Category Archives: Stuff

Your youth…just let it die peacefully

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Let me start this post by saying that I will be 38 in a couple of weeks…and I am genuinely ok with that.  Admittedly, this may be the last birthday I ever celebrate….and by that I mean that I will celebrate my 38th birthday every year until I die.

Other than that, I am absolutely fine with turning 37.

What causes me to remember that I do, indeed, have a blog to write from time to time?  Certainly not to admit to my ever increasing age, and definitely not to get everyone to congratulate me on my 36th birthday.

In fact, it is to talk about a bloke I have just been sat next to at a bar in Frankfurt.  50 years old if he is a day and dressed like the wigger in the Pretty Fly For A White Guy video.

White jeans, ripped and with loads of patches, rap style Hella** big t-shirt, bling…..and a Do Rag. Topped off with a stylish white denim jacket.

I don’t know about you, but that just screams young to me. We can ignore the straggles of grey hair hanging down from the rag…we can ignore the glasses thicker than the double glazing in my apartment, but I absolutely refuse to ignore the face.

A face that looked like a bag of prunes, left out in the sun, and then put in a very hot bath for around a day.

Now, as it goes, I rarely act my age, but I am under no illusions that I am still young and, whilst I wear funky t-shirts with the muppets or superheroes on most of the time….I recognise that I will soon be 35.

So remember, be proud of your age…whatever it is, and feel free to wish me a happy 34th.

Cheers homies, peace out bra and all that

Go West….I think they did

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LapseHoly crapola…has it been this long?

I think it must have been, I mean, the last entry date seems to be honest, I don’t remember trying to play an elaborate prank on myself.  Ah well, let’s see if we can’t remember how this here blogging thing works shall we?

First of all…LW update:

I am still stupendously happy in Frankfurt, no mean feat for me….5 years and counting, and no plans to leave.  I am considering calling Norris McWhirter

 CW and I are still ticking along nicely and enjoying life.  I think our life resembles a “Love Wanted” advert…we enjoy long walks, the cinema, sitting in the sun and drinking coffee and just chatting…
I bought a car, a nice BMW 320i…beautiful, that is until CW very kindly and lovingly points out that the 3 series is considered to be an Asbo car.  Cue slight proudness removal (I still love it though).

Now here’s the thing.  When you buy a car….unless you have a particular requirement….you tend to buy a car you want.  Something that makes you happy when you think about driving it.  The BMW 3 series has always been that for me.  I looked at loads of them and finally settled on a beautiful 320i.  High mileage (kilometerage??) but in absolutely mint condition.  Obviously, living in Germany has the benefit of BMW being a little more available and accessible than, say, the UK.  The likelihood of my being able to afford this particular car in the UK is pretty slim…so I grabbed the opportunity.  The trouble with them being more accessible over here, is that a lot of people have them….specifically people of a certain social group…meaning that the car has a stigma associated with it.

I’ll be honest, this took a little bit of the sheen off the car for me…telling people about the car and having them ask “Are you going to get a tan and start wearing thick gold jewellery?” will do that to you I suppose.  That was until I spoke to my folks about the car…and they were jealous.  It’s the exact model that my Dad has lusted over for years..which reminded me that the car still has something going for it outside of Germany.

So, having driven 900 kilometers, I arrived at my Mum and Dads place Smile …pride in my new vehicle restored.  To be fair, the real reason was to have an amazing week with all 4 of my kids….the car thing was a nice bonus Grin

Anyhoo, I should probably address the title of the post really.

Friday saw the birthday of TZ and the plan was to go to a music festival in Frankfurt.  It was the opening night and full of Electro, Dubstep and other dance rammel.  I will confess that, up until 2 hours before, I wasn’t going…especially when I “Youtube’d” some of the DJs that were playing.  Still, CW persuaded me and I agreed on the grounds that I wasn’t expected to dance.

We arrive at the “Festival” a little after its scheduled start time and we probably should have been paying closer attention to a number of things…

  • 2 people were leaving and chatting as we walked in…they said something along the lines of “What a waste of money”
  • In the building, directly next to the festival area, was a table tennis party…
  • We couldn’t see anyone milling about outside
  • We said we would try and get in for ?5 instead of ?10…they agreed without any argument
  • There was a tent that was advertising “Ethno Jazz” – Now, this tent was empty, having finished earlier in the evening…but still…wtf is Ethno Jazz??  Someone needs to explain that one to me

If you take any of those things on their own, you can be forgiven for going in anyway, but if you combine them…I forget why we were there.

Still, we had paid and had beers in hand, so we decided to stay…walking into the “Techno Room”, we see one guy dancing away quite happily (doing the UK wedding dance from what I could see).  The girls immediately head onto the dancefloor and let loose for a little while.  A few more people start arriving about an hour later and THAT is the moment when they decide to close down the better of the two “rooms”.

