Joining the Kindle club and impromptu recording session

After much deliberation I bit the bullet today and become a member of the Kindle club. Much to everyone's disgust I insisted we go out early to get it which meant that breakfast was delayed! Have to say I am delighted with my purchase and already have it loaded up winsome fab material so I have something to read if I need to en route to Venice and back! The only downside was that I couldn't get the a decent cover for it before we went so that will be something to look forward to when we return.

While chilling out in the afternoon I got a phone call from my old friend Robin Williams (no, not the comedian) asking me if I was up for popping over to his studio to lay down some bass for him. Needless to say I was up for that and had a great time doing the business. Hopefully he'll be happy with the results and I have offered my services for future sessions.

Saturday working and meeting mum

Today was an interesting one. Toni and I ventured into London on a dual mission. Phase one involved me having to go into work to finish something off as my remote connection had stopped working so my plan from yesterday was scuppered. Toni popped into Starbucks while I got my work sorted. The work took 5 minutes and I spent a further 15 resolving the issue that had stopped my remote connection working.

Once done I popped round to Starbucks to puck up Toni and we headed off to Arrivals at Victoria Coach Station to go and meet mum. We got there a little early so had fun people watching until mum's coach pulled in.

The plan had been to have coffee but we ended up going into Garfunkel's and having a gorgeous meal instead which was most welcome as Toni and I hadn't had breakfast or lunch!

A good recall from Toni meant that our journey home was a lot easier than we had thought it would be. When we go back to Eltham it was time to just chill and chat.




- Posted using BlogPress on my iPhone

Last day and Orpheum rehearsal

It was my last day at work today and there was so much to get finished. Thankfully everything came together and I was able to prepare my handover notes. There was just one small thing to finish that I planned to do remotely and so I finally got out of the office at around 19:15.

I then scooted off to Kentish Town to meet the Orpheum mob for a rehearsal at Zed One. Wr kicked things off with Mars, Erin and I having a drink in the pub but we couldn't stomach the live fazz junk that was on offer so headed off to the studio. Once again it was a good rehearsal with things coming together well. We have a target now for looking to get the show out on the road!


- Posted using BlogPress on my iPhone

A day and a half, pizza and packing

Well that was a day and a half, it just doesn't get any better LOL
Once again the QA department get stitched up by management and much need time is axed from our testing to make way for more development (as is always the way). Even the boss was pissed off today and I've never really seen him get animated!

After work I went over to Toni's and she, Gemima and I drove back to SWF. Gluten free pizza courtesy of Rockit Pizza was accompanied by True Blood and a couple of episodes of Futurama. Then it was time to start packing things for Toni to take back to London in preparation for our holiday in Venice next week!

Reasonable day, WWE and Futurama

Today wasn't too bad overall, in the end. A slight case of oversleeping saw me getting a later train to work which would have been fine if it hadn't been for a load of delays around the Ilford area which saw me getting in to work 45 minutes later than I had hoped. On the plus side I did manage to maintain some focus and actually get a few things done including escalating some important issues up the slippery pole in the hope that senior management might actually take some positive action. I won't hold my breath on that front but at least my conscience will be clear!

The end of the day was wasted with another pointless puppet show with our friends over the pond. Why they feel the need to do these things I will never now as it was just an hour of productive time that was thrown away. I have another one tomorrow too :o(

Due to the aforementioned puppet show I ended up missing my regular train and so got home later than planned (which didn't really matter I guess as I was in late anyway LOL)

Sam was doing a short shift at work tonight so I took on the cooking duties (yes, I CAN cook when I need to!). We then chilled out with a WWE RAW catch up to welcome the return of CM Punk and then we blasted off with Futurama.

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:

RIP Paul

Tonight I received some very sad news. I got a phone call to say that Paul, an old friend of mine, had lost his battle against illness at the weekend and sadly passed away. He had spent the last few weeks in intensive care, not conscious. There was nothing that could be done. He went peacefully..........

