Sunday 31 January 2010

Relaxing day

Today was a stress free relaxing day.
We got up to find that Sophie had taken Scarlett to see Shane so we had a lazy breakfast and got dressed.

We then headed off to Southend to pop in to see Dan and Laura's for coffee and a quick catch up.

Rest of the day was spent doing webcast stuff for the Capitals while Toni did filing and documenting of letters in preparation for her war with BastardCard. Webcast was a depressing affair with the Capitals coming the wrong end of a 2 - 7 scoreline :o(

Jacket spud, tuna and salad for dinner and an episode of Sanctuary came next before Toni returned to her filing and I blogged and then it was time for bed and snuggles.

Saturday 30 January 2010

The Dolmen Grove Land Fund Benefit Event

Toni and I headed off for deepest darkest Rochford to attend The Dolmen Grove Land Fund Benefit Event. Our interest was sparked when we had seen The Dolmen at Witch Fest back in November last year. It was an eight hour event with bands, belly dances and burlesque acts and all to raise funds for The Dolmen Grove to purchase land.

As we arrived we were greeted by the tribal drumming of....


THE PENTACLE DRUMMERS



Next up were an Irish folk three piece who had nothing to do with Ireland at all LOL


THE BLARNEYS
These guys were quite entertaining, playing a few well known traditional folk songs and some more obscure stuff



Following The Blarneys we were then treated to a huge variety of bellydancing and burlesque routines by:
Tribal Unity
Hannah Mi
Moirai
Miss Trixta
Lapiz Lazuli
Mystic Hips
Robin Goodfellow
Pauline Qu & Asif
Qu Tu
Crystal Tips
Zsa Zsa La'Hore
Bodhaia Tribal
Imagica

Here's a few pics:





See all the bellydancing and burleaque pics here:
30110BellydancersBurlesqueTheDolmenGroveLandFundBenefitEvent

After the visual delights of the bellydancing and burlesque was the raffle where we won absolutely naff all and then came the main bands...........


TORN ASUNDER
We are no strangers to Torn Asunder having seen them do an awesome set supporting Faster Pussycat last year. Things have changed a bit now though and tonight they gave a less than impressive performance. As they were sound checking the new bass player had a stab at the bass intro for Sweet Child Of Mine (Guns N Roses) but didn't quite get it right, I figured he was just goofing about..... The set started well, the sound was good and Loran belted out the vocals with full gusto. After a couple of songs she then decided to vacate the stage and spent the rest of the set on the floor level with the audience. It was a strange move and seemed to make it look like she was distancing herself from the band. Torn Asunder have some excellent material that really suit Loran's voice so I was surprised when they threw in a few covers. First up was Bon Jovi's Living On A Prayer which didn't really suit her. Next came Knocking On Heaven's Door but unfortunately it was based on the Guns N Roses version and so Loran tried to imitate the Axl parts which will never work unless you are Axl rose. Finally, to my complete astonishment, they then did Sweet Child Of Mine. Given that the bass player couldn't play the start I thought it was mad that they even attempted this but attempt it they did and he still didn't get the intro right, poor bloke. Speaking to Loran afterwards it appeared that she was tired from a 2 hour gig the night before which might have accounted for why she seemed a little uneasy tonight. Torn Asunder aren't a bad band but they have their own good material so should ditch the covers and stick with their own numbers. I don't like doing bad reviews but this performance tonight was a million miles away from when we had seen them previously.





See all the TORN ASUNDER pics here:
300110TornAsunderTheDolmenGroveLandFundBenefitEvent#

And last but certainly not least came...


THE DOLMEN
The Dolmen are amazing live, they whip the crowd into a dancing frenzy and never let up. I had wanted to dance tonight but Toni hadn't seemed too keen to start with but by the end even she couldn't resist their mystic rhythm!






See all THE DOLMEN pics here:
300110TheDolmenTheDolmenGroveLandFundBenefitEvent#

All in all it was a fantastic night and over £1,300 was raised for The Dolmen Grove Land Fund.

Munchkin in the morning

Had a lazy start to the day and Scarlett came upstairs to see us (not by her self obviously!)





We then took her on a shopping trip to Asda and George to get her some fresh air and out of the house for five minutes.