We all ended up outside, having a beer and a chat – It ended up being a really fun night….up until about 4am, when PW decides to have a go on a skateboard that was there…and knackers his Achilles in the process.  CW and I took him to the hospital and got home at around 8am  Confused

This leads me to something else…for the first time, I am starting to feel my age.  Years ago, I could finish work at 6pm, head out and not come home until 4am on Monday morning, get ready and go to work….and I would do that every weekend.  I got home at 8am Saturday morning….and I am still tired now.  I demand a stewards enquiry.  Damn my ageing and frail body….damn it all to hell.

That’ll do for now methinks…more posts in, well, less than a year Smile

Shocking revelations

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So, I was sat in the beautiful sunshine with CW a while back, enjoying a fine After 8 Frappiato, (I promise I am most definitely heterosexual….it was hot dagnabit) and we were talking about the fact that I hadn’t had a drink for 3 months or more.  On top of that, I hadn’t had a drink in at least a month or so before that….

I know, right…I will let you get settled back into your seat before continuing.  Make sure you have a seatbelt securely fastened as I can tell you something else…I am not even remotely missing it.

The thing is, a couple of years ago (around the same time that I started this blog..coincidence? you decide), I was out a lot.  sometimes 4 nights a week and I was, to quote the 80′s, “Partying Hearty”.

Not even Englands dire World Cup performance could reduce me to drink..let’s face it, if I was going to be driven to drink based on that, I would have been a raving alcoholic since…well…birth.

Now, let’s check the implied benefits of no alcohol.  Please bear in mind that this list is gleaned from years of research (ok ok, TV, Films…and my Nan!):

  1. Sleeping better
  2. More energy
  3. Getting up earlier and enjoying it
  4. More alert
  5. General feeling of well being
  6. Weight loss

Now, let’s review what I have noticed after the last few months and see what we have:

  1. Sleeping worse
  2. Less energy
  3. Getting up earlier and hating it
  4. Less alert
  5. General feeling of *meh*
  6. Weight gain

That’s right Ladies and Gentlemen, I am in fact “Reverso-Man(tm)” and I intend to reverse the trend (hopefully) by taking up drinking again…in moderation at least.

So beware one and all..the camera of doom will no doubt start making appearances again and my Facebook inbox will once again sing to the tune of “aaargh, you bastard…take that down” and other complimentary messages regarding my photographical prowess.

Camera Related Fun:

  • PM will undoubtedly get rather aggressive for me “always posting pictures of him looking like a dick”
  • Women will borrow my camera to wander around the bar.  It will come back to me with more bra and breast photos on it than ever happens when a guy borrows it.
  • Z will take it to do some cool arty shots…I will look through them the following day, and discover a single down the trousers, crotch shot.  I will never mention this to him in case it is him…or worse, someone else.
  • SK will grin at me when the camera is on him.  This photo will be indistinguishable from any other photo of SK that I have..and will require digital computer forensics to know when it was taken.
  • I may accost random strangers for a photo, based solely on one thing that they are wearing.  This may include groups of guys because one of them is wearing a baseball cap…perched on his spiky hair.  I will definitely play the drunk tourist card to achieve this
  • I will “photobomb” other peoples photos with a strange face (stranger than usual I mean) and probably a middle finger gesture.  I will then claim that it was done for the benefit of NBs collection.  The recipient will most likely not know who NB is.
  • Fake poses in ridiculous positions will be pulled..with the sole intention of taking a photo of some poor soul with really really bad hair/makeup/clothing (or all three)

Dave Being Drunk Fun:

  • I will get drunk enough to speak German for extended periods of time…and then swear to the deity of choice that it was an English conversation.
  • I will start on the shots at some point..these will be Baby Guinness, Sprinkboks or…if CR is around…Sambuca.
  • If GW is in the bar…the shots may include Absynth/Vodka mixers
  • If the shots include Absynth/Vodka mixers…I will be able to provide scientists with the irrefutable answer to the missing link on the following day..simply by recording myself
  • I will be surprised at how little I have spent until the bill is presented.  At which point I will feel eternally grateful for my drunken state
  • I think that it is a fair and reasonable assumption to think that I will try and head upstairs to my old apartment at some point
  • I will, at some point, be stroked by a random woman in the bar (this happens more than it should)
  • I will therefore, at some point, be required to stop CW from ripping the head off said woman
  • I will find this amusing…CW, however, will not

Hopefully, my “reverso-matic nights out diet ™” will kick in shortly after this all starts and I can get back down to 26″ waist trousers and zip them closed.**

Whatever happens, I am sure there will be some good nights coming up.

Fingers crossed I can remember them

** Paraphrased from Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine…enjoy the vid below Smile

I think I watch too much TV

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BratsThis weekend I visited CW, who has been working away in Eastern Germany for the last couple of weeks, in Erfurt.

Erfurt is a beautiful town, clean and modern looking with enough oldie-worldy German goodness that it has that “wow” factor when you wander around.  It is clearly quite a touristy place, indicated by the inability to walk for more than, say, 5 paces..without falling over a cafe, restaurant, ice cream parlour or street musician.

