Freak Lightning Storm on Wednesday

On Wednesday night me and Lisa were chilling out with a meal and watched Sideways. I hadn't seen it before but I've heard lots of critical acclaim for it and was intrigued by it upon it's first theatrical release. I saw it in ASDA for £3.50 so thought I'd snap it up. All I gotta say is it's a great film and it HAS to be watched. A work of genius!

Anyway, it finished at 9 o'clock just in time for Big Brother ... but it turned out it wasn't starting til 10:00!! So I suggested we go for a walk cos it was still warm out and it looked like there was gonna be a nice sunset. As we were walking through Fisherman's Walk towards the clifftop we thought we saw a few flashes of lightning. We thought it couldn't be lightning and just put it down to holiday makers and foreign students taking pics. By the time we got to the clifftop we suddenly realised that it was, in fact, a lightning storm miles out at sea. The weird thing was the fact that there was no sound. There was no thunder or rumbling sounds, just the freakish light show. It was totally mesmerising and eerily still. We watched it come in from the sea (somewhere over France) and went north west towards Southampton, then it started flashing behind us. Before we knew it we were surrounded by the lightning and it started to rain. The time was coming up to 9:50 so we ran back to the flat (collecting Lisa's car on the way - she'd parked it miles away from her flat cos of holiday makers nicking her parking space!).

The next day there were news reports of buildings that were stuck by the lightning - one of which was just down the road from us in Boscombe!!! Click HERE for BBC News report and HERE for the map of where it was. It was literally just round the corner from my house!!!

EMAP Awards

Last Thursday was the usual annual work event - the EMAP Awards! This is a regular outing for employees of EMAP where we all bundle into a coach and get driven up to london to the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane for free food and booze... oh yeah, and there's an awards ceremony to celebrate all the hard work people have done over the year. Each year we have a celebrity to present the awards. Hosts have included Phill Jupitus, Jonathan Ross and Claire Sweeney(!) This year we had Dr Neil Fox.

The coach journey is always a bore. Some people take alcohol with them to reduce boredom, some people take little travel games with them, other people try to sleep through it. The group of people I was with played a name game where one person has to think of a person (celeb, character, politician, whatever) and the others have to guess who they are by asking Yes/NO questions. ie. Are you Male? Are you in a band? etc. That killed time for most of the journey.

When we arrived we had a champagne reception. As it was free I kept going back for more until we were all ushered to our tables. I think I had 4 glasses of champagne! When we got to our tables there was a little shuffle around as to who was gonna sit where and it turns out that the MD and the Head of Research had a whole table to themselves so they came and joined out table. Bummer! I poured myself a white wine as the last glass of champagne was almost finished and then the food arrived. It was actually quite nice this year compared to last year.

Things tended to get REALLY hazy at this point cos I was starting to feel the effects of excessive drinking. Er.... I think I ended up going on stage with a colleague for an award that wasn't for us and got a free bottle of champane and shook Dr Fox's hand (very surreal moment). Hmmm but I do remember getting so drunk to the point where I thought I was gonna puke! I had to find a quiet corner somewhere and sit on the floor with my head between my knees for the last 30 mins!!

Anyway, on with the pics....

...incidently, that last pic was taken while I'd disappeared to try and sober myself up! You could probably tell because of the 'arty' angle!

At midnight, the coach arrived to take us all back to sunny Bournemouth. The weird thing was, as soon as I got on the coach and started chatting I sobered up! I think at one point we were all chanting 'England til I die' for no real reason. I can't remember much else!! Except when we got back I went back to Richard and Emma's house with a bunch of people to play Singstar til about 4:30 in the morning!! More pics..

...as per usual, there are more pics available to view on my Flickr account HERE!

