Wednesday, January 31, 2007

The joys of being a man!

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Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Myspace or yours?

This past Sunday I opened a Myspace account after bowing to a bit of public pressure, plus the benefit over a blog in the way of greater interactivity, networking plus being a worldwide phenomenon that everyone has heard of. With a Myspace your given a blank page with a few standard features like profile, 'about me' section and comments, but every thing else can be edited. Maybe I is a bit thick but I could find no wallpapers or templates on Myspace. Which must mean that I must trawl through the internet to find things to decorate the page, like fonts and layouts; addons and styles; all with some knowledge of HTML needed.

After 2 hours of trial and error I ended up with something I was far from happy with. Clearly a lot of time and effort has to go into making a good looking Myspace. The worst thing is that it can't be worked on behind the scene and released once ready, its online from the first moment. With my name plastered all over it.

I deleted it, disappointed with the results. Maybe I'll try again sometime...

Monday, January 29, 2007

3 little stories

3 short tales of my life the last few days.

Story 1) In my household we have 2 Sky satellite decoders on a 'multiroom' subscription. I guess to stop misuse, the decoders regularly 'ring' Sky to say "I'm still here and I'm still connected to the phone line". Apparently one of our decoders stopped ringing back last July. So Sky started charging me for TWO separate subscriptions! It seems we have a faulty decoder with a broken modem. Gotta get a engineer out to look at it! Grrr!

Story 2) My silver James Bond edition k800i had a fault:- The call lists failed to update and every time it was switched on, the 'down' and 'right' on the joystick, and '8' and '9' on the keypad would not work for about 30 mins, then ok. Informed O2 who told me they would exchange it. As they were out of the silver phones they sent me a brand new black one to use until the silver ones were back in stock. About 3 weeks! Ain't they nice!

Story 3) At step class this evening the lady who normally takes the class didn't turn up. At first we was told she was running late, so we started the warm up ourselves ready for when she got there. 20 mins later and we had begun the main class. As we were all regulars we all knew the routine, but had no music. We was then told she wasn't coming after all. At that point the novelty wore off, and most of us packed up and went home. I went into the gym for my work out.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Melissa's 21st


Yesterday was Honeybee's birthday and as standard an celebratory evening out was arranged. She desperately wanted to go to Faces in Gants Hill, but it was a drama to sort out. Saturday's is members only, Melissa wasn't old enough to be a member till Saturday. As a non member she was not permitted a guest list and none of her guests were members, so no one would get in! It took a personal visit to get the club to let her have her night.

It started off at Mel's house with drinks and the cake cutting, then we all moseyed on down to the club. It was a really good night, booging the night away. There was a guest PA from the X Factor contestant from Barkingside. Don't know his name as I never watch those shows.








Thursday, January 25, 2007

Badminton Stories


John stood square to the net, head tilted; racket in one hand, shuttlecock in the other. Outwardly he looked calm and collected as he prepared to serve, but inside head brain was calculating the trajectory of the imminent serve. He swung back the racket and punted the shuttlecock low over the net. In his head he congratulated himself on a good serve but immediately prepared himself for the return of serve.

Sacha, diagonally opposite John, waited patiently for the serve. He stared intently into John's eyes, trying to read which way the serve would come; high, low. Left or right. As John swung Sacha tensed up, muscles prepared to launch into action. It was a low serve. Sacha took a step forward and swung at the shuttlecock, cleanly lifting it skyward, high toward the ceiling and the florescent strip lighting of the sports hall.

Martin was ready. He had already taken a few steps back, but needed a few more as Sacha's return of serve went deeper than expected. John looked on carefully, the word "Out" sitting in his throat in case the shuttlecock passed the back line. It stayed in. Martin wound up and connected at full stretch. The shuttlecock zoomed, almost horizontally back across the net.

Upon seeing the direction the shuttlecock was travelling, Sacha called out "Yours!"
He reasoned Jason's forehand would prove a far more damaging shot than his backhand.
Jason, with the call, had plenty of time to prepare. His feet danced as he positioned himself underneath the rapidly descending shuttlecock. At the right moment he struck it, low and fast.

John read the shot, Martin too, but John being nearer the net moved sideways and drew back his arm, awaiting the shuttlecock. The shuttlecock slapped into the tape across the top of the net, which robbed it of all of its pace; but not by so much that it could not climb over the net, somersault, and dive headlong for the floor.

"Love, fifteen." Jason cried.
Sacha punched the air and whooped loudly.
John cursed under his breath, swatting wildly at the prone shuttlecock.
Martin just slapped his hands to his eyes, incredulous.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

First movie tears

On Sunday I watched the very 1st film which made me cry. Yup, actually cry.

I wasn't Ghost or Watership Down; or Bambi, E.T. or Old Yeller: or even United 93.
It was Rocky II!

I know!!

I've never been a big Rocky fan, but with the sixth film out and with good reviews; it was on my list of movies to watch. As luck would have it Sky had decided to show all 5 previous movies this weekend and I caught the first 2. Not to give too much away, Rocky fights the same opponent, Apollo Creed, in both films. In the 1st one he loses on points, but in the 2nd he wins with a last round knockout.
Rocky's joy at becoming World Champ and his dedication to his wife, Adrian, warmed me little heart and a single tear slid down me cheek as the credits rolled.

So there it is. Rocky II.

this man made me cry!

thanks to wikipedia.org
(p.s. I know the poster is from Rocky(IV)Balboa)

Monday, January 22, 2007

Holy smokes! (part 3)

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Sunday, January 21, 2007

Post number 100!!

That right! This is Sqiush Pages 100th post. Who of thunk it. To celebrate I've decided to create a Capricorn roll call, a little tribute to my fellow rams.

Sarah, 6th January

ME!, 8th January

Steve(-o), 10th January

Bex, (Dan's wife) 11th January

Gregg, 14th January


Michelle, (Jason's wife) 15th January


Phil, 15th January

Melissa, 20th January

Dominique, 20th January


Kat, (Sarah's uni mate) 20th January


Sharon, (Gregg's sister) 21th January


(couple of pics missing, will include when I get them)

Melissa's Birthday


Fresh from my Leicester trip I headed up to London's West End for a birthday dinner for Melissa; work colleague and Australia trip companion. We went to a Turkish restaurant; also invited was a lot of her friends and family plus us guys from work.

Worst of worst luck the rechargeable batteries in my camera had died halfway through the night before, then in my rush to get home, get dressed and get out again I totally forgot that I had actually bought batteries. D'oh! Managed to run off a few shots on my phone, mostly of the lovely belly dancer graced the room during dinner.

It was a very good night I had a little dance with some young lasses on the next table, they showed my how to do some Turkish dancing. Nice.

Happy birthday Mel. Mwah!

Back to Leicester

On Friday I headed up to Leicester to see my sister, Sarah, as she was having a uni based birthday party, obviously for the university crew. Its was a joint party with a chum named Ellie. It was in the function room of a 'Revolution' bar, and was themed. The theme; James Bond styled party wear, so lots of tuxedos, pressed shirts and smart dresses. In the case of Sarah, two dresses as she couldn't decide on one.

Sarah was nice to put me up in her halls again and prepare me dinner. It was also good the see the guys, Iain, Abdi, Nikki and Mel again. On Saturday me and Sarah visited Mel and grabbed £2 pizzas for lunch.