 ( 4:46 PM ) Matt |
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Wowzers it's a bit on the warm side today !
Had a great night out last night - it was D and Jim's leaving do - they are going to South Africa. Went to BRB, Club Med, Poo Naa Naa's the back to Dave's flat for a night cap. Today I had lunch up at Tinanan's who made a nice veg curry.
Tonight - I'm supposed to be going out on Rich's birthday - and tomorrow night - cabbage! (if we can get a babysitter).
Quite fancy a brewski right now actually !
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| ( 11:32 PM ) Matt |
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Blimey. Have you seen the line up for the Big Chill ?
Even me old mucka osymyso.
Also lined up -Nitin Sawhney
Nightmares On Wax
The Cinematic Orchestra present 'Man With The Movie Camera'
Fila Brazillia Sound System
Mr Scruff
Hexstatic
Tom Middleton (Cosmos AV set)
Fred Deakin (Lemon Jelly)
Bugz In The Attic
Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band
A Guy Called Gerald
Howie B
John Peel
Talvin Singh - an evening of Indian Classical music
Fragile State
To name but a few.
The dates are : August 1-3
It's in a cool looking place - the deer park at Eastnor Castle
It looks very tranquillo...
Might be worth the treck down to here in Herefordshire....
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| ( 3:01 PM ) Matt |
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On the watchcam front - one of these has just come onto ebay..
Click here to see - Auction runs out 06-Jun-03 09:45:15 BST.
Nice watchcam ! the buy it now price is $1460. Way out of my league, but if you do get it - let me have a go!
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| ( 2:44 PM ) Matt |
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Just got back in from a trip out to Horsforth. I ran a consultancy session this morning, in an freezing cold office, due the the fact I over fiddled with the air-con. Now I am sat in a tropical office - ours. It get so hot in here in the summer. It's muggy and sticky.
Quite a busy few days ahead. Chill night tonight (needed) because tomorrow, there is a party for D, who is leaving for South Africa. 2 for one drinks I've been told - half the price, or the same price just twice as messy...
Friday night is Rich's birthday - and I may have a gig at the stalls bar - not sure yet.
Saturday it's the last cabbage before they 'break up' to do the festival season.
busy busy busy. On top of that, I've got a huge stack of work to do. Still - mustn't grumble !
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| ( 7:40 PM ) Matt |
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I've just uploaded my latest watchcam shots - watchcam shots from the camping trip by the river mainly.
Wharfe
Click here to visit it.
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| ( 5:49 PM ) Matt |
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Ahh that's better. Just got back in from a superb camping adventure.
We set off Saturday, and got to the field (a farmers field on the Warfe, near my friends house near Grassington.). Football, Frisbee, eating great loads of food, drinking, fishing, chatting, power kiting and splatting about. Our campervan once again did us proud. Loads of people turned up, spread over the weekend.
Even went for a swim in the river this morning to wake me up. It did the trick !
Took loads of watchcam photo's, soon to be up on line.
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| ( 9:53 PM ) Matt |
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Big Brother 4 (uk) has started
One of the many curious things we noticed when we lived in the suburbs of Amsterdam, was that they aren't really that bothered by curtains. "We have got nothing to hide" they would reply with a smile. Little wonder this summer phenomenon was invented by them. Big Brother, has in prior years reaped massive TV views (and the net, magazines and over peoples shoulders on the bus sources) and is set to do so in it's 13 countries due to air the show this year.
I quite like it. But why is that a slightly "sad" thing to admit I wonder ? Is it because the nation had such a high fence of opinion, where people either "love or hate" it ?.
It's changed the dynamics of the summer press - it used to be called "silly season" - now the papers have got loads of fodder.
So have we though. It seems to be such a bookmark in the year now - as much as Christmas - it's now Big Brother Season.
All of the peripherals interests me - like the fact that they had a top flight Feng Shui consultant in to make the place... uncomfortable.
Interesting selection of Characters. Some attractive girls and handsome blokes (hay - they are not stupid - sex sells!) a Sloaney, a wannabe Sloaney, A cool one. A Orkney Father Dougle, as well as some down to earth guys and gals... the microcosmos is complete.
