I came across an old wardrobe frame. You know the kind, the ones you get in Argos for £4.99 that are literally just some metal tubing for you to sling your hangers on. It was Claire's if I remember rightly, and being as she moved out around six months ago now, I guess she's doing fine without it.

Anyhow, after months of initial research on doing up my bike, I found that the people who did the best paint jobs were the people who had support frames for their bikes meaning that they could walk all the way around it and go under and over it as they pleased. I think you might be able to see where this is going. Fortunately, there are two perfectly places holes in the back of the frame (where the spoiler attaches) which I was able to insert a wire coat hanger through (after untwisting it then re-twisting it afterwards) and make my very own 'spraying frame'. Not only does it mean that all the bits take up less floor space (not that that was really a problem), but it also makes the whole entourage look a lot neater, which I like.

I've now been doing further research on the knackered cranks (the thread on the crank arms is torn, meaning I can't use my crank extractor) and it seem the only way to get them off now is with a big saw and a chisel. As much as it's going to pain me to break the cranks off it's going to need to be done in order for me to do the paint job to the standard I want it to. Also, the sanding is becoming a real pain as four hours into it I've done around 20% of the job. Also, the bare metal is getting some speckled surface rust where it's being left out so I'm going have to retreat the entire frame before undercoating it. I think the solution might be to wait and just pay someone to sand-blast it as that would all be done in one quick go that way. Though, I am going to borrow Roz's belt sander and give that a go first. If push comes to shove I can always get a new frame off eBay. Good old eBay.

On that note, I had to return my bathroom scales today as they don't show body fat percentage like they said they would, they show BMI which is completely different. They're obviously not by Ronseal as they don't do exactly what they say on the tin

Hate To Say I Told You So

I'd like to take a moment to refer you back to my quote from the "Everything Moss Go" post that I wrote on May 1st.

"I'm a trend-setter too. I got long hair, David Beckham got long hair. I died my hair bright blond, David Beckham died his hair bright blond. You watch, in the next three weeks David Beckham will shave all his hair off, just you see. The big copy-cat!"

Can you guess what's happened? Yep, he's only gone and cut all his hair off. God, I hate being right. I think he should pay me royalties. A round million should just about cover it I reckon. Well, I don't want to appear greedy now, do I?

Cunning&Crafty

As many of you will no doubt know already, I quickly bore of things that don't keep my interest and subsequently like to chop and change things in my life a lot. This week, I decided that I was going to try something completely new and design some t-shirts.

I expect that if most people were going to go about this, they'd sit and either sketch or Photoshop (other photo editing tools are available) an image onto a template before sending it off to some printing company to have made into a finished artifact. That's probably a very sensible way of going about things, but in this instance, it just wasn't for me. Instead of sitting for hour and hour on end creating a painstakingly accurate digital image, I decided to shell out a massive £24 on four different plain t-shirts (good old Next comes to the rescue again with a '2 for £12' sale), grab a few black fabric pens and just draw. This could have gone one of two ways; brilliantly or disastrously. Personally, I think it's leaning a lot more towards the former, which is a very good thing indeed.

When I designing the first t-shirt, that I've since called Big Bang (both for the way it looks and the fact that it was 'the beginning') I started to draw a series of blocks across the middle with different parts cut out of them, and after I finished the third block I realised I made the letters "cun". Off the back of this, I decided to turn it into a line of text, and not want a stream of obscenities on the front of my garment, the name Cunning&Crafty was born. As it wasn't prepared it wasn't really designed with any consideration, but when I designed my second one, the sleeveless vest design called Stand 'Til You Fall I actually made a proper logo (which can be seen on the bottom of the shirt)

I've now finished two and I'm really pleased with both, but what I really want to know is do you think I could sell the design? Is it the kind of design that you think people would pay for?

Also, in the pictures, I know I'm doing a very questionable 'catalogue' pose which I've taken some stick about already, but I had to show what they looked like on after all!

So, opinions?

Testing Testing 1,2,3 - The LG Shine

I've just been given the chance to test the newest LG mobile phone, the Shine for the day so this is my log of trialing it. I asked the PR women whether I was allowed to test the phone "to destruction". They said yes. Later on, I feel that they may regret saying that.

