Unfortunately the Angus expedition to the Lake District falls on the same day as the ATP music festival, so I thought i'd send the music organisers an email asking them to rearrange the weekend.  I am hoping they will reply.

 

Dear ATP

I am really really looking forward to your concert in April, however my best friend Angus has arranged a trip to the lakes on the same weekend which he cannot change.  My mum always said that if you never ask then you never know, so I am asking whether you can rearrange your concert date for the following weekend.  I am sure if the bands knew how much of a friend Angus was then they would agree.

Please let me know

Thanks

Rob

As everyone praises the victory of Liverpool in Barcelona another major league game took place in the heart of Luton with a crowd attendance of 1.  That game was the mighty easyHeroes coming from 3-1 down at half time to draw 4-4 and in doing so take the divisional title! A hat-trick from a certain Hornblower :-)  dragging us back into the match (my head is not that big, just a little).  Think we must have had about 50 chances in the second half to score but some great keeping and appalling shooting nearly lost us the game!  It might not be the champions league but it is good to win something for once!

 

Anyway congrats go to all those who have played this season, Chopper, Richard, Duffy, Sousa, Diaz, Barry, Kam, Toby, Gareth.

Ok, I make lots of test bookings every day in the test environment for flights, when typing in names of the passengers I tend to use the first names that come into my head.  Now you get the normal, family and friends but you also get the really random ones, these are just a few  and they are fairly random!

 

James Bond

Bill Bailey

Katie Holmes

Britney Spears

Jim Carrey

John Major

Steve Davis

Jim Davidson

Barney Rubble

God - although he gets rejected as he doesn't have a surname

The Hamster

Gordon The Goffer

Orlando Bloom

Arnold Lane

Spice Girls

Girls Aloud

Jesus Christ

Bart Simpson

 

There are many more, what this says about my mind is anyones guess, random probably!

I hate cars, if i could get to work on a bike then i would ride one instead of having a car.  My car broke down again so had to get Mazda breakdown to pick it up.  They gave me a hire car to get home, great.  While returning that the next day the car gets a puncture on route to the garage but manage the extra few hunred yards to the garage only to be told that will cost me a new tyre as it was driven while i had a puncture, no shit, it was alwys going to be driven a short distance while flat!  So am now waiting for my second hire car to use while the car is in the garage.  It is due for its 50k service as well which apparently means a whole new cam belt which apparently will cost £600 + it needs new tyres!  So this coupled with its MOT/Insurance (which will go up as a result of me crashing it), car tax, the fact that it eats lots of petrol (well compared to my hire cars that I have had) makes me pissed off with cars and money!  You have to think the govt is kidding when it wants to add road pricing to the equatition as well - I am all for green issues and reduction in energy usage but given the amount of tax paid on petrol (isn't that road pricing?), car tax (based on size of engine, isn't that road pricing?) and everything else you would think they have made enough money out of that to fund the development of a public transport link from my front door to work and back.  So for today i hate the government, my car and money.  On a positive note I am now running in the Great North Run which should be good.  So if training goes well i'll be running into work come the summer :-), well the next time my car breaks down anyway.

I have also found out that my mortgage application has been sititng in my local branch for the last two weeks which is rubbish, so won't get procesed until later this week!  Given that the whole process is supposed to take 4-8 weeks, most of that seems to be the application sitting in a pile of paper!  So might add mortgage applications to the list as well.  Right on a roll, I hate.... and relax!

Despite a heavy night out for Choppers 30th and far too much golf for my own good, I managed to get out for a run/walk around Hitchin.  I have started mapping my runs and they can be viewed here http://profile.mapmyrun.com/hornbyrob  It is a cool website where you can log your runs and also find other peoples.  I haven't put any timings on their, mainly because I need to improve... :-)

 

Golf was fairly random, played in the centre of London, unfortunately not for real but in the basement of some offices.  Located behind some fairly inconspicuos doors (You had  to ring a bell like you were in some secret society).  The game was played with real balls and clubs which you fired at a giant video screen.  A series of laser and measuring devices worked out how fast and the direction of the ball (usually slowly along the ground for me) and then worked out where the ball went on a video screen of famous golf courses (for me this was either a bush or the nearest stream).  It was good fun for a while but then after 100 bushes and about 40 over par enough was enough.  I have a feeling I'll stick to football and running!