Yea - a lot of it is voyeurism, and a fascinating in an anthropological kind of way. Lord of the Fly's meets.... well 1984
If I had to guess the winner at this stage, it would be Steph. (Good grief, I've just looked her name up on the site.)
Official Big Brother 4 Website
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| ( 2:05 PM ) Matt |
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Went out last night and had a few drinks, shot some pool, ate some tapas. Great night out with some of the guys from work.I' feeling a bit rough today. That'll be the tequila.
The weekend is nearly upon us. Not quite sure what we have in store - but it's a 3 day bank holiday weekend so one of the plans was a camping outing - up in't Dales. Quite a few people are interested in the plan - fingers crossed that the weather is OK... the reports are not so good.. Fingers crossed !
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| ( 8:55 PM ) Matt |
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Well - we did indeed go to the blog meet up as I mentioned here... 3 of us (Eirene, Adz and I ) trailed across from Harrogate and no one else turned up!
11 'members' - most of who voted for that as the venue, turned up in their zero's. None attendance! apart from us proper bloggers from Harrogate ;o) Ahh well - nothing ventured, nothing gained I guess. A rather non-descript bar, with an interesting name - "Suburban Style bar". Two out of three aint bad I guess.
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| ( 10:06 AM ) Eirene |
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Hello. This is the first opportunity I have had to sit down and write a since my impromptu blogg at Desmonds barber shop in London. Let me bring you all up to date on occurrences since then. We did go to the Saatchi Gallery and yes it was fantastic.A lot of the art there i had seen before on TV like the Turner Prize entries and Gilbert and George stuff but it is fantastic to go and see it for real. We saw Damien Hirst's Cut up cow and steer ( not recommended if you are off for chinese afterwards as I discovered) Tracey Emin's bed she is a dirty girl and much more. Really liked Hirst's underwater computer tank and chair complete with fish swimming around and the pharmacy exhibit supposed to represent culture today. It consisted of a glass case of different pharmacy bottles . Were they full of actual drugs or were they all placebos and are actual over the counter drugs real or just placebos to make us feel better. Do they work for deffinate or are we just the Guinea pigs? What I also found interesting about this exhibit was though it is considered 'modern art' even now since it was installed the bottles packaging has changed and looks out of date. I would live to come back again to se what the doctors used to prescribe us and and think how could they have given us that or thought it would work like we do now with medicine from last Decade. I was disgusted by the fly farm especially as on one side the rubber seal had degraded and the flies could escape. I didn't like poddling about that room with the flies landing on you knowing that they had been in the tank with the rotting cow head. At £8.50 it was expensive had us looking for more as there is only one floor but still comes highly recommended. Arrived home at 2330 that night tired and happy to be home. I am trying to think of some cool stuff to do with the kids today so if anyone has any suggestions they will be greatly received. Hopefully off to the blogg convention tonight should be interesting ;)
ciao
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| ( 6:59 PM ) Matt |
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I've just uploaded my latest watchcam shots - stuff from the weekend mainly....
Dinosaur
Click here to visit it.
Today I've had an office bound, event free day today - the (non work related) highlights have been getting calls from two people I have not heard from in ages - Rhino Chris, who's just got back from living it up in France for the last 8 months or so and Paul, who I used to go to school with - now living in Cornwall. Will hopefully be hooking up with Chris over the weekend, and Paul, during our up-and-coming Cornwall adventure.
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| ( 8:56 AM ) Matt |
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Bowling for Columbine
Last night - watch a 'must see' DVD - Bowling for Columbine ( Official Site )
No film has ever shocked me, or angered me in such a way - it was a real eye opener.