Friday 29 January 2010

You have to love the Apple iPad!

Looks somebody missed this!

PAAAIIIINNNN

Superb!!!

Thursday 28 January 2010

Reviews - all good

Had our annual reviews at work today. We have a very informal system which works well in my book! All good here, no complaints and lots of fun work coming up for the year ahead. I am actually looking forward to the coming year which, given the stress and anguish over Xmas, is actually quite refreshing!

Had a nice relaxed evening although I did fail again on the early night front!

Wednesday 27 January 2010

Tiredness, pizza and munchkin

It was a hectic day at work today. Loads going on and I was really tired once I got home, don't think I was fully rested following the Hollywood Doll rehearsal.

Sam made a totally wonderful home made pizza for dinner which was out of this world.

It;s been really nice having Sophie and Scarlett stay for the week and now Sophie has decided to stay for another week which is great!

Here's some pictures I took of munchkin before she went to bed this evening:

LET ME OUT!






Rest of the evening was spent talking to Toni and despite promising myself an early night I failed on that front so was knackered by the time I did bail out.

A classic from Red Meat!



Original picture and so much more RED MEAT fun can be found here
http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/2001-07-31/index.html

Nice name for a boy band!

Nice name for a boy band!
This video is so bad it's good!

Tuesday 26 January 2010

Hollywood Doll rehearsal and auditions

Toni and I set off to Nightfly Studios in Southend tonight for a Hollywood Doll rehearsal and to audition two guitarists. We also took along Chris, a student studying Music Tech at Southend College, who wants to record us as part of his course.

Got to the studio and started setting up and Matt and Chris started setting up the gear to try and record.

Auditions went well and here are our two candidates this week:

Scott:


Graham:


Scott and Graham were two out of the three that have applied for the rhythm guitarist post so far so you'll have to wait for two weeks before we can reveal who we decide to give the job to as we obviously have at least one more person to see :o)

The rest of the rehearsal went well and we managed to get some better recordings of some of our songs so it's a BIG thank you to Chris for coming down and helping us out.

Here's us doing what we do:


Crowd surfing with style - failblog rules!

Last.FM listening post

Here's last week's top picks music lovers!
Well done to Midnight Configuration on jumping so far into the Top 10!

Top weekly tracks:






Top weekly artists:






Overall top tracks:






Overall top artists:




Monday 25 January 2010

GP, TNA, Download & Bastardcard

It was reasonably calm day at work today and I even got to leave early as I had a GP appointment to discuss my ultrasound results.

Having been to the GP I am now pleased to be able to say that I have been referred to Doctor Harvey at Broomfield Hospital as he is the gallbladder guru. Just got to wait for an appointment to be sent to me now. One step nearer thank god! Just to really take the shine off of things I have also been asked to go back to the GP next Tuesday morning for some blood tests, oh joy!

Sam cooked us a spanish chicken variation and we watched TNA Impact. TNA is really going downhill fast. It was bad enough bringing in Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff (the two men partly to blame for the death of WCW) and then all their washed up ex-WWE legends and ex-WWE mid-carders just added insult to injury. Then they took away the six-sided ring, something that made TNA stand out and be different from most wrestling organisations.

Mimicking the infamous Montreal Screwjob was completely and utterly lame and showed no imagination or creativity at all. Going as far as Kurt Angle spitting on TNA "owner" Hulk Hogan (as Bret Hart did to Vince McMahon in the WWF) was pushing it WAY too far. I feel really sorry for Kurt Angle and AJ Styles having to work that shit, it sucked and moves TNA one step closed to oblivion. *TNA rant over*

Have just seen the line up for Download and I have to say that I am seriously unimpressed. AC/DC and Them Crooked Vultures? WTF? Sonisphere and Bloodstock look far superior so far although it is unlikely that I'll get to do any of them. Even if I don't though I still have Whitby Goth Weekend to look forward to in October!

Finished off the evening helping Toni prepare for her next assault on the well now institution of parasites known as Bastardcard. Will keep you update how this next episode goes!

Happy Birthday Barry

Happy Birthday Barry Ashmore

Hope you have a good day

Sunday 24 January 2010

Merlin, Scarlett, webcasts and meh

Today was a Merlin day. We all got so into it today that we decided to watch another load of episodes and, so far so good, it has remained excellent!