Typically, based on the stories you hear about the East, I had expected a cross between Kosovo and East Berlin…so I was completely blown away by the place….and didn’t have a camera with me.  The thing is, it all seems a little too nice.  About halfway through Saturday..which was when we had a wander and explored the town…we noticed a number of things.

The women there are not beautiful.  Now, this may seem like a generalisation and, coming from a Fester clone, maybe a little cheeky….but it is true.

When you do come across a beautiful woman..it is either that they are simply less ugly than the rest…and based on the famine you have become accustomed to, you feast on whatever you can get.  Alternatively, it is simply the sort of chavvy beauty normally associated with women in Newcastle…

The place is clean, modern, young (in terms of people) and clearly has money flowing through it from somewhere…but it is kind of eerily clean and modern.  We were sat at the least Irish feeling Irish bar either of us had ever been to..when old people walked passed us..I joked that the Police would come and shuffle them off somewhere.  2 minutes later, 2 police vans trundled slowly down the street in the direction of the old people.  Coincidence? I think not…also, the 2nd Police van was basically just a standard red transit van…with Polizei written on the back door!

At 10pm, the place sounded like it was jumping…lots of music, lots of people…beer drinking..general partying going on everywhere.  I remember thinking that the place had really come alive.  By 11pm it was eerily silent.  Walking through the center and you only found teens that look like they walked out of High School Musical and decided to sit outside Burger King.  Seriously, talk about “Yo pants** on the ground”, wish I was American kids..

Everything is closed after 8pm at the latest.  We realised that we needed some smokes, so we decided to get a Taxi back to the hotel and ask the driver to go via anywhere that we could be some smokes.  His response “Oh my..you know it is already close to midnight right?”.  He then proceeded to take us to a place that “might be open”…it wasn’t.  He thought about somewhere else that also “might” be open…but decided to ration what we had and asked him to take us back to the hotel.

Everyone has dogs..and I mean everyone.  There is a bizarre number of waxen-faced people wandering aimlessly around the place whilst being directed by their hounds.  I firmly believe that the dogs are actually running the town and that there is something running through the town (other than brand new trams that have 1940s design) that causes you to instantly need a dog.  Seriously, CW and I were both discussing what dog we are going to get when we have a place that suits it…before I realised what was going on.

I think that they put something in the water…but if it is being run by dogs, I don’t want to consider exactly what that might be.  CW saw 3 shooting stars on Saturday night…I just think that was reinforcements arriving.

All in all a great weekend and as I was visiting the home of the best Bratwurst in Germany, I had precisely…..no Bratwursts at all Confused

CW is due back next Saturday..that is if she has managed to avoid purchasing a dog and being assimilated.  Also…I just thought..maybe the old people are scooped up by the Police and turned into the Thüringer Bratwurst…a la “League of Gentlemen”.

Holy crap, Erfurt IS Royston Vasey.

Eek!

** I should point out here that although I am English, I am aware that in this context that “pants” are in fact “trousers” and not (as it the correct useage) undergarments of the thong, briefs, boxer shorts or indeed Y-Front variety.  Equally, I will not go into the incorrect useage of Fanny..this is neither the time nor the place***

*** Well, it is, but I can’t be arsed…see

Worlds worst?

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I am sure that some of you will remember a British TV show called “Whose Line Is It Anyway”.  Basically, it was a comedy improvisation show that featured a number of American and/or Canadian comedians with a token Brit thrown in from time to time…you know, just to remind people that we have a sense of humour.  It was hosted by Clive Anderson, but this didn’t stop it from being funny….

Anyway, the show regularly featured a segment called “Worlds Worst” where the “contestants” were given a topic and had to provide funny examples of the worlds worst version of it.  Check it out for yourself:

So why am I mentioning this?  Well, I stumbled across a news article with the headline “Smuggler who tied birds to legs awaits sentence”.

Now, let’s deal with first impressions.

Smuggler..ok, trying to get something that is illegal into another country.  Fair enough.

Tied bird to legs..what the fuck?  My initial thought was that he had tied some dead birds to his legs..some rare and protected species that would be sold for a small fortune on the black market in his travel destination.  A not altogether smart move, especially if there are dogs around the customs area..but still – I guess it could work…maybe.

Then I click the link..and read that this future Darwin Award winner had actually tied 14..yes 14 LIVE birds to his legs and ankles.  Here is the picture that proves it:

I mean, seriously, live birds?  HWorlds Worst?ow in the blue hell did this idiot expect to get them through..are they Lesser Spotted Mutes  or something?  What next, a kangaroo for a  jumper.  Maybe a live crocodile strapped to each foot or an albatross on his back so that he could claim to have drunk too much Red Bull.

Would he say that the chirpy chirpy cheep cheep was his false hip squeaking or something?  I am genuinely at a loss as to the thought process that went into this decision.  There had to be some serious drugs involved and a 4am decision made.

Full story

In other news, Stephen Hawking believes that Aliens are out there but “may pose risks”…apparently.

I should think they bloody will, especially if they have been observing us for any length of time and tuned in to any films about Aliens.