Eirene summarise what was happening with "America is on self distruct"
Check out these stats - (for a years worth)
germany 381 firearm homicides
France 255 firearm homicides
Canada 165 firearm homicides
UK 68 firearm homicides
Australia 165 firearm homicides
Japan 39 firearm homicides
USA 11,127 firearm homicides
A documentory written and presented by Michael Moore, investigating the question "Why does America have so many gun related Murders compaired to the rest of the world?" After rulling out factors such as 'Americans watch lots of violent films' (So does the rest of the world) and 'American kids play so violent video games' (So does the rest of the world) The conclusion seems to lie with the fact of and attutude surrounding the ammendments to the constitution - "A right to bear arms" and the fact the the American press incites fear through media 24x7.
The National Rifel Association (NRA) get a good and proper slaying, by Michael - including an interview with the President of the NRA - Charlton Heston. Chalton could not give a reasonable answers to Michaels line of questioning involving his presence at a small town, the day after a 6 year old was shot by another 6 year old (only in America ?) And abruptly ended the interview with a walk off. Michael's gripping documentory left me thinking about the States - the way it is and the way it's run. There were a whole bunch of things in that film that I never knew, and I'm sure some would prefer the world at large didn't know - about America.
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| ( 6:58 PM ) Matt |
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Today shot by. I was out on't road with my new collegue Robin. We went to Bury in Lancashire, then Leeming in North Yorkshire. Leeming is also known for RAF Leeming. RAF Leeming is famous for it's tornado's. They are amazing planes. After the meeting we went to a viewing area. I got to see a tornado take off. Wooosh ! they are fast. Within seconds it was just a dot in the sky, then gone. I think I'll have to take the boys back there at some point.
Also got sent this link for an amazing PC modification., Some people have to much time.
I'd like to know where the on button is ;o)
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| ( 7:21 PM ) Matt |
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Four seasons in one day type day today. It's been bright hot blue sky summer one minute, then solid heavy rain. Even had hailstones at one point! When the sun was out (as it is now) it was warm, and the water steamed off the tarmac.
Me and the boys went for Sunday Lunch up at the squinting cat with the grandparents. They are off to Switzerland on Wednesday. On the way up I spotted a football in the gutter of a round about, so I went and grabbed it - after checking that it could not have rolled out of a nearby garden - It's one of them school issue orange mitre footballs. The ones that are designed to give maximum sting when kicked at you on a cold winters P.E.lesson. After the meal, the kids went to play in the wacky warehouse.
The last ever Austrian Grand Prix was on, so in-between my peace envoy duties, I watched the Grand Prix with the other dads in the corner. Schumacher (M) was king of fluke, again, after a time costly pit stop set him back quite a margin. On refueling, the car caught fire
- It's lucky it didn't turn into a disaster. Partially thanks to an engine failure in Montya's car, Schu clawed it back and won.(as he usually has done for the last 6 years).
When our time was up in there, we went outside to try out the new football for a bit, then came home and messed about, watching telly and playing all afternoon.
So now, I'm sat here, the sun streaming in, and the boys as quiet as mice (ish!) in bed. Eirene get's back in from London at about 11pm, so I think I'll watch junk telly, and play games.
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| ( 7:34 PM ) Matt |
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Well – at the time of this mornings blog, I had very little to do today. I noted that I would have a look on t’internet for something for me and the boys to do today. I toyed with the idea of going to a park and kicking a footy around. I went onto the BBC weather site to see what the sky was up to, then followed the what’s on stuff to find that there was a thing happening at theTheatre Royal in York called KidStory. This sounded cool, so we packed up and jumped in the car. Got into York and raced across to the theatre. We got there, not knowing what to expect but there were loads of other Felix and Jaygo aged beings so I thought we could not be far wrong. It was great. A Scottish trio of performers, after a brief introduction acted out a Katie Morag story, then some songs that we had to join in with, and a couple of poems and stories to boot. The boys liked it (so did I!).
After that we went for a stroll around St Mary’s Abbey in York
 .