Anta

Just a quick note to say that on Monday night Lisa and I went to The Portman pub to see Anta - an acoustic duo with Kate White on the bass and Sarah White on guitar and vocals. It was part of one of Conrad's regular organised events called Forbidden Planet and once a month they have a special female-artists-only night called Fembots. Anyway, Anta were amazing!! Totally kicked ass and got huge cheers from around the room. We had to leave after they finished cos it was a school night and I was already feeling a little drunk! I didn't take any photos cos my camera battery is completely shafted - I spend 8 hours charging it and when I put it back in the camera I switch it on it lasts 20 seconds before it's completely discharged again!! Pointless! I can take about 2 or 3 pictures and that's it!! I mean, yeah I could borrow Scott's but I don't wanna have to keep asking to borrow it. Must google me up a new one.... might have to go for an official Canon one... that's gonna be about 40 quid! :(

Space Invaders for REAL!!

This fuckin' rocks!!! It's an animation of a typical Space Invaders game but using real people as pixels. This must've taken ages to organise and animate! Pure GENIUS!!

Chilled Weekend

The weekends just gone was a pretty chilled out one. I think this was the only weekend where we weren't all booked up to do something. I mean yeah sure I still had to go to my mum's on Saturday mornings but other that that I had a free reign. I went to Castle point with Lisa and did a bit of shopping. I originally wanted to buy a game (either XBox, PS2 or PSP) but couldn't decide. After about half an hour and lots of time helping Lisa choose what she wanted I went into Topman for a quick look and saw lots of cool stuff in the sale. I've not been in Topman for about 3 months and stuff that I really wanted to get then but couldn't afford was now on the Sale rail!! Wicked!! So I bought a t-shirt, a shirt, a cap and some MALE jewelery that was reduced to a quid! Spent the rest of Saturday eating, drink booze, vegging out in front of the tele and watching Fargo. Lisa was too tired to stay awake during Fargo so went to bed. Fair play to her though cos it is a pretty slow moving film but it's one of my faves.

Sunday was another chilled day. Well, when I say chilled I mean relaxing cos the temperature was far removed from chilled - it were bloody hot!!! We woke up at about 9ish and had brekky. The got ready to go out into the sun. Me, Lisa and Scott went to King's Park to sunbathe, listen to music and chuck a frisby around. It was a genius idea cos everybody in the south of England went to Bournemouth Beach... King's Park was dead so we had it all to ourselves!! My suspicions of the holiday makers going to the beach were confirmed when from 6pm til 9pm the traffic was solid throughout Boscombe, Pokesdown, Castle Lane and the Wessex Way!!! We left King's Park at about 2pm cos Scott had band practice with Lounge. Which was fine cos it was getting too hot to hang around... and I was getting bitten by every kind of midgy known to man!

Got back to the flat and switched on the tele. The Grand Prix was on so we watched that for a bit and then (as per usual for me) fell asleep on the sofa. Woke up at 4:30 to see that Lisa had passed out too. When she woke up we went to The Bell for a pint in the beer garden then went to the Malt & Hops for another pint and some grub. We invited Sarah (White) down but she was knackered after a hedonistic night with a girl she's fancied for, like, EVER!! Wicked... she FINALLY managed to get her in bed! Result! Then we head off home at about 8ish and watched Big Bro and went to bed!

Like I said, a pretty chilled out weekend.

New Beginnings

OK, right, so I've decided that I'm gonna breathe new life into this dusty old blog of mine. I was chatting to Lisa last night about it and it's a shame that I've let it fall by the wayside. The thing is (and I know this is no real excuse but...) I've been SOOOOOOOOOO busy since my last entry which was way back in .... *has a quick look* March! .... MARCH??? Christ I have let it slip haven't I!!?!?!?? So what's been happening since then? Well let's have a very brief rundown in no particular order....


The first thing you'll notice is the new look of my blog. I'm calling it Skip To The End v2.0. Hope you like!

I went to Wales and met Lisa's folks. A bit nerve wracking at first but they proved to be lovely and just as bonkers as Lisa So that was all good. Went for a few walks in 'The Valleys' and did a bit of general sight-seeing in Camarthen (spelling?)

Got all worked up and then sourly dissappointed at England's feeble attempt at professional football in the 2006 World Cup. They played like twats, the matches were boring and only got as far as they did through sheer luck! Contriversial point of view I know but when you watch some of the other countries play you suddenly remember what real football is about (with the exception of the overplayed fouls!.... "Oooh I fell over! Oww the pain!!! Pleeeeease ref, can I have a free kick?!" Glad that Italy won.