9:45am
I collect the phone. It's all very exciting. On opening the box I realise why it's called the Shine. It certainly is very shiny. It's like it doesn't know what it wants to be, mobile phone or compact mirror. I imagine hordes of women sitting on the train using it to fix their hair and make-up on the trip to work each morning. It definitely appears that it would be more at home in a clutch bag alongside a sequined pink purse than in the back pocket of some guys jeans with just a butch leather wallet for company.

Initial impression: Quite girly

10:15am
I entered my sim card and had an initial fiddle with the menus to see how easy it was to work my way around. It's different for sure. I reckon that it's the scroll wheel that I'm finding a little weird. It must be an LG thing. I had an LG phone a few years ago, the a900 to be precise and it was my first 3G phone. That one tried to be innovative with a touchscreen, though I found that I kept loosing the little pen and the screen kept getting smudged. Also it was so big people used to ask if I launched rockets off it. I didn't.

Ongoing impression: Fiddley and still definitely shiny

11:30am
'Work' has gotten in the way of being able to have a real play with the phone. I had a brief fiddle with the camera and the focus feature is nice, but I was disappointed that it was only 2.0 mega pixel, especially when the newest Nokia for example now comes stocked with 5.0. I'm also finding that everytime I put the phone down I feel like I need to clean the screen with my t-shirt. That could get irritating. I also played around the menus a little bit and came to a conclusion about the scroll wheel; I don't like it. I find that I keep pressing the wrong menu items as it scrolls when I don't want it to and the on-screen labeling for the buttons isn't too obvious and sometimes left me pressing random buttons in order to try and get the option that I wanted.

New impression: Not quite gadgety enough for me

12:45pm
The shiny screen is nice and great for looking around corners unseen, and the way it lights up to become a screen is a nice touch, but that's where my like of this phone really ends. Maybe I'm just too used to having Sony Ericsson phones so it's all a bit lost on me, and maybe the scrolling wheel just takes a bit of getting used to but something just wasn't right for me. The navigation buttons seemed a little clunky (yes, that's a word), the scroller was a bit temperamental and things that I expected to work just didn't, for example I expected that pressing the camera shutter button would start the camera. It didn't.

The new impression: Good for espionage

I'm sure that given the time and effort to move to a new navigation style this would be a really nice phone to use, and there's no doubting that it looks very nice indeed, but it's just not got enough of the features that really matter to me in the shape of a high-resolution camera, video recording and really good Internet browsing (the text was just far too large and I couldn't see a way of changing that). End of story, it seems like a nice enough phone, but it's just not enough to detract me from the w850i that I use and love right now

Final impression: Quite nice, but not for me

A Bit Of This And That

Alright you lovely bunch of blog readers. I hope that you enjoyed your bank holiday weekend and didn't get up to too much trouble. Yeah, mine was fine thanks; a little uneventful though good all the less. Why? Well things just didn't pan out as I expected. Yeah, same old same old huh.

To be honest, on Saturday I was looking forward to a day doing nothing and having a well deserved relax, and that's exactly what I did. I just lounged on the sofa watching films and making some nice meals to pass the day. My body needed the rest as it's been all train, train, train recently. Saying that though, I hammered it on Sunday. I tried the '300 workout' which is a 300 rep workout which was part of the training regime for film of the same name consisting of...

• 25 Pull-ups
• 50 Deadlifts at 60kg
• 50 Press-ups
• 50 Clean and Presses at 15kg
• 50 Floor Wipers (centre, left and right leg-raises)
• 50 24" Box Jumps
• 25 Pull-ups

...and let me tell you this. It bloody kills. When the guys for 300 were training for 12 weeks they used this workout as the 'graduation', to show that they'd hit extraordinary goals of fitness. Needless to say, I couldn't do all 300, but I managed 278 which I'm damn proud of. I did everything expect all the pull-ups (I managed 18 first time, 10 second time), but being as only one of the main actors and 41 of the stunt-men for the film managed it I think that's a great performance, especially for my first try. I reckon I could get the last 22 reps in the next four weeks if I really pushed it. The problem now though is that I'm a little injured because of the workout. It pretty much killed me to do as I collapsed with exhaustion after finishing (in 26:04 incidentally) and literally couldn't move for half an hour. When I finally managed to get up, all my back, arms, legs, stomach, everything was really hurting. Now, two days later, my back is still giving me a little bit of jip. I think I could do with getting a weight-lifting belt for back support before I try it again; either that or I just need to look at my technique a little bit. I'm going to have a couple of days off now to fully recover, but I think I'll be back on track for Thursday.