Not to mention the possibility of extraterrestrial germs infecting us.  You think bird flu is bad?  Wait until Zargon374 Space Syphilis turns up and starts wipeing out the planet based on a cultural misunderstanding alone.  Picture the scene, the UFO lands, Aliens get out (if they can avoid the redneck americans trying to shoot them) and the world leaders grab the Aliens by their 17 fingered right hand for the time honoured handshake photo opportunity…only to discover that Thralgor had stopped off at the brothel on Venus for a quick 5 minute backscuttle….and that the beings of Zargon374 have their sexual organs in the palm of their right hand-like appendage.

Governments will fall, wars will be raged and the price of penicillin will rocket to around ?2.3 billion per tablet…so yes Mr Hawking, I agree with you…these aliens are dangerous and I for one will be teaming up with as many shotgun wielding rednecks as I can find.

I don’t know about you, I am going to figure out how to hide these 200 coi carp on me for my next trip abroad and will probably be stocking up on Penicillin…a LOT of penicillin as, let’s face it, you never know.

Not entirely unexpected

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Internet in UgandaSo…as predicted, I am not on the internet at home.  Well, not properly at least.

I had decided to move from one company to another to get a faster connection and also to get the installation done quicker.  This meant switching from DSL to Cable…the apartment block already has cable to it, so I figured it would be pretty straightforward.  An engineer was booked for last Tuesday from between 9am and 12pm…which I figured was optimistic at best, and fully expected to have to spend the day waiting in an empty apartment for this guy.

At about 9.15am, the engineer comes to the apartment to inform me that the current cable provider to the building (who don’t provide internet…) don’t allow his company to use their cabling.

Bastards, thinks I…I knew something like this would happen.  Still, there are plenty of DSL providers out there, so I decide to have a look around for the best deal.

I stumble across a provider who then tells me I can get 50mb VDSL installed within 2 weeks and they will give me a surfstick so that I can at least be online in the meantime.

Unfortunately, the surfstick seems to be as useful as me writing down the machine code and hand delivering it to every computer on the internet…but meh, tomorrow is the day that the engineer will undoubtedly not turn up…and then insist that I was not home.

So..fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Also…does anyone know if medical science has progressed enough to have a full throat transplant yet?

Ain't no stoppin' us now…

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white van man DSCN9143
We’re on the move…as a certain Mr L Vandross once sang.  That’s right ladles and jellyspoons, The Laughing Wolf is continuing his trend of refusing to live more than a couple of years in one place..and is moving across Frankfurt to a beautiful apartment that has just been finished.

I would love to say that I am being a grown up, getting on the property ladder and actually buying the apartment…but no, I will be renting again.  This time I will be renting with CW, and we are both very much looking forward to having you all over to dinner.  Well, not all of you and definitely not you on the left..but the rest of you…you know who you are.

My current apartment has served me well, but it was never supposed to be a long term thing and was nothing more than a bachelor pad.  A poorly decorated, but superbly located bachelor pad.  We are moving to a very quiet part of town…I am not sure how I will cope without the sounds from the pub below lulling me off to sleep.  Although I won’t miss not being able to have a quiet night in due to people shouting me from downstairs.

That all said, the White Van Man does not have to ride again, as a friend of CWs family has offered to do the move for us..which means I just have to help load and unload the van…and when you consider that I have very few actual posessions…it should be nice and easy.

I worked it out that after I moved into the current place, I owned:

3 bookcases

1 bed

1 set of bunk beds

1 computer desk

1 office chair

1 tumble dryer

1 freezer

My computer

Assorted pots/pans/crockery and cutlery

An iron and ironing board

1 ugly set of drawers

I have since added:

2 cheap wardrobes and matching cheap set of drawers

Another office chair

A giant slicer (thanks to CWs Dad)

A coffee pad machine

Fortunately, CW has plenty of stuff…so it will all work out Alien

I think that the best thing about the new apartment is that the toilet is inside…not in the main house stairwell like it is now (and by in the main stairwell I mean in it’s own room..outside the front door of the apartment…..not that we pee in the stairwell).  That and the fact that there is a bathtub and a brand spanking new kitchen that got installed a few days ago.

So there it is, cue massive underestimation of the work required and a marked increase in procrastination when I should be packing.  Oh, and the internet probably won’t get connected in time again..we shall see

Huzzah!

Ok..so I finally caved

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Twilight
This post is going to annoy, irritate and possibly upset at least 3 people that I am very close to..my daughter and both M & K.  Unfortunately, this is unavoidable.  Why?  Well…I watched Twilight last night.

We wanted to watch a film and, while we have numerous Hollywood classics available to choose from, CW insisted on finally seeing what all the fuss was about..despite my vigorous protestations.

The play button was hit, and we settled in to watch.  I must add here that neither of us have read the books, but hey..it’s got vampires in it, so it can’t be that bad…they can’t screw up the vampire myth…that’s impossible…right?