Took Lisa to meet my mum and my dad (for those that don't know they've been divorced for, like, 23 years and live seperate lives) Both of which love Lisa to bits and think she's a keeper! Ace!

I'm still working at Glenigan. Wooopy! We've got some new started in IT. One's a dork, the other's cool (interesting music tastes - extreme dark grind-core metal! Used to be in a band!)

Blind Voyeurs as still going strong and now have a massive arsenal of unfinished songs. I want to have a meeting and discuss which songs we're gonna work on to get completed and finally gig (or even tour?!?! Southampton, Brighton... who knows!) Recent discussions with Gary suggest that he's joining the collective. Cool. I've also been busy making a music video for Ukul...

Went to Monkey World with Lisa. That was cool. Monkeys rock!

...oh yeah... shaved my head!! Couldn't afford to usual £30-£50 that the salon usually charges to trim and style my hair so though 'fuck it!' and got the clippers out!

Went to the ghost village of Tyneham with Scott and Lisa. Took lots of photos and then went to Lulworth. Will have a video up of that shortly.

I've had money problems but am on the road to recovery!

Heard that Sarah's gonna get her book published!! Which means I know and author. Wicked!

Gary and Simone got married!!! And about time too!

Which reminds me, Kim and Paul came down to Bournemouth for Simone's Hen night. Me and Lisa hit the town with them the night before and got ourselves rip-roaringly drunk. There were a few contriversial moments but that's water under the bridge now.

Went to Groves on the Green in Parkstone. That was the day after Lisa got back from a short holiday to Italy with her mate, Jen. The weather was shitty when she was away so it was good that it turned out nice when she got back for that.

Went to see Lounge play at The Joiners in Southampton. My photography skills were put to good use for some top band photo's. Which reminds me, I must find time tonight to tidy them up on photoshop and put them on their MySpace page.

Had a joint birthday party for Lisa and Scott. Lisa = 28, Scott = 30. Got completely rat-arsed and decided at 4am that it would be a good idea to get some band equipment out and write and record a 10 track album!! Was up til 6.30am! I've even made a MySpace page for the music we produced. Warning... it lacks in professionalism but is a bit of fun nonetheless!

Went to London with Scott to have a walkabout and take lots of pics. There's a photoset HERE on my Flickr acount... here's a couple of pics....

Lisa's friend, Dani, got married too, so we all had to bundle into a massive posh hotel and have another lovely day. Felt like I was stuck in a rom-com! haha!


There's been loads of other little bits and pieces here and there I can't remember but you get the jist of it. Basically, I'm gonna get back into blogging mainly because I can't remember what I've been up to!!!! So keep checking back for updates.

YouTube.com

Yep, another post about a new website I've stumbled upon. This time it's a site called YouTube.com. This is another one of those interesting Web 2.0 sites where people can post video clips about whatever they want (except porn, of course) and share them with friends and families etc. It works in a a similar way to Flickr.com ... just with video clips. I think I've been to this site before in it's infancy and didn't think much of it - but that's cos I didn't look deep enough. This time I found it via a Tex La Homa video that Matt put on his MySpace profile, and it was the fact you could post video clips onto MySpace that interested me!! Y'see we want to do something similar with Blind Voyeurs once we get it sorted. So I registered (yep, it's free!!) and explored a little more and found a couple of clips that I really liked (rare Nirvana footage, funny clips and stories)and added them to my faves. As a final test to it's versatitly I wanted to see if I could upload .AVI files as this is the format that my digital camera uses. I was pleased to see that this was a supported filetype. Here's my tester....

It's just something I recorded at a Christmas party held in a gym. (It's me and Gary Hudspith breaking away from everyone else to explore the gym)

Blue / Yellow man!!

Flickr have recently changed their community guidelines to "Don't Be creepy. Don't be that guy. You know the guy."

I wonder if they're talking about this guy?

Click to see weirdo!!

VERY odd!!!!

Pancakes and Snow!