The rest of the day I did a couple of smaller things. I did some photographs of some personal trainers that they wanted doing for websites, watched the Mayweather vs de la Hoya boxing recording (I backed the right horse, but the wrong bout. I should have known it wouldn't have ended in KO by all accounts), trekked to the cinema to see Blades of Glory (which is definitely worth seeing) and vegged out some more at home.

The intention the night was to go to a beach party night at Inferno's in Clapham, but for a variety of reasons outside of my control that didn't happen and I had a relatively early night.

On Bank Holiday Monday, Katie had arranged a mass picnic, but England let us down and it chucked it with rain. The few of us that were really determined to still meet up went to Lost Society in Clapham (which is a really really nice bar) for a couple of drinks, and then I decided to trundle up to Chelmsford to see Roz. We had a nice Edwina (curry) whilst watching Walk the Line before hitting the hay. I passed straight out. I think I was still knackered from the training.

Today, I'm not tired but I'm sore in a variety of places. I think I might get a massage tomorrow at work. Or then again, I'm sure I can find someone to walk all over my back!

P.S. I call the picture at the top "Blades of 300". If you can't find a picture to sum up your day, make one!

Star Wars Geekary

Maybe it's appropriate that the Star Wars Memorabilia show starts today (that I really want to go and see incidentally), as this little chain of emails just did the rounds around the tech department. We're not geeks, honest

From: Ian K
Title: Message for Luke
Message: May the 4th be with you

From: Luke T
Title: RE: Message for Luke
Message: Tomorrow's the day that has me worried. It's the Revenge of the Fifth

From: Andy W (me)
Title: RE: Message for Luke
Message: And after that the Sixth Lord will rise

We really need to get out more

Je Joue Au Basket

Last night, Roz got a lucky let off. Wednesday and Sunday are usually the days when I drain all of her energy and I expect most of her will to live by giving her training sessions; so after work we trekked over to Brockwell Park for a workout in the sun. Fortunately for her, I'd had a session in the afternoon with Alex from work doing some jogging and boxing in Green Park, so I wasn't bursting with quite as much energy as I usually am. Damn you for getting me to do all of those press-ups Alex.

Incidentally, we don't dress the same dammit. Just both happened to be wearing red tops and black shorts. His has grey sleeves, mine had none. That's not the same is it? (Yes, I've heard about the emails going around). Though, I have to say that stealing his trousers was very very funny!

Anyway, when we started the training in Brockwell Park, the basketball court became free so we decided to shoot a few hoops. We (well, I) also decided that it'd be a laugh to video some shots. Check 'em out

Nothing but net:

And to prove it wasn't a fluke:

Roz can do it too:

Or from "second person" view:

But it didn't always quite go so well:

And it pissed me off when I missed:

Ok, sure we're never going to make the NBA cut, but hey, it's a laugh. After that, and when a court came free, we went and played some tennis. I know one thing now. I can't serve for hell. Occasionally my overly-optimistic smash lands perfectly, flying past Roz for a well deserved ace, but 95% of the time it end up off the court, or on a neighbouring court, or even over the fence. Maybe with the summer approaching I'll get to play more and gradually improve, but for now, Mr Murray can remain the number one Andy in Britain!

What Tattoo To Do

As a bunch of people already know, in the next few weeks I'm getting some rather serious body art in the form of a large tribal shoulder tattoo. I've wanted to get one for a long time but never found a design I liked, and one's that I did myself never had enough of a "tribal" feel to them. Finally, a few weeks ago, the day came when I found the picture on the left which is exactly as I want it, so I sent the image off to Into You, the tattoo parlour that's been voted the best in Britain for about the last five years and they've quoted me £140 for the job. Not too bad.

So, I'm shortly going to be getting that one done, but I have a question for all you blog readers. I'm also going to get a tribal scorpion pattern done on my inside left arm (one that I've also wanted to get done for ages), but I'm stuck between two designs and I want to know which one you in reader land think is the better.

Design A or design B? What do you think? I think I'm swinging slightly more towards A, but I do like the way that the legs line up on B.

Please, leave a comment with which one you think's better, and maybe a reason why. I'd be really interested to know what you think

Everything Moss Go

Walking to work this morning, I stopped briefly outside of a shop to ponder on what all the commotion was. Hordes of women were queueing up outside, seemingly over-anxious to get in and spend wads of their hard earned cash. It's not January so it can't be one of Next's 6am opening mega sales, and it can't be a games console or similar as I'm not in the queue, nor is any other guy for that matter. Then it hit, this is Top Shop, and that means that Miss Kate Moss is to blame. That's right, last night her new clothing line hit the stores and according to the papers this morning it was bedlam at the Oxford Street branch when it launched there at 8pm last night.

