TheFA.com - Welcome to England

TheFA.com - Welcome to England

Neil and I are off to the England vs Azerbaijan game today, it's hardly expected to be competitive, with some predicting us to win by around 8 or 9 goals but the atmosphere should be good, and it is a World Cup Qualifier so we do actually need to win, so I guess the effort has to be put in.

...road trip... yeah!!!

No ones produced a decent review of the show yet on the Hole so I'm just gonna take Tyson's comments

Its was ok, they played some echo park hits, which made it better. We got lost on the way down which was entertaining. Lucky that Tyse's map skills are up to SAS standard. I didnt really get into it enough, i was still suffering from friday night. That was a good night, anyways back to reality.

I'd echo his comments but I'd say it was more than ok, it was predictable, but predictably excellent. The three car convoy was fun, even if my car perhaps had a bit too much oestrogen in it (only kidding ladies).

I've been learning about Google AdSense recently and the blogosphere's view of 'for-profit' blogging, I'm going to leave things as they are but I am well aware that I'm not gonna be a millionaire through blogging, no matter how interesting I am, due to the nature of the blog, if it was specific and I had a gazillion visitors a day, then perhaps, but tbh, that really isn't gonna happen.

I'm about to go...feed... on some top quality entertainment

Feeder: Official Site

Going to see Feeder at the Manchester Apollo tonight, it's a big group so it should be an awesome night out. FUll report later in the night, or maybe tomorrow, road trip baby!!!

Hella cool, for a nerd...

Bootleg Browser

Just thought I'd pimp this new site I found, it's just hooondreds of links to lives mp3's and videos, haven't checked out many of the links, but it seems decent.

We got a new TV yesterday, a 32 inch widescreen Philips, it's kind of imposing in the little room we've got it in, but does look very good. I did something that can be done to pretty much any TV we've owned but I've never done before, hooked up my laptop to the TV, and the sound to the surround sound. Technically it's just stereo but I've jiggery-pokeried it so that it has 4 big old speakers hooked up to an old amp I was given, it sounds great so I don't really mind about the whole 5.1 thing since we have that next door. Anyway, I've been running my laptop off a 32 inch screen, it's awesome, watching all the TV episodes that I've downloaded over the past week, I was really impressed with the quality too, the Simpsons looks practically the same as if it was a regular TV programme, which I guess you don't realise when you watch shows on a laptop screen. Btw my position on downloading TV shows is that I'll delete them when they've come onto British TV because these are shows I'd watch anyway, and I've paid my TV license, and my parents pay for 2 Sky subscriptions 1 of which they never use except for when I'm home, so I think it's only fair.

I'm home.... Hot dog bagel anyone?

I'm back from Leicester and now re-appreciating the rolling hills of the Lake District after a long day of cleaning, packing, driving and essaying.

I wanted to throw up a picture of my incredible hot dog bagels with peanut butter instead of regular butter and ketchup for extra lubrication. I feel it is especially necessary to provide pictorial evidence of this since the phenomenon of the hotdog bagel isn't well covered on the net, if Google is anything to go by. But alas, BloogerBot really doesn't like the picture I took as it refuses to upload the white and pink goodness that in the anti-kosher snack (dinner if you have 2 of them!).

MC J.Lammer

Jennifer Lopez

Just spotted, J to the L-O wearing parachute pants on stage in Japan, will this ridiculous trouser trend continue? I darn well hope so...

She was spotted on Entertainment Tonight... or entertainment weekly ore something on ITV, it's hilarious, they just rip it out of celebs and the stupid things they say in interviews, well worth staying up till 3:30 for.

"The Spice Girls are heroically falling into obscurity" but Mel C wants us to know that she has done the best of the lot of them, she even wrote her new album, so getting songwriters to write them didn't work, but someone who was first in a group essentially as a dancing mime artist will do better, hmmmm..... also, tghe single is called 'Next Best Superstar' why the low self-esteem?

There's at least a Hundred Reasons go to and see Jimmy Eat World

JIMMY EAT
WORLD the official website

We (Richard, Robin, Christina and I) went to see the Kings of Emo tonight, at the astoundingly hot Carling Birmingham Academy (you have aircon, use it). The trip there was pretty fun, I've never driven around Birmingham city centre and only got a *bit* lost and ended up parking under the city in the car park for the fabbo refurbished Bullring shopping centre. We walked around the revitalised city centre trying to find the venue, cue Robin gesticulating wildly and saying yeah, it's just round this corner, and us following someone that had a Jimmy Eat World t-shirt on. McDonalds dinner of 2 cheeseburgers, I made up for it later by having smoked salmon for supper. Since we got there over an hour after the doors opened there was no queue but we still hadn't missed any of the support acts - I think. We were thoroughly warmed up by the almighty Hundred Reasons, I realised during this performance that they really are one of my favourite British bands, to be honest I think I preferred them to Jimmy, but that was probably because of familiarity. There was a fairly long wait before Jim came onto the stage and opened the set with an acoustic version of something from the new Futures album. I simply had to get out of the crush when they burst into "salt sweat..." as I feared for my mangled toes (I may have lost a nail - seriously). So Richard and I watched the excellent performance from the sidelines, my favourites were all the famous songs, as I only have the Futures album and didn't recognise some of the more obscure stuff.

