Philadelphia

A couple of years ago I was struggling to find a radio station that I like.
Virgin was OK, XFM was OK, BBC Radio 6 was OK – but never really got on with any of them. The problem is that I am quite heavily into American music – the singer/songwriter rock/country/folk scene – and none of these radio stations ever took a shot at playing any of these artists I like.
So I ventured online and started listening to some US based stations – but once again found that I couldn’t get on with any of them – they are quite different to what we have over here, and it took some getting used to.
And then one day I came across a station called WXPN, broadcasting out of Philadelphia. This station is a public radio station – actually paid for by it’s members – so it is relatively ad-free, but it is superb. They don’t have a playlist as such (so you don’t hear the same song every hour and a half) and will literally play anything, but everything they play is quality – and they are a real friendly bunch – I left a message on their message board last week, and they couldn’t have been more welcoming. More than one person has offered to send me CD’s I can’t get hold of over here, and they have a great little community based around the station.

I know Americans in general can get a raw deal over here sometimes – but right now I’m an honorary Philadelphian.

Fame

My wife is a teacher, and being a teacher she obviously teaches a lot of children. And some of these children have gone onto become famous. Two of the most famous ex-pupils at her school were unfortunately people she didn’t ever actually teach – and these are Rachel Stevens and Amy Winehouse (who I think was only there for a year).
There was one night, whilst watching one of the Big Brother opening night shows, that she shouted out “It’s Kemal” when one of the housemates entered the house, whom she had taught for a good few years.
But yesterday she came home and told me the best one yet.
You ready for this?????

One of her pupil’s uncles was an Oompa Loompa in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!!!

It doesn’t get any better than that.
Who needs Amy or Rachel when you’ve got an original Oompa Loompa???

Jools and Me

Later…with Jools Holland
Great stuff.
I don’t watch too much TV these days – and if I do it is generally something either sporty, filmy or musicy (and why am I putting y’s on the end of every wordy??)
But something I can’t miss right now is Later.
He always has a great (and potentially weird) mix of music every friday night – and which programme in the world would you see Thom Yorke (of Radiohead) dancing to Mary J Blige or Morrisey nodding his head along to Joe Brown.
With 2 kids, it’s on far too late to watch live – but Sky+ comes in very handy.
Brilliant stuff and it ended last night with this…

Facebook

I have decided to harness the power of facebook, and take control.
You see, I signed up a few weeks ago – but didn’t have the foggiest what I was doing.
And then people sent me walls. Then they sent me superwalls. Then they sent me super-duper walls. And then they sent me apps like “What is your shaggability factor?” or “What characterfrom Friends Are You” (11 out of 10 and Chandler Bing btw).
And I was like, mmm.
So I have decided to invent my very own facebook for a man in his mid-late thirties.
So I have dispensed with the superwall and the super-duper wall – and replaced them with a book section and a pic of the day from National Geographic. I have also added gambling and poker applications, as they are my main areas of interest. I’m 37 going on 50 ;o)
But I think it’s time I invented a few applications especially for me.
Firstly the “mid-life crisis” app.
This takes ones pic and puts it in a sports car alongside a 19 year old blonde called “Candy”.
Then there’s the “How big will my ears be in thirty years time??” app.
This is a graphical programme that once again takes your pic, and ages you (just in the ear area), and you can see exactly how enormous your lugs are going to be (next time you see an old man look how big his ears are).
And the final app is “How long sighted/short sighted are you”.
This takes the form of a fun quiz which doubles up as an eye test. Firstly it will be a great money saver for people and secondly it will put Specsavers out of business.
Time I took control….(or maybe not…)

Super Tuesday

Will it be Hillary Clinton?
Will it be Barack Obama?
Will it be John McCain?
Will it be Mitt Romney?

Will there be a first female president?
Will there be a first black president?
Will there be a first president named after an oven chip?
Will there be a first president named after a glove?

Will the president be a Republican?
Will the president be a Democrat?
Will the president be doing a new series of The West Wing?

And most importantly – why are they doing all this on Pancake Day???

Capello

Get off the mans back!!

So Beckham is on 99 caps.

What job do we want Capello to do??

Make a showpiece of awarding Beckham his 100th cap, or start to prepare the team for qualifying for the small matter of a World Cup.

Beckham isn’t match-fit. Right now he needs a pre-season, and only then will he be ready to play at club standard, let alone international standard.