We spent a while in the York Museum Gardens and had a picnic, when we noticed a poster for a dinosaur exhibition ! this was to good to be true
– it was a BBC Walking with Dinosaurs exhibition
At the Yorkshire Museum and Gardens Museum
Models and bones, full skeletons and interactive thingys. There was a blue screen where when you stood in front of it, the TV screens showed you, with loads of dinosaurs wandering around in the background. Jaygo and Felix looked so funny! They drew quite a crowd. There was a life size model of these 2 dinosaurs eating a big dinosaur, which very nearly upset Felix. It was quite graphic.. but I said it was only a model. We also had a wander round a roman exhibition that was on in the same place. This was not as interesting for the boys. One of the first things we saw was an authentic roman kitchen – I asked Felix if he knew what the 2 stones were for (stone mill) and he said it was a dinosaur, much to the amusement of fellow patrons. Shortly after this Felix locked himself in the toilet, so while I was trying to get the lock open I noticed Jaygo inspecting the yellow block things in the urinals. Ugh. After an almost complete hose down, I had the situation back on track and we wandered outside via the shop (telling myself that they were very quiet toilets, and it was quiet in the exhibition!), where I got Felix one of them polystyrene aeroplanes which he loved to bits. We played with that outside for a bit before heading back to the car, where they both promptly feel asleep.
Got home, watched the FA Cup Final (Arsenal 1 Southampton 0). It was the first time in the FA cups 122 year history that the game was played indoors – as Cardiff Park closed the roof. Ate some food and put 2 rather tired wee men to bed. And that just about brings me up to where I am now ! A nice, constructive day after all.
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| ( 7:04 PM ) Eirene |
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hello. I am writing this sat in a little barber shop in Camberwell London {has to be a first ;)}. Just left the pub that Maria is having her birthday party in to get a disposable camera and spotted a blog opportunity. Reckon tonight should turn up some great photos. Will is doing a hip hop set as I write then there will be several more DJ's including the birthday girl herself doing an indie set and Da Simon and Chris shall also be spinning some indie tunez. Went to Borough Market today. Tried so much nice food and bought lots so am very fat and full. Going to the Saatchi Gallery (scuse the spelling but don't reckon the spell checker has this word) tomorrow. Cant wait it has been ages since i have been to a gallery then home to see my bebes. Sounds like Matt has had a fantastic day maybe leave him with the kids more often. Off back to the beer and music.
Ciao
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| ( 9:33 AM ) Matt |
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So yesterday was back to back meetings more or less. All in the office. I prefer it when 'meeting days' are punctuated with chunks of driving.
Eirene went to London last night - it's Maria's birthday. I'm "solo" dad all weekend. The boys are watching a bit of telly at the moment. Really wanted to go to a park and play a bit of footy with them this morning bit it's raining. May watch the FA cup final with them today. The weather is rubbish looking for the weekend. Ho hum. Everyone is away this weekend. Dave, Mark, Vicki and Jamie have gone to Belfast to see Radiohead. We'll just stay here then.
Something interesting will turn up. I'm off to hunt for something fun on t'internet. - If anyone has any ideas, let me know !
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| ( 8:48 PM ) Matt |
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Had a rough day today.
Putting contact lenses in theis morning - one of them (right eye) folded over, under my eye lid. That hurts.
Eirene took me to hospital, where they poked and pulled and squirted at my eye for a bit.
Feels better now, but still sore. Staring at this monitor is not doing me any good so I'm off.
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| ( 6:20 PM ) Matt |
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I've just uploaded the last wee whiles watchcam shots.
Coachhouse
Click here to visit it.
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| ( 5:47 PM ) Matt |
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Blogger Meet Up -
Some kind and lovely person sent me the link for this :
Blogger Meet up -
sounds like it could be a bit geeky / lonly hearts style, but what the heck - It will be a larf if a few of us go...
So - Wiggy, Ashen, Adz, Eirene and I are going to pile in a car and have a look (unless we all change our minds or wus out). It's on the 21st, and we have all voted for the arts cafe bar venue.
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| ( 12:40 PM ) Matt |
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A cam watch for €12 ?
Can it be so ?
That's what this claims to be. It's a bit on the ugly side, but what do you expect for 12EUR ? (well - that's what the site says along side the word "cost" on the site.)
It's a black and white film camera, that sits on your wrist. The strap has a simple digital watch that can be slid off.