Scarlett peering over the top of her car seat:


Scarlett after having a mega bouncing session on Sophie:



Scarlett had great fun making raspberry noises for most of the day and the chorus of Scarlett, Aaron and Gemima doing it was mildly amusing! The photos don't really catch it but you should be able to get the gist!



Toni did an awesome roast dinner which we all devoured before sitting down to enjoy the pain of watching the Edinburgh Capitals lose 2 - 3 to the Cardiff Devils through the power of the webcast!

After the webcast it was time for Toni and the kids to go back to London. Although she has been doing it for a while it is still quite hard to get used to and seems to shorten the weekend so much. Today seemed to fly by really fast, one minute we were just getting up and the next it was time for Toni to go :o(

Hitler Techno Bar & Cocktail Show

This made me laugh so much. What was the guy who opened this bar thinking?
There is a brief interview with him here which just makes it all even funnier.
http://www.unpopart.org/readymades/techno.html

Saturday 23 January 2010

Tubes,Asda, wizards and window shopping!

Started the day off shopping for tubes (of the light variety) as the one in the kitchen was on the way out. Thank goodness for our local hardware store, King's Hardware, as they saved us trekking around Chelmsford to try and find one. It was a bargain at £5.60 when I was expecting to pay at least £15.

Tube in hand we dropped it off at home and then went and picked up Sam from Livvy's (with Connor) and undertook our weekly pilgrimage to the SWF mecca that is Asda! Picked up the essentials for the weekend and then dropped Sam and Connor off at Livvy's.

The rest of the day was spent watching Series 1 of the BBC1 Merlin series. It was a really good spin on the Arthur/Merlin legend and everybody thoroughly enjoyed it.

Once the kids had gone to bed Toni and I indulged in a little online window shopping looking for naughty things *grin*

Here is a picture of my bed at the moment, VERY COOL!

Friday 22 January 2010

The results are in.........

...........FINALLY!

Continuing from my GP wars yesterday I called up this morning to ask if my scan results were in and I am pleased to be able to inform you that the answer was YES! Thank god for that!

I now have an appointment at 18:10 on Monday with the GP to discuss my results and treatment, hopefully it won't be long before all this horrible pain is behind me and a thing of the past!

Thursday 21 January 2010

Leaving work early, GP wars and Sophie & Scarlett

I am pleased to report that today is just another day, another great day in the exciting adventure that is my life.

Toni dropped me at North Greenwich station and I managed to catch a very overcast and smoggy picture of Canary Wharf:


It was not a great day at work today, however (you could say overcast and foggy!). Ye olde stones of galle were giving me some grief so I had to leave early and go home. When I got back I decided to follow up on my scan results with the GP. The have spent all week fobbing me off saying that they hadn't received them yet and it was MY responsibility to chase them up (bloody cheek).

I decided to second guess the GP today though. I called the scan company who informed me that my results HAD been faxed to the GP last Friday just as they had promised. They also said that if they needed to be sent again then the GP only had to called them. Armed with this information I called up the GP again only to be told that the results still weren't there. When I informed the receptionist that they had been faxed last Friday she "suddenly" found something on the system. Apparently it was my scan notes but then turned out to only be the covering letter with no results. I was told that I would need to get the scan company to send them again. Rather than argue the toss over whether or not the GP or I should do it I called the scan company right back and they agreed to fax the results over (for the second time) immediately.

I shall now wait until tomorrow morning and then I will call up the GP again and make sure they have my results now and try and get an appointment set up ASAP so that I can actually get some treatment! Fingers crossed we start moving forwards!

Sophie and Scarlett arrived in the early evening, they are staying for a week which should be fun! Scarlett is a little demon now and whizzes around at a rate of notts and tries to get into everything and she isn't even one yet!


Wednesday 20 January 2010

Fantastic night with Toni

After work today I went over to Toni's. We had a fantastic time.

Started off with a cup of tea and then spent a couple of hours with me taking pictures of Toni in various outfits. The results were fantastic and I can't believe how lucky I am to have such a beautiful sexy girlfriend.

Here's a couple of tasters!