Apparently not, apparently it is indeed possible to screw up the vampire myth.  Now, before I move onto the vampire issue (I need to build up as there is very little actual vampire action in the film)..I want to talk about the school.

Is the entire school on drugs?  You know, happy pills…uppers.  As everyone loves her from the beginning.  I spent my formative years moving around various schools and I can say with absolute certainty that a new kid, arriving in a beaten up hunk of junk car who is not exactly a fashion model and clearly uncomfortable with any attention, would not be met with the entire school liking her immediately.

Then the vampires walk in…you can tell it’s them as they are all very very pale and walk in slow motion everywhere.  I can’t tell if that was for dramatic effect, or if this is how vampires are supposed to move in Twilight world.

Don’t get me wrong, I realise that this is supposed to be more a romance than a vampire film..I get it, I really do.  That said, wtf is with the biology class scene.  She sits next to a guy that she has never met..who then runs out of the class and starts trying to move to a different class..and then disappears from school for a while.  When he eventually comes back to school, her reaction is a very hurt “you were gone”..which leads to him being apologetic.  If that were me in that situation, I would have most likely responded with “umm…who the fuck are you, you crazy stalker-psycho-hosebeast?”.

Instead they move into having deep conversations about nothing and it is all a little too teen-angst ridden to be plausible.  He saves her life, then he calls her names, then he hates her, then he likes her..christ, if the costume designer had decided to give her pigtails, he would have been running up to her and pulling them.

Anyway..she figures it out..and strolls past him and into a forest for what is arguably the most pointless scene I have ever seen in a film.  Mr Wannabe Vampire starts leaping about like a some sort of emo frog on cocaine, proclaiming that he is a killing machine…I can’t really argue..he was killing me at that point.

Then he says something along the lines of “I want to show you why we don’t come out in the sunlight”.  Great, thinks I, he is going to sizzle and smoke and be in extraordinary pain to demonstrate to her the danger by which he lives.  No, apparently not..that generally accepted part of vampire lore was obviously too much for the author.  Instead, he looks like he had just left a hen party at a male strip club in Newcastle…covered in glitter ffs.  Strike 1 for vampire lore.

Strike 2 for vampire lore when the author decides, quite conveniently that none of them have the ability to control humans…however, Coca-Frog can read minds of everyone except Miss Teen Angst 2009 and another one can see the future.

Also, the special effects of them running very quickly are outrageously bad..and the least said about him climbing a tree the better.  I think though, that my favourite bit of the whole film has to be the 1980s style face off on the baseball field.  I am sure that they must have cut a breakdance style dance-off from the final film…when the “nasty and evil” vamps turn up and everyone crouches down and leans forward…I almost wet myself.  I would love to have seen them moonwalking and shaking it against each other.

Also, the main baddy vamp can smell the girls scent all the way back to her house, but can’t work out she is human until a bit of wind blows her hair…from half a meter away…give me a fucking break.  At least the fight at the end attempted to show some genuine badass vampire action..well, when he broke her leg anyway.  10 minutes before the end of the film for the first bit of decent action…and it was over after a couple of pulls of a hidden wire and a bite.  Disappointing to say the very least.

I think my lasting memory of the film is that of pressing pause and realising that 40 minutes had gone by and not a single fucking thing had happened…oh, and that there was another hour and 20 minutes left.

So let’s recap here..vampires in the Twilight universe are:

All glittery when caught in the sun
Vegetarians, if they don’t eat humans (w.t.f)
Mind readers (one of them)
Able to tell the future (one of them)
Fine to become doctors and be around all that blood without having a snack or two
Incredibly quick and powerful…but choose to drive a small silver Volvo
Able to control bloodlust by having an angst ridden teenage girl talk bollocks to them
Incapable of having sex without bouncing themselves off a wall and feeling guilty
Emo

Something tells me I won’t be watching “New Moon”.

Now, where is my Blade Trilogy..I need some real vampire films to remind me what they should be like.

Travel fun

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'Grupo TACA' A321 Cabin
*SNOOOOOOORE*

*CLICK CLICK CLICK*

*SNOOOOORE*

*SCRIBBLE SLIDE BUMP* “Sorry” *CLICK CLICK CLICK*

*RUSTLE RUSTLE NOM NOM RUSTLE RUSTLE*

*AAAAHHTCHUU RUSTLE SNIFF NOM*

My technology post reminded me of my journey back from the UK a couple of weeks ago, and the text above pretty much details what the audio version of this memory would be like.

I travelled to the UK for work and as such, got to experience the lovely travel experience of a decent airline.  Don’t get me wrong, I know that you get what you pay for with the likes of Ryanair etc, but it is still nice to not have to sprint to the front of the line to make sure you get a decent seat.  That said, boarding took ages due to the numpties that apparently can’t read a screen that says “Now boarding: Rows 14-22″.

Still, I had selected my seat of choice a day or so before departure (very civilised), so I wasn’t concerned about being trapped in the aisle waiting for these morons dickheads numpties lovely people to get their luggage stowed and take their seats.