I know women like to shop, and that Kate Moss has become something of a fashion trend-setter, but it's the biggest and fastest selling clothing line of all time. It's amazing what a skinny drug addict whose sole talent lies in walking up and down a runway can achieve. What about me? I'm a trend-setter too. I got long hair, David Beckham got long hair. I died my hair bright blond, David Beckham died his hair bright blond. You watch, in the next three weeks David Beckham will shave all his hair off, just you see. The big copy-cat!

Talk About Stating The Obvious

On my lunch break today I was coming back from Oxford Street where'd I'd been buying some new sports clothes (more about that in a moment) and an announcement came over the loudspeakers.

"Can you please not walk on the tracks. Walking on the tracks is very dangerous."

Talk about stating the obvious. Prankster, suicide attempt, cry for help or misguided drunk; unfortunately I don't know as I was leaving the station at the time, but is someone in a fair amount of trouble? I'd expect yes, yes they are.

Anyway, I was on my way back from what has to be one of the greatest shops ever, Sports World on Oxford Street. Recently, as I've been stocking up on more and more sports goods I'd generally being going to Nike Town and paying somewhat silly amounts for shorts, tops and the ever essential trainer socks and kind of accepting that as the norm. I now know there's another way. On Saturday, Roz had wanted to go to play tennis over Brockwell Park courts but I didn't have a racquet so I trundled into Oxford Street to try and get one. JD and JJB Sports should merge together into one shop and call themselves "We Only Sell Trainers" as that's all that they had. Wall-to-wall trainers in all colours shapes and sizes. So, I want looking for greener pastures and came across a basement shop called Sports World. This place is immense.

Not only did I find a tennis racquet, but I found a £100 Head Professional titanium racquet for just £20, and then four Slazanger balls for just £2. So today I went back there as I needed some trainer socks and left with those as well as some long black Nike shorts and two red Nike training tops (one of which I want to put a personal training advert on the back of) which at Nike Town would have totalled around £120, but from Sports World, for exactly the same products as 200 metres down the road, £35.

Sure, they're probably off the back of a lorry, but with prices like that, who cares!

The Long And Short Of It

Aside from the rather odd expressions, could my hair gone any more from one extreme to the other in the last three years? If you're wondering, the picture on the left is from when I worked at BT from 2003 to 2004 in lovely Ipswich (the word lovely there is also a cunning lie). It's amazing the things that FaceBook digs up!

100 Things To Do Before You Die

Last night was interesting. Highly painful but interesting never-the-less. There's lots and lots of things that I've wanted to try out of sheer curiousity and so that I can say I've experienced it, including dying my hair bright blond and having my chest waxed. I'd obviously already tried the former and up until last night, I'd not tried the other, but much to Roz's giddy excitement I let her do the latter. Bloody hell that's vicious. Hair's that have been there for 15 years or so obviously had gotten quite attacted to being part of my body and put up a real fight when it came to being forcefully ripped out of my skin. I managed to grit my teeth and get through it all though, even though I had to finish the job as Roz somehow managed to leave me patchier than the yeti in malting season.

Anyway, this whole event got me thinking about all the other things that I'd like to experience before I die and we spoke about making a list of the "100 Things To Do Before You Die". To be honest, I don't know if I could come up with 100 things straight away off the top of my head, but this is my quick list of things that I can think of right now (in no particular order). Sure, some of them are very typical, but some are a little more weird. Some are obviously illegal, but I'm not saying that I want to become a criminal, there just things that I'd want to experience so that I can lie on my death bed without thinking "I wish I'd tried that".