My heart goes out to all his family and friends.

Paul was a wonderful man who did so much for me and my family years ago and he kept me on the straight and narrow for a while too. I saw him not too long ago (the first time in a few years) and was great to see him and I am so glad (and grateful) that I had the chance.

Slight improvements, chinese and TV catch up

Well today was a slight improvement on how things have been over the last 10 days. At least it felt like I was (sort of) in control as opposed to spinning out of... Things got done which made a pleasant change and it felt like my voice was starting to be heard on a certain matter (which was indeed a novelty)

It was back to SWF tonight as I need to do a few things. Sam and I enjoyed chinese food while watching WWE Smackdown. After this it was time to bed in with Season 1 of Dexter. It is a very well made show that has lots of nice little twists and turns and doesn't go for the big reveal too soon like many US TV shows do these days.

Shit, rotten and stuff

Yay, it's Monday and it was back to work for more shits and giggles. Sadly we were lacking in giggles but there was a whole heap of shit! LMFAO
Despite having a lovely relaxing weekend I was still stressed up to the eyeballs again by the time I left. To make matters worse I was feeling pretty rotten too.

I got back to Toni's and was feeling somewhat zombiefied. The evening was a cocktail of dinner, The Road TO Eldorado, Eddie Izzard Dress To Kill, vitamin c tablets and paracetamol. Went to bed feeling rough, not good :o(

Warehouse 13 marathon

Today was mostly spent watching Warehouse 13, quite literally!

The whole of Season 2 was watched and brought us almost bang up to date with the currently running Season 3.

It's a show that just got better and better as it went on and is now on my highly recommended list!

Dinner was courtesy of the kebab van and we drove back to Eltham VERY late.

Have to say though that is was a fantastic weened and it was so nice to actually feel that I had relaxed from the previous week.


- Posted using BlogPress on my iPhone

Breakfast out, Falling Skies, True Blood and Adjustment Bureau

The plan this weekend was definitely just to chill out. Despite having some work that I could have done I decided that winding down from a really tough week would be more beneficial to me than trying to half relax whilst still focusing on work.

Breakfast was provided courtesy of Munchies in SWF. A lovely full English was downed to kick start the morning!

Rest of the day was spent on catch up TV, Falling Skies, True Blood and then a great film called The Adjustment Bureau.

Surprisingly Sam came home early from work as the gippos were in town and Jaydeez was closed early due to lots of trouble from said urchins and a large police presence! Who said it was dull in SWF? LOL

Just another manic....

....day! That is all!

Last night was another crap one too, body just doesn't cope well with not sleeping next to Toni!

What was even weirder was that Toni didn't come over until really late tonight which was most odd for a Friday night. I had to entertain myself as Sam had gone to work so I did a bit of PC work and tidied the bedroom up a bit and did loads of washing. House smells lovely too due to lots of lovely incense cones!

At least I know I'll have a good night sleep tonight, eventually ;o)

KT & Toni Reunited, the start of something BIG!

I've never really touched on this in much detail before but it's probably time to start making something big of it!

13/06/2007 I replied to a nudge from one Toni Scott (an old school chum who I hadn't seen since school)on Friends Reunited (anyone remember that from the pre-Facebook days?). Upshot is that although we swapped details we didn't really talk, I think she gave me a pointer to Myspace and an MSN address.

09/07/2007 Feeling very low I logged on to MSN Messenger and lo and behold who should pop up but Toni! That was a weird conversation I can tell you given the events of the day before!

From that day on we chatted almost every night, usually for hours, until stupid o'clock in the morning. Eventually we decided that we should try and meet up so the date was set, 21st July at Camden tube station. We had a wonderful few hours together. We shopped around Camden, ate and Wagamama's and caught up with various things following on from our MSN chats. For a brief moment in time I had escaped some of my issues and had a great day out.

Although this meeting was purely as friends and what followed over the next few months was as friends it would now be rude of me not to include this as an important day in the calendar of what is now the wonderful world of the Glitzerati.