The Chadt Cam Watch
Further info here
I'm trying to track one down - this also goes by the name "cam watch M1". If anyone finds one, please let me know!
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| ( 12:59 PM ) Matt |
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A nice weekend. Went out on Friday for a quick pint to wish Phil a happy birthday. Saturday - a quick run out to Shipley to collect our pictures. They are ace!
Felix and I sat about for a bit on Saturday and 'played computers'. Felix painted this great picture using Photoshop.
"Tiny" by Felix.
Saturday night - hired our Gran Tourismo 3 (It had to happen). We hired out GT concept - the 'arcady' version of the game... and that wet our appetite.
GT3 - What a great game! So much work has gone into that. After clocking up hundreds of hours on GT2, I thought it would be a doddle. Far from. Myself and Chris set about the task of going through the licenses, and entering the races. For the first night, we were stuck with a pittance of cash, and just one car (an ugly tourino). After a load of 'doing it up' we eventually started winning races and cars. So much fun. The claim of it being a true driving simulator is spot on. Each car feels different. You can modify the cars to the nth degree and every little extra makes a difference. The computer drivers in GT3 seems to be far more intelligent as well - in GT 2, you could predict what the computer cars were going to do a lot more. Not in GT3. In fact - we even speculated on the game having a Karma module - if you are nasty to the other cars, they seem to be nasty back at you. It's one of them games that you play and the hours turn into days. The graphics are very realistic, - superb reflections, shadows, sky effects etc. and the game play and addictiveness is out of this world.
Screenshot from Gran Tourismo 3
Found it hard to tear ourselves away from the game to watch 24 last night (7:00pm - 8:00pm episode) we watched this weeks last nights BBC2 episode "6:00pm - 7:00pm" 2 weeks ago, and watch next weeks on BBC3 last night.(24 fans should understand that!) It was a gripping episode - had us all on the edge of our seat. It's getting quite brutal, and the plot thickens ever more. We love that programme. It's the best thing on telly in the humble opinion of DragonDrop (Felix and Jaygo would disagree - in favour of everything on cbeebies!)
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| ( 1:07 PM ) Matt |
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Well this week has flown by. A nice start to the day - I visited a client who works in a converted Georgian country mansion. We had our meeting over a nice cup of coffee, sat in the grounds, in the warm May sun. I did not see the resident peacock today, but did see a few happy looking squirrels! So now I'm sat in a fairly deserted office, as most of my colleagues have gone to the pub for a Friday lunch treat. I thought it was Thursday all morning, to discover that it was actually Friday only quite recently ! I love it when that happens. This afternoon I'm off to Horsforth, then the weekend will nearly be upon us. Who know's what it holds in store, but I think we'll have a quiet one.
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| ( 9:02 PM ) Matt |
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Just come back from a day in the West Midlands. I had 2 appointments only to discover that the reason I could not find the second one, upon arrival was that they had moved three years ago !.Quickly found the new address and all was well in the end. A good old tour of the west mids. Just popped over to Wigg.net and spotted that the photo's from Dan's camera - from Simon's Stag do. It all seems like a bit of a blur now.
Real Ale - been getting back into (did I ever leave?) Real Ales recently - SO here is a real ale rant. Eirene brought me back a box of amazing beers from Scotland - "Historic Ales of Scotland" I'm half way through suppin them. One of them was a 7.2% Pine Ale. It is reported that that brew has been around for the last 4000 years. Very nice it is to. very rich flavor. Not a bit like I expected. As well as that there was kelp seaweed ale, elderflower ale and a heather ale.
   
Visit the Heather Ale site. for more reads.
Tonight I'm supping a local brew. Riggwelter, from the Black Sheep Brewery in Masham. Also from Masham, is Theakston, who brew a very dangerous beer, due to it's properties of making you forget how to work your legs : Old Peculier. "Peculier" is an old Norman French word meaning "particular" rather than odd. If, (and I can't see why not) DragonDrop was allowed to hand out a best beer award, it would have to go to Timothy Taylor's 'Landlord'. Ahhhhh.