 

Spent the evening at Zebranos, a bar just off Carnaby Street.  A good if messy night, looking forward to the gossip Monday.

I have just watched the first episode of Heroes and now want to watch the whole series!  Bugger, was supposed to be having an early night!

Out in the newly refurbished Baroosh in Hertford where they have removed the cigarettes and introduced a queue on the door, otherwise not much has changed.  Was out with Steve, Tony and his new other half, along with Jo, Ash, Kev and chopper. It was good to be out with everyone as hadn't seen them for a while.  Got back to Jo's around 1am but was up chatting till late while pretending to drink.

 

The whole day spent on the sofa learning that www.bitcomet.com is by far the better bittorrent client than the abc one I had been using.

 

Work, another discussion with Nationwide about how they are not getting very far with my Transfer of Equity.

 

No real football game tonight just a friendly.  Played really poorly and too much wine afterwards at Alainas didn't help the night.  She does make good food though and has been there for me more than anyone else over the last 6 months.  Never really said thanks but am saying it here.

 

My first England football match and probably my last.  We arrived late missing the first 5 minutes and probably the most exciting part of the game.  Parking up under the watchful eye of a car load of food guzzling police officers me and Chopper made it to our seats after a mad dash.  The stadium is impressive which is more than can be said about England, i think there were about 3 chances in the whole game and Spain scored with one of them.  The only cheers came from a tiny corner of the stadium where the Spanish fans broke the world record for the smallest mexican wave.  We had to make ourselves content with chants of McClaren and a rude man next to me (Chopper) half way through the match losing his temper and in an attempt to stay awake shouted soemthing along the lines of 'McClaren you are fuckin rubbish and you don't even have the skill to wipe your own arse.'  Very apt but i contented myself with a grumpy face and cold toes!  I suddenly realised after 80 minutes that Lampard had been playing, this happened to be at the moment of his substitution.  Anyone who thinks that Dyer can play football is also very wrong!

 

I think football is much better to play, at least you have some influence over the game however crap.  There are only two games I have really enjoyed, Evertons 1-0 win over Arsenal last season, most of which was spent counting down the clock as Arsenal tried to grab the equaliser.  The other game was the champions league semi-final between Inter and AC Milan.  The last 5 minutes as Inter went for the vital equaliser is some of the most exciting football ever! Just a shame they didn't do it!

 

I spent most of the journey home asleep.  Think i am going to need it as it is Choppers birthday at the weekend!

 

As a result of not playing football (http://www.playfootball.net) we are now 3 points clear with a better goal difference and a game in hand.  Roll on next week as we might be able to win the league on valentines day.  Not sure I would have been allowed 6 months ago.

 

It was good to see some snow finally this winter.  I love snow and the countryside is amazing when covered in its white glow.  Unfortunately these days it seems that snow brings the country to a halt.  No idea really as I am sure it never used to, I distinctly remember walking to school in snow wearing shorts and not being allowed to wear trousers as it wasn't school policy.  Instead today planes can't take off and schools shut.  You would think that all the 4by4s people drive would mean the country actually work better but on the one day that their design is actually useful I didn't see one of them on the road on my way to work.  Attempted to start a snowball fight with Paul and Angus but they didn't want to play.  Angus was too busy carrying his Oracle purchased lunch!

 

The Oracle (http://www.askoracle.net) has taken over the office since yesterday with its spooky predictions on the day ahead.  Angus even eats his lunch by it as well as his family life.  See his blog for the full story.   It didn't recommend doing the release tonight which is kind of worrying!

 

Seems I am also on youtube, in the background of a cabin crew video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWcTmulC3kM)!  Thanks to Chopper for finding that.  You do have to wait 4.25mins to see one second of me txting!

Decided to post each week the best item of spam arriving in my inbox.  Action mans latest kill was by far the best....

I have spent much of Sunday on the couch watching Firefly while recovering from some late night drinking and conversation. FireFly,  was a sci-fi series made by Joss Whedon after he finished Buffy.  It is a really cool series and it is a shame that only a single one was made.  It gets me that some of the best series I have started watching were cancelled early,  one of the best was American Gothic but others such as Dark Skies, The Crusades, even Babylon 5 ended early.  Lets hope Battlestar makes its planned end.  No i am not a sad tv nerd!