1. Jump out of an aeroplane (sky diving)
2. Get shot (not fatally)
3. Swim with sharks
4. Have my own book published
5. Appear on TV
6. Cycle around the edge of Australia
7. Spend a year (or more) touring the world
8. Be chased by the police (on foot and in a car)
9. Do proper 'free-running' in London
10. Work in the States
11. 'Do' Eliza Dushku
12. 'Do' Shannon Elizabeth
13. 'Do' Eliza Dushku and Shannon Elizabeth at the same time (do you blame me)
14. Sail a boat in the ocean
15. Run a marathon
16. Set a World Record (not as part of a group)
17. Have a stranger recognise me
18. Be on a jury
19. Visit a prison
20. Drive over 300mph
21. Do that thing where you turn up at an airport on a Friday night and just jump on the first cancelled seat anywhere for the weekend
22. Get married
23. Have children (ideally a boy and two girls)
24. Complete an ironman triathlon
25. Try cocaine
26. Discover something
27. Invent something
28. Climb a mountain
29. Walk the Great Wall of China
30. Go into Space
31. Spend a million pounds in a day
32. Throw a TV from a hotel window
33. Go "all on black" on a Las Vegas roulette table
34. Spray a rude word on the top of a building so that it appears on Google Earth
35. Write an successful song
36. Get in an adult street fight (not the kiddie ones I've been in in the past)
37. Try escargot
38. Be struck by lightning
39. See all the Seven Wonders of the World
40. See the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper
41. Ride down a beach on a horse
42. Smash a guitar on a stage
43. Meet an alien (unlikely I know)
44. Fire a machine gun
45. Own a monkey
46. Be in a film
47. Shower in a waterfall
48. Ride the five biggest roller coasters in the World
49. Bungee out of a helicopter above the Grand Canyon
50. Drive a Harley down Highway 88
51. Go up in a hot-air balloon
52. Snowboard a double-black diamond run
53. Be in a car crash
54. Erm...

Ok, so I ran out way before 100, but I'm sure given time I could come up with more. Are there any things that I haven't mentioned that you want to do before you die?

The Results So Far

I thought you might like to see a picture of me now that I've been training for a while. What do you think?

Running With No Clothes

Today I did something different. I ran to work. I figure, if I'm going to be doing training for a living, I've got to be able to do an hours running without too much trouble. Also, I'll need to be able to do it for my triathlon in September which is a 2km swim, 60km cycle and 15km run, which is a middle distance triathlon but still a fair challenge for a first real 'race'. It's my short-term goal though and I'm looking forward to it now as it'll be a good practise for the Ironman that I'm hoping to be accepted into next year.

Anyway, I jogged to work with my kit bag on my back in just over 45 minutes, but I was pacing myself as I didn't know what the distance was and how long it was going to take me. Without my bag, now knowing the distance and the pace that I can set myself I'm pretty sure I could do it in about 30 minutes or so. When I got to the office, I went and had a shower before realising I'd forgotten all my 'normal' clothes. so I'm sitting here now in my shorts and trainers and a bright pink lastminute.com branded t-shirt that I managed to pilfer from the fourth floor. Once I'd sorted that, I stuck my morning run into http://www.runlondon.com and found that it's 9.4km to work, so given the time I did it in I'm pretty happy. If I can do it 30 minutes, I'll be well chuffed. If you're interested, this is the route I took.

Somehow, I managed to do it without getting lost at all, which is a really odd for me. Maybe I'm getting better at my directions. Or maybe I was just lucky

Are You A Record Breaker?

Golly gosh (yes I just said that), I've got so many things to write about today, so be prepared for lots of little posts as opposed to one really freakin' big one.

I'll start with the most exciting news of all. I am now a World Record holder, and it's record I set with my nuts. Yes, set a World Record by banging my nuts together in the largest ever coconut orchestra (well what other sort of nuts did you think I meant). The previous best was set in New York when 1,789 people got together and bashed their coconuts together to some tune or other, but this time, 5,567 budding Londonites set on Trafalgar Square and battered the record into submission to the tune of "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life", conducted and lead by the cast of Monty Python's west-end hit Spam-a-lot.

Also making an appearance was Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam who both co-wrote and starred in the original Monty Python and The Holy Grail. It's nice to see that they care about these things, and that Terry Gilliam can still perform as Patsy (King Arthur's horse in the original) just as well as ever.