Tuesday 28th February 2006

As you may or may not have been aware - Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday or, what I prefer to call, Pancake Day!! Most of the people in my department at work didn't participate because of either forgetting all about it or couldn't be arsed (But, I put it down to being boring). I, on the other hand, LOVE pancacke day and mentioned it to Lisa at least a couple of days before so that we could gather all the ingredients together. Pics time....

yummy!!

As we started to mix all the ingredients together I got a text from ex-housemate Sarah asking if we fancied going to The Bell for a pint or 2 as she's just outside my flat. I went to the lounge and looked out the window and sure enough she was out there waiting for a reply!! I told her we're having pancakes and she's more than welcome to join us and it'd be cheaper to get a pack of beers from the One Stop. So she grabbed some beers and came round for the evening. It was good to see her, hadn't seen her since just before she moved out of 61 Christchurch Road. We ended up playing Star Wars Trivial Pursuit til almost midnight. We all got very involved in that. Naturally, I won, with Sarah coming a close second (she had all her slices of pie (or cheese or cake or whatever you wanna call it)) and Lisa managed to get 4 of her pieces... and she thought she knew nothing about Star Wars!!


Wednesday 1st March 2006

Bournemouth! *sarcasm* Don't you just love it? No really, I saw the weather report the other night and she (the weatherwoman ..... doesn't quite sound the same as weatherman does it?!?!) said "Wrap up warm folks and get out your sleighs cos it's gonna be lovely and snowy all over the UK over the next couple of days." Now, if you come from Bournemouth you know that when the weatherpeople (note the political correctness!) say it's gonna "snow all over the UK" they actually mean it's gonna snow all over the UK except Bournemouth!! Ok to be fair, we did have some snow (as the pictures below will tell you) but after about 10 minutes of what resembled a promising blizzard the sun came out while the snow was still falling and melted away anything that was settling! There wasn't even a rainbow (or would that be snowbow?!) Now, I'm not saying I want it to be a complete whiteout and for it to be dangerous to go out. Look, check out this link to the beeb! There's news stories abound where people are coping with scenes like this...

...and like this....

...and all the snow we get here in sunny Bournemouth is this...

...and this next picture is a close up just you can see exactly how many feet of snow we got.... sorry, when I said feet I meant millimetres!!....

Serenity

WOO! YAY!! HOUPLA!!! I bought Serenity on DVD today!!!! I've wanted to see that when it first came out at the cinema but never got round to watching it. For those of you that don't know what Serenity is it's a Sci-Fi film made by cult director Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel) based on much loved, but short lived, series Firefly. I think I remember catching an episode of Firefly once when I came home drunk from a night out and didn't know what I was watching... but I liked it and tried to make a mental note of finding out what it's called and when it's on. But anyone who's tried to make any kind of mental notes when their drunk will know that it's completely forgotten by sunrise!

Anyway, I spotted the Firefly series box set in Woolworths when I bought the film and depending on what I think of the film after I've watched it with Lisa I will have to buy that too.... I think I'll look for it on eBay or Play though to save a few quid.

My Band!!

Ok this is a quick update. Click the picture above to see the MySpace profile of my new band, Blind Voyeurs! This new project is at a very VERY early stage so all the recordings are of us lot jamming. Band members consist of me (obviously!) Matt Shaw (Tex La Homa), Scott Wallis (The Hat and Lounge) and James Burton (also from The Hat)

Here's a few pics of us jamming. Click the pics to go to the Flickr photoset.

Bloody PC's

Y'know what? I've tried updating this blog 3 time in the last couple of weeks and everytime I have my PC decided to crash! I wouldn't mind so much if I was just typing a small blog entry (like this one is) but it's getting to the point where I've got a lot of ground to cover. Like my actual birthDAY and about my new band etc. I will have to post a bit summary entry soon - details will be vague but you'll get the gist of what I've been up too. You never know, I may even put up some pictures!?!?

Pick a D... any D!!

I got to work 5 mins late again - don't know how I managed that! I was ahead of schedule all this morning. I distinctly remember being in the kitchen and breaking off a banana for munchies and looked at the time and it said 8:50. I went downstairs to leave the flat and I just happened to check the time on my wristwatch as I was locking the front door and it said 9:05!!!! I'm like, "WHAT!?!?! That's not possible!!" I swear there's a time vortex halfway up the stairs!!....