Our official anniversary may well be 17th November but 21st July will ALWAYS have a special place in my heart!

Drowning not waving & Futurama

Well today everything just hit boiling point. The work has continued to pile up faster than I can get it done which has been quite stressful to say the least. Added to that I've been having to bail out people from the fire when I shouldn't be having to. It's all been a bit much but still I have to plod on. My final act of defiance today was to stick up a sign on my desk, "Drowning Not Waving"! That might get the message across!


It was a great relief to finally get back to SWF and then dive straight into the bathroom for a lovely long hot shower. It's the first time I've used the new one since it was installed and boy did it feel good! Feeling much relaxed aferwards Sam and I then enjoyed a few episodes of Futurama.

Google+ iPhone app, Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 2

I won't talk about work today, you must all be sick if hearing me go on about it but it was hectic as usual! LOL

Today Apple finally approved the Google+ iPhone app. So far so good, it seems to perform well and is very easy to use. If you own an iPhone or iPad I would definitely recommend you getting this app if you use Google+.

This evening we went mob handed to the Odeon in North Greenwich to see Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 2. It wasn't a bad film although it wasn't as good as the last one. I guess I was disadvantaged compared with 99% of the audience as I have not read any of the books. Bits of the film were good, other bits left me cold. The ending was far too upbeat and happy for my liking. The film has however now given me the desire to actually read the books. Maybe I'll appreciate the film a bit more once I have done this. Big thank you to Toni for taking us all though.

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:

Looong day, Bob's birthday cake and Hot Fuzz

Today was a loooong day! It's bad enough being up to my neck in work and on my own but tonight I ended up having to stay late as well. I know sometimes these things have to be done but it doesn't make it any less horrible! To make matters worse all the trains were delayed by the time I got to Cannon Street station.

When I finally got back to Eltham it was off to see Bob with Toni and Gemima to drop off his birthday card and cake. We had tea and some of the cake and had a quick catch up with Bob and Leanne while Gemima played in the garden with Shivaani.

Our return to Toni's (and a house full as Jade and Pete were over so with Sam that made seven of us) was met with steak and cheesburgers (and chips) and a good old chuckle to Hot Fuzz. It were a great night, YARP!

Money In The Bank

It's not often you'll find me making a full blog entry about a WWE PPV however last nights Money In The Bank was an exception!

Not only did we have some great warm up matches and then Christian finally beating Randy Orton for the Heavyweight Championship but we were treated to a classic match that actually involved John Cena!

For the record I have never really been a big fan of John Cena. Sure he has fantastic microphone skills but his ring work leaves me cold. In the final match of this PPV, however, something changed. For a start it was a real joy to hear the whole stadium chanting for CM Punk and then booing John Cena, that's right folks, the WWE golden boy was booed big style! This must have been HARD for Cena as at the very worst it's normally a 50/50 split but tonight the world was against him!

As the match commenced Cena was taunted with a massive "You Can't Wrestle" chant. At this point he somehow managed to up the ante and surprise me. Gone was the five move knucklehead and enter a new improved Cena who actually showed that he could actually match CM Punk in the technical wrestling stakes. What then followed was a joyous 30 minutes culminating in CM Punk defeating John Cena and winning the WWE Championship.

This would not normally be a massive deal except that this PPV was CM Punk's last match for WWE as his contract had expired and WWE NEVER let someone leave as a champion. So, what gives here? Has CM Punk got a new contract already or are there some new twists and turns in the WWE story writing stakes yet to come?

Call me sad, I don't care but I LOVE the fact that CM Punk won, I've always been a big fan of his! Tune in to RAW to find out more....................

Fozzy @ Camden Dingwalls

Toni, Sam and I hit Camden tonight for the delights of Fozzy at Dingwalls. Doors were late opening and there was a LONG queue which turned out to be a bummer for the opening act!



NEVERBORNE
Missed half the set due to the amount of time to get into the venue. Good hard thrashy stuff but with a little melody thrown in to make it accessible.