You can see all the pictures from the event here - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1978&l=dc421&id=508514070 and watch the full five minute World Record breaking attempt below. And if you're wondering how I participated and recorded at once; well I perfected the one hand coconut clap. Simple when you know how

Buzzzzzzzzzzz

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention. After a haircut gone wrong (cutting it yourself is deceptively difficult) I cut all my hair off again. Well, razored it, so it's proper gone again. Means it'll be easier to take care of while I'm training all the time anyway. Ho hum

A Jolly Spiffing Night

It was a funny old weekend, but certainly one of the most interesting ones that I've had in a while. After a massive amount of fussing, pestering and hunting I managed to hire a lovely white-tie, dress and tails tuxedo complete with top hat ready for a Moulin Rouge themed Ball at Exeter College in Oxford. For those who don't know. Exeter College is one of the colleges of Oxford University, so when Becky, Sara, Koulla and me received the invite email about it we jumped on the chance to go for an evening mingling with all the clever-clog toffs. As I'm sure you can expect, the free transport, unlimited free food and alcohol, free shisha, free entertainment including fire-eaters and breathers, magicians, live bands, acrobats and the free chocolate fountains had nothing to do with our decision; they were just a tiny bonus; honest!

So, after meeting up and Becky's and getting ready we head off on the bus and the underground to the train, and at every stage of our journey got odd looks, comments, heckling, window banging and even the occasional beeping car. I suppose a guy dressed in a full tux and top hat, in the middle of a hot Saturday, accompanied by two ladies in posh ball gowns will turn the odd head though.

I could talk loads about the amusing ten-piece vocal 'boy-band', the questionable DJ in the dance tent, losing my bow-tie at some point during the night, everyone saying that they were drunk by 9:30pm, the end of the night and taxi journey that I have no recollection of, the guy who claimed he was Johnny Depp's bum double, blowing shisha smoke filled bubbles, dinging the bell on test your strength, Becky hardly being able to lift the hammer on the test your strength, a rather tasteless hotdog, a rather tasty chocolate fountain and a guy with the biggest hat in the World; but I won't. I think that the pictures tell a fine story all by themselves, so feel free to have a gander at this little lot. Suffice to say, a very good time was had by all!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1949&l=122cd&id=508514070

Not Such A Good Idea

I have a feeling that starting a FaceBook poke war may have slightly backfired on me

WMDs? B'ah, I've Got A Finger

Saddam may (or may not, though I don't want to get into this argument) have loved his Weapons of Mass Destruction, I'm pretty sure that Kim Jong-il fella has got a few tucked away (I saw it on Team America: World Police so it must be true) and our good friends Mr George Bush and Mr Tony Blair are bound to have them in "secret bunkers" somewhere. Ours are probably in Ipswich. Anyway, despite not having any WMDs of my own, I have something more powerful, more frightening, more destructive, and this morning, I started war with it. That's right, it's the power of my poking finger!

My FaceBook buddies probably don't know what hit them this morning when I unleashed a shit-storm poking war upon them all. Fear the massive poking finger. Like most small countries though (except possibly Poland), they all appear to be putting up a good fight and retaliating with as much force as was thrust upon them. But I shall continue to fight on. It's war my friends. War!

The Change...

As I'm sure you'll remember, I was talking about my imminent "big change" that I couldn't really spill any details on due to the potential prying eyes. Now that the important people know what it is, I am free to tell you all in blog land without fear of the backlash that it could cause.

Workwise, I'm moving on. That's right, I'm leaving the pink palace for less pink (sorry, magenta) pastures. I've been offered another job elsewhere which I intend to take, on the basis that I complete a three month intensive training course first. Oddly, everything that I've worked for over the last eight years, including A-levels, my degree and the work I've done thus far is being thrown out of the window and I'm doing about as big a change that's possible. The job, as I'm sure you're wondering, is as a personal trainer. Bet you didn't see that coming!

In order to be do the job legally (obviously health and safety is prominent in the industry) I need to complete one of two courses; either the 17 week one by YMCAfit, or the twelve week Premier Global intensive one. Despite being almost £2000 more, I'm going to be doing the Premier Global one because not only does it take five weeks less, but it also goes above and beyond the basic training required, which will put me in a really good position for progress within the industry.

In order to work in a gym, you need a Certificate in Personal Training level 3 and Certificate in Gym Instruction level 2, which both courses provide, but the Premier Global diploma also gives you Nutrition Advice for Physical Therapy and a Certificate in Sports Massage Therapy. From there, moving towards physio training isn't such a challenge, and that's where the real big bucks are.

Sure, jacking in my job and going in a direction that I'd never really contemplated before is a risky decision, but if you don't take risks you don't get anywhere in life. The more and more I think about it, the more I realise how much more it's suited to me than what I'm doing. I'm a people person. I like meeting new people, being out and about, being active and spontaneous and to change what I'm doing all the time, and being a PT will allow me the freedom to do that. It will get me out of the stuffy, boring office environment and into a world where I can have fun, work whenever I want and not have to use my brain to think about "code" all of the time. That and after speaking to a load of trainers at the same gym that I'll be joining, it's a load more money!