Much hilarity (read: boredom) ensued when we couldn't find our way back into the car park cos the shopping centre was closed and it took us 20 minutes to realise that you had to go into an entrance that looked closed like the rest of it. Good times were had by all, except for when Richard wrote 'gaymobile' on the condensation in the car, the dastard.

I'm hot... go get a Spunge!

I may as well steal my own review of last nights Spunge gig at the Charlotte, Leicester that I wrote for Bone's Photo Hole (new members always being accepted!).

I shoulda missed the first 2 bands (since I coulda watched Newcastle win 4-0 on TV), they weren't really my thing (I don't link repetitive shouty punk) but Cousin Joey picked things up a bit with the kind of music that made me feel as if it was 2002 and I was in Whitehaven Civic Hall. Spunge were their usualy selves, a butt-load of fun, they whipped the crowd into a skanking fury, which was no good for my infamous toes, but I still had a good time. The new stuff was slightly disappointing, they had a song called 'Emo' that I can't decide whether it's a joke or not, cos the only time you'd here the words 'spunge' and 'emo' would be in the following sentence. Spunge are not emo. This just reminded me how I lost my Spunge t-shirt from the first time I saw them.....wonder where it went.

Kinda wish I'd left the cool looking Rushmore post up for a bit longer.... ah well, onwards and upwards.

Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades

Rushmore (1998)



We watched Rushmore tonight, I'd seen it recommended on the Drive-Thru Records site and bought it for £5 a few weeks ago and never got around to watching it, until Rory suggested we have a movie night and I finally managed to persuade myself to watch it.

Gotta say, it's really good, astoundingly quirky, a whole buttload of fun, although to be completely honest you don't really notice any kind of cohesive plot throughout the whole thing so maybe I need to watch it again. It's written (partly) by Owen Wilson, which is a real surprise because like one recently burned movie critic I did think of him as just an above-average actor who seemed to be in a lot of Ben Stiller films, but life is all about surprises I guess.

Been working hard on an essay today, it is entitled "Was the New Deal effective in helping rural dwellers in the South during the 1930s?" and managed to write over 1300 words of it today alone, it's pretty interesting, but economic history isn't really my thing. If anyone has any views on the effectiveness of the New Deal then feel free to leave a comment.

My googleAdsense revenue is up to $0.60 just $99.40 until I get a cheque from Google.

I wore a pair of black trousers with a white belt today, I am so rawk..... or 80s (Miami Vice anyone???).

NUFC.com - it is Essential

NUFC.com

Absolutely essential for any Newcastle fan (thats just me then), I thought I'd mention this since my boys are currently 1-0 up (4-1 on aggregate) and currently heading towards the quarter-finals of thew UEFA cup.

I'm off to see Spunge tonight at the Charlotte so there'll probably be no freebie coverage tonight.

Watches...too...much...porn

Rory just laughed way too hard at some guy on TV wearing a zip-up top that had 'North Pole' written on it.

Oh God! I'm linking to the NME

Richard suggested that I should check out this legal MP3 (yes they do exist Pete Waterman)from the new music section at NME.com, and I've to go say, it's pretty good. I haven't totally gone over to the indie dark-side though, as I am basically just using their bandwidth to promote a band they were already promoting, does this mean I am almost fighting the power? NME.com mini-review of Battle.

Battle - emotive, synth-addled indie-rock

London's Battle are Jason Bavanandan (vocals/guitar), James Ellis (guitar), Tim Scudder (bass) and Oliver Davies (drums).

I got another freebie yesterday, but it wasn't on purpose, as we were walking back from uni we saw Teb in a *fetching* yellow Colmans jacket handing out sachets for Chilli con Carne for hungry students, it was nice cos I hadn't seen her for months, like December or something.

Almost Sold-Out (even more)

Rory almost persuaded me to bump up the advertising from 2 to 4 ads per page, but I just couldn't do it. He also suggested that I should post my politics essays, but only the good ones (should be a short list!) since that would actually be some decent content, but I'd probably struggle to manage that within the constraints of the Blogger system since the essays are generally 1500-2500 words, so I might just have to post the text file on my walagata account. The next freebie to be reviewed will be a brochure I received from the South West Wales tourist board.