I chose the aisle seat as I assumed there would be some form of delay thanks to the apparent Ice Age unfurling all over Europe and wanted to make sure I wasn’t clambering over people to get to the loo should the need arise.  Of course, the problem with being one of the first to board…and having an aisle seat means that you will get semi-comfortable before one or both of your seating buddies will turn up and need you to move.

Sure enough, a few minutes after sitting and starting to believe that my row of chairs was going to be empty aside from me, El Blobbo turns up.  Now, before you think bad of me for referring to him as such, I realise that I am of the larger persuasion myself…but this guy takes the biscuit (actually, he probably takes the whole pack…and anything else he can find that looks remotely edible)…he was certainly the kind of person that makes us bigger guys feel a whole lot better about ourselves.

Sorry, I digress.  El Blobbo has booked himself into the window seat..so I get up and allow him to squeeze into his chair (and some of the middle one too), and then take my seat again.  10 more minutes pass and I am just starting to believe that I may end up with the extra comfort of the middle seat being free, when El Techno turns up.

Fortunately (at least for the seating arrangement), El Techno makes me look like El Blobbo, so we all appear to be relatively comfortable.  El Blobbo immediately falls asleep with light (read ear bleedingly loud) snoring.  El Techno decides that the overhead storage compartments are for losers…and brings a briefcase, laptop bag, coat and a whole load of paperwork into his small seat between El Blobbo and myself.  During seating he manages to avoid hitting El Blobbo…but unfortunately hits me with, well, everything it would seem.  I get the paperwork on my lap, the coat over my head, the laptop bag and briefcase hit both of my knees with deceptive force.

Through the pain I realise that he has finally settled…and got out an iPhone to add into the mix.  So now, he is taking up more space than El Blobbo and knocking into me with monotonous regularity when swapping between the iPhone, briefcase and laptop.  Of course, it would appear that he has never travelled before as…just as I am closing my eyes and getting comfortable, I am disturbed by the stewardess to get this idiot to put his seatbelt on and take off the iPhone headset.

We then taxi (technical aviation term, we didn’t jump out and get in a black cab) to the runway..where the captain informs us that, due to the French Air Traffic Control issues….we will be a little delayed in taking off.  Of course, noone actually knows how long the delay will be, so we can’t listen to iPods or mess with computers etc…that would be far too civilised.  Instead, I am forced to listen to El Blobbos Snoring Concerto in Oh My God flat.

Eventually the French come back from their onion soup break, and we are given the all clear to set off.  El Techno is asked to take off his iPod headphones again, El Blobbo remembers to ask for his extra sized seatbelt, and we are off.  At this point, I have finished the amazing in-flight magazine and am looking around the cabin for anything of interest.  Now I come to think of it, why do they call it an in-flight magazine…it isn’t stored behind some sort of cupboard that only opens when the plane is actually on the move..in-aircraft magazine would be more acceptable surely..Anyhoo, I digress.

As the flight is only scheduled for an hour and a quarter, the crew start tearing around, trying to get the drinks and nibbles out to everyone, and I start trying to contort myself so that a) My shoulders aren’t getting hit every few seconds by the crew and trolley and b) I don’t end up in El Technos lap.  I manage to avoid sitting in his lap and the doctors assure me that I will regain full movement of my shoulder in 12-14 weeks.

It’s a busy flight so, as I have chosen the rearmost seat, I am forced to wait until last to get my free coffee and biscuit.  The snoring to my left is as loud as it has ever been until, that is, the crew get the trolley to me.  They haven’t even said a word and El Blobbo is awake and ordering a coffee, 2 orange juices, some crisps, a couple of biscuits and a roll.

El Techno declines, presumably, because any form of liquid would pose a major electrocution risk and I take a single coffee and biscuit.

As I settle in to have my coffee, I notice the guy opposite me for the first time.  I will call him Sneezy Bean McFerret as, well, he sneezed…a lot…and looked like a cross between Mr Bean and a ferret.  There were two reasons for my astute observation of this fine example of a hybrid man/ferret….#1 he was in the seat that I should have had, on his own in the entire row.  #2 was his peculiar nut eating habit.  He would rummage around in the packet…with his nose almost buried in there…pull out a single nut, look up…throw the nut into his mouth…chew, sneeze and then repeat.

Now, I am not talking a CW’esque cutesy “chu” type affair, I am talking a full on…probably slowed the plane and caused the turbulence, gale force 9, Wizard of Oz, knock over the staff and cause a number of natural disasters over Europe type of sneeze.  A sneeze so loud that it made my ears bleed and I think crashed El Technos laptop.  Honestly, it was a sneeze of comedic proportions…cartoon makers would have been fearful of basing a sneeze on this one in the fear of noone believing it.

You couple this with the rapid click click clicking from next to me and the snoring from the window and I did not have the most pleasant journey home imaginable.  I should note though, that even with all of this…and the typical latecomers trying to cram oversized suitcases into the full overhead lockers, by attempting to move and indeed crush my laptop bag…Ryanair should still pay attention about how to run a flight.