All going to plan, I'll be enrolling at the start of July. Wish me luck

Bring On The Summer

As I'm feeling in a good mood right now, I thought I'd compile a list of things that I'm current very very excited about.

1. The Weather
Yes, it's possibly the most British thing on the planet to get excited about, but what can you say, I like the sun. Roz is already not talking to me as I've bronzed pretty well from my short burst of sun over the last weekend. What can I say, it's in my genes. I go very brown, very quickly. More to come on that I'm sure.

2. The Cinema
I saw 300 last night and the trailers for up-and-coming films look nothing short of amazing. The one that literally got me jiggling up and down with excitement was Spiderman 3. Not only do we have the new Green Goblin in the shape of Harry Osborn, but there's also Sandman and Venom. VENOM!!! God damn that's an amazing character. I love the whole Spiderman comic series, and was addicted to the original cartoons as a kid so really cannot wait for this film. Day one of it being on, I'll be there, that's for sure. Other ones to note are Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At Worlds End if only because it has my all-time favourite character ever, Captain Jack Sparrow; 28 Weeks Later, the follow-up to the amazing British horror 28 Days Later; Fracture, a tense looking film with the always great Anthony Hopkins; The Reaping, a thriller about a Christian missionary who specialises in debunking religious phenomena who encounters the ten Biblical plagues in a small village; and finally The Hills Have Eyes 2. Thankfully it's not a remake of the 1985 Wes Craven original as that was probably the worst sequel ever, but if it's anything like last years blood and gore fest it's going to be damn amazing!

3. My Hair
An odd addition to the list, but now that my natural colour is showing through underneath, it's getting closer to the "dirty surfer" blonde colour that I wanted, rather than the "you can see this from space" yellow that it was.

4. My "Big Change"
The wheels are in motion now, and I'm very very excited about it. I really can't wait for it all to kick off now, so to speak.

5. My Fitness
As Summer's coming, the time is approaching where we like to walk around wearing a lot less and catching those rays, and I'm now at the point in my training where I'll more than gladly throw off my top and walk around. Sure, I still have a little way to go to get my Brad Pitt Fight Club figure, but I'm certainly getting there now. Not only do I know I look better, but I feel better, I have more energy, I'm generally not as tired and I just feel darn good.

Bring on the Summer. It's going to be a good one!

The Most Offensive Thing Ever

Speaking to a guy at work, we thought about making the most offensive t-shirts to ever grace the planet, and subsequently I spent my lunch break making an insult generator. Now be warned, not only is this very very offensive, but it can be very very very funny. I had to run to the bathroom as I thought I was going to be sick from all the laughing. Some of the sentences that it produces don't make a lot of sense, but most of the time they're just really amusing, downright stupid or horribly offensive.

I'll constantly be added more words to it, so keep an eye out, and enjoy the insults. Enjoy - http://alzani.falba.net/random.php

I'm Glad I Don't Use The Underground

Tube workers are to take part in a three-day strike next week as talks to resolve an employment row broke down.

The Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union said 2,000 of its members employed by maintenance firm Metronet would walk out from 1800 BST on Sunday.

The RMT also announced that the workers would start an indefinite overtime ban from 22 April. The row is over plans to transfer staff into parent companies.

Metronet has said any industrial action would be unjustified and unwarranted.

Massive effect

The dispute centres on plans to transfer around 250 staff to Bombardier Transportation to help introduce new trains and improve reliability.

Metronet senior vice president Mark Cooper called on the union to call off the strike and continue talks.

He said: "The planned strike action will lead to disruption for the three million people who use the Tube every day. It is unnecessary and unwarranted.

"We remain available for talks at any time."

Series of meetings

The RMT said the industrial action would have an "immediate and massive" impact on services.

General Secretary Bob Crow said: "We have had a series of meetings with Metronet this week but we have been unable to reach agreement.

"It is a great pity that after we suspended the overtime ban scheduled for this week to enable those talks to take place, the company has not taken the extra step towards us that could have resolved the dispute."

Metronet is responsible for maintaining two-thirds of the Tube network.

The strike will end at 1800 BST on Wednesday.