Music to your ears

Music to your ears

Another awesome MP3 site that's updated pretty regularly.

A picture of the package it came in. 

This is the biggie, dum dum dum, the Bold Lavender & Camomile 2in1 sample pack. It came in a fecthing lilac card wraparound envelope that had pictures of people enjoying soft washed clothes and a letter thanking me for my interest. I can't tell you how good the product is as my clothes are currently in the washing machine, actually they could do with going in the dryer now. 

In this pic, Richard is peering over a leaflet/booklet that teaches us all about feet, nails, fungal infections and other junk. It was provided by www.stepwise-uk.com. The information, especially the "General Tips" section, was very useful. An exceelent freebie for those that want/need it. Though obviously, this is hardly a laugh a minute random freebie for random freebie gatherers. 

The deluge begins!

I now have a backlog of 3 freebies that need to be blogged, but I can't decide how to write about them, cos when I use the hello software I don't get to put in a title of my choice, which gets messy for the archives and previous posts, but I have to do this so that I can put in the pictures.

Also I found another leaflet that came in Richard's puppy care pack, it was a small booklet that contained actual information on how to look after your puppy, which makes sense, since it was a puppy care pack. I hadn't considered that it was odd for there to be just vouchers in the envelope, but I didn't investigate too much, as it was Richard's freebie in the first place.

Up next, the Stepwise foot care leaflet.

forgot to add the pic, stupid me. 

Oh what a momentous day, NEW FREEBIES HAVE ARRIVED!!! This is Richard proudly clutching his 'puppy care pack' from the good people at Pedigree, we don't own a puppy, or need to care for one, but you never know what the future will hold, so it's best to be on the safe side. The fetching yellow envelope (reflecting company branding) contained a single piece of A4 with 3 vouchers attached to it (to be redeemed by 19/08/05) which we can use to claim 50% off certain Pedigree puppy products. All in all, an alright freebie, although can any of them be bad? Since they are free. 

Copy, Right?

Copy, Right?

Love this site, when I get a blogroll it's totally going on there. Basically it's interesting covers of interesting songs, but each set of songs is only up for a week or so.

If you like music, Liza's got it covered.... oh please shoot me for that one.

The promotion contiues...

Added myself to a couple of blog indexes and they're listed on the left under the bit that informs you that I am one of the people who power Blogger.

Boney wants consumer electronics!

Well, thats it, I've sold my soul to the Google corporation, not that they didn't own me already, they own Blogger, Hello (the thing I use to put up pictures) and now they control my advertising revenue. Now I just need like a million (gajillion perhaps?) hits on those bad boys so I can get a new camera. I'm not allowed to whore people for multiple clicks but if you are interested in anything advertised, then I would be mucho happy if you checked it out. But like I said, there's no need for anyone to be unusually generous to me. Also, I think this design of ads is leastintrusive to the site structure.

Ok, so what the deal with me being the self-titled 'Lord of the Bins' in my house, every Thursday I seem to be complaining about my housemates not putting the bins out for collection, since I've had to do it at least 10 times (in under 20 weeks of living here) and there's 6 of us so surely that doesn't add up. Though to be fair Rory did say that he wrote himself a note this morning that the bins needed to be done. Also, people seem to think it's a favour to me for them to put the bins out... it's not my job, we don't have a rota for it, and everyone is expected to do their part. Good God that was cathartic.

So I went into uni this morning and sat in the lecture hall for like 10 minutes wondering why there was only like 6 people there, then I realised, we'de finished with lectures for the module, and the module I was meant to go to after that. Could I be any st-oopider?

Boney wants consumer electronics!

Well, thats it, I've sold my soul to the Google corporation, not that they didn't own me already, they own Blogger, Hello (the thing I use to put up pictures) and now they control my advertising revenue. Now I just need like a million (gajillion perhaps?) hits on those bad boys so I can get a new camera. I'm not allowed to whore people for multiple clicks but if you are interested in anything advertised, then I would be mucho happy if you checked it out. But like I said, there's no need for anyone to be unusually generous to me. Also, I think this design of ads is leastintrusive to the site structure.

Ok, so what the deal with me being the self-titled 'Lord of the Bins' in my house, every Thursday I seem to be complaining about my housemates not putting the bins out for collection, since I've had to do it at least 10 times (in under 20 weeks of living here) and there's 6 of us so surely that doesn't add up. Though to be fair Rory did say that he wrote himself a note this morning that the bins needed to be done. Also, people seem to think it's a favour to me for them to put the bins out... it's not my job, we don't have a rota for it, and everyone is expected to do their part. Good God that was cathartic.