MIT
Thrashy noise with unintelligible vocals and little in the way of stand out tracks from the assualt. Despite the best efforts of the singer to try and get a pit going it was just never going to happen. Crowd warmed to them slowly but they weren't for me. Could have been one of a million bands of this genre and I'd still be none the wiser. If they introduced who they were it was not a message well communicated although I did find out at the end.




VOODOO VEGAS
Rock n roll sleazester got the crowd well and truly warmed up. Superb frontman who commanded and received audience participation! Reminded me of King Lizard. Really good band and some great songs. Why have I never heard if them before?






FOZZY
This is why we were here. Having missed out on the London show last year due to recovering from my op it was good to finally get the chance to see ex-WWE wrestler Chris Jericho and his musical project with Stuck Mojo. Fozzy couldn't have done anything wrong if they had tried tonight. When the band weren't playing the crowd were chanting Fozzy relentlessly. It was a good hard hitting set and Jericho is obviously having a blast (as are his fellow band mates) touring the world and enjoying his break from the WWE.

Fozzy Fozzy Fozzy? HELL YEAH!












- Posted using BlogPress on my iPhone

Toni alarm, procedure bypass and Rehearsal

Although I had acknowledged my alarms this morning I did manage to snooze throughout them so it was a great relief that Toni decide to call me! Thank you Toni, you are an excellent alarm clock!

Have to say I am completely underwhelmed by certain goings on at work at the moment. Certain people seem to think it is OK to try and bypass procedure to make sure they are OK. Well let me tell you something, it ain't happening on my watch especially if your timescales and priorities are at odds with well established SLAs!

After work I headed off to Kentish Town and a much needed drinks with the good people of Orpheum. After the drinks we had a very hot but most excellent rehearsal. The sound was really good and despite the heat everyone was on top form! It will be a while yet but I can't wait to get this show on the road!

- Posted using BlogPress on my iPhone

Introduction to more TV

With a lot of my favourite TV shows currently on hiatus or cancelled (bloody networks) I was running out of quality things to watch other than True Blood, Falling Skies and my weekly wrestling fix.

Through the power of Facebook and Google+ I put out some feelers to my friends to get some recommendations on other things to watch. So the current run down of new catch up and check out TV runs something like this:

Warehouse 13
Dexter
The Borgias
Chaos
Combat Hospital
Treme
The Big C
XIII
Sons Of Anarchy
The Killing

Phew, that will keep me entertained for a while I hope!

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:

Policemen tells off cyclist, more Google+ fun and Toy Story

Great fun on the way home from work tonight. A cyclist did the usual jump the red light and move to the other side of a crossing trick to get ahead of the pack. This is the the way in central London. Thankfully he was spotted by a policeman who told him that what he had done was wrong and he was then made to return back to the line by the red light! The cyclist was so NOT impressed. Nice one Mr Policemen, you made my day and made me chuckle. If only there were more policeman about to keep the cyclists in check (sorry Matt)!

Had more fun playing around with Google+ today and trying various things out. If you are going to check out Google+ then I would recommend that you use Google Chrome to enhance the experience!

You can check out my profile here: http://gplus.to/ktglitz
Google+ URL shortening links can be created here on this handy site: http://gplus.to/

Google+ still continues to impress me and I'll be delighted if it starts to catch on (as long as they don't go down the crap app route). It really is like a halfway house between Twitter and Facebook (without all the bloat of FB).

There is an interesting article on Google+ here (thanks Shaun):
http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/07/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly.html

Downloaded a great Twitter client that integrates with Google+. You can get it here:
http://crossrider.com/install/529-google-tweet

One last thing before I go, a nice little extension that changes the Google+ CSS slightly and makes the presentation slightly better.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dkcppcocablbakkaboahjmljpodddkcp?hl=en-US#
So that's me all Google+'d out for now!