<rant>

There's one thing that infuriates me about this. Lets take the Jubilee Line for example. The guys (or girls) who run the Jubilee Line turn up to work and sit in their cabin at the front of the train and, errr, well that's it. The whole thing is automated. It stops and starts by computer. It opens and closes the doors all by itself and everything. The only reason that there has to be a "human" on board is for health and safety reasons. So, they sit there doing nothing all day, and complain about their £30,000 a year. When was the last time you saw the title "London's Web Designers to strike over pay dispute". It doesn't happen does it!? Complaining arseholes. Sorry for the rant, but if you're going to complain about being paid well over the average London wage for doing sweet fuck all then you're an arse-hole; end of story

</rant>

Watercooler Moment

"When the revolution comes, Australia is fucked as it will need to expend energy in order to desanitise water"
"They could use nuclear power"
"And put a station where?"
"In the middle of the Outback. If there's an accident in the middle of the Outback no-one will care"

How I laughed, not just at the fact that "no-one will care", but also "when the revolution comes". What revolution is this then?

Blue Skies, Green Fingers and Red Faces

What an Easter weekend it was. I don't know about you lot, but I had a bloody great one. I'm only going to do a quick overview, as if I was to talk about all the details it would take almost a whole other weekend. It all kicked off on Friday morning with a trip up to Chelmsford (where Roz lives) for some drinks and lunch at a pub with a few of her friends. Within a matter of hours, Roz, Findoolay, Jenny and I had just finished all 16 guest ales at The Black Ball and were tackling the giant Jenga. As it was such a nice day I'd decided that I fancied cider, so checked the 6.0% and the 7.3% tipples off the list. The latter was really nice but hit home quite hard too. After there we moved onto The Ship for further consumption of the brown stuff and so that Sarah, Emma, Adam, Alex and erm, I'm sure I'm missing someone else, could join us.

It's at The Ship where the damage was done and when we left there, whatever time it was, we were all feeling the drink, especially Jenny. For some reason, as we left, we suddenly all fancied photo booth pictures (I'm pretty sure it was Roz's idea) so we all got some of them done, and they were pretty funny by all accounts; the one of Jenny and Roz especially as I stuck my hand in the booth and it now looks like Jenny has ginger hair. Pretty funny! We then went to some pizza place for food, and unbeknown to us, it had somehow turned 10:30pm. I did wonder why the restaurant was so empty. After pizza, fights (see the pictures link) and other foody goodness we left to a bar that had closed by that time, so head to another place (the name of which escapes me again) for last nights and left just as the police stormed the place. I've no idea why. We got to bed about midnightish, so not so bad being as we'd just survived a 14 hour session.

The pictures can be seen here - I'm pretty sure you can see them even if you're not my FaceBook friend

Saturday morning, I seemed to be the only one without a hangover and Roz and Findoolay suffered. After breakfast, we head to Roz's parents to get rid of our stuff before going to her new house in Romford to do some work on the house. While Roz, Findoolay and Sarah worked on removing the wood chip wallpaper from the bathroom (I feel for you girls), I had a great time outside, doing the gardening. It was all Charlie Dimmock green fingers though as I ripped paving slabs up, tore plants from the ground, laid slabs and even designed an iron barbecue. It was good fun actually. We didn't leave in the end until about 9pm, and Roz and I head back to London to go to mine; and what a mission that was. The train didn't take too long, but when we got there we had to go and pick up Roz's laptop, and we missed Tesco's being open by a couple of minutes which was a pain as we were starved. We then had to seriously hot-foot it down to Victoria to get the 22:52 train to Herne Hill which saw us running through Oxford Circus and Victoria Stations, but we made it back in time for me to go and grab a lovely curry while Roz showered. They forgot my poppadoms though, the buggers!

Sunday and Monday were a lot more easy going. I just sat out in front of the TV, watching DVDs and playing on the PS3 and I spent quite a lot of time training, both at the gym and running around Brockwell Park as the weather was so nice. And now it's Tuesday, back on the hard graft. Just what the doctor didn't order.

Oh well, it's Itchy season again, and it starts up tonight with a trip to Clapham to La Pampa which by all accounts is supposed to be lovely. Can't wait!

Yahooooooly crap!

Generally, I'm a Gmail man, but over the course of time I've been forced to sign up for other mail clients, namely Yahoo! and MSN (or Hotmail as it is) as well as a few other silly ones as they were required for things. Every now and again, I check my Hotmail account as some people just refuse to update their contact lists, but I ne