Anyway, I'm not in a good mood. I just tried cracking a joke at work but my heart wasn't in it. Everybody here in IT is just as demotivated as me so even if I gave it a first class delivery it wouldn't have generated a laugh. I've just had some headache pills, stress pills, my vitamins and some cod liver oil! I reckon if you shake me I'll rattle!!

We have a whiteboard here in IT that was installed when we had the new office re-fit. It was put in place so we can use it to put idea's and brainstorms etc. but none of us have any so we use them for things like "Word of the Day" or "World Cup Countdown" an' that. One of the features on this board is that it lists "The Departmental Defining D's". This is a list of words that express how we feel all beginning with the letter D. I've listed them here in alphabetical order for you to peruse at your leisure...

Damaged
Dank
Defecated-Upon
Defiant
Defiled
Deformed
Defunct
Dejected
Delusional
Demotivated
Depreciated
Depressed
Deranged
Desk-Bound
Desperate
Despised
Despondent
Destitute
Destraught
Discombobulated
Disgusted
Dismayed
Dispirited
Distressed
Don't!!
Downcast
Down-trodden
Dumbfounded
Dumped
Dysfunctional

Pick any one (or maybe 3) of those and that will explain to you how I feel right now!

.....today is not a good day! Hmph!

Hyperdrive

I caught a really bizarre programme on BBC2 last night. I was channel hopping with Lisa while snuggled up in bed before the second eviction of Big Brother comes on and stumbled across a bizarre Sci-Fi comedy with ex-Spaced actor Nick Frost. If it wasn't for the fact that I love Spaced and wanted to see what he was up to in this new programme I probably would've continued hopping but I stuck with it. As the programme was half way through I had no idea what the storyline was so we were both sitting there with question marks above our heads. It turns out it was quite good. Not great but quite good. But I think that was cos at first I just didn't get it! I feel I might have to watch more to become hooked. Anyway, I found the official website on the BBC website so click HERE to find out more!

30th Birthday Party

So, Saturday 14th was mine and Simone's Joint 30th Birthday Party. We did it this way cos both of our 30th birthday's were in January and we realised if we both had seperate parties people would be too skint to come, especially after Xmas and New Years!!

We booked out Bar 2 at The Central in Parkstone and had Rizlo on the decks (with a bit of help from Mooro) and invited as many people as we could manage. At one point it looked like we'd invited too many people but in the end we had just enough people there.

My night started at the flat with me and Lisa getting ready well early at about 4pm and then had a couple of shots of vodka to get the ball rolling. (It was a bit harsh so I had to follow it up with a Carlsberg) Scott came home and went straight in the shower, meanwhile Jen arrived and helped Lisa straighten her hair and do other girly stuff.

I was told that it was Lisa's mission to get me to The Central for 8pm so we left the flat at 7:30 to get a train. It turns out that all trains terminated at Bournemouth station that night cos of engineering works between Bournemouth and Poole so we got off at Bournemouth and got a taxi from there. Luckily we'd jumped the train so we han't wasted our money on a ticket!

The Taxi was stupidly efficient and got us there in like 5 mins. Rizlo and Mooro were still setting up so we grabbed a pint and chilled out for a bit. eventually people started turning up and so we went into bar 2 and started partying.

I didn't spend a single penny all night (and quite rightly so seeing as it was my birthday!) and for most of the evening I had 3 pints on the go at the same time dotted in three different places around the pub. One at the bar, one by the pool table and one in my hand. It was great cos no matter where I was stood there'd be one of my pints within close proximity!! I vaguely remember being bought shots of JD and Tequila at one stage! .... that would explain the hangover then!

Over the course of the night I was given lots of birthday cards and presents (including a makeshift birthday card forged from a used Christmas card from Dave Purse! hehe!) and so many people who I hadn't seen in a looooooong time turned up, such as Jackie, Maz and Xina, as well as Sarah, Kate and Lee. The rest was a blur and was over all too soon. Lisa reminded me the morning after that I was shaking my booty to Beyonce at one point ... of course I don't believe her! Sunday was a hangover day and I spent most of the day feeling like I was gonna die and trying not to be sick.