In other news…I get to do it again soon….something tells me I will be making a phone call to discuss my travelling companions in advance…they make you specify your size, the amount of technology you plan on using and if you have a FUCKING NUT ALLERGY but intend to eat them anyway….right?  RIGHT?

Web 2.0?

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[embroidery exercise] basic
OK, so I must have missed the upgrade notification…but it would appear that we are all dealing with Web 2.0 these days…by the mere act of blogging this, I have added to the interactive and social aspect of the web (apparently).

I don’t understand the term to be honest..I mean, surely it is just Web with a natural evolution based on technological advances.  Do people consider themselves to be Monkey 3.0…or Neanderthal 2.0?  No, we developed and evolved based on what we needed.  So no…I refuse to use the term Web 2.0

That said, I do find myself using things that I said I didn’t see the point of.  Blogging wasn’t my kind of thing, Twitter was pointless and Facebook was just a waste of time.  I loved Outlook, had no need or desire to sync everything online and hated web based email…anything other than ICQ was a joke and not worth my time.  A mobile phone was for calling people and, possibly, texting…oh, and Webcams were for perverts (this hasn’t necessarily changed though)

Don’t forget, I have been in IT since I left school…so I am used to being on top of technology (so to speak).  KT always maintains that I am just stuck in my ways…and there may be some merit to that.  So let’s review The LaughingWolf technical report.

Mobile phones

Bought as soon as they became actually mobile..never used for anything beyond calls and SMS until 5 years ago when I got a PDA and used it for, well, calls and SMS…AND Sat Nav.  Over the last 2 years ago, I started to appreciate the built in camera..and even managed to use my Sony as a camera in preference to a dedicated camera for a while.

Towards the end of last year got a Blackberry which I would…and I quote myself here… “Never use properly in a million years for gods sake, what would I want one of those for”…now I have all of my emails and pretty much everything else running through it…and this is only my personal phone…no work stuff here.

Laptops

I have owned 3 laptops in my life and been provided another 2 by work.  I have never travelled extensively for work (apart from driving to other offices) and still cannot ever imagine pulling the laptop out of its case on a train or plane.  Especially when my lovely Blackberry does everything that I want on the move Smile but even taking that into account, travelling time is my time.

Desktops

Now, I will admit to spending the debt of a large 3rd world nation on my desktop pcs over the years.  I was a gamer (still am from time to time), so I always wanted a great graphics card, lots of RAM, a big screen, the best mouse…even the best mousemat.

My desktop does everything for me, it is my entertainment center (movies, tv, music) and my working from home station.  It has dual screens, more hard disk space than most small-medium size company server farms.  My desktop is everything to me when it comes to technology and yet, up until the end of last year, it was an isolated data hub for me.  Had that machine died (which it did a while ago, but I was able to salvage the data)…I would be pretty much lost.  All of my photos, documents, contacts, game configurations, applications….everything would be lost.

Websites

I was an early Geocities user and created my own brand of utter crap that noone wanted to read (a bit like this blog really)..I tinkered, messed with HTML and went on from there.  Got my own domain a year or so after creating my first page and have continued with them regularly ever since.  I ran LAN parties in the UK, was a member of a number of gaming teams…so dynamic content was important and thus PHP became a part of my normal website routine.  I have never been a full coder, choosing to take stuff that almost did what I wanted and butcher it until it did exactly what I wanted.

I use the BBC website for news (predominantly sports)..but this has always been because I am too much of a tightarse to buy a paper.

MP3 Players

I was a very late adopter.  These fell under the “What is the point” category for me.  I either lived close enough to work to barely get through 2 songs before arriving, or I was so far away that I had to drive to work..where my handy CD player (and god forbid…the radio) would provide me everything that I wanted.  I didn’t go running and certainly didn’t need one for the house.  When I flew, it was almost always with other people..and if I was alone  I would have a book.  3 years ago I got a ThaiPlayer…a cheap and nasty iPod clone that was supposed to do video…I am not sure why I got it, but I found myself using it more and more..until I realised that it wasn’t good enough and went for the iPod touch..which was great..until I realised I wanted to have access to all of my music, all of the time…and CW got me a 120gb iPod Classic for my birthday.  I use it on the way to work, walking into town, on flights…even on my lunch break at work from time to time.

Web Browsers

I stuck with IE longer than I wanted to, I stuck with IE longer than I should have done…I was stuck with IE.  Why?  Well, there was the internet standard and then there was the Microsoft standard..and the problem was that more often than not, people wrote their websites to look good with the Microsoft standard…so I stayed with that.  I didn’t need tabbed browsing…I much preferred to have a seperate copy of the application for each site I wanted.  Up until a few years ago, I could never see the benefit of tabbed browsing to my own internet experience.  Firefox was a nice product that suffered from hideous memory leaks.