But the Lady (Eirene) doth protest, and say "O.P. is the best! ;) "
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| ( 1:07 PM ) Matt |
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I've just been reading The New York Minute and it tells me that Paul McCartney is a fellow casio watchcam wearer! He's got the black and white WQV-1 and according the the NY Minute, he wears it all the time (good man!)
The German release of his recent album Driving Rain has used not much other than watchcam photo's to make up the artwork.
Someone has rather conveniently created a site that shows all of the artwork from the album on on page...
See it here - you can see the album on Amazon.de
There is a CD sampler, that also features a watchcam image...
Download it here
I've just listened to the sampler - it's very listenable.. may even get the CD !
Nice one Sir Paul !
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| ( 12:35 PM ) Matt |
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Friday ended up going out with Dave, and some people from his work, round a few bars in Harrogate. Steady away night.
Saturday night - hired out a game and borrowed a PS2 from Fionn. The game we hired was Grand Tourismo Concept. Chris and I had spent many a happy hour on the Playstation 1 with Grand Tourismo 2. The GT concept game was superb. It had a standard garage that was packed with cool cars, then you get to scoop more cars by winning races and completing licenses. Gotta have a go on GT III soon!. Eirene, Chris and I got right into it, stayed up far to late playing that. Completed it though. Well done us.
Did a gig last night at bar med. This was great. I accompanied an acoustic duo, then a DJ later on. We had a 1am license which was cool. Really enjoyed the gig.
Today -Feel rancid. Got some kind of cold. Streaming nose. Not feeling very creative, and Tina needs to finish her college assignment on this PC so I'll go and drink more tea and sneeze some more.
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| ( 4:39 PM ) Matt |
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This time last year, we were sat on a 747 on our way to Australia.
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| ( 1:47 PM ) Matt |
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Nearly the end of another week. This time last week, we were just about to set off for Nottingham on the what was to become legendary stag do.Think I had finally just about caught up on sleep by last night, thanks to a massive sleep on Wednesday - fell asleep on Chris's sofa halfway through watching Harry Potter II. Got a good 11 hours in or something. Last night, I went our for a couple of Stella's with Al, and today I'm wrapping up a load of niggly little tasks that have been kicking around for ages.
What's in store this weekend ? Well - Going out with Eirene tonight, on a leaving do with Dave. Tomorrow, we are supposed to be going to Patley Bridge, to meet Simon and Caroline. They are up from that there London, staying at Simon's old mans coach house up in't dales. Hope it's a nice day. If it's not, we'll just have to go and hide out in the Watermill pub and have a good old natter. On Sunday, I'm playing a gig at Bar Med in Harrogate. I'm last on with some DJ from Leeds that I've never met before, so that should be.. spontaneous.. free form.. Jazz... Nice. ;o). There are a load of bands on, and we have a license till 1am, and as I've got Monday off work, I intend to make the most of it !
Updated the site a little - you may notice the revised photo watchcam photo browser to the right. Also I have introduced a new stats package. Seems cool so far - retrostats. It tells me the usual stuff like how many visitors DragonDrop gets, what sites referred to DragonDrop etc etc. The interesting new feature I've got is that I can see what search quires people used to find DragonDrop with - ie people tap something into a search engine, and DragonDrop appears in the list, then if they click it, somehow I get to know what they typed - anyway - over the last 24 hours, these are the sort of ways that people have bumped into DragonDrop.... The first - I can understand... the rest.. ? (superb!)
DragonDrop
womad uk photos
pics of people in colombia who dress differently then the us
free games pics anima
fat boy slim brighton we had to
dougie houser pictures
huntsman spider somethingawful
fish orlandas
watchcam sony
pictures bars and club night out in nottingham
house party hotel
watchcam
harrogate gun company 12 bore
Hmm !
Surfing round etard I spotted this cool tool..
You can get your own O'Reilly book cover by clicking here..
It can't be done!
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me photos...
This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from DragonDrop. Make your own badge here.
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possibly the best website in the world
NASA TV
Live TV from Space. Now that's what the internet was made for!
Internet Movie Database
Unrivaled film info resource
popurls
information portal
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