Here's a few pictures from the night. Click anyone of them to see the full photoset on Flickr.

Flickr.com

I've been signed up to Flickr for absolutely ages now but I didn't really get on with it. I went back to it recently to finally get to grips with it cos I was finding that Imageshack was starting to play up. While Imageshack is a pretty cool free image hosting site it randomly removes pictures I've asked them to host!! I'm not sure whether it's due to overuse or underuse of bandwidth, or if it's down to how long they've been hosting it for ... who knows. It's just turning out to be really unreliable.

So, I decided to dust down my old Flickr account and see if I can use that instead. I will also start to use them to host other random pics too and allow you to browse whole collections instead of just posting one or two up here! Yeah, I think me and my Flickr account are gonna get on well together juuuuust fine.

New Years Eve

I know it's 10 days late. I shoulda done this while it was still fresh in my mind really but I've been waiting on getting a CD of pics - which I still don't have. I've got some pics from 2 digital cameras that night. Anyway, the night was really cool.

It started off really small with just me, Scott, Lisa, Gary and Simone there. It stayed like this for about 2 or 3 hours - we though nobody else was going to turn up. I mean, we arranged a small gathering cos there was nowhere in town that we wanted to go. Then, just when we thought the night had turned to dust some people turned up... and then some more... and then some MORE!! We had about 15 people at the party in the end - which is a respectable number. I'd been to larger parties but we didn't want too many people there so 15 was a good number.

A few glasses were smashed, Lisa bumped her head, people were sneaking off to take drugs, lot's of alcahol was consumed and the party was still on til 4am so that can't be bad. Can't remember many details cos I got that drunk and stoned!! I remember a lot of us doing the moonwalk and robotic dancing (like a robot from 1984!!) at one point. The rest was a blur! ..... ooh yeah, and we had a video conference call with Lottie and the party at Dave Purse's. In a way, that got me thinking. 10 years ago it would cos thousands to have a live video link-up via satellite to somewhere else. But with 3G phones it's soo easy and cheap. Yeah, the picture quality ain't amazing but it's still first gen technology. It will improve and it will be the way forward!!

Here's some pics....

Currently Listening to: Smashing Pumpkins - Gish

2006!!

I just wanna take this opportunity to wish everybody a belated Merry Christmas and a very happy and fun loving New Year. 2006 is upon us already (it only seems like yesterday it was 2005 NYE) and my task for the year it to learn how to drive. I know I know, I just haven't got round to it yet. Geez, I only just got round to going abroad a couple of months ago! (click here to read more about that!)

Also, I've finally got broadband set up at home so I can actually update this blog without running the risk of getting into trouble at work!!!!!!!

I'm NOT gay!...

...although I always seem to set myself up for it!

This post is about RUMOURS!! Rumours are great ... unless they are about you!!

I was chatting to one of the girls in Sales about Lisa while we were leaving work at 5pm yesterday and I accidently ALMOST said boyfriend instead of girlfriend. We joked about it for a bit, said goodbye (as she was walking the other direction) and carried on towards home.

This morning when I went into the coffee room to get a cuppa she was coming out as I was going in. We passed eachother just outside the doorway. She said "Morning, Steve. How's your boyfriend." for a joke.
I laughed and said "Yeah, he's fine" and walked into the coffee room.
Just as I was doing it I noticed in the corner of my eye somebody overhear this little exchange of in-joke and lift their head to see who was talking. THIS is how rumours start! I'm now anticipating people talking about me and thinking I'm gay. Not that I'm bothered cos I have regular sex with my gorgeous girlfriend and I get turned on at the slightest hint of a breast.
I KNOW I'm as straight as a judge (...actually, that's probably not a good analogy!!)

Space Cadets

I watched Space Cadets on Channel 4 last night. It was good. Watch it!!....


That is all.

Click HERE to read more about it on the BBC News website.