Now I am a full Firefox user, with a number of plugins, about 20 tabs at a time and only go back to IE when I absolutely have to.  That said, Chrome isn’t worth the change over to me Razz

Wireless Stuff

Here is where I still have a few issues.  I have a wireless router..which gets used for CWs laptop and for some of the people I know in the bar..but I never actually use it myself.   I could connect my phone to it…but I have mobile internet service bought and paid for with the Blackberry, and if I am at home….why would I surf the web on my phone.  Also, I have a real aversion to wireless mice and keyboards though, which I think are a hangover to my gaming days where the slightest lag would cause issues…of course, this is largely non-existent these days, but I am also a tightarse and can never be bothered to remember to charge things and/or swap batteries about.

Internet Access

I have been connected since day 1.  I was connecting to bulletin board systems at 1200 baud and stepped up through all of the modem levels until broadband began making headway.  Until it was freely available, I even paid for ISDN and then again to run it in 128k mode for the extra juice.  Since then I have been with the maximum available speed until recently..when I could get 50mb by switching to another company…I can’t be arsed and have stayed at 16mb

Chat

This is a topic close to my heart…I was always relatively quick on the uptake with chat technologies.  I started on IRC and ICQ (my number is 7 digits long and I still have it…) I derided MSN as not necessary and insisted on people bouncing over to ICQ.  MSN is a joke said I…why on earth would I want that crap…ICQ is the future.

Fast forward a few years and I am scrabbling to remember my ICQ password after being solely on MSN for so long…and then people want to start adding me to GoogleTalk.  Pah! says I, I have no need for this, MSN is perfect for me….and now I have Google.

I don’t get on IRC anymore these days, which is a shame as I had some good fun on there…when I wasn’t being asked to idle in a million Quakenet channels…

Email

I mentioned Outlook earlier and I stuck with this until as late as last year.  I have emails in my archive from 1998…and it would have been longer if not for the catastrophic hard disk failure of 98.  I have never seen the merit in having access to my archived stuff other than on my own PC.  I setup my own webmail client on one of my websites that allows me to get access to new stuff when I am not at home, and of course now my Blackberry means I can always stay in touch.  Over the last couple of weeks though, I have started to contemplate moving to web based only…although I am currently on Thunderbird and loving it.

The “Cloud”

I have never been interested in online storage of any description.  I sometimes uploaded important things via FTP to my website as a kind of storage, but this was rare and never used properly.  I have always been perfectly happy with having my home machine as the center of my computing universe.  It certainly wasn’t fear of security…it was need, I didn’t need to access any of this stuff anywhere other than at home…and of course control.  I am used to working a certain way and have never seen a “single” service that would do what I wanted, how I wanted.

Well, that said, over the last few months, I have started seeing the benefits to the cloud and storing a lot of my information online and securely.  After swapping numerous phones and devices and getting seriously narked off with managing all of my contacts separately on everything..I finally took the plunge and have all of my information neatly organised and stored in Gmail…I am also considering uploading everything I have to Gmail (or an alternative) so that I am fully sync’d everywhere.  I link Facebook, Gmail and Gmail Calendar with Thunderbird and the Blackberry…I sync my Firefox bookmarks and saved passwords with a central server so that I can get to my regular sites (and non-regular ones) without having to search or remember.  I have a web gallery on my site with almost all of my photos.  Facebook holds a substantial amount of my photos too.  I even tried to use Google Docs, but to be honest it still isn’t advanced enough for me and I do like my MS Office…although hey..based on the rest of this post…give it time Grin

Social Networking

Here comes the crunch for a lot of people when Web 2.0 is being bandied around.  Facebook, Myspace, Beebo, Twitter, Linked In and all of the others…pointless (even Linked In, especially now it has gone all Facebooky).  Completely pointless…which in most cases is the point.  Facebook did allow me to get in touch with one of the two people from school that I actually wanted to get in contact with…so I guess that helped.  I am on it all the time and posting as much inane crapola as anyone else (although hopefully with better spelling).  Myspace never has and never will interest me…when every site you visit is shockingly bright white text on a scrolling black starfield background with some crap music hammering along that you can’t turn off, I am not interested.  Beebo I never passed so much as a cursory glance at and so Facebook it was.  I am still at a loss as to the point of Twitter…I tweet my blog posts (automatically) when I occasionally remember to post something…I send the odd message to my daughter and I read some interesting celebrity information…beyond that, it offers me zero value to my day, and in fact there are days when I forget to check it.

So does all this mean that I am LaughingWolf Upgraded?  Will Keanu Reeves turn up and start offering me pills of the red and/or blue variety?  Am I really Web2.0 enabled?

Am I hell…the web, like printed media, television, films, computers, game consoles, mobile phones and everything else in this world has adapted and gotten better to suit what people want from it.  Sure, sometimes we don’t know what we want until someone develops it and throws it in front of us, but this is a natural progression people…so can we please ditch the media induced bollocks and stop inventing terms for things that already exist.

Right, I don’t know what all that was about, but I better go and tweet that I blogged and update my facebook/linked in and MSN status to show that I tweeted about a blog which is about my tweeting and blogging facebooked In status

Or something