And then if Capello decides to pick him – fair enough.

If he doesn’t – fair enough.

The England manager’s job is not a popularity contest.

There were also a few raised eyebrows about the rest of the squad, and the similarity to the squad that Steve McLaren last picked. Unfortunately we don’t have a limitless number of Englishmen in the Premier League – so it couldn’t be that different could it?

I will be very interested to see what Capello does with the Lampard/Gerrard situation. Lampard won’t play this week (injury), but I believe they should be able to play alongside eachother – and no England manager has managed to harness that yet – I hope Capello is that man. In Ferdinand, Terry, Lampard, Gerrard and Rooney, I still believe that the “Golden Generation” have one last shot with that spine of the team.

Ghostie

There I sat, working away – in the house on my own. I was concentrating on what I was doing, when suddenly I heard a noise in the hallway.
“Strange”, I thought.
“Noise in the hallway”, I thought.
“Why am I talking to myself again”, I thought.
I looked around, and there fluttering towards the ground was a leaf.
Why is a leaf fluttering to the ground indoors??
Shit.
The Ghost of the Twigman has decided to haunt me.
Why can’t I have a normal ghost who might moan a bit, shove a wardrobe a couple of feet and clank the odd chain every now and again.
But no, I get the ghost of the Twigman…
I went to find out what was going on – bravely of course – I strode into the hallway to combat the ghost (I actually creeped up to the door, heart thumping ten to the dozen, and leant my head around the side of the door).
It was at this point I realised it wasn’t a ghost. A picture that my eldest daughter had done, which was made up of leaves, had slipped because the Blu-Tac had come from the wall, and during the slipping one of the leaves had dislodged.
I’m so cool…

It reminded me of a time when we had just moved into this house, and I thought we had another ghost.
It was the middle of the night, and I must have left the PC running by mistake. Anyway, at about 3am we were awoken by the noise of the PC closing down in the next room (you know the de-de-de-de noise windows makes when it shuts down). This was before I realised that some windows updates will do this automatically.
Anyway I was convinced that a ghost had re-started the PC.
And I even came to the conclusion that it must be ghost of someone who had died recently, as they wouldn’t know how to restart a PC otherwise.
But then I found out about the windows update thingy, and it put my mind to rest.
Once again…I’m so cool….

Java

I have spent a couple of days moving frogs around a PC screen.
It’s been fun – the moving of the frogs.
Not real frogs – little icons of frogs. Moving. Around the screen.
You see I’ve been programming. Wooooo.

frog1.left()

That tells frog number one to move….left.
See if you can guess what this one does??

frog1.right()

This is the beginning of something big – my whole programming future ahead of me – I’ll be able to programme anything (as long as it involves a frog – and movement).

I’m now going to attempt to write my first real life programme – here goes.

nick.goToKettle()
nick.pourWaterIntoKettle()
nick.findTeabags()
if Teabags = found
nick.putTeabagInCup()
if Teabags = lost
nick.sayShitWhereTheFuckAreTeabags()
then nick.goToTescos()
when nick.returnFromTescos()
nick.haveCupOfRosy()
nick.slurp()
nick.satisfied()
if nick = stillThirsty then return to nick.gotoKettle()

I can so programme!!

My First Post

Hi.
This might be your first read of my blog.
It probably is, as it’s the first entry.
But I’ve been blogging for a while – mainly about poker – and whilst this could be interesting to a poker player, it’s probably not that interesting to a non-poker player – so here we are.
The Title??
One of my favourite songs from my favourite artist Ryan Adams.

And I have a rant.
Indian call centres.
Why???
I spent an hour yesterday speaking to a very nice Indian Lady on the phone (which was good because these calls normally cost me 39p a minute), but unfortunately the whole conversation got me nowhere.
Firstly, the line was bad – which didn’t help.
Secondly, she couldn’t understand a word I was saying.
Thirdly, everything she advised me to do was a load of bollocks.
You see I had no internet connection – and she advised me change the amount of software on my PC. I did this, and then realised that there was a nationwide network problem all along. So it wasn’t my problem.
I fired off an e-mail in complaint last night, and amazingly it was responded to quite quickly, but unfortunately my internet company obviously use a foreign e-mail answering centre as well, as the English was abysmal – but I did receive an apology – which isn’t really a lot of good seeing as I work from home and it cost me a nice few bob. A cheque would have been better.