Had a nice relaxing evening at Toni's and we thoroughly enjoyed snuggles and watching the first Toy Story movie. It is such a great film and all the hidden jokes still make me chuckle.

Meh day, Google+ and V cancelled

Today was a meh day at work where enthusiasm was not at it's highest by a long shot. Lots of stuff going on that is sapping morale and making the staff grumpy! It had better change soon or there will be real trouble. The only plus side was hearing that one of our more "troublesome" clients had finally signed off some work that we though would never end!

In positive news I have had some fun playing around with Google+. Yes it's another social networking site but it's a lot more stable than Farcebook and isn't plagued with a million and one crap apps. Fingers crossed it will continue to bed down as it comes out of beta and goes public and it will catch on. I'm liking it so hope it won't fall by the wayside like Google Wave did. If you have a Gmail account and want to have a play then hit me up and I'll invite you to join the fun.

Although playing catch up with the news I did hear find out today that V got cancelled after Season 2. This was another case of a good show that was doing things right and improving every week falling victim to a TV network and it's strange policies. Was NOT happy to hear this news at all.

Sucker Punch, Unknown and Warhammer Storm Of Magic

For some crazy reason both Toni and I woke up really early this morning! Bit of a first for us on a Sunday when we didn't have anything to be up for! As a real novelty we decided to watch a couple of movies in bed.

First up was Sucker Punch. A lot of people have slated this film and I know it didn't get great reviews but we both thoroughly enjoyed it. Maybe the real message of the film was just hidden too deep for most people to see? If you haven't seen it then I'll fly against the face of opinion and say it IS worth watching.

Next up was Unknown. This is one of those films that I had no idea existed. I don't remember ever seeing any adverts for it at the time of it's release in the cinema or anywhere else except for the recent DVD/Blu-ray release. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It is a good film that keeps you guessing, just as you think you have things worked out the parameters change. It's definitely a thinking film rather than a veg one! Once again, definitely recommended!

Once we had all surfaced we watched the remainder of Falling Skies with breakfast and then it was back to Warhammer again.

Model building continued until it was time for a Storm Of Magic battle. Sam and Aaron played Chaos and Skaven against Toni's Dwarfs and my Dark Elves. Altough it was a little slow at times due to us all getting to grips with the Storm Of Magic it was quite an enjoyable game. The magic now seems very well balanced although VERY POWERFUL and the Chaos/Skaven team only just scraped though with a victory against the Dwarfs/Dark Elves. As far as damage imposed is concerned the Dwarfs/Dark Elves kicked total butt and dominated but sadly this game was won by the Chaos/Skaven scumbags managing to hold their two fulcrums whilst knocking the Dark Elf Supreme Sorceress off of hers in the last turn :o( I think this will definitely be a game to play one on one rather than as combined teams in the future. If you are a Warhammer Fantasy fan then you would be well advised to go and check out the Storm Of Magic rules although be warned, it can all seem a bit insane.

Doctors, Warhammer, talking and kebabs

It was an early start this morning as Toni had an appointment in London to see a doctor that she has been referred to as part of the long standing claim following the RTA that we were both involved in way back in November 2008! It's hard to be believe that he part is ongoing!

On the plus side the doctor was very thorough with his questions and examination and has also said that he will propose a couple of options for continued treatment that will hopefully help Toni's back fully recover. He left us both with lots to think about but the meeting was at least positive! After the appointment we dived into Starbucks for a much needed coffee and chill session.

On our return to Eltham we picked up Aaron and went for brunch before heading back to SWF to see Sam.

Warhammer model building took up some of our time before Sam and Aaron decided to play a trial run of Storm Of Magic. Toni and I took some time out to have a good old chat about various things and this turned out to be a most excellent thing for us and our relationship! In a humorous moment (well you had to be there to be honest) I managed to lay on Toni's glasses and break them but thankfully the wonders of Super Glue made it all OK again!

The rest of the evening was occupied by kebabs and Falling Skies.

Tom and dick....