The rest can be seen here: 200110PhotoshootWithToni

WORLD GOTH DAY DOT COM : Promoting Goth Day all around the world

Goth Day is exactly what it says on the wrapper-a day where the goth scene gets to celebrate it’s own being, and an opportunity to make it’s presence known to the rest of the world.

Check out the website here: www.worldgothday.com

Tuesday 19 January 2010

Learning to let go

Today was an interesting day for me in terms of personal development. I've been doing a fair bit of thinking over the last few days about various things and it had become very clear that I was clinging on to certain things for dear life and as a result this was causing problems. Today was a big deal for me as I did something that involved me letting go of something but the net result was a VERY positive reaction elsewhere.

OK I'll admit that most of this probably doesn't make sense to most of you but I can assure that today has been pretty monumental for me. I now have some pretty clear direction on where I need to be taking myself now, it's going to take some time to get there but the end result will be a better me after some mental and physical letting go and clearing out.

Oh, and I also have a VERY HAPPY girlfriend which is never a bad thing!

Last.FM listening post

Here's last week's top picks music lovers!

Top weekly tracks:






Top weekly artists:






Overall top tracks:






Overall top artists:




Monday 18 January 2010

Hectic day and chilling with TNA

Today was one of those days where you just don't want to get up. You know the ones? The ones where you are all snuggled up in bed and you just don't want the day to start, you are content to just drift in and out of blissful sleep without a care in the world. Today was definitely one of those days. Unfortunately it was Monday and Toni had to depart for London and I had to get up for work.

I had planned on getting the train but as Toni was ahead of schedule she offered to drop me off which was nice as I didn't really fancy the train journey. Work was busy, lots of things going on which kept me ticking over nicely without the stress and hassle that I was experiencing before Xmas.

Got home and had dinner and Sam and I relaxed and caught up with TNA Impact from last week and then the TNA Genesis pay per view from Sunday night. Sadly the introduction of Hulk Hogan and some of his wrinkly old pals has also seen the wonderfully novel 6 sided ring be replaced by the boring old traditional 4 sided one. It was a shame really as I liked the 6 sided one and made TNA stand out from the rest of the other wrestling organisations. After watching both shows it started to look as though TNA had degraded and morphed into what is essentially WWE Lite especially given the number of ex-WWE stars that have recently been brought on board. It remains to be seen whether the Hogan/Bischoff alliance will take TNA to new dizzy heights or they will drive it into the ground as they did with WCW.

And finally, Toni started getting somewhere with planning my 40th birthday!

Sunday 17 January 2010

Taking it easy today

Today was a day of taking it easy, BLISS!

Got up and had tea and then popped over to Asda to grab some essentials. Got back and had a light breakfast and watched the end of Munich. Spent the rest of the day watching South Park, playing Bayonetta on the PS3 (what an awesome game) and generally doing absolutely fook all.

Started looking at accommodation for Whitby Goth Weekend at the end of October and am really looking forward to that.

Pork chops and stir fry vegetables made up for the bitter taste that was watching the Capitals getting humped 9 - 0 by Belfast Giants, it wasn't pretty!

Saturday 16 January 2010

Star Wars, Star Trek, S.N.A.P.!!!

Started the morning with scrambled eggs and bacon and Return Of The Jedi. Sam then indulged in a bit of Prince Of Persia on the pS3 and the bugger got further than me in 2 hours than I did in 2 days *grumble grumbe*!

After numerous cups of tea we then watched the newest Star Trek film, a wonderful remake of the Star Trek "James T Kirk" legacy.

After Star Trek it was time to get ready for our night out at SAKS Underground and the inaugural S.N.A.P. (Saturday Night Alternative Project). Attending S.N.A.P. was a smokescreen for a birthday surprise for Matt. I had suggested that we have a Hollywood Doll night out although unknown to Matt we had invited loads of people.

Was less than impressed to find that Sam had forgotten to tell me that we had run out of shampoo!

Some tart getting ready:


Awww:


The birthday boy Matt:


Funny Faces (starring Laura and Toni):


Sniff the sample:


Lick the sample:


OMG, it IS a sample!:


It was a really good night and loads of people came to see Matt for his birthday surprise so he was delighted.

See all the pics here: 160110SNAP