So I went into uni this morning and sat in the lecture hall for like 10 minutes wondering why there was only like 6 people there, then I realised, we'de finished with lectures for the module, and the module I was meant to go to after that. Could I be any st-oopider?

These Frankenberries.. My God.... These Frankenberries

I heard my first 'The Arcade Fire' song today, it shall not be my last, they are astounding, I'd compare them to the Killers but I know I'd be wrong to, cus they are nothing like each other.

I can't sleep recently, I ended up waking up (in bed) at the end of my lecture this morning, dang it, cos I'm really trying to work harder nowadays, but if I'm not awake for the lectures I may well struggle to up my percentages. Incidentally, I got a 58 on my Race & Enthnicity exam, which has dropped my average for the year, but I'm still just hanging on for that 2:1 for my degree (long way to go though).

I reckon the postmans gotta be nicking my freebies, it's approaching a fortnight since I got my ferrari stickers..... looks like I'm never gonna be able to live off the internet, though I did just sign up to Google AdSense, I know I don't get all that many hits but I still like the idea, and honestly, I do click on some AdSense ads when I'm on a site, but it doesn't have to stay here permanently so we'll see how it goes and review it at some point in the future.

I...do not...believe...it...

So after uner 5 hours sleep I drag myself out of bed and to uni, and sit around outside the door to the tutorial room for like 10 minutes, then I look at my phone, it's 10:33, why is no one else here? Because the tutor is ill! Now I know it's not his fault that he's ill, but an e-mail would have been nice, or possibly the uni could set up some kind of text service for our phones, after all they've sent texts before tellin me which modules I'd registered for, something which I already knew, whereas this would be something I needed to know because then I could have just come into uni at 13:30 for my computer and got some goddamn sleep.

Just like those blogs you hear about in the movies

I've added a couple of links to the sidebar after noticing that i didn't have any.

I've just had a thought, my housemates all seem to think that I sleep a lot juust because I get up late, they probably don't consider that I can't seem to get to sleep before 3 in the a.m. and as such, even if I get up by lunch time they may have still slept more than me, and I am well aware that turning off the laptop would probably help me sleep, but I seem to get a rush of energy around midnight that lasts for a few hours.... which is becasue I get up late (stoopid cycle!).

Now we're talking

I've just received this e-mail from Bold

Dear Andrew,

The Bold Lavender and Camomile sample you requested has been dispatched from our warehouse today and should be with you within the next 3 - 5 days.

I hope you enjoy your soothing experience!

Kind Regards,
Kerry Taylor

yeah baby!!!

btw, I forgot to mention that the last post evoked images of the Baci advert for me, which IMO is a fantastic advert, it's like a very short film. I can't find a link for the specific one, but the rest of the Baci chocolate adverts are available at visit4info.com, though you'll need to register (£15) for the one I'm talking about.

How beautiful is this?

I just had to mention this, it was such a nice story, though it'd never happen to me. although I'm always tempted to clean up my shared network and but in a 'welcome.txt' in case anyone in the street happens to find our access point and get to my external hard drive (stuffed with with media of all types). If you ever happen to be near the market in leicester give it a look. By the way, the title is the link itself, its a blogger feature I've never used before.

Also, I'd appreciate it if someone who came here through Share Ad Space would leave a comment, just to say what they think, as I feel as if I'm the only person on there using the service not to make money but simply to expand my ego.

well that was an enjoyable 33mins. 

ok, now they're all getting 'em out (see previous post). 

....it's 16:43 and my housemates decide it's time to start watching a striptease DVD..... no major boobage so far. 

also, new more freebies have been received, which makes me a sad panda. But I did receive an e-mail from Impulse (they make deodorant for girls, hahaha, thats how dedicated I am) saying that they were going to send me the 'impulse thrill' dice, it took them almost a week to send this, as if they'd been doing some kind of background check to make sure I was eligible to receive the dice.... ummmm maybe my NAME should have said I wasn't eligible. 

I read back through a couple of the early pages from the blog after I saw them mentioned in my counter stats (the counter that seems to keep disappearing btw) and I was reminded of the days when I'd actually write what I thought, felt, and had done recently, like a real blog, instead of what I've been doing recently. I do like the idea of a photo blog, but when I look at other photo blogs I always find myself wanting more of a back sotry, although I guess the mystery is part of their mystique. So maybe I'll start blogging properly from now on, but still with pictures, cos I'm so sexy, and they can be necessary to some stories. 

well, it'sbeen 5 days now without a new freebie to examine, lets hope that the next few days are a bit more fruitful.