I was off sick today which was no fun at all. We are still really busy at work but this was one of those times where even working from home was NOT an option.

I did, however, manage reply to a few emails that came through to my phone to try and be helpful but things did seem to get a little crazy in my absence..... I should be used to that by now though LMFAO!

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:

Mad day, revelations, Tiny Tower and Harry Potter!

Bonkers day at work. Sometimes it sucks to be so busy! Don't get me wrong, I am very happy that I am in employment but it would be nice to come up for air once in a while!

Some interesting revelations came out today giving credence to that old idiom, watch out for snakes in the grass! It will be fascinating to see how this little saga unfolds!

It was great relief that I left work and headed back to Eltham. It was also very nice to come out into cool refreshing rain, just a shame there wasn't more of it as the air just ended up muggy afterwards. When I got in Sam and Toni encouraged me to installed Tiny Tower on my iPhone which is an incredibly frustratingly addictive game. Wonder how long it will be before I remove the damn thing again? It's a bit like one of those Tamagotchi things in that you feel the need to go back and nurture it, GRRRRRRRRRRRR!

We had a lovely dinner and chlled out with Harry Potter & The Prisoner Of Azkaban (whilst keep a watchful eye on Tiny Tower *grumble grumble* LOL).

Another weekend disappears...

...without a trace, far too quickly!

Can't believe it's Monday already. I hate it when they go so quickly. Was great to see Sophie and the kids though.

At least work wasn't too unbearable today. Still massively busy but we do seem to have a little common sense creeping in from time to time! Not all the time but occasionally LOL.

I submitted my request for a new season ticket loan today, wonder if it will just be approved like last year without any hassle or the new management regime will start to be a pain and ask questions! Fingers crossed it all gets sorted with no fuss otherwise we'll be looking at some more grumpy work related blogging!

Received some bad news today that a very dear friend is in hospital and is in a very bad way. Feel very helpless as it's just one of those situations where you have to sit and wait for news :o(

After work it was back to Toni's for yummy food and Flash Gordon (again) and I even managed to rattle off a few lines without getting grumbled at (too much) *grin*

Breakfast lunch and a trip to the park

Breakfast today consisted mostly of lunch. Once again Kenzie showed us how it should be done! If only life were this easy LOL


Scarlett and Sam playing:



After a bit of post lunch chilling out we ventured out into the sunshine to take Scarlett and Kenzie to the park. Much fun was had by Gemima, Scarlett and Kenzie:




Sophie and the babies go back to Nottingham tomorrow. It's been lovely seeing them and having them staying. The house will be very quiet once they have gone.

- Posted using BlogPress on my iPhone

Chelmsford, rides, James Bryan, Pizza Hut, acupuncture & Family Guy

Due to space restrictions a split journey to Chelmsford was made today.

Toni, Gemima, Scarlett and I drove there while Sophie got the bus with Kenzie. Our timing was perfect as we arrived moments before Sophie's bus arrived.

First port of call was a trip on a roundabout for Gemima and Scarlett:



We did a little shopping before nature started calling! We popped into the Meadows for toilet breaks so I dived into James Bryan for a quick catch up with Lindsey and Tracy. It's been ages since I've seen them so it was good to have a catch up. I ended up making a long overdue contact lense appointment while I was in there too!

A late breakfast came next at what used to be trusty old Pizza Hut. Sadly they have changed their menus a lot and there was bugger all that Toni can have anymore which was a shame. She get to eat but the choice was very limited.



Toni made herself an acupuncture appointment at Herbal Inn which seemed to go well. Hopefully the effects will be good and help her long term. A little more mooching and it was back on the rides before we headed back to SWF!



We took a quick detour via Wickford station to pick up a rail ticket for Sophie's journey back to Nottingham on Monday (as we forgot to do this in Chelmsford).

Once home it was time to prepare dinner and eat before Scarlett and Kenzie had to go to bed. We then all started watching Season Ten of Family Guy before we started crashing out and it was time for us to retire too.